The Immigration Carousel

I have purposefully stay away from the immigration debate because, IMO, it is an emotional issue that does not lead to an honest exchange of ideas and plans, but rather name calling and arguments.

As I see it the biggest debate is that they are not paying taxes, well they are. If they buy anything they are paying taxes. Their rents that they pay are part of the economic income of the region and what of the money that is paid into fake SSN account and income tax accounts? Where does that money go once in Washington? True, not all are paying these taxes, but some are.

All opposition has tried to make it appear that it is not a racial thing. But it is! America has been a carousel of racism every since the influx of immigrants. Please, legal or nor, it is still a racial thing. From the beginning with the Chinese that worked on the railroads, to the Italians, Irish, Eastern European, SE Asian and now it is the Hispanics. If you go back and read newspaper clippings from the past, you will find that not much has changed, the same objections for the same reasons are always there. IT IS RACISM! All immigrants have come here to take jobs and not participate in the society. They will not learn the language. They take from Americans already here. All this is nothing new, it was racism then; it is racism now.

CHUQ

Daylight Savings Time--The Comedy

Under normal conditions, we would be approaching the end of DST, but Bush as had it extended for two weeks, I believe. his reasoning would be that It would give families more daylight so they could spend more quality time with the families. A noble sentiment......HA....HA...HA....please stop I cannot take anymore1

To begin with, that whole song and dance is about the biggest pile of steaming crap as you will ever be served. Second, this Prez could care less how much time you spend with your family and he could not give a crap about the quality of that time. So please, stop deluding yourself!

If there is more time during daylight hours, the chances are good that people will be driving more and if they are driving more they are using more gas and if they are using more gas they are spending more money for it. There is the formula that he, Bush, is using. It has nothing to do with the quality time one has with one's family, but more on how much more the oil companies can make off of the extension of DST.

So his decision was an economic one, not a social one. So please stop trying to put an honorable face on a pack of lies.

Media Big Mouths

In recent months the media has had its BS stories, a while back Dan Rather got into trouble for some memo he reported on. And then there was Don Imus who made a racial statement about a basketball team. Last week Bill O'Reilly made a racist statement about a restaurant and a concert. And just a day ago Rush Limbaugh has called some of the soldiers unpatriotic.

Where does this sh*t end? O'Reilly made the comment that Sylvia's, a Harlem restaurant, that it was no different from other NYC spots, even though it was an African-American business. Later he went to a Ania baker concern and said that even the Black people were dressed nice. To date he has not apologized and has defended his comments. he has even said that the people that have attacked him for his statements were not safe and that he would come for them. Al Sharpton has not weighed in on this because he says he has not heard the tape. This surprises me, Sharpton is usually on a story like this 2 seconds after it is said. So why is he giving O'Reilly a free ride?

And then there is Rush Limbaugh who has called soldiers that protest or speak out on the war in Iraq are somehow unpatriotic. This from a guy who sits on his ass and never goes anywhere that would be considered dangerous. He takes the word of some asshole who spends 3 hours in a market place with security all around, as the authority on the War. May I suggest that he spend a week live and fighting as a trooper and then make his bullsh*t statements.

If he or anyone has not lived through the crap these men live through, then I suggest that all shut the f*ck up! A survivor of war and his opinion have to be RESPECTED, if not then the very democracy that all say they are protecting, means absolutely NOTHING!

To these so called "media types" have nothing to say until they have experienced for themselves. If you listen and agree with these f*cking MORONS, then YOU ARE the UNPATRIOTIC one in the room.

Enough said!

CHUQ

29 Sep 07

Is The US Imperialistic?

According to a paper published by the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) it is not. This paper called, "Democracy Club" this is why they say it, " If the United States can't impose its will on a small country like Iraq, it's probably not bent on world domination." A really good analysis but the Professor does not agree. The US is, especially under the leadership of the Bush Admin is imperialistic. The failure is their approach to imposing their will on the Iraqi people, not the fact that they cannot. They still found excuses to justify the invasion and occupation of another country, the problem is they did not heed the warnings given to them of the consequences. The US is STILL an imperialistic government under the Bush admin leadership.

