I understand why the Democrats want to try to resolve conflicts peacefully. No reasonable person wants violence. However, what the Democrats perceive as compromise is actually often appeasement. The Republicans use the threat of violence to extort the Democrats, and the Democrats often concede because they don’t feel like they have any other choice. But appeasement does not prevent violence, it only delays it. The only real solution is the destruction of the extortionists.

What else do you expect from them?

Very little.

I don’t expect AOC and her octogenarian colleagues to strap on an assault rifle and go full commando, but they do need to recognize what the Republicans are already well aware of: not all conflicts can be resolved peacefully.

The Republicans are more than willing to use all tools at their disposal to achieve their goals. If the Democrats are not, then they are putting themselves at a severe disadvantage.

You can’t defeat an enemy that you refuse to fight.

I’m sure the Democrats will take every legal avenue available to them. However, if they run out of legal, nonviolent options, they’re going to be in a very rough spot because they don’t have any other arrows in their quiver.

The US didnt fail to invest in their own industries

I didn’t say that we failed to invest in our industries, I said we failed to invest in our people. We left our people to their own devices, behold the result.

perhaps the first big step for America is getting money out of politics with strong legislation and harsh penalties for those that break it - overturn Citizens United, no more SuperPACs - prise the power away from corporations to dictate law and pick leaders, because they have crafted every issue you speak to.

Perhaps it’s possible that a majority of the American people will eventually, spontaneously coalesce around these goals, but I don’t think the chances are high. Given enough time, it might happen, but I’m not sure the US won’t collapse (similar to the collapse of the Soviet Union) before then.

China has spent the last fifty years building themselves into an industrial powerhouse. As a result, they are a vital part of the global economy, and that has put them in a position of considerable power. The US has decided we don’t like that so we’re going to try to weaken them, or at least slow their ascent. But now we’re discovering that we’re not as powerful or influential as we used to be. We have severely neglected our country and our people, and the quality and capability of our leadership has declined significantly, and we are paying the price.

Unfortunately, most Americans still can’t correctly identify the problem. Those who even recognize that there is a problem still think it’s Donald Trump, and that he is largely just an anomaly. But by now they should see that Trump is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. The real problem has been our failure to invest in our own people, leaving them pessimistic about their economic future, and, critically, poorly educated and completely lacking in critical thinking skills. Having been essentially abandoned by their leaders, they have been left to construct their own solutions to any perceived problems, without the skills necessary to construct viable ones. As a result, they’ve taken to deluded thinking, conspiracy theories, and even superstitious and supernatural ideas. Without anyone to guide them through reality, they’ve been left to form their own ideas about America. Trump is one result of that.

At this point, I don’t know if the US can be fixed. A part of me thinks it’s a lost cause, largely because fixing it would take radical action that I think most of our leaders are unwilling, or unable, to take. The collapse of the US may be inevitable at this point.

And I believe such a solution is within reach. In fact, I think I’ve stumbled upon an idea that could help us get there…I’m currently putting the finishing touches on the concept and plan to publish it in the coming days. This article serves as a prelude

Lol, k. Can’t wait to hear this great solution.

It really depends on how you define “successful.” If your measure of success is based on how closely these societies resemble Western, liberal, capitalist societies, then, yeah, you’re probably not going to see a whole lot of “success,” but that’s not what these revolutionary movements were trying to achieve. I would say that first and foremost what essentially every communist movement was striving for was just autonomy and independence, and many have been successful in that regard. Vietnam is an independent nation, instead of a French colony. China, similarly, is no longer under the thumb of the British. You may not like what these nations do with their autonomy, but that is what they were striving for and they have achieved it.

has expelled French troops, ejected Western corporations…Promoting pan-African unity and national self-reliance…Traoré is positioning himself as a radical anti-imperialist

Oh no, how terrible.

Marx certainly didn’t see capitalism as merely metaphorical. Marx recognized that capitalism existed in material reality, that it was a system constructed and operated by real, flesh and blood human beings.

Who do you think made capitalism? Space aliens?

It’s the only way they’ll learn… If only they were capable of learning.

Social democracy isn’t really an alternative to capitalism, it’s more of a progressive modification of capitalism. Under social democracy, the factory would still be owned by a capitalist and operated for their profit, but the government would use its authority to regulate the factory, tax the owner’s profits (to help fund public services), protect workers, etc.

