Capitalism is conflated with Democracy

 The Gringo in Chile wrote to me and said:

Good Morning Bodhi,

As for our new administration.  To me,  it feels like America is making great moves towards global unity.  I am some what confused about our involvement in Afghanistan.

What's your take on this "hot" area?  I feel this Administration is making more progress with health reform and global peace that I have seen during my entire life.  Love to hear your opinion.  

From Chile,

Gringo

My reply: 
The war profiteers own our big media corporations that control the mainstream airwaves.  Anti-war political candidates are excluded during election campaigns from airing their voices on mainstream media.  They are ridiculed and belittled, with character assassinations.  The only candidates that we see on TV are the ones that have agreed to collaborate with the war profiteers. 

That said, Obama got elected with a little help from the war profiteers.  Don't forget, Obama refused public financing of his campaign and therefore, raised more money than any other candidate in history.  A significant portion of his campaign funding came from the war profiteers. 

Now that he has been elected, his campaign promise was to get out of Iraq and fight the REAL war in Afghanistan where Al'Quida is located.  He was never the "peace" candidate.  Now that he is in office, he doesn't necessarily have to comply with the generous supporters that want favorable conditions for more war.  On the other hand, if he crosses the war profiteers, they will assassinate him - DEAD.  If he crosses the peace-niks, they will complain without violence, maybe have another sit-in.  If someone constantly had a sniper pointing a killer weapon at you just in case you slipped-up the rhetoric, what would you say? 

I believe Obama will maintain perpetual war to keep the war profiteers happy while he tries to slip in some popular reforms under their noses.  The same with Wall Street and Health Insurance.  He took their money for his campaign also.  That's why he is approving more corporate giveaways to banks and insurance companies. 

In Peace,  Bodhi

Gringo replied:

Good Morning,

Great piece of work and very clear.  Oh!

Guess its difficult to stay optimistic while being aware of the facts.  

I have no idea how we can continue to finance these wars.  

As a people we must continue to downsize.  Grow our own food.

Be Peace,  share Peace,  just maybe someday Peace will prevail.

Been researching quite a bit about this incredible Che Guevara, as he is so popular with Latin Americans.  His photos are everywhere in Chile.  I started by taking an American, capitalistic attitude towards this guy but after some research I find myself understanding this Man.  In fact,  I am beginning to like him!

In two days we'll begin this 900 mile trip to the central coast....taking the same path that "Che" did in, what, 1957?  I have decided that southern Chile, although quite beautiful, is to pro-German.  Everyone is trying to be white and caught up in this western mentality.

My reply re: Hola Bodhi

Did you mention Che Guevara because you read my comments about him in my blog?

I also began with the usual capitalistic hype about Che.  He is portrayed as an insane, revolutionary thug.  But now I understand that the CIA disinformation campaign prefers to keep us intellectually uninformed, and emotionally charged against such an "enemy" of capitalism.  Additionally, American education has historically conflated democracy with capitalism.  In regard to Che Guevara, they want us all to be Tea-Baggers.  And they have succeeded for 40 years. 

Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism are economic systems.  Democracy, theocracy, plutocracy, dictatorship, monarchy, feudalism, are political systems.  There is nothing automatic about capitalism being a democracy or communism being a dictatorship.  Such is the misinformation in our American educational system. 

On the contrary, when you think about it carefully, capitalism is an economic model where a corporate CEO that usually answers to a corporate Board of Directors dictates all policies from the top down.  There is nothing democratic about it at all.  On the other hand, communism is an economic model in which classically, all the factory workers own the means of production equally, and theoretically all have equal say in the management of the assets and the profits.  That sounds far more democratic to me.  I say classically, because Marx and Engels did not include farmers in the proletariat.  Mao Tse Tung was the one who expanded the proletariat to include not only factory workers but also farmers.  And I say theoretically because the major models of communism in the world today are dictated in practice from a central committee, quite contrary to the theoretical model.  An economic system in which all the workers have a say in the management of the assets sounds way more democratic than the capitalistic system.  How did the disinformation campaign ever convince us of the opposite?