Daniel Pinchbeck, How Soon is Now, Heavy-Handed Climate Apocalypse Stuff |343|

right, here's a link to the text:
https://www.infowars.com/a-note-to-...ding-audiences-concerning-pizzagate-coverage/

he was threatened with a lawsuit and backed down. that's fine. but I again ask you and anyone else who's interested to read the email and Instagram posts along with the photos posted and tell me the guy is clean.

again, one has to look at the bigger picture re Franklin Affair, Hollywood child sex abuse, Belgium Judiciary child sex abuse, UK media mogul sex abuse, Catholic Church child sex scandal, Penn State Sandusky and rich donors... and on and on. If you accept that all these well-documented cases occurred, and then you read all the posts mentioned above it's just not reasonable to conclude anything else... Alex Jones apology notwithstanding.
 
I think it is useless to try and put Alex or even Daniel into either/or, denial/proponent, capitalist-pig/treehugger or whatever forced dichotomy camps.
thx... and I get yr point, but as others have pointed out (and as we've explored on previous shows) good data (dare say science) can help clarify.

Daniel's data/science is poor... and his logic worse... like the part where he says (in his book) that there's no population problem and everyone on the planet could fit in the state of Texas... no kidding... he wrote this in his book!
 
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...-exxon-mobil-secretary-of-state-a7628611.html
^ I guess we'll get to see behind the scenes soon of what Exxon thinks of climate change?

I mean, I know that just having a lot of people in my house generates a ton of heat. I tried to look up climategate, but all I could find was debunking of the claims after the fact. I'll go back and read the rest of this thread when I get a minute. I enjoyed the battle with Daniel! Great fun, and I kind of agree with both parties. It's always such a rush listening to Skeptiko cause I never know if I'm going to agree with Alex, but I usually do.
I think we had a pretty good thread discussion here:
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/global-warming-are-sea-levels-rising.3602/
 
right, here's a link to the text:
https://www.infowars.com/a-note-to-...ding-audiences-concerning-pizzagate-coverage/

he was threatened with a lawsuit and backed down. that's fine. but I again ask you and anyone else who's interested to read the email and Instagram posts along with the photos posted and tell me the guy is clean.

again, one has to look at the bigger picture re Franklin Affair, Hollywood child sex abuse, Belgium Judiciary child sex abuse, UK media mogul sex abuse, Catholic Church child sex scandal, Penn State Sandusky and rich donors... and on and on. If you accept that all these well-documented cases occurred, and then you read all the posts mentioned above it's just not reasonable to conclude anything else... Alex Jones apology notwithstanding.

No one would deny the horrors men do. Pedo rings exist and will continue to do so. That's a fact of life. However, just because others have happened doesn't necessarily mean this 'new' allegations are until actual criminal evidence is brought to bear
 
thx... and I get yr point, but as others have pointed out (and as we've explored on previous shows) good data (dare say science) can help clarify.

Daniel's data/science is poor... and his logic worse... like the part where he says (in his book) that there's no population problem and everyone on the planet could fit in the state of Texas... no kidding... he wrote this in his book!

Someone should work that out mathematically. I know its counter intuitive but it has often been said (as a former loch ness enthusiast) that the entire population of the earth
could fit in it
 
No one would deny the horrors men do. Pedo rings exist and will continue to do so. That's a fact of life. However, just because others have happened doesn't necessarily mean this 'new' allegations are until actual criminal evidence is brought to bear
right like:
“What’s in the emails is staggering and as a father, it turned my stomach,” the NYPD Chief said. “There is not going to be any Houdini-like escape from what we found. We have copies of everything. We will ship them to Wikileaks or I will personally hold my own press conference if it comes to that.”

The NYPD Chief said once Comey saw the alarming contents of the emails he was forced to reopen a criminal probe against Clinton.

“People are going to prison,” he said.

==== related====
http://ktla.com/2017/02/01/474-arre...g-statewide-human-trafficking-operation-lasd/
 
Someone should work that out mathematically. I know its counter intuitive but it has often been said (as a former loch ness enthusiast) that the entire population of the earth
could fit in it
but it's an idiotic point (not yours his). no reasonable person would conclude that population growth is not an environmental problem... and it's doubly crazy to be all worked up about CO2 and not worry about population.
 
but it's an idiotic point (not yours his). no reasonable person would conclude that population growth is not an environmental problem... and it's doubly crazy to be all worked up about CO2 and not worry about population.

I absolutely agree population is a huge problem.