This is also what the PPI paper purposes: "Some U.S. progressives are coalescing around an idea they hope will resolve this dilemma: a Concert of Democracies. As envisioned by the Princeton Project, led by John Ikenberry and Anne-Marie Slaughter, the Concert would combine non- Western nations like Japan, India, South Korea, and Australia with the trans-Atlantic partners in a global alliance of some 60 genuinely liberal democracies."

The "group" that they are considering to make up this "club" are the countries with the most to gain by controlling another country. These are the largest users of resources, the biggest polluters, etc. All this club will do is try to make it safer for the world's largest capitalist countries to control the resources of smaller more weak countries.

Sorry, but imperialism by any other name is still imperialism.

CHUQ
28 Sept 2007

More to Come

I have given my reader all the pertinent facts about parecon and hopefully it has made it clear just what it is and how it will work. Now I will move on to other analysis and explanations on politics, and such.

Parecon--Page 6 (the conclusion)

Implications for Strategy

Lastly, I want to point out that participatory economics has implications for strategy, for what we do and how we organize now.

The nature of any new social formation that emerges from major social conflicts, or an upheaval that takes on a revolutionary dimension, will be determined by the character of the main social forces at work in that process.

This means that a movement run by and for workers, that is characterized by the properties of internal self-management espoused by participatory economics, will be essential in the revolutionary process and the emergence of such a movement will prefigure and foreshadow that change.

The only way that we can ensure that a society that is self-managing emerges as the result of such a social process is if the main movements that are working for change have a self-managing character and practice, so that people have developed the egalitarian and democratic practices and habits required for society itself to be self-managed.

The way in which people organize themselves for change is important in shaping what the outcome will be down the road.

How do we ensure that social forces in a revolutionary process do not contain within themselves the seeds of a new techno-managerial class emerging, as has happened in the various “Communist” revolutions?

To avoid this outcome we need mass organizations that avoid corporate-style hierarchies, or hierarchies that concentrate the expertise, knowledge, and decision-making in a few.

How Does the Working Class Become Revolutionary?

The working class is not revolutionary now. If anyone thinks they are ready right now for a spontaneous revolution, they will need to provide us with an explanation of why the revolution hasn’t already happened. Social systems of oppression reproduce themselves over time by the social structures, like class position or structural racism, having an impact in the psyches and habits and expectations and behaviors of everyone. That is why a revolution that can overcome oppression, and not just replicate a new form of oppression, requires a more or less lengthy process of change in the working class itself, a change in people.

If the working class is to emancipate itself from class oppression, it must gain the self-confidence, leadership skills, self-organization, and cohesion that would enable it to take over the running of production. That is, it must change itself. And it does so through a process of struggle, of becoming mobilized and self-organized. This is because people learn about the structure of power that dominates them by fighting it, and they acquire more motivation to learn more and acquire skills to organize by making the commitment to fight.

The development of larger-scale movements also begins to give the people involved more power, and this then alters the perceptions of ordinary folks because now they see that there is perhaps the power to change things. And the degree of change that people begin to see as possible will be shaped by their perception of the willingness of others to fight, and to support each other.

But if we are to have a self-managing, emancipatory outcome to a revolution, the movements for social change that are the main social forces must be themselves self-managing in order to develop the right habits of thought and expectations and capabilities in the participants.

The Wobblies have an old slogan, that “We Are All Leaders.” As an ideal, as what we aim for, I think that is right. But the question is, How do we ensure that our practice comes to approximate to that ideal?

The existing society is divided by all kinds of inequalities, inequalities of access to education and knowledge and opportunities to develop skills. Inequalities along lines of class, education, gender and race will be reflected in these differences in people in these ways.

