Socialist Forum

I would suggest write an amendment that is a mini constitution:

We the people....

OK I wrote the hard part. Whose next?

Posted: 27 Jun 2007 09:52 pm Post subject:

I don't think the amendment can be a mini-constitition. An entire constitution, very detailed, has to be written to define all the major departments, functions, relationships, responsibilities, limitations. Then the constitutional amendment has to say that new document, mentioned by name, has the full authority of the law of the land, is officially recognized as being in effect, or some such thing.

Compare to the provision in Article VI that treaties shall be considered part of the law of the land. Now any treaty can be thousands of words in a separate document.

It's like a computer program calling a subroutine :o)

Posted: 27 Jun 2007 10:24 pm Post subject:

I don't quite understand. An amendment is a change within the constitution. One amendment may affect other amendments. The common ownership of production and the reduction of government roll to enforce criminal law would affect the entire constitution as a whole. A secondary constitution would be for the Socialist Industrial Government as how it would function with each department of industry on a economic level. The civil political government can enforce laws that relate to those who do harm. How much this political government affects the industrial government would depend on unknown factors. I cannot give any example right now.

Posted: 27 Jun 2007 10:38 pm Post subject:

The purpose as I see it, the 5th amendment says that private property cannot be taken away from anyone for public use without compensation. Socialism has to terminate certain property rights of certain people, so adopting a socialist economic system would be unconstitutional. An additional amendment is needed to permit the exception. Without that step, socialists must get accused of supporting "theft." So an amendment can authorize socialism and say that the new workers' network is in control of the industries and all wealth that later arises from them.

By the way, I have read that two billion dollars with a "B" was the value of the private property that was declared null and void by the 13th amendment which abolished slavery. Slaves were someone's investment capital, and then they weren't. And $2B was one heck of a lot of money in 1865.

Posted: 27 Jun 2007 11:43 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 28 Jun 2007 02:18 am Post subject:

yes - the 13th amendment really set the precedent-

Consider this - that every other amendment relates back to the framework of govt - not the 13th. It's just out there stating as law that (that particular form of slavery shall not exist under the federal govt, or the laws of the states and even down to individuals. That was really radical for the constitution to do.

5th amendment "nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. "

In the new amendment:

The people abolish without compensation the privae ownership of the means of production blah blah but that induvuals may blah blah with their own propertty.

Posted: 28 Jun 2007 01:44 pm Post subject:

After all of the wording that the states but not the fed do this, and the fed but not the states can do that, the 13th amendment was the first time the constitution said that something "shall not exist." I don't care who did it, it shall not exist. Would that notion be helpful to the construction of socialism? Whereas private ownership of industries and public services, dependence on such private ownership by the people for their survival and their happiness, operation of these for the personal gain of the owners, operation of these by the private employment of labor, and control of these by directors who are not the elected representatives of the people or of labor, constitute a type of slavery and involuntary servitude, these practices shall not continue to exist. But it doesn't have to be the sole expression. There can be advantages to mandating socialism is several different ways.

Posted: 28 Jun 2007 01:47 pm Post subject:

Dave wrote:

Posted: 28 Jun 2007 02:11 pm Post subject:

Another thing, how often does the Constitution formally recognize any specific activity as useful and necessary to society? It speaks of defense, or impeachment of a bad office holder, etc., as useful, but are there any sections that name and recognize some task that produces something? One of the few examples of this is where Article I, Section 8, listing "the Powers of Congress", authorizes: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." The legal basis for patents and copyrights comes from that. Now, how about a new provision that formally recognizes the significance of labor? Whereas the labor, both mental and physical, of human beings is the constuctive activity which, out of the resources provided by nature, produces all material wealth, public services, discoveries, arts and other goods, the people who perform labor shall be entitled to receive the full benefits of their activities, free of subtraction of wealth therefrom to profit others who have not shared in the labor, and shall be entited to exert conscious control over these activities by means of democratic representation. Perhaps even a little qualification to clarify that the pickpocket art of the capitalist isn't a form of labor. To generate profits by employing others to perform labor and then to exchange the goods derived therefrom, or to profit from the speculative act of buying goods with the view of reselling them, shall not be construed to be a type of productive labor which would entitle the performer to a share of society's wealth.

