private vs commons Re: [LINK] why the xara model sucks

[Deus Ex Machina]

I was refering to my ideas about commons but if you want to go there...

http://coldfury.com/

"The Left's descent into drooling idiocy is regrettable, I suppose, but
given the schizophrenia at the core of their position . that the only
way for man to be truly free is for an all-powerful State to meet his
every need . it was inevitable. It isn't necessary that we respect the
symptoms of mental disorder that they seek to pass off as reasoned
dissent. Rather, we should reject them utterly, without remorse. "

you are attempt to usurp ideas that are not in fact "left wing",
nothing in your list below is perticularly left wing other then the welfare state.

egalitarianism and equality of outcome you seem to have quietly left out. these
where never and are still not a part of the basis of democracy.

you also left out anti-free trade and anti-property views of the left.

you of course ignore the soak the rich mentality quietly refered to as
progressivity. which of course is good for everyone except lefties:

".NAME THE LIBERAL HYPOCRITE. QUIZ 
>From Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles In Liberal Hypocrisy, by Peter
Schweizer

Who says that conservatives are racist because they don.t support
affirmative action but has an abysmal record of hiring blacks? 
a. Barbra Streisand 
b. Michael Moore 
c. Al Franken 
d. All of the above 
Answer: D. All of the above. Of the 112 people Franken has hired to work
on his books, television projects and radio program, only one was black.
Of the 135 individuals Michael Moore hired, only three were black.
Barbra Streisand has hired 53 senior people to work on her film projects
and only one was black. 

Who says that corporations are .terrorists. and has said .I don.t own a
single share of stock. but secretly owns shares in Pentagon contractors
like Boeing, pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer, and even Halliburton? 
a. Barney Frank 
b. Gloria Steinem 
c. Michael Moore 
Answer: C. Michael Moore. According to IRS records, Moore owns at least
several hundred thousands of dollars in stock and has a broker, even
though he has repeatedly claimed he doesn.t .own a single share of
stock..

Who says that Americans need to consume less to stave off ecological
disaster, but spends $22,000 a year to water their lawn? 
a. Hillary Clinton 
b. Barbra Streisand 
c. Rob Reiner 
Answer: B. Barbra Streisand. The singer, who says that cutting back is
the only way to protect the environment, lives alone with her husband on
a compound with five homes and a 12,000 square foot air conditioned
barn.

Who says the rich need to pay their fair share and favors the estate
tax, but hides his own assets in numerous trusts, including one in the
faraway Pacific island of Fiji? 
a. George Soros 
b. John Edwards 
c. Ted Kennedy 
Answer: C. Ted Kennedy. The Kennedys have transferred more than half a
billion in money from generation to generation but according to their
own records paid only $34,000 in estate taxes. Their largest asset, the
Merchandise Mart real estate company, was in a trust domiciled in Fiji.

Who has proclaimed themselves a corporate activist but has made money by
investing in companies they were protesting against? 
a. REM.s Michael Stipe 
b. Ralph Nader 
c. Alec Baldwin 
Answer: B. Ralph Nader. When Nader went after Firestone in the 1970s he
made stock investments in Goodyear, their main competitor. When he
campaigned for the breakup of Microsoft in 2000, he invested hundreds of
thousands in other high-tech companies that stood to benefit. "

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

then of course there is chomsky the ultimate anti capitalist hypocrite:

The Branding of the World's Top Intellectual: Noam Chomsky
http://www.techcentralstation.com/1019055.htmlO

"One of the most persistent themes in Chomsky's work has been class
warfare. He has frequently lashed out against the "massive use of tax
havens to shift the burden to the general population and away from the
rich" and criticized the concentration of wealth in "trusts" by the
wealthiest one percent. The American tax code is rigged with
"complicated devices for ensuring that the poor -- like eighty percent
of the population -- pay off the rich." 

" But trusts can't be all bad. After all, Chomsky, with a net worth north
of $2,000,000, decided to create one for himself. A few years back he
went to Boston's venerable white-shoe law firm, Palmer and Dodge, and
with the help of a tax attorney specializing in "income-tax planning"
set up an irrevocable trust to protect his assets from Uncle Sam. He
named his tax attorney (every socialist radical needs one!) and a
daughter as trustees. 