Some people have more knowledge about how things work, a more theoretical understanding, some have more formal education than others, some are more self-confident that others, some have had opportunities that have enabled them to develop skills like public speaking or articulating ideas. Others may have the latent ability to develop such skills but they've just not had the opportunity to develop them through practice.

Someone who has worked for years taking orders from bosses, from people with more education than them, may have developed a habit of deferring to people who more authoritative or more educated.

That there are these differences in the real, presently existing capabilities of people is a consequence of what I called the “structuralist” theory of society, that your position in the class structure or other structures of inequality like patriarchy and racism, will also affect what skills, preferences, habits you have or lack and how you tend to view your life prospects.

This tells us that any movement that organizes itself in a purely spontaneous way will spontaneously tend to replicate within itself these inequalities that have been shaped by the larger capitalist society. That’s because, if we do not have a program for overcoming the effects of the structures of inequality on people, they will simply be reproduced within mass organizations or movements.

This means a genuinely egalitarian movement cannot be created in a purely spontaneous fashion. We need to consciously be aware of differences in skill development and consciously work to bring out in people their latent abilities, to play a positive role in the movement. There are a variety of things that can be done in this direction. Things like encouraging people to speak, to participate in debates, study groups and activist schools to develop knowledge and the ability to theorize one’s experience, to develop speaking and writing abilities, and to develop critical thinking skills.

Through a conscious and collective practice of developing skills in people, we can ensure that people are better able to play an active role in the movement.

If organizations are not to be simply run by professional cadre or reduced to a hardcore of committed activists, we need to figure out ways that make it easier for the average working person to be involved in movements.

We also need to develop within organizations the equivalent to the participatory economics idea of balanced jobs. The idea is that we do not want to replicate a techno-managerial hierarchy. We want to consciously work to share knowledge and skills, to develop leadership skills and knowledge in the rank and file participants.

Parecon--Page 5

4. Consumption Shares Based on Work Effort or Sacrifice

There is one further question that any viable economy must have an answer to:

How is each person to gain access to their share of consumption? What is the principle governing distribution? How does a person become authorized to consume at a given level?

The most controversial part of Participatory Economics is the answer it gives to this question.

One traditional principle about consumption that some Marxists and anarchists have put forward is the communist principle,

From each according to ability, to each according to work.

The “from each according to ability” part has been interpreted by anarchists like Makhno 5 and Isaac Puente and the Spanish anarchists of the '30s to mean there is a requirement for able-bodied adults to work. This is basically the idea that we won’t allow there to be social parasites.

As to the “to each according to need” part, I think this does make sense in a lot of cases. If someone is injured in an accident, it’s an impulse of simple human solidarity to say they should be taken care of, irrespective of whatever they may have done to contribute to social production.

And Participatory Economics accepts this idea, and says that how far it is to have application is really up to particular communities to decide, and may differ in different areas of the world, depending on their particular political history or culture.

Nonetheless, what we do also say is that it isn’t feasible to run an entire, complex, industrial economy, with millions of people and tens of thousands of products, on the basis of the “to each according to need” principle, if this is interpreted as saying that the output of production is simply an open-access resource for people to take whatever they want.

For one thing, isn’t this just an encouragement to the most greedy and aggressive to consume more, and leaving less for those who are not as self-assertive of their “need” or who have more scruples? And is that the sort of result we want to encourage? And don’t we want to limit the amount of time we all have to spend working? And how can we do that if there is no limit to what people consume?

To avoid wanton waste, we need to be able to measure what economists call the social opportunity cost of the inputs and outputs of the production process. If I spend my work time making shoes, I can’t also spend that same time building houses or writing books or whatever. That follows from the laws of physics – I can’t be in two places at the same time. So, if my work time is committed to making shoes, there are a lot of other things that I could have done that I won’t be able to do. All those things that won’t get done are the “social opportunity cost” of me spending my time making shoes.

