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Mikkey Halsted "Those That Know...Know"
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Mikkey Halsted "Those That Know...Know"
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Christianity: Is it really a white man's religion?
Somebody approached me and told me they just had a conversation with someone who told me a brother had approached them and said they felt Christianity was the white man's religion and that Bible was written by King James for whites people, by white people. What do you think? -
Communism vs. Capitalism
I just watched George Clooney's film "Good Night, and Good Luck" and it made me think. The word 'Communism' has so many negative connotations attatached to it that I openly wonder if people really know its meaning. Whe live in the strongest 'Capitalist' Nation in the world where Commie leaders like Fidel Castro are still cast as villians. Is this a fair assessment? What do you think? 9:04 PM-
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- Anansi the Spider4 years ago
i think first we have to establish the fact that communism & so-called democracy (the US is actually a republic much like Plato's) are forms of government. capitalism & socialism are economic models. where socialism crosses the line into government is the part where most American McCarthyists have the problem. their problem is that the governing body can put a cap on commercial gain. the problem though is that too many unethical people actually steal in the name capitalism. Marx said that behind every fortune is a crime; the exploitation of labor. But my own quandary is how to strike a balance? while socialism may very well be a means of striking economic balance, it doesnt address the notion that hard work should be rewarded with $$.
- Joshua Fontanilla5 years ago
Wow, a rapper that starts a discussion on Communism vs. Capitalism. I'm truly impressed. Makes you wonder what kind of discussion Pac would have had if he were around for MySpace?
At the root of their original meaning both communism and capitalism WERE thought up to be good systems. The idea is to design a system that starts out with goods and wealth being distributed fairly equally throughout the population of a society, this being the only safeguard against tyranny (he who owns the gold, or the material essentials of life, makes the rules, so spread the "gold" among everyone and you have the basis of democracy).
Furthermore, both were thought up to withstand the onslaught that the richer class would surely wage against them. For example, you can't just distribute all the goods, but you must also spread the ability to make FUTURE goods, or the means of production.
Fastforward through time and both Capitalism and Communism have been corrupted so that they both again look similair, but now they are twin devils. They are just words now, they have very little relation to reality, like saying America is a democracy just because we have elections (LOL!). Any country can call itself Capitalism, Communist, Socialist, a Republic, etc. I mean, really, didn't the USSR stand for something like United Soviety Socialist Republics. We don't ever call them a Republic, so why do we call them Communist? Its just a tool to confuse the issue and muddy the waters. The powers-that-be take the name and image of everything that is good and apply it to themselves while hollowing out anything in the institution that gives it any meaning. Like taking the name of Christianity, or what have you.
Capitalism was originally a good idea because if you evenly (more or less) distribute land in the 1700's then you were effectively distributing the means of production. There was a battle between Capital (mostly land) and Labor (the masses) and it was like setting up a game on an even playing field between them, because each had its own advantage:
No one could live without Capital (land, property), but it was useless without Labor, and it was IMMOBILE (you couldn't just pick up a farm and move it somewhere else).
Labor was MOBILE, and could leave one piece of land or employer and move to another if conditions were bad.
This system doesn't work anymore because, among other reasons, it has been turned on its head:
Now, Capital is MOBILE (like outsourcing) because capital is no longer necessarily land and because of the speed in which information can travel and ownership can move as quickly as a click of the mouse.
Labor is IMMOBILE, as seen in the recent debate over immigration (a complicated issue. Funny how the advocates of globalization want to allow the free movement of capital and goods all day, but vehemently fight the movement of people. They know what they are doing.)
Modern Western Capitalism is virtually the same for all intents and purposes as Russian Communism, except it is much more effective in its oppression because it gives the illusion of a just, fair system. A gentleman on one of the earlier posts talked about how much worse Communism was, and I would agree that on the face of it it may seem so (atleast for the domestic populations of the respective countries). BUT, I would argue that modern capitalism is worse than communism in that its a far more effective form of oppression to have a an "elected" official change hats and also be the CEO of a major corporation (like Dick Cheney, for example, or anyone in the White House. Check the former occupations of all Cabinet Members, including Condoleeza Rice) because its harder to point out what's going on, its harder to pinpoint the enemy.