"Chomsky favors the estate tax and massive income redistribution -- just
not the redistribution of his income. No reason to let radical politics
get in the way of sound estate planning.

"When I challenged Chomsky about his trust, he suddenly started to sound
very bourgeois: "I don't apologize for putting aside money for my
children and grandchildren," he wrote in one email. Chomsky offered no
explanation for why he condemns others who are equally proud of their
provision for their children and who try to protect their assets from
Uncle Sam. Although he did say that the tax shelter is okay because he
and his family are "trying to help suffering people." 

...

"Corporate America is one of Chomsky's demons. It's hard to find anything
positive he might say about American business. He paints an ominous
vision of America suffering under the "unaccountable and deadly rule of
corporations." He has called corporations "private tyrannies" and
declared that they are "just as totalitarian as Bolshevism and fascism."
Capitalism, in his words, is a "grotesque catastrophe." 

"But a funny thing happened on the way to the retirement portfolio.

"Chomsky, for all of his moral dudgeon against American corporations,
finds that they make a pretty good investment. When he made investment
decisions for his retirement plan at MIT, he chose not to go with a
money market fund, or even a government bond fund. Instead, he threw
the money into blue chips and invested in the TIAA-CREF stock fund. A
look at the stock fund portfolio quickly reveals that it invests in
all sorts of businesses that Chomsky says he finds abhorrent: oil
companies, military contractors, pharmaceuticals, you name it. 

"  When I asked Chomsky about his investment portfolio he reverted to a
"what else can I do" defense: "Should I live in a cabin in Montana?"
he asked. It was a clever rhetorical dodge. Chomsky was declaring
that there is simply no way to avoid getting involved in the stock
market short of complete withdrawal from the capitalist system. He
certainly knows better. There are many alternative funds these days
that allow you to invest your money in "green" or "socially
responsible" enterprises. They just don't yield the maximum available
return."


Vic



Jim Birch [jbirch at multinode.com.au] wrote:
> Deus Ex Machina wrote:
> 
> >the ideals behind leftism have pretty much
> >been found to useless.
> >
> Which ideals are you referring to here?
> 
> - universal suffrage
> 
> - the welfare state.  Even Link's beloved JH supports a safety net, 
> there's just minor dispute about where to draw the line, tuning up 
> mechanisms, etc.  Very few people want the complete dismantling of the 
> welfare state.
> 
> - the end of the "Right of Kings" and the requirement of the ruling 
> class to act for the general benefit of society.  Even your power 
> law/laissez faire schema contains the assumption that social systems 
> should benefit all, or at least a good majority.  There's a dispute 
> about the best mechanisms, not a dispute about the principle.
> 
> - Taxation is validated by political representation.
> 
> - Open accountable government, the ownership of the means of government 
> by the people.
> 
> - A legal system that is open, free from political interference, and 
> where rights are not based on status or money.  Freedom from arbitrary rule.
> 
> - Respect for the lower status members of society.
> 
> - etc
> 
> 
> None of these useless leftie ideals have been realized perfectly but 
> they have become the field on which modern political debate takes place, 
> and indeed are implicit in even your neocon political philosophy.  You 
> well argue that the "useless leftie" program has had profound successes 
> and produced indelible social changes.
> 
> Cherry picking a few pet hates is does not make a serious appraisal of 
> history.  Go back and have a real look at the kind of ideas about 
> government that were considered pretty normal before the leftie project 
> got started.  The violent revolutions may have largely failed but the 
> piecemeal gradual changes have not.
> 
> As I keep saying Vic, you're very selective with your facts and you 
> somehow expect us regular folks to follow your wild leaps of faith.  
> It's  an unrealistic expectation.
> 
> -- 
> Jim Birch
> 
> jbirchatmultinodedotcomdotau
> t: 04 1243 1243
> -----
> It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be 
> reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.
>  Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Link mailing list
> Link at mailman.anu.edu.au
> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link