Or if we use a piece of land to grow pinto beans, we can’t also use that same land to grow canteloupes or to build houses on or use for a soccer stadium. So, if we commit a piece of land to growing of pinto beans, all the other things that we now can’t do with that land are the social opportunity cost of using that land to grow pinto beans.

To ensure that our economic activity isn’t wantonly wasteful, we need some way to measure how much we value the inputs and outputs to production. This is in fact the role that prices play in Participatory Economics; prices do not require the existence of money as cash or capital.

But in order to measure the value to us of the inputs and outputs to production, this requires a social communication process in which people register what their preferences are for the possible things we could produce using the various resources available to us for production. But if people do not have any limits on what they are permitted to demand for their consumption, we can’t have any meaningful way of measuring how much they prefer various productive outcomes.

Some people would respond to this by pointing to the community and workplace asssemblies, as the means of input for preferences. However, if decisions about allocation and consumption were made in a purely collective fashion by neighborhood or work assemblies, this leaves no room for individual or sub-cultural diversity in preferences for production to be reflected appropriately in what is produced.

Having decisions about what styles of shirts are to be produced made collectively by assemblies denies to each person the personal self-management of their own consumption decision about shirts. It violates the principle of self-management.

Participatory Economics thus proposes an alternative consumption principle, for those who are able to work:

To each according to their work effort or sacrifice.

The idea here is that your effort or sacrifice is really the only thing that is under the voluntary control of each person, and so it is thus the only equitable way to determine consumption shares.

Once jobs are “balanced,” as proposed by Participatory Economics, the level of sacrifice or effort required by jobs will tend to be similar, so size of consumption shares, based on work, would tend to be equalized, and consumption differences would be mainly determined by how much each person chose to work, and perhaps modified by considerations of need as determined by the particular community.

Parecon--Page 4

Now their is the part knon as balanced jobs. What is it?

3. Balanced Jobs

There is one more component of Participatory Economics that is also part of our proposal for how to avoid a techno-managerial ruling class from dominating in a post-capitalist system. This is the proposal of balanced jobs.

This is a program that we envision being carried out by the worker federations in industry and is a basic item to ensuring the empowerment of ordinary workers.

The idea is that jobs would be systematically re-designed throughout the economy. What we would look at would be things like the tasks that involve creativity, conceptualization, decision-making or personal empowerment in the economy, on the one hand, and tasks that involve rote work, the doing of manual labor or the not especially pleasant aspects of production.

And what we do is we re-design jobs so that they are balanced between skill and design work on the one hand, and the doing of the physical work, the less desirable or less empowered work. We also systematically change the educational system to democratize access to expertise and information and training, we integrate this with the system of production itself. The idea is to facilitate everyone having the opportunity to have their skills and talents developed, and yet everyone also must do their share of the grunt work, the sheer physical labor of production.

To take an example, right now people are hired in transit system hierarchies to do service planning typically only if they have college degrees. Meanwhile, there is a large group of people who are expected to do the stressful work of driving a bus day in and day out. Yet in fact a lot of bus drivers have an interest in transit and transit planning issues. Some fairly simple techniques are involved in service planning, including rules of thumb and use of some simple mathematical techniques. These things can be taught. So, with balanced jobs, you might have someone who would spend part of their time at work doing service planning or system design work, and part of their time cleaning or driving buses.

That’s basically the idea of balanced jobs.

Parecon--Page 3 (Cond) Yet Again

This is the last part of part of the planning stage of Parecon.

What is Participatory Planning?

Okay, so what’s the alternative? We say that the alternative is to have the entire population directly create the plan themselves. We say everyone should be able to be planners, and participate directly in the formation of the plan. We say the education system and the availability of information should be such as to facilitate this.

This leads to what we call participatory planning. Participatory Economics has a particular suggestion or proposal for how this could work. This doesn’t mean that all decisions are to be made in big meetings. Actually, on the participatory economics proposal, many inputs to the planning process are made directly by individuals, and do not require meetings. In particular, we make a distinction between collective consumption and private consumption.

