>> ^marinara:

Works great if you listen to it like a podcast while doing stuff


I've been doing that today with both the Chomsky videos just posted. Can you please run for president without using corporate money? I'd vote for you

I dug Rise of the Planet of the Apes too. Part of the reason Ceasar seemed so human was that Andy 'Gollum' Serkis did the motion capture.

I do love me some dystopian apocalyptic fiction, and had no problem cheering on the apes, but I certainly don't have a societal death wish. Quite the contrary. I think these films are more of a warning of what may happen if we don't get our collective shit together as a planet. I think these films are an exaggeration of the problems of the present - greed, selfishness, conformity, commercialization, corporatism, the devaluation of humanity, disconnectedness, environmental destruction, weapons of mass destruction, cosmetic surgery, prescription drugs, a return to base human violence, loveless sexuality, prejudice, etc. The post apocalypse is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

I'm well aware of the generational difference.

Your generation grew up with an access to porn and a visually sexualised culture that has never been experienced before. It is a world whose images have been managed, airbrushed, corporatized for ease of consumption. It has shaped your view of the world.

And actually, yes, when a man loves a woman just as she was created, I do admire him more. And he is rare, you're right. I find it incredibly sexy that he loves every part of the human body, without judgment, without reserve, without prudishness. No limits, no restraints, it is incredibly joyous and freeing.

You know who you are, if you are reading this. You are sexy, sexy men!

Sex is better without inhibitions, yes? These poor young women who are bleaching their anuses to match the porn shots -- when will they ever be perfect enough? They can never match those airbrushed fantasies. And can they really relax and enjoy themselves -- and you -- if they so worried about what they look like?

The Australian super model Elle MacPherson has said that she doesn't go to the beach, because she doesn't want to be compared to her photographs. She knows she doesn't look like them. A super model is insecure. This is really really sad.

By the way, I live in a small town that might be the last little enclave of hippies. There are a disproportionate number of women here with hairy legs and armpits.

You're right, though, even here they are the exception.


>> ^rottenseed:

It's dependent on age. Most people my age prefer heavily trimmed genitalia.
I'm sure the "men you admire" like when a woman shaves her legs and her pits right? Assuming the answer is yes, then that right there is modification from how bodies "evolved to be". If they like hairy pits and legs, then they're an exception to the rule, not the rule.

http://www.hacer.org/chile/?p=22

Naomi Klein’s disastrous yet popular polemic against the great free market economist.

In the future, if you tell a student or a journalist that you favor free markets and limited government, there is a risk that they will ask you why you support dictatorships, torture, and corporate welfare. The reason for the confusion will be Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

In a very short time, the book has become a 21st-century bible for anticapitalists. It has also drawn praise from mainstream reviewers: “There are very few books that really help us understand the present,” gushed The Guardian. “The Shock Doctrine is one of those books.” Writing in The New York Times, the Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz called it “a rich description of the political machinations required to force unsavory economic policies on resisting countries."

Klein’s basic argument is that economic liberalization is so unpopular that it can only win through deception or coercion. In particular, it relies on crises. During a natural disaster, a war, or a military coup, people are disoriented, confused, and preoccupied with their own immediate survival, allowing regimes to liberalize trade, to privatize, and to reduce public spending with little opposition. According to Klein, “neoliberal” economists have welcomed Hurricane Katrina, the Southeast Asian tsunami, the Iraq war, and the South American military coups of the 1970s as opportunities to introduce radical free market policies. The chief villain in her story is Milton Friedman, the economist who did more than anyone in the 20th century to popularize free market ideas.

To make her case, Klein exaggerates the market reforms in question, often ignoring central events and rewriting chronologies. She confuses libertarianism with the quite different concepts of corporatism and neoconservatism. And she subjects Milton Friedman to one of the most malevolent distortions of a thinker’s ideas in recent history.

* You still file US taxes? Wow, that's some overreach. I tend to live in the camp of voluntary taxation to fund government programs (excise taxes, etc.), which essentially boils down to no income tax. Income tax in the US is only a 3rd of the Federal Government's revenue, so it's hard to convince me it's necessary especially since such a large portion is spent on defense (which we all know is NOT defense, but really offense).

* Institutional welfare tends to leave people more destitute than aided. Look no further than the Native Americans in the US and Canada. I have a really close connection to one particular treatied band in Southern Canada where alcoholism and gambling isn't just a stereotype. And I've watched young boys grow up disliking when their parents (or parent) use them to get more money from relatives, but once they reach a self-sustainable age they fall right back into that cycle. So few of them I've seen have a drive to escape that life, but instead accept it and live a life of handouts and poverty. I can only guess this isn't because they're natives, because I'm 1/8th native, but because that's what welfare does to them.