But that also reminds me of my reading of various 'doomsday' type books in the 60's .... population bombs, climate bombs, etc.... and it just occurred to me that
if one applied the same argument as cw skeptics sometimes say about how in the 70's the climate threat was supposed to be from cooling, then I suppose... because books predicted
overpopulation disaster back then and those predictions haven't happened now, that it's all baloney.

Of course i'm just being facetious here. :)
 
right like:
“What’s in the emails is staggering and as a father, it turned my stomach,” the NYPD Chief said. “There is not going to be any Houdini-like escape from what we found. We have copies of everything. We will ship them to Wikileaks or I will personally hold my own press conference if it comes to that.”

The NYPD Chief said once Comey saw the alarming contents of the emails he was forced to reopen a criminal probe against Clinton.

“People are going to prison,” he said.

==== related====
http://ktla.com/2017/02/01/474-arre...g-statewide-human-trafficking-operation-lasd/


Yes, but looking around I'm not finding much that has panned out with these clinton allegations. Those 'fbi sources' and emails for example don't seem to be substantial
 
No they weren't, I'm not even a Communist but I don't consider Stalin's Russia or Mao's China to be examples of Communism, it's just the state controlling the means of production and complete power in the hands of a very small amount of people.

Do we also consider the millions of people that die from starvation every year to be victims of capitalism? Or the deaths from the military industrial complex?

Again just because someone says something is Communism doesn't mean it is.

Nice attempt to paint anyone who disagrees with you as unreasonable or immoral though.

When you or anyone can name a country where all the ordinary workers control the means of production and the society is classless, then we'll talk.

I think we could well be dealing with the type of American who thinks Hitler was left-wing because the Nazi party had 'Socialist' in their title.

Here is an ex-slave of communism (born in the USSR) who thinks that, too. As a lot of historical evidence suggests.

Nazism was inspired by Italian Fascism, an invention of hardline Communist Benito Mussolini (Editor-in-chief of the emblematic socialist magazine "Avanti"). During World War I, Mussolini recognized that conventional socialism wasn't working. He saw that nationalism exerted a stronger pull on the working class than proletarian brotherhood. He also saw that the ferocious opposition of large corporations made socialist revolution difficult. So in 1919, Mussolini came up with an alternative strategy. He called it Fascism. Mussolini described his new movement as a ``Third Way'' between capitalism and communism. As under communism, the state would exercise dictatorial control over the economy. But as under capitalism, the corporations would be left in private hands.

Hitler followed the same game plan. He openly acknowledged that the Nazi party was ``socialist'' and that its enemies were the ``bourgeoisie'' and the ``plutocrats'' (the rich). Like Lenin and Stalin, Hitler eliminated trade unions, and replaced them with his own state-run labor organizations. Like Lenin and Stalin, Hitler hunted down and exterminated rival leftist factions (such as the Communists). Like Lenin and Stalin, Hitler waged unrelenting war against small business.

Hitler regarded capitalism as an evil scheme of the Jews and said so in speech after speech. Karl Marx believed likewise. In his essay, ``On the Jewish Question,'' Marx theorized that eliminating Judaism would strike a crippling blow to capitalist exploitation. Hitler put Marx's theory to work in the death camps, that he copied from Lenin (the first extermination camp was created by this monster in a Siberian island Solovki in 1918), and, as the documentary I post here demonstrates, he learned to run and manage these camps directly from Stalin in the 30's.

The Nazis are widely known as nationalists, but that label is often used to obscure the fact that they were also socialists. Some question whether Hitler himself actually believed in socialism, but that is no more relevant than whether Stalin was a true believer. The fact is that neither could have come to power without at least posing as a socialist. And the constant emphasis on the fact that the Nazis were nationalists, with barely an acknowledgment that they were socialists, is as absurd as labeling the Soviets ``internationalists'' and ignoring the fact that they were socialists (they called themselves the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). Yet many who regard ``national'' socialism as the scourge of humanity consider ``international'' socialism a benign or even superior form of government.

According to a popular misconception, the Nazis must have been on the political right because they persecuted communists and fought a war with the communists in Russia. This specious logic has gone largely unchallenged because it serves as useful propaganda for the left, which needs ``right-wing'' atrocities to divert attention from the horrific communist atrocities of the past century. Hence, communist atrocities have received much less publicity than Nazi war crimes, even though they were greater in magnitude by any objective measure.