Posted: 28 Jun 2007 02:25 pm Post subject:

Posted: 28 Jun 2007 02:29 pm Post subject:

Posted: 28 Jun 2007 02:44 pm Post subject:

Since the word "property" is one nonspecific goulash in the constitution, it may be necessary to add some new words and definitions. It has to be spelled out that a industry isn't one of those "personal effects" that is protected by the fourth amendment. Some people today claim that it is. The so-called "libertarians" seriously insist that Exxon owning oil wells and refineries, and us owning shirts and pants, are exactly the same thing. A clearer concept of all the forms of property that have historically existed ought to result in an improved vocabulary for refering to them.

Posted: 28 Jun 2007 02:49 pm Post subject:

We also have to be careful not to allow for loop holes. The means of production should include all machinery and office equipment. Also, no one can operate a business out of his/her residence except those services are under a department of SIU.

Mike wrote on Article 1 Section 8

Posted: 28 Jun 2007 03:30 pm Post subject:

I'm not so opposed to people doing business out of their residence if the tools for doing it are always available to everyone. The degree of availability is a plain idea to me. Its practical for everyone to own a hammer and saw. It's not practical for everyone to own a coal mine or steel mill. That's the gauge I tend to reach for. As for ensuring the inability of would-be capitalists to rob labor, we just wouldn't have a population in state of dependency that causes it to "agree" to such relationships, so forbidding exploitation should be unnecessary. As socialism approaches, The appropriateness of private production on the smallest scales may become a big controversy. I would vote for socialism regardless of where it seems to be going on that issue. I suggest that socialists who see the advantages of winning on the biggest questions be pliable enough so that we can win the big stuff. Then we will have the next million years to keep reforming it.

I just went off and did a search to try to verify the attribution to George Washington for the proverb, "First, lick the British." I couldn't find a reliable source for it, but it still makes a good story :o)

Posted: 28 Jun 2007 03:53 pm Post subject:

Years ago I looked up the meaning of property in some law textbooks. They listed four kinds of legal rights: (1) the nominal, it's associated with your name; (2) physical possession; (3) to receive benefits; (4) to exert control. Not all of the four are required by today's legal system for calling something property. Any one or more of these could be put in writing and then you could go to court and describe it as a kind of property.

Some examples. Owning common stocks, you get some control (vote) and some benefits (dividends), but no possession (a stockholder can't enter the building). Owning bonds, you get benefits (interest), but no control. A mutual fund and a bank account are alike in that you can get profits and get your original money back, but a mutual fund also gives you a vote while a bank account doesn't. An employees' pension fund gives employees' nominal ownership but it also allows the employer to drain out some of the benefits and to exert all of the control. The legal notion of property allows this variety of forms.

Posted: 28 Jun 2007 04:03 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 28 Jun 2007 04:57 pm Post subject:

A constitution is merely a framework.

Think upon this - IF the amendment goes through we have a "democratic" body in the present congress by far - or else why would it pass the thing. Ditto for the state legislatures, three fourths of them.

Look at the present constitution - it says something and gives congress the authority to implement it.

A whole lot of analogy alert heat is going to have to be applied by the people for the federal and state legislators to pass it - probably more heat for lenninists to pass it than dems or reps to pass it. it seems reasonable that the people will keep the heat on to make sure things are done right.

The new constitutional provision can give the people through congress the authority to adjust things once the framework is set. E.G. the Judiciary Act of 1789 (I think) actually implemented Article III - it is the judiciary act, e.g. that the actual number of Supreme Court justices was set, not the constitution.

The genius of the present constitutione is its ability to adapt itself, some say for others to impeorry alter it depending on who does or doesn't like the outcome. Anyway - there is noway to do it except to have faith that the entire people will have sufficient state to make sure that things are don as best as they can for the particular times in question.

Also, I see what you were saying John about different amendment proposals - however this has to be a Analogy alert one shot deal. What would happen if one passed without the other - no can do, Probably need some positive language as to that which is the product of social labor is within the purview of the SIU or workers congress to determine its equitable distribution among the workers with a certain portion taxed for developing and maintaining the public infrastructure .