A good analogy is slavery. Few people realize that toward the end, slave owners embraced the end of slavery. During slavery, they had to pay for the slave's room and board. The slaves were their property and their responsibility to keep health to protect their investment. Say it cost them "x" dollars for all the "overhead" (I know, these are cold and cruel sounding terms, but these people were cold and cruel) of owning one slave. When they were "free", but still worked the plantations as "wage earners" the plantation owners would give them less in wages than they used to spend on "overhead". Their wages were "y". "y" was less than "x", so how was it possible for the wage earners to pay for their living expenses? It wasn't. They went into debt, now they were slaves to debt collectors to keep working. In this way, guilt for "wage slavery" was divided up among the business owners, the banks, the government, etc. and they didn't know who to fight against. Slavery had a name, and blatant abuses that you could point to and get people to rally against. This new system was much more sinister. That's the way Capitalism compares to Communism, today.
This is a long post, and I apologize, but I wanted to say one more thing.
Should we them, the masses, try to become business owners? I think its deeper than "black-owned" or "brown-owned". You cannot become a small business owner today without competing with someone like Wal-Mart, and so you will be forced to become like the oppressors and exploit your workers to stay in business. And you will not be able to become a CEO of a big business without selling your soul, so to speak (for example, the sweatshop scandals of Sean John and Rocawear).
As long as we work and spend in "their" system, our paychecks for most of us will be less than our expenses and we will be leached as a community. We must extract ourselves from that cycle and keep our wealth amongst ourselves. "Minority-owned" is a start, but it will never work unless it taps our advantages over the powers that be: numbers of people and control of our culture. An explanation of that is more than I should put in this post, but I would recommend ParEcon, and the like. Remember the Tommy Hilfiger scandal? In my hood, you couldn't wear Tommy without getting jumped. We have to create that against all these exploitive companies, AND have an alternative in Community businesses that aren't ran like capitalist plantations. Rap could be a vehicle for such rallying. I could go on. Thanks for opening the discussion.
- KaSe MuNNy5 years ago
You know, Fred Hampton (Chi Towns own) said that racism is a byproduct of Capitalism. Slaves were brought to the US for those slave masters to make money. I wish I had the whole speech where he was talking about it, but I'm sure you could find it if you look. But yea, shit makes total sense.
- twitter.com/CylentSounds5 years ago
As much as I would like to agree, and do agree that America is fucked up and can be compaired, but Communism is straight up different.
Communism controls the 4 factors of production, (1) Labor (2) Land (3) Capital (4) Entrepreneurial Ability. Where as America allows for the people to decide which way the economy is going to turn. Whatever you need, you make, you buy, you sell, it's yours.
It's no doubt that the Government own mostly all of what they want to own, but individuals have the right to own every factor of production if they want. It's a freedom that we have, and rarely recognize it tho. In America, individuals are allowed to own some of the factors of production if not all, and in a Communistic reign, the individuals are fucked. America may be comparible to Communism, but you gotta realize that communistic reign is terrible on all levels, which is why there are so many revolutions under communism.