R. J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii documents in his book Death by Government that the two most murderous regimes of the past century were both communist: communists in the Soviet Union murdered 62 million of their own citizens, and Chinese communists killed 35 million Chinese citizens. The Nazi socialists come in third, having murdered 21 million Jews, Slavs, Serbs, Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians and others. Additional purges occurred in smaller communist hellholes such as Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea, Ethiopia, and Cuba, of course. Communism does more than imprison and impoverish nations: it kills wholesale. And so did ``national socialism'' during the Nazi reign of terror.

But the history of the past century has been grossly distorted by the predominantly left-wing media and academic elite. The Nazis have been universally condemned -- as they obviously should be -- but they have also been repositioned clear across the political spectrum and propped up as false representatives of the far right -- even though Hitler railed frantically against capitalism in his infamous demagogic speeches. At the same time, heinous crimes of larger magnitude by communist regimes have been ignored or downplayed, and the general public is largely unaware of them. Hence, communism is still widely regarded as a fundamentally good idea that has just not yet been properly ``implemented.'' Santayana said, ``Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'' God help us if we forget the horrors of communism and get the historical lessons of Nazism backwards.

The Nazis also had something else in common with the modern left: an obsessive preoccupation with race. Hitler and his Nazis considered races other than their own inferior, of course. Modern ``liberals,'' who vociferously oppose the elimination of racial quotas, seem to agree. They apparently believe that non-white minorities (excluding Asians, of course) are inferior and unable to compete in the free market without favoritism mandated by the government. Whereas Hitler was hostile to those racial minorities, however, modern white ``liberals'' condescend benevolently. Hitler's blatant and virulent form of racism was eradicated relatively quickly and very forcefully, but the more subtle and insidious racism of the modern left has yet to be universally recognized and condemned.

Roberta, Tarquin, after all these criticsms of dogmatic conspiracy denial on the Left, I also want to say something in Left's support - something which you'll like and something, which, I suspect, would upset Enrique.

Neither Nazism nor Fascism nor Sovetism (whether of Stalinist flavour or of its later forms) was examples of socialism or communism - they were examples of IMPERIALISM. By imperialism, I mean a regime which is based on a sacralised political power of the state, which is perceived as being imbued with an unrestrained right of conquest, both external (military invasions) and internal (police repression). It is neither "left-wing" nor "right-wing"; it is "below left and right", an archaic form of rule which preceeeds the capitalist-socialist conflict of modernity. It is a feudalistic atavism.

Once, in the pre-World-War-1 era of largely feudal (even if already, to some extent, modernised) empires imperialism were a common form of power, and was seen as normal. Yet, after World War 1 and the crush of traditional monarchist empires, it is gone out of fashion... yet it did not died. Rather, it embraced the tactics of a rhetorical fraudlence - an usage of appeal to a modern ideologies (capitalism, socialism, or some mixture/amalgam of these two) to justify its reactionary invasive-repressive agenda. These combination of opportunistic pseudo-modern demagoguery and actual atavistc desire of an unlimited power and bloody conquest is the characteristic which is common to Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin. It is shared as well, nowadays, by the war-mongers and police-worshippers, reactionaries and authoritarians of both America and Russia. It drives the infamous American Deep State which always seek to replace a public normative rule with a (semi-)clandestine practice of total internal surveilannce and prosecution, as well as external espionage and warfare. It drives the modern Russian regime and its agression towards its former colony, Ukraine.

The real examples of socialism - and working ones - are Scandinavia and Benelux, not Soviet Empire or Third Reich. And these countries are among the most humanistic and libertarian, being at the peak of human development. While it is not the end of history, and we still have to achieve more - a post-state anarchist society, for example - the Western libertarian socialism is the very best social order that exists here and now.

And anarchism is most likely to arose from the highly developed libertarian socialism, since capitalism cannot be humane and acceptable unless it is diluted with a good dosage of socialist charity and non-commercial social service. The idea of anarcho-capitalism seems all that good in theory, but in practice, I suspect, will become a dog-eats-dog ruthless competition in a style of the early 1990s in Russia - an epoch in which Russia was, effectively, an anarcho-capitalist territory. And the result was elderly people begging for a piece of bread in the streets, and young people bleeding after being shot by yet another bunch of gangsters. If we are to transcend state, we can only do that in a country where the highly developed non-state social networks are combined with deeply ingrained humanistic values, super-high, individually accessible technology and widely supported free, non-dogmatic spirituality. As for now, Western countries like Scandinavian ones are the closest to fulfillment of these criteria (even A LOT of work is still needed).