I can see some more thought is going to have to be given to the relationship between the present political congress and the workers congress - also a lot has to be looked at in have the executive branch more a series of administrative agencies as a separate executive branch. George Bush is giving us an excellent eduction on this - an executive branch that is above the statutes passed by congress - i.e. "signing statements" Both houses of congress pass a bill in a certain form and usually develop a legislative history for courts to look at to discern legislative intent whenever question will arise over a particular meaning in a statute. More and more the executive is viewing itself as part of the legislative process so that both house will pass a bill and their committees will develop a legislative record on the bill usually - now the president is saying sure I sign the bill, but in signing it this is what the executive intends as apart of the legislative process.

George is really setting up a classic confrontation that cannot be reolved except by constitutional authority - in the long long run at least the legislative shall exert itself or simply pull analogy alert the coffin lid down.

Posted: 28 Jun 2007 05:37 pm Post subject:

Hi Dave,

You wrote:

Posted: 28 Jun 2007 05:55 pm Post subject:

By all at once I mean that it cannot be done piecemeal - abolish private ownership of the means of production in one amanedment and then at some other time set up yhe SIU framework.

Maybe this should be termed - watch the analogy - whole hog socialism

Posted: 28 Jun 2007 08:42 pm Post subject:

The SIU framework had better be determined, with even the minor details resolved, before private ownership is abolished, otherwise there will be complete confusion, and there will be severe shortages of necessary goods.

Some of the niceties, like writing a pretty sounding preamble that says society is striving for the free development of the potential of every individual, may be done in the subsequent weeks.

If there hasn't been a constitutional closure, if the workers have already taken effective control of the industries, but the political mandate that authorizes it hasn't yet been circulated to or acted upon by the state legislatures, etc., I would suggest that the political steps should be completed by the book. It's the only way that the social change be recorded into historical records with certainty as the expressed will of the people being carried out. However, I don't think such a sequence is likely. It's more probable that the political mandate will be needed before the SIU lifts a finger to do a damn thing, since this is the only way to make the transformation occur peacefully, as De Leon would say, as "civilization demands."

Posted: 28 Jun 2007 09:10 pm Post subject:

There can be a phase-in written into the constitution that after passage of the amendment ...

I don't know what comes next.

Maybe begin all over:

The purpose of this amanedment is to implement the will of the people of the United States to form a more perfect union; to restore workers to their full station as the actuial producers along with nature of all the material ...

I am getting bogged down here...

Posted: 29 Jun 2007 04:34 am Post subject:

Dave wrote:

Posted: 29 Jun 2007 02:27 pm Post subject:

Posted: 29 Jun 2007 03:04 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 29 Jun 2007 03:05 pm Post subject:

Posted: 29 Jun 2007 03:24 pm Post subject:

If the SIU endorses a particular party with too much closeness, and then if the party does something stupid and no longer deserves support, say, if its top candidates gets involved in bribery or corruption scandals, or if the party moves in the bureaucratic instead of the democratic direction, then the suggestion to take away its endorsement could tear the SIU apart.

Unfortunately, when lovers break up they usually become enemies, instead of going back to being friends. The socialist movement needs to find new kinds of unification that will combine the power of all, but, if it doesn't work out, then we would be no worse off for having tried.

Posted: 29 Jun 2007 03:50 pm Post subject:

Even from the beginning, the IWW's "without affiliation to any political party" was never a matter of pure principle. It always was a way to get those with anarchist backgrounds and those in socialist parties to be willing to sit in the same convention hall. Since I believe that the working class would get massacred if it tried to take possession of the industries while capitalaist politicians still control the violent agencies of the government, I must be willing to tell the anarchists that they're wrong, and if this makes them feel insulted then so be it So I must have other reasons for agreeing with "without affiliation with any political party" -- not to pacify the anarchists. My own reasons are related to how I interpret the purposes and the meaning of success for the industrial and the political kinds of organization. Even with the all the anarchists on the outside and sticking their tongues out at us, "without affiliation with any political party" would still be a helpful guideline.

