Mad, Bad, and Sad: Global

[Di Wundrin]

Oh jesus, that one didn't occur to me.!

Other than the big mining outfits the Railways are (were, I've been retired a long time) still government run down here so things like that were down to stupidy/laziness/or maintenance funding shortage. Needless to say profits are thin with bureaucrats running them but they are a lot safer.

Saw a bit of footage of the townsfolk there on an American TV program and I can see now what the anger, and the placards were about.
More power to 'em, hope they all make a mill out of the coming legal shark feeding frenzy.

Thanks for that link, loads of info on it. Good god I thought I was over trains but ... curiosity factor is still strong.

[arthwollipot]

Profit over safety:

https://www.levernews.com/rail-companie ... erailment/

The inevitable result of late stage capitalism. I hold out hope that eventually someone will notice that the profit motive isn't the sole desirable trait that they once thought it was. Probably won't happen in my lifetime, though.

[Di Wundrin]

Profit over safety:

https://www.levernews.com/rail-companie ... erailment/

The inevitable result of late stage capitalism. I hold out hope that eventually someone will notice that the profit motive isn't the sole desirable trait that they once thought it was. Probably won't happen in my lifetime, though.

Have to agree with that "late stage" assessment of capitalism, but "late stage" socialism is hardly 'desirable' either.
Extremes of either system can only occur when people are tricked into suspending common sense and allowing their greed for either wealth or freebies to guide their voting habits.

I continue to bash my head against the wall of "balancing need and aspiration" and allowing one to support the other, not rival it. But it's a really hard concept to sell. And way above my pay rate to actually structure.

Both sides either don't get it, or take it as a challenge. I should just call it the common sense Party. But as the quoting class has pointed out.." sense ain't that common any more. "

[arthwollipot]

Socialism suffers from the same problem that capitalism does - it explodes on contact with actual people.

[Di Wundrin]

Socialism suffers from the same problem that capitalism does - it explodes on contact with actual people.

Have to pay that!

[Admin]

Socialism suffers from the same problem that capitalism does - it explodes on contact with actual people.

If I had a week, I'd say how much that fucks me off.

The only reason it happens is that socialist politicians are as self-absorbed as any other politician.

[sparks]

FTW!!

There is a system that can work. We're just not there yet.

[stanky]

I'd say we're going backwards, in regard to the health of the bio-sphere.
And ultimately, that's what will matter most.
Small gains are almost p.r. stunts...entertainment, while the old school runs roughshod over the planet, for the same old reasons, burning the same old fuel. EV's is a fine example. It's not that they are bad, it's that they're too close to the same old stuff. The mining, the toxic waste; the source of power; the weight; the cost and so on. I think it's a nasty side track...like making a slightly less deadly ar-15 to address violence.

We need something far more substantial than better insulation and more mpg's to get out of this mess.
We'll need to reassess the rules of capitalism so that it doesn't need to grow or poison us.
So far, it simply can't resist. The worst stuff is the most profitable. Sustainability runs counter to capitalism as it is. Quality runs counter to it. Deception is bred instead. Products need to be replaced constantly. The flow of consumption is nearly unfathomable and most of it seems fairly pointless; stuff we could live without. But if it was more reasonable, jobs would disappear. People wouldn't be able to pay rent. They'd move to the streets in tents. Neighbor-hoods would get ugly. There wouldn't be enough cops to protect the empty houses. The house of cards could collapse from a sneeze.

[Di Wundrin]

Geeze and I thought I was getting a bit dark. Chin up Stanky babe, you're old enough to know that you can't make people think and do as you want and why the hell should they?

We think the way were wired, and our 'ologies' change according to our needs, the kind of life some of you blokes seem wistful about sounds like utter stagnation to me. A world of humans being sweet to each other and nobody needing extra for booze or drugs, or wanting a car with more grunt just for the hell of it sounds as mindnumbingly boring as those pamphlets the Jayhos used to hand out at the door. I used to look at them and think if that's their idea of heaven they must lead very unimaginative lives.

