Prickly City by Scott Stantis for June 27, 2018

The current story arc is obvious. Scott Stantis has constructed a straw man and now wants to knock it down. So much easier than addressing real issues about real problems that exist in the real world.

The closest thing we have to a Marxist monopoly is not PROgressives, but corporations buying out and merging with other corporations to reduce competition and revive the monopolies of the Golden Age of the Robber Barons of the 1880’s in which monopolies reigned and wealth was concentrated in the hands of an elite few: Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, Carnegies and Astors while most people lived in squalid poverty.

They had monopolies — which today’s elites salivate at the idea of resurrecting — but they were the opposite of Marxist.

And no, as I have pointed out in the comments each of the last two days, Stantis obviously is clueless about the many significant ways in which PROgressives differ from (and oppose) Marxism as espoused by Marx, Engles, Lenin and, especially, Stalin or Mao (the latter two of which are far more about authoritarianism than Marxist ideology, to which their regimes bear almost zero resemblance).

PROgressive Keynesian FDR liberal economics — which is the closest reality to what the policy proposals of Bernie Sanders represent in reality, despite calling himself a “democratic socialist” — is a pragmatic approach to regulated private capital markets, which demonstrates a balanced approach to economic prosperity with which FDR ended the Great Depression and with which Democratic administrations have been consistently more successful in breeding prosperity than the Republicans who keep bringing us recessions and depressions.

In the Game of Monopoly, there is one winner and everyone else loses.

This is the Republican ideal. We have a few patriotic multinational corporations that win and everyone else loses.

For an example, look at Russ-e-a, ruled by oligarchs who are subservient to Putin. This is what Trump and the Republicans desperately want for America.

And a safety net? Alms for the poor.

.

#TraitorTrump

@braindead: “And a safety net? Alms for the poor.”

I’m pretty sure the “conservatives” would ban actual begging, and I haven’t heard of an “evangelical” church with a poor box. Will they expect the Roman Catholics to take over welfare, or will they try to ban that religion, too?

Who wins? Maybe the species? Rather than Chuck or Dave standing on a pile of human remains calling out “I WON!” before expiring on a hellish polluted landscape.

In addition to all the other problems with this, Carmen seems to presume that the purpose of a game is to teach good life lessons. Why would you presume that?

And why would you think “One person gets everything, everyone else gets nothing” is a good life lesson anyway? I thought capitalism was supposed to improve everyone’s quality of life, at least that’s what we’re told.

don’t often feel a need to comment… “straw man” argument below is valid, but the glaring issue is that she ridicules non-existent stereotypes while ignoring the rote conformity of the right. of course conformity is part of the human herding instinct. no liberals, no conservatives, vote for Hermits…

And Carmen actually IS being really ungracious. When you’re a guest in someone’s home and they ask you to play a game, most people don’t respond with “This game is stupid.”

If Carmen is not careful, her next stop will be re-education camp.

I look forward to the hilarious visit to Carmen’s family, where they’re all in Nazi uniforms, making lists of groups to exterminate.

I think somehow that Stantis thinks there are no games without a clear winner. RPGs (Role Playing Games) such as Dungeons & Dragons are exactly that and very popular. The idea is that a group can cooperate to attain a goal and everyone can be part of the winning effort. The whole concept is about cooperation as opposed to competition.

I hear all the time that human nature is unchanging which is pure hogwash. Human nature can and does change. A few hundred years ago it was considered natural for people to own other people. Men used to “know” that women were inferior and unable to compete with them physically or mentally. The thought of a woman having the intellect to vote rationally was once a radical notion. Human nature has evolved just as humans have evolved physically.

The object of any game is to win. If the rules are stacked against you, then why play? Socialism only breeds mediocrity.

Whereas unfettered capitalism breeds feudalism.