But I don't view "affiliation" is a strict sense. I'm okay with coalition efforts, such as, perhaps, the SIU and one or more parties combining some money to sponsor a public event or media project. When I say "without affiliation" I mean that the SIU should declare it's position at election time to take mainly the negative form of grammar: "Please don't ever vote for any non-socialist." (Even some of the anarchists might acquire enough sociological maturity to agree with that one.) Part of me hopes that there will be a way to go further and actually take the positive grammatical form, "Vote only for socialists", but that begs the issue of "hey, do you have a list of them?" Yeah, anyone who said they endorse the SIU -- that's the list. So the SIU doesn't have to endorse politicla candidates; it's the other way around: candidates have to endorse the SIU. Any political party that won't agree to that setup thereby exposes itself as having "vanguard leadership" intentions, the signal to the working class that they should be avoided.

Posted: 29 Jun 2007 06:07 pm Post subject:

Again I wrote to quickly. Instead of saying: "One big amendment that transfer the means of production to the SIU and set up the framework at the same time." I should of said that the frame work of the SIU should already exist and the transference of the means of production should be done by Constitutional Amendment.

I understand that candidates have to endorse the SIU but we have to get the frame work existing. We talked of this before that a organization, rather than a union that negotiates for wages and benefits, would exist setting up departments in each industry and learn the management skills for a socialist economy and those council necessary for production and distribution. Not all places of employment have unions. I think it was too much to try to unionize every place of employment. Organize for "Democracy Day" every where determining each department, management and election of leaders. This creates the SIU framework. These efforts should not effect places of employment and employers may dismiss it as flights of fancy. While this is going on the idea of the 28th amendment can be introduced to the SP-USA, DSA, and other Socialist political organizations that do not have Leninist tendencies.

Posted: 29 Jun 2007 08:26 pm Post subject:

Once again the reformists are likely to be a problem, as always. While the real socialists are trying to keep a discussion focused on a whole new system, an endless stream of reformists who think they are socialists are going to be there complaining: "Hey, where's your list of demands like raise the minimum wage and tax the corporations and enact new benefits for the poor?" Their brains apparently don't work like ours. While we can refer to a completely new system and actually stick to that topic for some minutes, they are unable to think of a new system without immediately proposing the mending of the old system.

Posted: 29 Jun 2007 08:45 pm Post subject:

As for formation of the SIU, maybe I'm offbase here, but I foresee the preplannng having to go all the way down to the daily schedule of each worker. Say you drive a truck. It's socialism day one. Where are you supposed to drive your truck to today? We can't jump to the conclusion that it will be the same place where you would have taken then truck yesterday. If your truck goes from farm to supermarket, we can see readily that this is a genuinely useful route, so so can safely do the same on socialism day one. But suppose your truck was full of parts to repair the vehicles that were being used to fight an unjust war for the profits of the oil companies? Now your truck doesn't have to go anywhere at all. So what are you supposed to be doing instead, doing crossword puzzles to kill time? In general, there's no way to know what many workers should actually be doing on Democracy Day unless their prior planning has specifically considered it.

But the greatest potential for confusion will probaby center around whatever work time units we are using for currency. Are the grocery stores even supposed to accept the old paper dollars? The transition has to be smooth enough so that everyone gets their goods, especially the real necessities. Just last night the store was taking the old dollars. Imagine how much preplanning this is going to take.

Posted: 29 Jun 2007 09:17 pm Post subject:

The amendment process has the time to get ready element built into it.

"Hey the Vermont House of Representative voted to ratify the amendment - maybe would should take a look at this - whoops there goes New Hampshire - SIU gee maybe I had better take a look at aht ..."

Posted: 29 Jun 2007 10:43 pm Post subject:

I thought that I had posted something this morning but I must have fropped it. I am looking at "the means of production" we know pretty well that we mean the industrail textile mill not Aunt Bertha's sewing machine so I couldn't figure where to draw the line - hiw about lHows about beginning with the means of production owned by corpoartions and the line - transfer that by amendment and then leave it to the SIU to draw better lines but have protections which say but not Aunt Bertha's sewing machine .

Posted: 29 Jun 2007 11:53 pm Post subject:

Posted: 30 Jun 2007 12:00 am Post subject:

Posted: 30 Jun 2007 12:26 am Post subject:

I need to be reminded -- what was wrong again with the way Marx and Engels originally visualized it?