Welfare has a stigma, and if you grow up accepting a lifetime with welfare then you grow to associate yourself with that stigma. At least that's the best I can guess.

* Nuclear power is the future. It has to be.

* The free market is the best way for individuals to learn how each of us can better serve our fellow man. No central authority can be smart enough to understand the complexities of every human endeavor, so progress is truly within the open markets. Don't misread that as corporatism. I mean, it's certainly not perfect, but it's better.

* The great, late father of Comparative Mythology, Joseph Campbell, once wrote (and I paraphrase because I can't find it now), 'The world today is as good as it's ever been in history, and it's as bad as it's ever been.' I like that.

* Yeah, when did wanting a more efficient, limited government become a Republican only talking point? It used to be a liberal belief when liberals were more libertarian.

* You should look into Scientology!

@blankfist, ahh I see. Read the definition of the word company, meaning #2 to be specific.

Also, see the part titled "Synonyms"? There's only one word listed there: corporation.

Since you've basically double-hijacked your own thread, I'll at least toss out a path back to the main topic -- the legal recognition of corporations isn't the problem. The problem is that they get huge amounts of special dispensations from the government, like limitations on the legal liability of the people who actually own and operate them for the things they do.

If one of the chief planks of some right-wing party was to truly eliminate "corporatism", they'd be talking about ending corporate personhood and their limited liability privilege. Instead, they mostly talk about putting limits on what the government can do to police corporate activity, which should rightly be seen as a pro-corporatist move.

To me, that's regulation. Of course you could set up a business, and convince people to give you seed money for a share of future profits. That is the essense of a corporation.

On second thought, since owners of corporations have some freedom from being sued, and the court system is run by the government, I can see how corporations' existence depends on government.>> ^blankfist:
>> ^longde:
Corporations are regulated by state and the federal government, not created by them.>> ^blankfist:
>> ^rottenseed:
>> ^blankfist:
See, I think the two parties are part of the problem, and they tend to be pro-corporatist and pro-war.

It's silly that you would think ANY elected president could change corporatism. Corporatism runs deeper than the president.

I doubt any President could do much to change corporatism unless he tried to push it through legislation that all corporate charters would be revoked, because corporations do NOT run deeper than the government. They're government created entities.


But that's not true. The state isn't just a regulatory service, they give corporations their legitimacy and are the issuer of their charter. I cannot just claim that I'm a corporation, and I certainly cannot do business freely as if I am one, because government would come after me.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^blankfist:
>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^blankfist:
>> ^longde:
Corporations are regulated by state and the federal government, not created by them.>> ^blankfist:
>> ^rottenseed:
>> ^blankfist:
See, I think the two parties are part of the problem, and they tend to be pro-corporatist and pro-war.

It's silly that you would think ANY elected president could change corporatism. Corporatism runs deeper than the president.

I doubt any President could do much to change corporatism unless he tried to push it through legislation that all corporate charters would be revoked, because corporations do NOT run deeper than the government. They're government created entities.


But that's not true. The state isn't just a regulatory service, they give corporations their legitimacy and are the issuer of their charter. I cannot just claim that I'm a corporation, and I certainly cannot do business freely as if I am one, because government would come after me.

By this standard, all cars are created by the government, because to own a car you need a government issued title to give that ownership legitimacy.

You're failing to recognize one major difference between cars and corporations. One is a legal entity created under the law. One is not.

You're failing to realize that "creating" isn't the same as "recognizing under the law".


You've made me sigh twice in one day. Kudos.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporations

"...legal entity that is created under the laws of a state designed to establish the entity as a separate legal entity having its own privileges and liabilities distinct from those of its members." (emphasis mine)

>> ^blankfist:

>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^blankfist:
>> ^longde:
Corporations are regulated by state and the federal government, not created by them.>> ^blankfist:
>> ^rottenseed:
>> ^blankfist:
See, I think the two parties are part of the problem, and they tend to be pro-corporatist and pro-war.

It's silly that you would think ANY elected president could change corporatism. Corporatism runs deeper than the president.

I doubt any President could do much to change corporatism unless he tried to push it through legislation that all corporate charters would be revoked, because corporations do NOT run deeper than the government. They're government created entities.


But that's not true. The state isn't just a regulatory service, they give corporations their legitimacy and are the issuer of their charter. I cannot just claim that I'm a corporation, and I certainly cannot do business freely as if I am one, because government would come after me.

By this standard, all cars are created by the government, because to own a car you need a government issued title to give that ownership legitimacy.

You're failing to recognize one major difference between cars and corporations. One is a legal entity created under the law. One is not.


You're failing to realize that "creating" isn't the same as "recognizing under the law".