Capitalism tends to underproduce collective goods and services, and tends to overproduce collective “bads” like pollution. Our solution to this is the neighborhood councils and federations of these, which deal with collective consumption proposals. But individuals are also allowed to make inputs about what they prefer for their personal consumption.

Workers also make proposals for what they are prepared to produce and for enhancements they want to the work environment.

Through a process of social communication and interaction, which enables people to become aware of the social and environmental consequences of their consumption and production proposals, a process of society-wide negotiation then ensues. There is a back and forth process and the plan itself ends up simply as the aggregation of the proposals from the base, from consumers and producers, once agreement is reached.

There is no construction of a plan by a separate planning body or hierarchy, though of course there would be research and development groups, which are just workplace groups, who could make proposals and give their evaluations of the options. There also need to be groups to aggregate the result of all the inputs from everyone and publish the results.

Participatory planning is the way that we ensure that production is responsive to both the human and environmental costs of production, and also the way that we avoid wanton waste, because it ensures that the system does respond to what people’s consumption and work preferences are.

UpDate

I realize that the Parecon post are pretty dry, but I want to give all available info on the theory. Please bare with me and I will move on to other subjects as soon as possible.


CHUQ

Parecon--Page 3 (cond) Again

This portion will cover the idea of central planning.

Central Planning is Techno-Managerialist

Okay, so we’re against the market. But we’re also against central planning. And by central planning I don’t mean just the crude, authoritarian form of central planning that existed under Stalinism in the Soviet Union.

There are also proposed economic programs that we would call “democratic central planning,” such as the proposal of Castoriadis in Workers Councils and the Economics of a Self-managed Society or other proposals that involved giving power to craft a plan to a body of elected representatives, with advice from expert planners. The problem is, we believe that such a system would also have a tendency to lead to the entrenchment of a techno-managerial ruling class.

That’s because, as long as there is a separate expert planner group who make the plan, apart from the workforce and the general populace, the relationship of the plan-making group to the workforce becomes a relation of order-giver to order-obeyer. We believe this relationship is implicitly authoritarian, and will tend to lead to the replication of internal hierarchy within the production groups themselves, because the central planners will find it more efficient and easier to deal just with one person at the head of a production facility, who can assure enforcement of the plan.

Further, being in a position to make the plan means the planning group would amass knowledge and expertise not available to others, which would make others dependent on them. The relative monopoly over “human capital,” expertise and knowledge, is the basis of a techno-managerial class.

Parecon---Page 3 (cond)

“Abolish the Market System!”

Mainstream neoclassical economics claims that the market, at least under some abstractly possible but never actually realized ideal, allocates scarce resources so as to best satisfy people’s desires. As I see it, this is mere propaganda; the market is actually a system for the allocation of resources by naked economic power. As structuralists, we point out that there are in fact a variety of economic structural features under capitalism that affect allocation – the most important is ownership of the means of production, but also there is relative monopolization of expertise and levers of decision-making power, concentrations of market power, and things like the success of working class cohesion in struggle against the bosses, which augments their bargaining power within the system.

So, a market is basically a system of allocation by bargaining power.

Participatory Economics on the other hand, is market abolitionist; we agree with that part of the “communist” tradition in radicalism. Here I will mention two reasons we’re against the market.

First, markets are in violation of the principle of self-management.

Suppose you drive your car to the local Shell station and buy some gas. Well, the only people who have any say over that transaction are you and the gas station owner; that’s the way markets work. Only the buyer and seller have a say.

But, the thing is, other people are impacted. By driving your car you get to stuff your exhaust into other people’s lungs. They are deprived of any say over that. Currently the capitalist system is destroying the planetary climate system through over-production of carbon dioxide. This affects people throughout the world but the present system gives them no voice over this. A market system is actually dictatorial since it allows the people who engage in the buying and selling of gasoline to dictate what people will breath without them having a say, and so on for many other effects that are external to the buyer and seller of the market transaction.