I think we need to be clear about what capitalism actually is:

Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit.

So, a person with access to sufficient capital buys a factory and hires people to work in the factory, and pays them a wage. The workers make a product that gets sold on the open market. Those proceeds are the source of the company’s revenue. Once expenses, including the wages paid to the workers, are subtracted from the revenue, if there is a surplus, that is profit that goes back to the owner. That’s capitalism in a nutshell. The point, the objective is to generate a profit for the owner, as a return on their initial capital investment.

Ok, so, what’s the alternative? Well, socialism:

Socialism is an economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. Social ownership can take various forms, including public, community, collective, cooperative, or employee.

So, a government, a group of workers, or a community acquires a factory. If it’s a government or a community that acquires the factory, they hire people to work in the factory and pay those workers a wage. If it’s acquired by workers then it’s worker owned. In either case, the workers make a product. That product can either be sold on an open market or distributed by other means. If it is sold, those proceeds are the source of revenue. Once expenses are subtracted from the revenue, if there is a surplus, that surplus either gets reinvested into the factory (to buy new machines or hire more workers), or, in the case of the worker owned company, that surplus might be distributed among the workers as profit, since they are also the owners.

People act like socialism is just some hypothetical that only exists in theory, but that’s not true. The fact is, socialism exists and works right now, today. All over the world, products and services are produced and made available to people by organizations that are government, community, or worker owned, either for a profit or non profit.

They’ll charge whatever they think people will pay, and I’m pretty confident that many millions of people will fork over the $80 - $90 at launch. Prices come down when people stop buying.

It’s actually kind of tragic. Tesla would have been, no, should have been a key domestic EV maker. They should have been our global offering in a strategically important industry. But instead, they’re rapidly becoming a pariah. And it’s all because of one man. One terrible, terrible man.

This is a very, very important lesson that America MUST learn: just because someone is rich, that does not mean they are smart, or good, or trustworthy. Personality matters, a lot. I am certain that if Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning could go back, they would tell Mr. Musk “no thank you, we’re not interested in your investment,” even though they really needed the money. It wasn’t worth it, it came with strings attached. Within just a few years of taking Musk’s money, both men were forced out of the company, and Musk was well on his way to convincing millions of Americans that we was a super genius who singlehandedly invented the electric car.

In this country, we have not only tolerated megalomaniacal narcissists like Musk, we’ve celebrated them. That has to stop. Look at where it has gotten us. One of them is president now! If we don’t learn from this, and start to see men like Trump and Musk as the disease that they are, we are doomed. If we don’t get these men under control, they will control us.

Remember Musk’s cameo in Iron Man 2? People were even calling him the “real Tony Stark.” Or when Musk guest starred on The Simpsons, and Lisa called him “possibly the greatest living inventor,” even though Musk has never invented anything in his life?

With the benefit of hindsight, this was clearly ludicrous, but even at the time it should’ve been obvious to everyone that it was nonsense. Unfortunately, it wasn’t obvious to everyone, many people bought it. That’s scary. It’s scary that a megalomaniacal narcissist with enough money can convince large numbers of people that they are something that they are not.

It’s hard to explain, but I have a hard time believing it’s just sadism. Maybe it has to do with the productivity gains from a four day work week taking time to realize. Like you said, over the long run you get better productivity, but maybe the corporations are just more interested in short term profits.

Want happier employees?

No. American corporations absolutely do not care about how happy their employees are. They only care about maximizing profits, and the best way to do that is to squeeze as much productivity out of their workers while also paying those workers as little as possible.

They know the workers aren’t there to find fucking happiness. Few are so privileged. Most people go to work not because it makes them happy, but because they need the god damn money, to keep a roof over their head and to put food on the dinner table, and as everything gets more expensive, the workers need more and more money, to stave off homelessness and destitution. Happiness, Jesus Christ. What a luxury!

The purpose of capitalism isn’t to make people happy. It’s to make profit for owners. That’s it.

I think the US is a lost cause. The fact is, most Americans like this country the way it is. Sure, plenty of Americans don’t like Trump, but, for most of those people, if they could replace Trump but keep everything else more or less the same, they would be perfectly content to do so.

Well, that sounds great, then. I still think you’re being naive, and that you’re putting too much faith in the invisible hand of the free market, but, as I’ve said several times now, I’m not opposed to upzoning. Not at all. By all means, go for it.