Socialism sounds kind of surrender monkey talk to me. Those who can't be billionaires bitchin' about it.
Most people don't want to be. I sure don't, wouldn't know what to do with it. I'm okay with their principles of evening the bounty out a tad, keeping everyone fed even those too bloody lazy to lift a spoon. That's not 'socialism' it's just common decency and a guarantee of being able sleep contented that you're not an arsehole. or at least it used to be. '

Sowell had a good quote to cover the current attitude held by the 'modern socialist'.
"How come it's greedy to keep what you earned, but not greedy to demand a share of what someone else earned"?

And don't got using pedantic arguments over whether corp'ns and billionaires 'earn" it. It's the pitch of the attitude that it nails.

I never saw that any special kind of high minded philosophy was required to adhere to the rules of common decent social behaviour.
The 'don't be a dick' principle worked for a very long time. So what happened to that? When did everybody suddenly find the need to label themselves as part of some ismic conviction? Then lob bombs into everybody else's chosen ismic trenches?

I grew up in a world where every single MP in the Labor Party was a tyke and suspected commo at the time.
These days the tykes are the "Far Right" so what turned that over?
Albo (Oz PM for the lurkers) is still both, full on catholic boy and fan of Trotsky. A few on his front bench are still active tykes too, yet the Labor voters all rant about closing down private ''elite' schools and are dead against religion. wtf eh? so why do they vote for tykes then? Love to ask them, anyone know any? None around here, rural area, no Labor candidates, they don't like rural people much, no unions to speak of therefore no campaign 'donations' I suppose.

It's all so contradictory that claiming to be ismic anything is meaningless. Extreme Left and Right are essentially the same type of regimes.
Are there any Extreme Right regimes though? Other than Islamic ones?

I think we're making a mistake to equate political Parties with specific 'isms'. None of them are pure ismic anything. They lean in all directions but you can never rely on them sticking to the policies they con us in with.
Either they shelve the 'bait' one or produce one out of their collective arses that the voter had no idea they were hiding. Then you find that half the MPs in the Party you voted for decide to have an acute attack of conscience and cross the floor to vote against the policy the Party was elected to push through.

You can't trust any of them, they all break our hearts, all the voter can do is vote for the ones likely to cause the least damage to whatever we've got put away to see us through.
Pensioners vote Labor for guarantee welfare (although the Coalition haven't exactly cut it either) Those relying on their own nesteggs to provide income vote Coalition because they know where all the bankers live.'

It used to be a pretty good rule of thumb, but not now! The Coalition do stupid things like double the dole during the lockdowns.

W H Y?? nobody was allowed to go out to spend it! I doubt I'll recover from that mindfart. You can't rely on any of them any more.

bugger it Stanky, now i'm going dark side again... oh well, I tried.

[stanky]

Gosh, Di...and here I thought you were already wallowing in the dark side by apologizing for the new capitalism, as though it's all the same old show.
Not really. There's been a systematic unraveling of various protections we had for preventing the sort of wealth migration that has taken place recently...in this age of the billionaire.

If I'm wallowing in the dark by illuminating it, there's a paradox. Imho, i'm up to the opposite. I'm not a gloomy soul. The circumstance is gloomy.
What you're saying is predictable. There's a grim satisfaction you express in being correct about human nature when, in fact, you aren't.
You're apologizing for something new and horrific that's taken hold, as if it's the same as it was from even 20 years ago.

Get the isms out of your mind for a moment. It's too easy to slap labels on people. It's as though any critique of the new late stage capitalism is changed into socialism when it clearly isn't. I'd like to see some of the old protections brought back to our societies. An obvious change in the U.S. came with the Citizen's United clause allowing money to buy politicians. Was that a good idea? Can it be reversed? Or is that too socialist an idea?