"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class...." -- Communist Manifesto

Wouldn't that remove the capitalist class from the picture, so there would no longer be an active opposition to worry about, and then the control could be transferred to the workers' organizations?

I think "wrest by degree" could be simple to accomplish, notwithstanding De Leon's metaphor that the tiger will defend the tip of its whiskers with the same ferocity that it would defend its very heart. Simple to accomplish, without even nationalizing anything and thereby invoking the compensation rule. A socialist controlled government could use the legal power to tax any kind of income, which was already established by the 16th amendment in 1913. Apply a 99.9 percent income tax on dividends and capital gains. That alone would make every stock price immediately collapse,so what was previously a $100 share might now be maybe a penny. Then the government could buy up the shares cheaply, and most of capitalist class would be financially wiped out. Now htis isn't socialism yet, but the democraphic groups that was the powerful opposition has been made extinct. Then the government assign control of the facilities over to the workers' organizations. So remind me again -- how do we now that wouldn't be a good way?

Posted: 30 Jun 2007 12:27 am Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 30 Jun 2007 09:07 am Post subject:

True, it seems that the latter procedure that I mentioned would tend to use more of the let-the-boss-control-it pholosophy, compared to the workers' do-it-yourself plan that we have talked about in recent weeks. Perhaps we can generalize: if there's something wrong with a method then there will be something wrong with the result.

Posted: 30 Jun 2007 02:28 pm Post subject:

davesearles wrote:

The amendment process has the time to get ready element built into it.

Mike wrote:

I'll say! It was in 1972 that Congress passed the constitutional amendment "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex." 35 years later, we are still waiting for 3/4 of the state legislatures to ratify it.

davesearles wrote:

beginning with the means of production owned by corporations

Mike wrote:

But some one-person businesses are corporations (any self-employed person whose shingle says PC, or "professional corporation", after their name) and some huge companies aren't (partnerships, funds, trusts, ...)

Mike also wrote:

I need to be reminded -- what was wrong again with the way Marx and Engels originally visualized it?

"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class...." -- Communist Manifesto

Wouldn't that remove the capitalist class from the picture, so there would no longer be an active opposition to worry about, and then the control could be transferred to the workers' organizations?

I think "wrest by degree" could be simple to accomplish, notwithstanding De Leon's metaphor that the tiger will defend the tip of its whiskers with the same ferocity that it would defend its very heart.

Dave answers:

Now don't make me bring out my own metaphor cannon and blast all of your arguments away!!!

Dave continues with a metaphor:

Perhaps we are not on the same page.

I have an open door to any idea whatsoever that I dave searles can actively work to implement that will get us off of top dead center, but it has to have some element of showing SOME degree of progress in the overall plan. Yes I could walk around to every work site in Vermont and see if I could catch someone's ear about setting up an SIU committee. If I thought that in the course of one week I could get one person to stick his or her neck out at work to even attempt to take on such a project I would do it. It will get the person fired and that will be that. So much for progress. Great idea but there is not enough there that I am going to try it. We have to look at our resources.

That is why I tend to the idea of the constitutional amendment. There there is some element of showing progress - the vote tally. If every election there was a thousand vote gain I could at least justify it to myself that the time and money that I would be taking out of our family economy might be worth it.

And I think the amendment might make it where a full slate of socialist candidates would not make it, one main reason is that depending on how the amendment were written I can see is capable of support by left candidates. Hell I can see it capable of facial support by "moderates" "Sure it;s a good idea but it's never going to happen."

We need the text of an amendment proposition that clings like a god damned burdock to collie fur.

The plain 2x4 language that both of Marx and Lincoln were capable of.

ONE WOULD THINK that after a hundred and fifty years we could come up with some text that would express just exactly what it is that we want to implement. Not so easy at all. That doesnt mean that we can't come up with something. All we are looking for is a couple of paragraphs.

My idea of starting off with corporations was not to do anything piecemeal - the problem is as I see it, we would spend eternity if we had to come up with wording that exactly expressed what specific means of production that we are talking about to socialize. Aunt Bertha's sewing machine? Of course not, but how do you make the demarcation is a few words? Any ideas?