These “negative externalities” are a pervasive problem of markets.

Secondly, we also believe that if the market is combined with collective, public or state ownership of the means of production, markets will inevitably lead to the entrenchment of a techno-managerial ruling class. The working class will continue to be a subjugated and exploited class. This would be true even if workers started out in control of the various workplaces through workers councils or collectives.

For one thing, a labor market will give free reign for those who have amassed more “human capital,” more expertise in key information about technology or success in the market, to get firms to give them perks and privileges to get them to work for that firm.

Market competition will atomize workers and get in the way of them agreeing to certain common conditions out of self-defense and solidarity. Risks of losses in the market will tend to encourage workers to hand over tough questions to someone else, to let bosses decide.

As workers become increasingly dependent on people with expertise, and management knowledge, they will become increasingly under their control. If someone spends months, day in and day out, working on financial analysis and planning, and someone else just runs machines or sweeps the floor, how are the workers going to be able to question management decisions? How will they have the information and knowledge to be a real factor in the big decisions?

There is more to page 3--to be continued

Parecon--Page 3

Allocation:

2. Participatory Planning for Allocation

A second question that any viable economic program must have an answer for is:

How are our scarce resources, and especially our precious and limited human time, to be allocated to the production of goods and services? What is the method of allocation?

First of all, I’ll note that scarcity is in fact an inevitable part of the human condition. There are only 24 hours in the day, the laws of physics prevent each of us from being in two places at the same time. If we spend time building houses or making shoes, we cannot also spend that time doing something else.

No economic system will be viable if it is wantonly wasteful in its use of scarce resources, if it does the equivalent of having people dig holes and fill them in again. For one thing, one of things we would like to have from the emancipation of the working class from oppression is a reduction in the time spent in required work making things for each other. We can’t achieve that if we have a system that is wasteful of our work time.

When I say this, I am not saying that for Participatory Economics efficiency or avoidance of waste is the primary value. On the contrary, the primary values for Participatory Economics are putting an end to class oppression and other forms of oppression, ensuring that the working class does not end up under the thumb of a new techno-managerial ruling class as it has in all “Communist” revolutions, and generating an economic structure that supports human solidarity rather than a narrow competitive struggle for advantage over others, and which respects the diversity of human subcultures and individuals.

There is a sub-part that will be covered next. The Professor is open to all questions, please, feel free to jump in at anytime.

Parecon--Page 2

Participatory Economy consists of 4 basic categories. they are:

1--Worker and Consumer self-management

2--Participatory planning for allocation

3--Balanced jobs

4--Consumption shares

I will elaborate these catagories separately and will begin at the beginning, #1

1. Worker and Consumer Self-management

First, any economic program must answer the question,

How is the economy run? What is the economic governance structure?

The answer that Participatory Economics proposes is that the basic building blocks for economic decision-making be directly democratic worker councils, and federations of these, as the means to implement self-management in production, and directly democratic neighborhood councils, and federations of these, to implement self-management in regard to consumption.

If there is a hierarchy or class that controls your work in production, if you are subordinated to their aims, this violates the human need for self-management, to have one’s productive activity reflect one’s own plans and goals. Participatory Economics defines self-management in terms of the following principle:

Each person is to have a say over decisions that affect them, and each person is to have a degree of say in proportion to the degree they are affected by them.

There are many decisions about work that primarily affect the people in that workplace, the people doing the work, and this is why it is necessary to have vehicles of self-management over work. These are the worker councils, based on face-to-face workplace assemblies.

But there are also decisions that affect people primarily in areas of consumption, such as what kind of housing we want to live in. We therefore need to have vehicles of self-management in the sphere of consumption. The building blocks for self-management in the sphere of consumption are neighborhood councils – geographic bodies based on face-to-face assemblies of residents.