So, my criticism of three weaknesses of the modern Left - conspiracy denial, consensus science and "political correctness" (identity politics) - is a friendly one, rather than a hostile one. I actually want the modern Left to overcome these authoritarian temptations, give up censoriousness and dogmatism and fully embrace to the culture of self-criticism and free debate. Since the 1960s, many people from the Left have overcomed the forth weakness that the Left movement once had - the militant materialism and anti-theism - and accepted anomalistic research, such as parapsychology, and free spirtuality (as Tarquin and Roberta demonstrate). Just three more steps left, people - and then I will really call you "progressives"!
 
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Roberta, Tarquin, after all these criticsms of dogmatic conspiracy denial on the Left, I also want to say something in Left's support - something which you'll like and something, which, I suspect, would upset Enrique.

Neither Nazism nor Fascism nor Sovetism (whether of Stalinist flavour or of its later forms) was examples of socialism or communism - they were examples of IMPERIALISM. By imperialism, I mean a regime which is based on a sacralised political power of the state, which is perceived as being imbued with an unrestrained right of conquest, both external (military invasions) and internal (police repression). It is neither "left-wing" nor "right-wing"; it is "below left and right", an archaic form of rule which preceeeds the capitalist-socialist conflict of modernity. It is a feudalistic atavism.

Once, in the pre-World-War-1 era of largely feudal (even if already, to some extent, modernised) empires imperialism were a common form of power, and was seen as normal. Yet, after World War 1 and the crush of traditional monarchist empires, it is gone out of fashion... yet it did not died. Rather, it embraced the tactics of a rhetorical fraudlence - an usage of appeal to a modern ideologies (capitalism, socialism, or some mixture/amalgam of these two) to justify its reactionary invasive-repressive agenda. These combination of opportunistic pseudo-modern demagoguery and actual atavistc desire of an unlimited power and bloody conquest is the characteristic which is common to Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin. It is shared as well, nowadays, by the war-mongers and police-worshippers, reactionaries and authoritarians of both America and Russia. It drives the infamous American Deep State which always seek to replace a public normative rule with a (semi-)clandestine practice of total internal surveilannce and prosecution, as well as external espionage and warfare. It drives the modern Russian regime and its agression towards its former colony, Ukraine.

The real examples of socialism - and working ones - are Scandinavia and Benelux, not Soviet Empire or Third Reich. And these countries are among the most humanistic and libertarian, being at the peak of human development. While it is not the end of history, and we still have to achieve more - a post-state anarchist society, for example - the Western libertarian socialism is the very best social order that exists here and now.

And anarchism is most likely to arose from the highly developed libertarian socialism, since capitalism cannot be humane and acceptable unless it is diluted with a good dosage of socialist charity and non-commercial social service. The idea of anarcho-capitalism seems all that good in theory, but in practice, I suspect, will become a dog-eats-dog ruthless competition in a style of the early 1990s in Russia - an epoch in which Russia was, effectively, an anarcho-capitalist territory. And the result was elderly people begging for a piece of bread in the streets, and young people bleeding after being shot by yet another bunch of gangsters. If we are to transcend state, we can only do that in a country where the highly developed non-state social networks are combined with deeply ingrained humanistic values, super-high, individually accessible technology and widely supported free, non-dogmatic spirituality. As for now, Western countries like Scandinavian ones are the closest to fulfillment of these criteria (even A LOT of work is still needed).

So, my criticism of three weaknesses of the modern Left - conspiracy denial, consensus science and "political correctness" (identity politics) - is a friendly one, rather than a hostile one. I actually want the modern Left to overcome these authoritarian temptations, give up censoriousness and dogmatism and fully embrace to the culture of self-criticism and free debate. Since the 1960s, many people from the Left have overcomed the forth weakness that the Left movement once had - the militant materialism and anti-theism - and accepted anomalistic research, such as parapsychology, and free spirtuality (as Tarquin and Roberta demonstrate). Just three more steps left, people - and then I will really call you "progressives"!
1) First off, To attribute Soviet mega-genocide to Stalin is a fallacy. Lenin, in his short 8 years in power, killed many more people than Stalin.
2) To call Scandinavian system a working one is an aberration. Have you been there lately? I go there a lot. Censorship, politically correct tyranny, expropriation via excessive taxation, etc, etc. Truly Orwellian nightmare.Now, they are moving to "cashless society", and that is beyond Orwell.
3) Ukraine is a construct, very much like Afghanistan or Iraq: there is Eastern Ukraine, Orthodox, mainly Russian-speaking, with the ancient capital Kiev, which was the capital of Russia more than 800 years ago, and where Knyaz Vladimir baptized the population in Byzantine Orthodoxy, and the Catholic Western Ukraine, with the capital Lviv, that was part of Poland, and is vehemently anti-Russian.
4) In order to see how real the Soviet communism (as well as the rest of them), you have to read Marx and Engels, particularly their articles en Rheinische Zeitung. I also recommend you to see the documentary I posted, it's one of the best analysis of Soviet communism ever.
 