That's why I thought about trying to draw the line by who own the means of production. Does a corporation own it? By using that as the first cut you have 99% if not more of the means of production that interests us.

If someone has personal property in a personal corporation that really doesn't affect the process - remember we are not socializing some guy's cigarette boat that he has listed under a corporation for some reason - we are taking about means of production owned by corporations. Farm tractor owned by a personal corporation? It's social. Farmer down the road has a tractor that s/he owns outright? Personal. Tractor with a lean on it from some fiance company? Not so clear. My inclination is to let the farmer have it free and clear.

Socialism as a way of debt cancellation? - JUBILEE??

Hell people would jump on the bandwagon in a minute - have to be very careful of having the idea of social organization lost in the mob.

So Mike and John and the doubtful others who may read this:

IF there was a possible combination of words in the right order that resulted in a not too long text that would effectively describe what it is that would want as far as ending wage slavery AND adequately describing the what and how of the economic framework of the next society -

What would it be??

It would seem to me that if we can't do that, there is very little if anything that we actually can do.

Mike wrote:

Simple to accomplish, without even nationalizing anything and thereby invoking the compensation rule. A socialist controlled government could use the legal power to tax any kind of income, which was already established by the 16th amendment in 1913. Apply a 99.9 percent income tax on dividends and capital gains. That alone would make every stock price immediately collapses what was previously a $100 share might now be maybe a penny. Then the government could buy up the shares cheaply, and most of capitalist class would be financially wiped out. Now this isn't socialism yet, but the demographic groups that was the powerful opposition has been made extinct. Then the government assign control of the facilities over to the workers' organizations. So remind me again -- how do we now that wouldn't be a good way?

dave answers:

In any such idea we always have to look at the actual implementability of the hypothesis.

One thing that smacks me right away is that although there actual income from such is a pittance - the multitudes of workers who have some monies tied up in stocks through pension plans. Of course we could label them all a bunch of anti-social bourgeoisie bastard pieces of shit. But that starts to get anti-productive after a while.

I have to go - but the idea of govt. communes I haven't given much thought to. My immediate impuse its to reject the idea out of hand but of course it takes some mre thought to figure out what in fact is real and what is prejudice.

Posted: 30 Jun 2007 04:07 pm Post subject:

Dave wrote:

Posted: 30 Jun 2007 06:21 pm Post subject:

A corporation means a specific kind of filed legal paper. The owners could have filed the paperwork to make the company called a partnership, and they still can, any time, if they want to, but instead they have decided so far to file the paper that would make it called a corporation. So if it really appears to be getting close that an amendment will socialize the property of corporations, like it seems that the amendment will probably pass by next thusday, then the owners of the company would simply fill out a sheet of paper that establishes a new company called a partnership, which consists of the same owners as the original corporation, the same people, and then the corporation would simply give all of its assets to the partnership. Then if you change the amendment to socialize both corporations and partnerships, the capitalists will file a kind of paperwork that makes the company called an investment trust, and the corporation or partnership will give ths assets to the investment trust. Then if you change the amendment to socialize the assets of corporations, partnerships and investment trusts, the company will file the paperwork so the the company will be called a unit trust.

Can you see the a pattern there? We want to close the loopholes, not continuously generate new ones and have to keep chasing after them.

We were better off when we just said something like: the industries and services, including, for example, but not limited to, the factories, mills, refineries, mines, construction equipment, farms, ranches, fisheries, forests, laboratories, offices, railroads, airlines, ships, utilities, schools and hospitals.

Then, to add the exemption for Aunt Bertha, just append: Section 2: This act shall not apply to equipment that is commonly suited to domestic use by individuals, including, for example, but not limited to, family residences and residential yards, sewing machines, garden implements, hand tools, home repair supplies, and desktop computers.

Best of all, put all of the definitions, with excessive length for completeness and clarity, elsewhere in the law. In some other law, define socially operated property, with a hundred examples, and personal property, with a hundred examples. The the constitutional amendment can say concisely that socially operated property is transferred to social ownership while personal property remains in private ownership, as defined in statute number whatever.

Posted: 30 Jun 2007 06:30 pm Post subject:

I'm not familiar with the word "jubilee" that you guys used here. I thought it meant a parade with brass music and maybe an elephant.