Holla at cha boy! Check out my song "FTG" aka "Fuck The Government"
CylentSounds
- Serve One5 years ago
I think that those in power are pretty smart...think of footbal for a minute. To confuse the defense, the offense will call an audible after they see the defensive formation. I think that America is a hybrid...capimmunism. On one hand, they say that America provides equal opportunity. But in reality, there is only an opportunity for you to make the controlling majority richer. This is evidenced on any job application you read, "EOE". They also tell you that buying into their educational system will guarantee you a decent wage and life. Statistically, who gets the higher paying jobs that will make a difference in their families' lives for generations to come? "They issue out our income to control our fate". Let's go back to the emancipation proclaimation. In theory, it sounds good. What were they going to do after they left the plantation? Some who thought they didn't have a choice returned to it and became indentured servants. Their masters made them sign an agreement to work in exchange for room and board. That created the first "job" application. Propoganda is used to create confusion and to have people looking at a picture that really doesn't exist. Look at the war on terrorism. They said they wanted to get Sadaam when really they wanted to get the second largest oil reserve in the world. During this time period, they said America experienced a recession from late 2000 up until about 2005. Who really controls America? Is it the monkey they have out in front, that sucker George W, or is it a group of the wealthiest people who dictate to him what should be done? Of course they are going to portray others as the villians. In reality, they are pointing three fingers back at themselves.
- Raistlin5 years ago
We don't live in a purely capitalist country because government interferes with the "invisible hand" that represents the supply and demand at the heart of the concept of capitalism. There can be no true capitalist society. Also there can be no utopian communist society because government and it's associated bureacracy is unable to handle a fair distribution of wealth and resources under that type of system.
The answer comes when those societies fail to serve the people and something new comes up out of necessity, that's why we need better thinkers. Economists, sociologists, psychologists, etc.
The dumbing down of America is a last ditch attempt of keeping a sinking ship alive by maintaining a fucked up status quo. I'm dead tired so hopefully what I'm saying makes some sense. - Jermaine Smith5 years ago
This is another very interesting topic....I am torn on the subject actually. People have a misunderstanding of communism specifically in the States because the government has lead us to view it negatively. Part of me believes in capitalism because it tells me I can come from nothing and make whatever I want out of my life. But is that reality or is it just an illusion? I mean we do live in a country where the rich get richer while the poor get poorer and although some do make it from the "projects to the penthouse" thats a very very very very small minority. I dont know... Reality is that us as black people in this country might very well benefit better from a communist society in which wealth is more equally distributed. Its hard to say. Good topic
- Mikkey Halsted6 years ago
Great comments. I will finally add my two cents next week. Stay tuned.
- Don Wells6 years ago
First you need to ask yourself "What is Capitalism?" and "What is Communism?".
Look at the root words for both words Capital which stands for money and currency, the bases of our government. And Community. On paper communism is an utopia, a paridise where everyone is equal, but realisticly people are greedy. People will not allow themselves to be equal with anyone else.
"The most powerful dictatorship makes their citizens believe they are free." - Don Wells - Jessica LaShawn6 years ago
communism
( P ) Pronunciation Key (k
m
y
-n
z
m)
n.- A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members.
- Communism
- A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.
- The Marxist-Leninist version of Communist doctrine that advocates the overthrow of capitalism by the revolution of the proletariat.
capitalism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (k
p-tl-zm)
n.- An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.
I believe the foundation of Communism was a good idea but as human we believe in out doing each other. Its the whole crabs in a barell effect we dont want anyone to get higher than us. We want to be the ones glorified for and by our sucess. As fas as an economy goes I believe that if we were communist we wouldnt have as much poverty within our land, equal medical /health care, insurance, and oppurtunity. In a land so mixed with race and culture competition is a beast. I know that we are taught that comunism is a horrible thing in school but to a poor person it sounds like the chior is singing. If we were communist we could have project buildings but since we wouldnt be the only ones living in them the up keep would be required. I could talk all day but I think if our capatolist government reviewed some of the strong points of communism and incorportaed them we might be a lil better off. Lawd my name is gonna be on the black list now. MIKKEY look what youve done lol.
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Martin and Integration: Did it help or HURT????
I know it sounds almost blasphemous, but there are many that believe that Martin's push for integration actually hurt black people more than it helped. What do you think?
WHAT UP DOG WORKING WITH TY HILL WOULD LOVE TO COLLAB ON MY NEW MIX GET UP WITH ME ASAP...
thats all good