When looking at the historical CO2 levels in the atmosphere, today's 400ppm is on the low end of the scale. The low end. Drop much lower than that.... say, to 200-250ppm, and global flora begin to die from lack of breathable air.

On the other hand, CO2 levels have often been higher, sometimes much higher, upwards of 1500ppm. What effect do you suppose this might have had on global plant life?

If you want to get a first hand look, go to any commercial greenhouse. Most of them boost their interior CO2 levels to at least 800ppm--that's twice the current atmospheric level--because it results in massively improved plant health and growth. Many plants will add as much as 60% more mass in such an atmosphere.

Not only that, climate information gleaned from various sources(ice cores, tree rings, the usual) show that warmer periods are more stable with far fewer violent swings and extreme weather than colder periods. This is because the higher energy levels involved in the warm periods(atmospheric and oceanic heat, insolation, etc) have a stabilizing effect compared to cooler periods, where lower overall energy levels in the system make it more prone to extreme disruptions.

In the Holocene, archaeological evidence all shows that the warmer periods were much more conducive to life and that mankind prospered globally during these periods. The cold periods were harsh, people living through those times lived short, difficult lives.
Within historical times, the Medieval Warm Period was a time of bounty and plenty. Most of Europe's beautiful gothic cathedrals were constructed during this time. Then the "Little Ice Age" struck, crops failed, famine began, and soon after, plague and death. Many cathedrals were never finished, the change was so abrupt that the masons downed tools one day and never returned. Piles of stone blocks and other materials can still be found around unfinished sections to this day.

The point I am trying to make is that warmer is better. It is global cold that really causes problems. And CO2 is not a pollutant, plants love the stuff. More CO2 means more and bigger plants, which means more food for everyone, animals and humans alike. CO2 should be considered a solution, not a problem. Deforestation? CO2 stimulates plant growth like you wouldn't believe. Jungles would return in a season or two, oceanic algaes would bloom, restoring the marine food chain from the ground up, the entire flora ecology would be massively strengthened, which would in turn bolster and strengthen animal life, making species far more robust and resistant to extinction....
CO2 is the breath of life, not a harbinger of doom.

Also, I sort of think the entire debate about whether we humans are causing all the problems or not is moot. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that we are the cause of all the modern day climate change we see. Let's further assume that we somehow manage to rally to the cause and enact every preventative measure climate activists want, and let's even further assume that these measures all actually work as advertised and, as a result, we end up completely neutralizing all anthropogenic effects in climate.
We won't have time to come to grips with the fact that we can't even have a proper victory celebration(because it would require too high of an energy expenditure, plus there's no BBQ anymore) before the regularly scheduled, normal and natural causes of climate change(which AGW advocates claim we have completely overwhelmed) kick back into effect. And since the geological history of this planet is replete with evidence of vast climactic shifts and global disasters caused solely by natural causes, we'll be back at square one, waiting for climate disaster to strike, only this time we'll be completely hobbled by strict anti-energy anti-consumption rules meant to keep the environment safe from destruction by uncaring humans. And it will work, until natural climate change becomes catastrophic and destroys it anyway, and us along with it.

Doesn't seem like a good plan.
It's more complicated than this. But have you considered what might happen with all that CO2 once it gets into the oceans. Carbonic acid dissolves calcium carbonate as you know. Many creatures make their homes out of calcium carbonates.
Rising CO2 due to climate change may not improve agriculture, model shows
Although many people have argued that rising carbon dioxide levels would benefit crop production, a recent model of the effects of increased CO2 shows that it's not that simple and that elevated levels could have a much less positive effect on plant photosynthesis than previously predicted.


Purdue University researchers tested the effects of increased CO2 and warmer temperatures on plant water use. Although increased carbon dioxide and warmer temperatures generally improve photosynthesis, in these experiments the researchers found that pores on plant leaves, known as the stomata, were predicted to narrow in these conditions, reducing the amount of moisture plants release into the air.