Participatory Economics, however, does not assume that all decisions are necessarily collective. The decision about how to arrange the furniture in my dwelling or what style of shirt I prefer is nobody else’s business but my own. I get to have control over those decisions.

More explanations to follow. Same bat channel!

Participatory Economics

Participatory economics, or parecon, is an alternative way to organize economic life.

Parecon has equitable incomes, circumstances, opportunities, and responsibilities for all participants. Each parecon participant has a fair share of control over their own life and over all shared social outcomes. Parecon eliminates class division.

Parecon produces solidarity. Even an antisocial individual in a parecon has no choice but to account for social well-being if he or she wishes to prosper.

Parecon diversifies outcomes and generates equitable distribution that remunerates each participant for how long and how hard they work as well as for harsh conditions they may suffer at work.

Parecon also conveys to each person a say in what is produced, what means are used, and how outputs are allocated, all in proportion to the degree he or she is affected by those decisions.

Parecon, in other words, has completely different values than capitalism and to further its different values parecon incorporates different institutions.

Parecon has workers and consumers councils where workers and consumers employ diverse modes of discussion, debate, and democratic determination. In parecon, there are no corporate owners and managers deciding outcomes from the top down.

Parecon has "balanced job complexes" in which each worker does a fair combination of empowering and rote labor, so that all participants have comparably empowering circumstances instead of 20% of the workforce monopolizing all the empowering tasks and 80% doing only subordinate labor. In a parecon there is still expertise. There is still coordination. Decisions still get made. But there is no minority monopolizing empowering information, activity, and access to decision making positions while a majority is made subservient by doing only deadening daily tasks with no decision making component.

In parecon each and every job, which means each and every person's work, involves a mix calibrated so that each participant has essentially equally empowering conditions. A parecon has no owning class. It has no technocratic, managerial, or coordinator class. A parecon has only workers and consumers cooperatively creatively fulfilling their capacities consistently with each participant having a fair share of influence.

Parecon has remuneration for effort and sacrifice, which translates to remuneration for the duration, intensity, and harshness of the work people do. Parecon rejects remuneration for power, property, or even output. Instead of gargantuan disparities of income and wealth, parecon has a just distribution of social product.

Parecon also does away with markets which pit each actor against all others, destroy solidarity, impose class division, mis-price all public goods, ignore collective effects beyond direct buyers and sellers, violate ecological balance and sustainability, and have many other faults as well. In place of markets parecon utilizes a system of workers and consumers, through their self managing councils, cooperatively negotiating inputs and outputs for all firms and actors in accord with true and full social costs and benefits of economic activities.

Can There Be A Successful Third Party?

WILL THERE BE A THIRD PARTY IN 2008?



The short answer is YES! Why? There is an increase of people who call themselves independents and that could assist the founding of a viable 3rd party. On the down side, those same independents could by pass the 3rd party and just vote across party lines and ignore any 3rd party in the running.

What will it take to form a successful 3rd party? Again, the short answer is hard work and grssroots organizing. The problem is the system in the US is geared to two parties and not open for a third party participation. When there is more than the two parties; coalitions must be formed to govern successfully. In the system we have now, that cannot be done. Why? No one wants to relinguish control to someone else. Another problem is that most of the minor parites in the US are mostly one issue platforms, whether that be environment or immigration or whatever is the subject du jours.

Another problem with a third party, is when it is successful, the weaker of the other two will collapse and fall away, bring us back to a two party system. And the process begins again, looking for that third party that can be successful.

The questions that should be asked are, what can we do or change that would guarantee real participation of third parties? Can a multi-issue third party be found? Will the American people support a good third party?

Keep in mind that the American electoral system places very real obstacles in the path of any third party's bid to establish political strength. Also, that most third parties in the US are critics of the major parties and unfortunately is their only strength.

In my opinion, American politics would be a lot more democratic the more political parties that were part of the process.