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^blankfist:
>> ^longde:
Corporations are regulated by state and the federal government, not created by them.>> ^blankfist:
>> ^rottenseed:
>> ^blankfist:
See, I think the two parties are part of the problem, and they tend to be pro-corporatist and pro-war.

It's silly that you would think ANY elected president could change corporatism. Corporatism runs deeper than the president.

I doubt any President could do much to change corporatism unless he tried to push it through legislation that all corporate charters would be revoked, because corporations do NOT run deeper than the government. They're government created entities.


But that's not true. The state isn't just a regulatory service, they give corporations their legitimacy and are the issuer of their charter. I cannot just claim that I'm a corporation, and I certainly cannot do business freely as if I am one, because government would come after me.

By this standard, all cars are created by the government, because to own a car you need a government issued title to give that ownership legitimacy.


You're failing to recognize one major difference between cars and corporations. One is a legal entity created under the law. One is not.

>> ^blankfist:

>> ^longde:
Corporations are regulated by state and the federal government, not created by them.>> ^blankfist:
>> ^rottenseed:
>> ^blankfist:
See, I think the two parties are part of the problem, and they tend to be pro-corporatist and pro-war.

It's silly that you would think ANY elected president could change corporatism. Corporatism runs deeper than the president.

I doubt any President could do much to change corporatism unless he tried to push it through legislation that all corporate charters would be revoked, because corporations do NOT run deeper than the government. They're government created entities.


But that's not true. The state isn't just a regulatory service, they give corporations their legitimacy and are the issuer of their charter. I cannot just claim that I'm a corporation, and I certainly cannot do business freely as if I am one, because government would come after me.


By this standard, all cars are created by the government, because to own a car you need a government issued title to give that ownership legitimacy.

>> ^longde:

Corporations are regulated by state and the federal government, not created by them.>> ^blankfist:
>> ^rottenseed:
>> ^blankfist:
See, I think the two parties are part of the problem, and they tend to be pro-corporatist and pro-war.

It's silly that you would think ANY elected president could change corporatism. Corporatism runs deeper than the president.

I doubt any President could do much to change corporatism unless he tried to push it through legislation that all corporate charters would be revoked, because corporations do NOT run deeper than the government. They're government created entities.



But that's not true. The state isn't just a regulatory service, they give corporations their legitimacy and are the issuer of their charter. I cannot just claim that I'm a corporation, and I certainly cannot do business freely as if I am one, because government would come after me.

Corporations are regulated by state and the federal government, not created by them.>> ^blankfist:

>> ^rottenseed:
>> ^blankfist:
See, I think the two parties are part of the problem, and they tend to be pro-corporatist and pro-war.

It's silly that you would think ANY elected president could change corporatism. Corporatism runs deeper than the president.

I doubt any President could do much to change corporatism unless he tried to push it through legislation that all corporate charters would be revoked, because corporations do NOT run deeper than the government. They're government created entities.

>> ^rottenseed:

oh yea! yes yes that's it, ol' chap! Now what if, let's say, we have a situation (let me assure you that this is PURELY hypothetical) wherein the congress is heavily influenced by corporations...how would a president pass legislation against corporatism then?>> ^blankfist:
>> ^rottenseed:
Remind me...what steps would a president have to take to push through legislation? Magic? A really stern tone of voice and finger wagging?>> ^blankfist:
>> ^rottenseed:
>> ^blankfist:
See, I think the two parties are part of the problem, and they tend to be pro-corporatist and pro-war.

It's silly that you would think ANY elected president could change corporatism. Corporatism runs deeper than the president.

I doubt any President could do much to change corporatism unless he tried to push it through legislation that all corporate charters would be revoked, because corporations do NOT run deeper than the government. They're government created entities.


It's called Congress. Surely you've heard of the other branches of government?



He couldn't. That's the failure of any human government.

But would you rather have a corporatist prez or not? At the very least he could veto pro-corporatist legislation, right?

oh yea! yes yes that's it, ol' chap! Now what if, let's say, we have a situation (let me assure you that this is PURELY hypothetical) wherein the congress is heavily influenced by corporations...how would a president pass legislation against corporatism then?>> ^blankfist:

>> ^rottenseed:
Remind me...what steps would a president have to take to push through legislation? Magic? A really stern tone of voice and finger wagging?>> ^blankfist:
>> ^rottenseed:
>> ^blankfist:
See, I think the two parties are part of the problem, and they tend to be pro-corporatist and pro-war.

It's silly that you would think ANY elected president could change corporatism. Corporatism runs deeper than the president.

I doubt any President could do much to change corporatism unless he tried to push it through legislation that all corporate charters would be revoked, because corporations do NOT run deeper than the government. They're government created entities.


It's called Congress. Surely you've heard of the other branches of government?