Although this change may mean some plants are more efficient in their water use in some arid regions, overall this change in plant physiology will have its own climate effects, resulting in less rainfall in some regions, damaging plants and crop yields, says Qianlai Zhuang, professor of earth and atmospheric science.



Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-03-co2-due-climate-agriculture.html#jCp
 
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Yes, but looking around I'm not finding much that has panned out with these clinton allegations. Those 'fbi sources' and emails for example don't seem to be substantial
I don't think that's anywhere close to true. Look deeply into any of the cases I mentioned above and you'll get a sense for the challenges re prosecution of the guilty in these cases.
 
Well, I'm not right-wing at all, yet I also support A FEW "conspiracy theories" - the ones which pass my personal three-criteria test for separating (potentially) valid "conspiracy theories" from invalid ones:

1) they have specific verifiable evidence behind them,

2) they use falsifiable rational argumentation,

3) they do not require support of reactionary and/or authoritarian ethics and policy.

9-11 false flag / controlled demolition and JFK organised assassination theories are a perfect example of a valid - in my opinion, correct and vindicated - "conspiracy theories" that fully pass the test. Note that both are LOCAL "conspiracy theories" - the ones which, unlike GLOBAL ones, do not require the idea of an incredibly complex, worldwide, prolonged for decades (or even centuries), united superconspiracy behind them. Neither they are based on baselesss, incoherent and repressive moral panics - the outbursts of sex-negative, reactionary, parental-anxiety-based witch-hunts like the infamous Satanic Panic debacle of the 1980s and its "reincarnation" - the modern mythology of Pizzagate.

I want also to remind that some local "conspiracy theories" - such as Watergate, Iran-Contra and COINTELPRO - or, to mention to more recent times, WMDs-in-Iraq deceptive propaganda campaign - were officially, institutionally confessed and accepted, so the very existence of conspiratorial activities in the Western elite circles is an undeniable fact. What is open to debate is where, when, how often, how successfully, for what reasons and by whom such activities are pursued; but, as I said already, insistence that they they do not occur at all requires complete divorse from veridical reality.

And - do you understand that your claim that Big Oil knew about the consequences of their commercial activities for decades and supressed it - in an intentional, organised, clandestine way - is, effectively, a "conspiracy theory" of its own? That's what is especially funny about the critics of "conspiracy theories" as such: they ALWAYS support some "conspiratorial" notions of their own - they just refuse to accept that their explanatory models are "conspiracy theories", preferring to call them "investigations", "exposures" etc. But, no matter what names they use, they still require postulation of a conspiracy - so, they are "conspiracy theories" in a strict descriptive sense.

What makes me sad is that a lot of Skeptiko people are eager and willing to move much, much, much beyond the logically and evidentially valid support of a few conspiracy theories and support many - if not most, or even almost all - of them, including the global and united ones, as well as moral panics, with all their wild and empty speculations, their repressive and regressive implications.

P.S. And, Roberta, I want to ask you once more about Green Party presidental candidate, Jill Stein, and her support of alternative "conspiracy theory" of 9-11 events (which is not just her personal opinion, but a part of her presidental campaign claims). Does it make her "right-wing"? I hope you will answer this time!

Sorry I didn't intentionally dodge the question! I actually think some conspiracy theories have decent evidence and I can see why people acccept them, and I sort of do myself. I don't think Jill Stein is right wing for thinking that. When I made that statement I was more referring to conspiracies that the 'alt-right' subscribe to or that the GOP tend to lean towards. For example many people in the GOP deny manmade climate change.

This debate is starting to fatigue me now so I hope my answers were enough for ya! :)
 
Roberta, Tarquin, after all these criticsms of dogmatic conspiracy denial on the Left, I also want to say something in Left's support - something which you'll like and something, which, I suspect, would upset Enrique.

Neither Nazism nor Fascism nor Sovetism (whether of Stalinist flavour or of its later forms) was examples of socialism or communism - they were examples of IMPERIALISM. By imperialism, I mean a regime which is based on a sacralised political power of the state, which is perceived as being imbued with an unrestrained right of conquest, both external (military invasions) and internal (police repression). It is neither "left-wing" nor "right-wing"; it is "below left and right", an archaic form of rule which preceeeds the capitalist-socialist conflict of modernity. It is a feudalistic atavism.

