Posted November 11, 2002

Capitalism, Socialism and Free Enterprise

Regarding PF's letter of November 5:

["Capitalism is the Problem," Backtalk, November 5] is partly correct. Monopoly capitalism is the problem. But socialism is not the answer. Socialism amounts to the biggest corporation of all. One total economic and political monopoly running everything. This is the direction of our present socialist government.

Free enterprise is 180 degrees opposite of monopoly capitalism and monopoly socialism. Free enterprise is small, local business, keeping capital everywhere local; distributed among all instead of accumulating centrally into the corporate hands of a few. This nation became the envy of the world under free enterprise but has been going down hill steadily since monopoly capitalism strangled free enterprise via huge corporations, chains and franchises reaching their tentacle into every town, helped not a little by big minded, socialist government. Today 1% of the population owns close to 50% of all wealth in this country. The top 10% own 90% of all national wealth. Such disparity becomes even worse under socialism (ask those who have lived in the Soviet -- even many "western" European nations) but is an impossibility with free enterprise.

Small, as in free enterprise, is beautiful. Monopoly capitalism and monopoly socialism are twins suffering from congenital gigantism, both ugly as sin -- and often incestuous to boot.

~ Tony Blizzard

Note to the Trained Seals

Regarding "Team Killers" by Justin Raimondo:

There is no better Ringmaster in the world than Justin Raimondo. But he has kept us too long in the far left corner ring at the New World Order Circus We have what I suggest is a profound education in the Flea Circus. When is our finest Ringmaster going to take us to Center Ring where the real lions and tigers of the Jungle direct this Greatest Show on Earth?

~ KM

Due Process

Well, what have we here? If the CIA knew an American was in the car targeted by a CIA drone, is the U.S. Government liable for the American's death without due process?

~ Jim T.

Translation

...In Europe many people read and write English, however many can't. Also, political writings, comments are very difficult to understand and it's beyond the possible to translate them to German and especially French. Wouldn't it be possible to have an engine or auto-translation mechanism...? Some websites ask us "Do you want this text translated to French or German?" That would really be a hit. We could send e-mails in those languages without any problem.

~ Omar A., Belgium

Knucklehead Election

The fix was in about Iraq. The US has had a massive ongoing buildup of supplies and equipment in the Middle East over the past several months. This occurred while our officials negotiated with the UN and massive antiwar demonstrations were in progress. Moreover, our Congress and Senators have been deluged with antiwar mail. So, how does the mainstream press announce the election results? They announce the reason that the Republicans won over the Democrats was because the American public is pro-war and this is Bush's 'green light' to proceed to invade Iraq and finalize the Dept. of Homeland Fascism.

Nothing is further from the truth. The reason for the Republican landslide was because the Democrat Knuckleheads were bigger knuckleheads than the Republican Knuckleheads! It had nothing to do with Iraq. Most people do not want an unnecessary war but Bush will proceed anyway because the fix was in months ago. The one sided debate was a stall tactic to get us past the election. The only vocal antiwar Democrats were Sharpton and Jackson, two guys that no one likes or trusts. They represent the Democratic party like Jerry Falwell represents Christianity – as soon as people hear what they are saying, they want to do the exact opposite!

~ Corkey, Jersey Shore

No Mandate

Bush will try claim the election wins as his mandate. But remember one thing: less than 20% of the American electorate voted for GOP candidates. Nearly as many voted against, and far more stayed home. There is no mandate. I hope our free press is there to remind Bush and Co. of that fact in the months and years to come.

~ SMH, Los Angeles

Alliances

Spank Buchanan; his remarks about Canada delegitimize him and those who orbit near him. At a time when dissidents in the US are being massively routed by their opponents, and their alleged allies, it is important for us to be looking internationally for allies.

The effort for forging international alliances against the Empire is severely hampered by idiotic comments like those of Buchanan.

I agree with your spirit in finding Left-Right alliance against the Empire; however, the alliance of those within and those outside of the Empire is even more crucial.

It has become abundantly clear that we are in the event of formal empire creation, whereby international forces are arrayed, standing above the electorates of many countries. It is therefore crucial for international dissent against the Empire to be crystallized.

The numbers of the forces external of the US proper who are oriented toward forcing it to be an equal member state in the world community far exceed those inside the country with similar, let alone, equivalent conviction.

While I think that it is valuable, and oftentimes interesting, and not a little ironic, that Buchanan is opposed to the current wave of US imperial expansion, his historic positions have been mostly chauvinistic, racist, and apologetic of imperialism.

His latest anti-Canadian commentary is clearly a response to his fears of being connected with the decidedly more consistent anti-imperial positions of the Canadian left.

In the spirit of the Left-Right and External-Internal anti-Empire alliances, Buchanan must be loudly spanked and made to keep his mouth shut in a corner until he learns to accept the Left-Right and International alliances necessary to stop this war. ...

~ RA