Obama Playes the Blame Game with House GOP on live TV

[warpig]

Independence:
I am seriously curious here. Where did you ever get THAT idea?

Indie is convinced that the Republicans are not interested in the common man, that they are in bed only with the corporate structure. What he and others don't understand is that corporations cannot afford to irritate either side of the isle. They need the business and support of everyone to move forward. I believe the Republicans want to give everyone a chance to succeed which means less and less government interference, taxation etc.

[J_Jammer]

I don't see this as anything other than a PR move. He hasn't shown the Health Care as he would via C-SPAN so he's trying to save face by mocking the other thought.

He did make a smart move, but I don't think it was a move to help anyone but himself.

[indepenence]

Independence:
I am seriously curious here. Where did you ever get THAT idea?

Read the wikipedia page on the inception of the republican party. Why was the republican party opposed to slavery? Why was it for using government-owned land to provide land-grants for individuals to work independently?

What does "republican" mean in the first place? It has to do with decentralization. Of course, "decentralization" can be interpreted on various levels. Some people are for decentralization of political-economic power to state governments and corporations, but they want to limit decentralizing-power to that level, and allow centralization at the state and corporate levels.

Some people want to eliminate formal centralization but they don't want to address informal centralizing forces that occur outside of formal organizational or governmental institutions.

Few people are truly for decentralization at all levels, because centralizing power allows for some people to benefit by exploiting others. It could be the British govt. taxing the tea or a corporation trying to corner the market on children's animation to attempt to ensure that up and coming animators work for them.

Whatever forms of centralization you are for, please do not respond by telling me that some are voluntary and others are mandatory, etc. I'm not concerned with that, only what the economic and social effects are and how to liberate people from them to be able to maximize pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness without exploiting others or submitting to exploitation. This is what republicanism is ultimately about, imo.

[indepenence]

Indie is convinced that the Republicans are not interested in the common man, that they are in bed only with the corporate structure. What he and others don't understand is that corporations cannot afford to irritate either side of the isle. They need the business and support of everyone to move forward. I believe the Republicans want to give everyone a chance to succeed which means less and less government interference, taxation etc.

It's a mistake to view corporations as unified individual actors. Corporatism is a way of organizing the actions of individuals according to the logic of collective will and interests. I don't think "the republicans" or "the corporations" are in bed with each other. I think corporatism is used to seduce individuals into submitting to collectivism out of their own individual interest in social-economic attainment.

This is the same power-tactic that is used to by government to get individuals to submit to collective-identity statuses to achieve special preferences in anti-discrimination protection.

If the water is cold enough, individuals will huddle together for warmth, so to speak. This tendency of individuals is what is exploited to strengthen collectivism. In other words, it's not always threat of force that drives people to corporatize/collectivize; it can also be the promise of economic, social, professional-attainment, or other benefits and privileges. Life can be easier as a member of a club than paddling alone in the ocean of a free market, and so many people use their freedom to paddle toward collective participation.

[J_Jammer]

So how "should" corporations act with politics?

[indepenence]

So how "should" corporations act with politics?

Corporation is a form of legal regulation for business actvities, rights, and responsibilities.

Corporations don't act. Individuals act. "Corporation" is a short-hand summary term for the coordinated institutional activities of the various individuals doing business in the name of the company.

Take a free market and start codifying different individuals' skills and rolls and subjecting them to multiple layers of management and regulate their work activities according to central-control interests, and you have a corporation.

[J_Jammer]

Then people getting mad at Corporate funding of campaigns should be angry at a specific person instead of the entire business...?

[indepenence]

Then people getting mad at Corporate funding of campaigns should be angry at a specific person instead of the entire business...?

They should think about how they think campaigns should be conducted and then question what is different about corporately funded campaigns from the ideal campaign, as they imagine it.

In fact, people should generally think about what they don't like about corporatism and think about what they think the alternative(s) would be. I think most people who dislike corporatism don't realize that they would have no problem with it if, for example, a corporation had many separate individual owners, who were coordinated according to a corporatist-type system.

The only thing they don't like about about corporatism is aesthetic standardization.

Imo, part of corporatist ideology has been to reduce individuality to the aesthetic level. Conformism, normativity, standardization, submission to authoritarian control, etc. are a general cultural development of which corporate economics is just one part.

Ideally people should think about what free individualism is about beyond crafting the appearance of uniqueness and independent will. If all the people who perform the superficial role of individuality while practicing submission to external authority in practice would be confronted with true individuality and independence, they would (and do) become very uncomfortable, I think.

I would love to see everything from political campaigns to economic interactions done as individual culture, but I think the result would seem unimaginably strange to you if your mind has been programmed to assess everything, including political campaigning, in terms of normative forms.

Plus, let's face it. Representative government becomes a form of authoritarianism when citizens/constituents treat it as a method of dominating others by attaining a majority.

Individualist democracy should be participatory democracy in which central governance is only supposed to check and balance attempts and domination and centralizing power among individuals of the republic.

[J_Jammer]

That is something that I never thought about in such a manner. Different perspective. Thanks. I don't have a well defined opinion on this...yet. What you mention is good enough to keep in mind.