Once, in the pre-World-War-1 era of largely feudal (even if already, to some extent, modernised) empires imperialism were a common form of power, and was seen as normal. Yet, after World War 1 and the crush of traditional monarchist empires, it is gone out of fashion... yet it did not died. Rather, it embraced the tactics of a rhetorical fraudlence - an usage of appeal to a modern ideologies (capitalism, socialism, or some mixture/amalgam of these two) to justify its reactionary invasive-repressive agenda. These combination of opportunistic pseudo-modern demagoguery and actual atavistc desire of an unlimited power and bloody conquest is the characteristic which is common to Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin. It is shared as well, nowadays, by the war-mongers and police-worshippers, reactionaries and authoritarians of both America and Russia. It drives the infamous American Deep State which always seek to replace a public normative rule with a (semi-)clandestine practice of total internal surveilannce and prosecution, as well as external espionage and warfare. It drives the modern Russian regime and its agression towards its former colony, Ukraine.

The real examples of socialism - and working ones - are Scandinavia and Benelux, not Soviet Empire or Third Reich. And these countries are among the most humanistic and libertarian, being at the peak of human development. While it is not the end of history, and we still have to achieve more - a post-state anarchist society, for example - the Western libertarian socialism is the very best social order that exists here and now.

And anarchism is most likely to arose from the highly developed libertarian socialism, since capitalism cannot be humane and acceptable unless it is diluted with a good dosage of socialist charity and non-commercial social service. The idea of anarcho-capitalism seems all that good in theory, but in practice, I suspect, will become a dog-eats-dog ruthless competition in a style of the early 1990s in Russia - an epoch in which Russia was, effectively, an anarcho-capitalist territory. And the result was elderly people begging for a piece of bread in the streets, and young people bleeding after being shot by yet another bunch of gangsters. If we are to transcend state, we can only do that in a country where the highly developed non-state social networks are combined with deeply ingrained humanistic values, super-high, individually accessible technology and widely supported free, non-dogmatic spirituality. As for now, Western countries like Scandinavian ones are the closest to fulfillment of these criteria (even A LOT of work is still needed).

So, my criticism of three weaknesses of the modern Left - conspiracy denial, consensus science and "political correctness" (identity politics) - is a friendly one, rather than a hostile one. I actually want the modern Left to overcome these authoritarian temptations, give up censoriousness and dogmatism and fully embrace to the culture of self-criticism and free debate. Since the 1960s, many people from the Left have overcomed the forth weakness that the Left movement once had - the militant materialism and anti-theism - and accepted anomalistic research, such as parapsychology, and free spirtuality (as Tarquin and Roberta demonstrate). Just three more steps left, people - and then I will really call you "progressives"!

Interesting post, I agree with the majority of it. I don't share your concerns of the left about identity politics/political correctness (these issues are related to power), I don't deny every conspiracy, I actually think some are likely true (9/11 etc), but others, like the earth being flat, I do not accept, consensus Science depends on the area of Science. The other things you mentioned we still need to work on more then you'd think sadly, in my humble opinion.
 
The other point I made though is that terms such as "left wing", "right wing" etc. are largely meaningless. They have changed definitions over the centuries and decades so drastically that there is no real rooted meaning there. It's an artificial construct, I think, to have vaguely defined polarities and then different "sides" fight over them. For what it's worth, I try to look at each issue on its merits, whether it be a conspiracy theory, etc. without having the filter of a belief system, political party affiliation or any such thing in between.

Anyway, thank you to you and others here for an interesting discussion.

Of course it's a construct. These terms are invented by humans. I prefer the 'political compass, which uses right/left and authoritarian/libertarian.
 
Here is an ex-slave of communism (born in the USSR) who thinks that, too. As a lot of historical evidence suggests.

Nazism was inspired by Italian Fascism, an invention of hardline Communist Benito Mussolini (Editor-in-chief of the emblematic socialist magazine "Avanti"). During World War I, Mussolini recognized that conventional socialism wasn't working. He saw that nationalism exerted a stronger pull on the working class than proletarian brotherhood. He also saw that the ferocious opposition of large corporations made socialist revolution difficult. So in 1919, Mussolini came up with an alternative strategy. He called it Fascism. Mussolini described his new movement as a ``Third Way'' between capitalism and communism. As under communism, the state would exercise dictatorial control over the economy. But as under capitalism, the corporations would be left in private hands.

Hitler followed the same game plan. He openly acknowledged that the Nazi party was ``socialist'' and that its enemies were the ``bourgeoisie'' and the ``plutocrats'' (the rich). Like Lenin and Stalin, Hitler eliminated trade unions, and replaced them with his own state-run labor organizations. Like Lenin and Stalin, Hitler hunted down and exterminated rival leftist factions (such as the Communists). Like Lenin and Stalin, Hitler waged unrelenting war against small business.