You thoughts on the subject will be appreciated.


CHUQ

31/12/06

Revolutionary Democracy

It is time for a change. A successful third party can bring that change, but the people have got to want it. Be satisfied with crap as usual or get out and make change, do not wait for change, it will never come without participation.


Revolutionary Democracy



What is it? How does it work? Before I answer these and other questions, I need to let the reader know that as an observer, I write like I think, I have no time to be grammatically correct, so if for some reason it offends the readers sensibilities, I would say........Okay.

I am a revolutionary democrat. That does not mean I am a member of the Democratic party, far from, it means that I see a need for drastic changes in our system of government. While I might agree with some of the stances of the DP, I should by no means be confused for a lame half-witted liberal.

Revolutionary Democracy sees the multinational corporations, imperialism and a new form of colonialism as the harbingers of a world crisis. It is time for the people to take control of their lives and their country. The people must demand and get accountability from their representatives, something they have none of today. Time for the people to step up to the plate and learn to play ball; to take the decision making out of the hands of millionaires and put into the hands of the people. A time for participatory democracy, where all lead and all govern.

At the present time in this political epoch, with corruption, scandal and non-caring, the reps you now have are nothing but spokespeople for big business and the wealthy. They only care about the people every 4 years or so, once they have the vote they move on to their real objective--self-interest.

As long as the people continue on their path of subjugation, they will never have a voice in their destiny, just turn it over to those who prefer to lead and will lead to the path of ruin.

Right now, the people have the ways to take back their country and their government, but they must want to change world and must want to end the political slavery they are now in.


CHUQ
1/10/7

A Successful Third Party?

This for consideration--please feel free to include your comments--all are welcomed.


RECIPE FOR A SUCCESSFUL THIRD PARTY


The US there has been lots of third parties and candidates, but most have been unsuccessful because many reason. THe following is, in my opinion, a recipe for a third party to be used if it wants to be successful in its endeavors. For years these paries have been plagued by a one issue platform, or a weak leader or other problems that have help it be defeated in the polls.

A successful third party has to function on many levels from supporting local projects to implimenting foreign policy. All parties that attempt to qualify for the American democratic process should have the following characteristics.

Leadership Recruitment--A party leader must command respect of all within the party. He/she should have common interests as the party, be capable of giving the party public attention and have a grasp on the function of government. Above he/she must have the interest of the party as the foremost ideal.

Common interests--the party must become the mediator on a wide range of political interests. The best way to do this is to set up an internal party apparatus that will define, present, discuss, compromise and correlate ideas and stances.


Policy Formulation--Once the ideals of the party are defined then the part, once the peoples desires are identified then it comes to the party apparatus to formulate policies. Once the platform is set then the party goes about educating the people on those policies. It is imperative that the people's voices be heard and acted on--the people must set the agenda.

Campaigning--THis is probably the most single important aspect of running a party candidate. Granted third parties typically do not have the funds as the two majors, but it must try and keep up with the others, by using media advisers, polling, direct mailings and other professionals. Putting together a grassroots organization can help lighten some of the monetary burden. Another excellent tool in campaigning is the door to door approach. This gives the people a chance to talk with a supporter to help clarify any misunderstandings. This also will use volunteers and would lessen the monetary load.


Governing--Lastly, the party must function on the permise that it will win the election and in doing so, must be prepared totally to govern. The candidate must have a complete grasp of what his functions will be and be the most capable person to carry out those functions. In a word--A Strong Leader With Confidence.

I realize this is a bit simplistic but It is a good outline for a party, a third party, to follow. If followed religiously, the party would have better chance than those of the past.


CHUQ
30/12/06

Announcement part 2

I regret that it has taken thins long to get my sh*t together, but after much time and research and writing I am about ready to kick it off. So please bear with me and within a week it should be up and running. Thanx for the time and I hope that people will find it informative and consider posting and contributing.

Thanx and I look forward to the future exchanges.

CHUQ