Hitler regarded capitalism as an evil scheme of the Jews and said so in speech after speech. Karl Marx believed likewise. In his essay, ``On the Jewish Question,'' Marx theorized that eliminating Judaism would strike a crippling blow to capitalist exploitation. Hitler put Marx's theory to work in the death camps, that he copied from Lenin (the first extermination camp was created by this monster in a Siberian island Solovki in 1918), and, as the documentary I post here demonstrates, he learned to run and manage these camps directly from Stalin in the 30's.

The Nazis are widely known as nationalists, but that label is often used to obscure the fact that they were also socialists. Some question whether Hitler himself actually believed in socialism, but that is no more relevant than whether Stalin was a true believer. The fact is that neither could have come to power without at least posing as a socialist. And the constant emphasis on the fact that the Nazis were nationalists, with barely an acknowledgment that they were socialists, is as absurd as labeling the Soviets ``internationalists'' and ignoring the fact that they were socialists (they called themselves the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). Yet many who regard ``national'' socialism as the scourge of humanity consider ``international'' socialism a benign or even superior form of government.

According to a popular misconception, the Nazis must have been on the political right because they persecuted communists and fought a war with the communists in Russia. This specious logic has gone largely unchallenged because it serves as useful propaganda for the left, which needs ``right-wing'' atrocities to divert attention from the horrific communist atrocities of the past century. Hence, communist atrocities have received much less publicity than Nazi war crimes, even though they were greater in magnitude by any objective measure.

R. J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii documents in his book Death by Government that the two most murderous regimes of the past century were both communist: communists in the Soviet Union murdered 62 million of their own citizens, and Chinese communists killed 35 million Chinese citizens. The Nazi socialists come in third, having murdered 21 million Jews, Slavs, Serbs, Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians and others. Additional purges occurred in smaller communist hellholes such as Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea, Ethiopia, and Cuba, of course. Communism does more than imprison and impoverish nations: it kills wholesale. And so did ``national socialism'' during the Nazi reign of terror.

But the history of the past century has been grossly distorted by the predominantly left-wing media and academic elite. The Nazis have been universally condemned -- as they obviously should be -- but they have also been repositioned clear across the political spectrum and propped up as false representatives of the far right -- even though Hitler railed frantically against capitalism in his infamous demagogic speeches. At the same time, heinous crimes of larger magnitude by communist regimes have been ignored or downplayed, and the general public is largely unaware of them. Hence, communism is still widely regarded as a fundamentally good idea that has just not yet been properly ``implemented.'' Santayana said, ``Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'' God help us if we forget the horrors of communism and get the historical lessons of Nazism backwards.

The Nazis also had something else in common with the modern left: an obsessive preoccupation with race. Hitler and his Nazis considered races other than their own inferior, of course. Modern ``liberals,'' who vociferously oppose the elimination of racial quotas, seem to agree. They apparently believe that non-white minorities (excluding Asians, of course) are inferior and unable to compete in the free market without favoritism mandated by the government. Whereas Hitler was hostile to those racial minorities, however, modern white ``liberals'' condescend benevolently. Hitler's blatant and virulent form of racism was eradicated relatively quickly and very forcefully, but the more subtle and insidious racism of the modern left has yet to be universally recognized and condemned.

Enrique I'm sorry but your whole post is ridiculous and plain wrong. I sometimes forget how powerful anti-Socialism propaganda can be. Thankfully another poster who replied to us both successfully rebutted you.
 
The Small Business Administration estimates that compliance with such regulations costs the U.S. economy more than $1.75 trillion per year -- about 12%-14% of GDP, and half of the $3.456 trillion Washington is currently spending. The Competitive Enterprise Institute believes the annual cost is closer to $1.8 trillion when an estimated $55.4 billion regulatory administration and policing budget is included. CEI further observes that those regulation costs exceed 2008 corporate pretax profits of $1.436 trillion; tower over estimated individual income taxes of $936 billion by 87%; and reveal a federal government whose share of the entire economy reaches 35.5% when combined with federal 2010 spending outlays.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/larryb...cost-of-climate-change-hysteria/#c27608f7ebbe

Regardless dumping money into things often does not solve problems, if that worked our education system would not be so dismal.

Fair enough, your first link didn't work by the way and your Forbes link is pretty biased especially in tone. I agree just throwing money at the problem isn't the way to go. Inaction on climate change also costs money, as opposed to the other problems it costs:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp....sep/26/climate-change-damaging-global-economy
 
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