Posted: 30 Jun 2007 06:45 pm Post subject:

What do about the Supreme Court. Just as the umpire in baseball is always right by definition according to the rule book, the Constitution says that the Supreme Court has all power to interpret the Constitution. So no matter what amendment passes, it gets to be interpreted by nine supporters of capitalism who were appointed for life unless they are impeached for criminal behavior.

By the way, look up the book "The Law That Never Was". If the book is right, I should add by way of disclaimer.... serious legal researchers discovered in the 1980s that the 16th amendment which legalized income tax never completed the process of being ratified by 3/4 of the state legislatures. The Secretary of State's official announcement in 1913 that a sufficient number of states had ratified it was in error. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court still upholds the amendment as being part of the Constitution. These nine senior citizens in black robes have more power than the twelve gods of Mount Olympus. Then can take the socialism amendment and just declare that it means the exact opporite of whatever it says.

Posted: 30 Jun 2007 07:24 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 30 Jun 2007 07:44 pm Post subject:

Yes, I don't use the red banner on this web site, because of the negative reaction it produces. I originally got that idea from a friend who is Hindu, and he was explaining to me that his relatives in India display a religious symbol, the swastika, on the fronts of their houses, but after some of them move to the U.S. they don't display it any longer, for obvious reasons. He got me thinking about the word "communism" and the color red.

Posted: 30 Jun 2007 07:53 pm Post subject:

dave wrote:

IF there was a possible combination of words in the right order that resulted in a not too long text that would effectively describe what it is that would want as far as ending wage slavery AND adequately describing the what and how of the economic framework of the next society -

What would it be??

John answered:

Start with that all U.S. Corporations on U.S. soil is now public property of workers and.., and,.. without monetary compensation to corporate owners, stock holders, financial institutions, or any group or persons and so on and so forth... All debt canceled...financial institution, banks, credit unions, etc., will cease to exist...LTVs as new currency...All land with dwellings belong to the mortgage owner without compensation to persons or groups...yada, yada, yada...

dave writes:

Thank you for bringing this up John -

As a worker I don't want the corporation - I don't want it's stock certificates, I don't want it's money. I don't want whatever "business" that it may own I do want the factories, warehouses, stores, "capital equipment" parcels of land that they sit on - that which is actually used in production. E.G. if corp xyz has an office bldg down on lower broadway and the thing is worth a billion, I don't want it or the paper for which it can be sold. Insurance companies finance companies stock brokers advertising firms yadda yadda - they can all remain until the industrial workers decide that perhaps the electricity going to those bldgs is a waste.

All debt cancelled , perhaps we should look at some kind of modisifation of that toward mortgage on houses. I have 28 years to go on a mortgage. So I should get the house and land for free? And the poor schlubs who are in a in apartment becuase they couldn't get a mortgage just get that?

That has to be thought about some more.

Posted: 30 Jun 2007 08:01 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

A corporation means a specific kind of filed legal paper. The owners could have filed the paperwork to make the company called a partnership, and they still can, any time, if they want to, but instead they have decided so far to file the paper that would make it called a corporation. So if it really appears to be getting close that an amendment will socialize the property of corporations, like it seems that the amendment will probably pass by next thusday, then the owners of the company would simply fill out a sheet of paper that establishes a new company called a partnership, which consists of the same owners as the original corporation, the same people, and then the corporation would simply give all of its assets to the partnership. Then if you change the amendment to socialize both corporations and partnerships, the capitalists will file a kind of paperwork that makes the company called an investment trust, and the corporation or partnership will give ths assets to the investment trust. Then if you change the amendment to socialize the assets of corporations, partnerships and investment trusts, the company will file the paperwork so the the company will be called a unit trust.

Can you see the a pattern there? We want to close the loopholes, not continuously generate new ones and have to keep chasing after them.

dave writes:

At this precise moment 99% of all of the menas of production, excluding Aunt Berth's sewing machine and the like is under the ownership of corporations.

Word the amendment to specify all of the means of production under copoeate ownership now or as of as of July 1 2007.

Posted: 30 Jun 2007 09:17 pm Post subject:

I suspect that's untrue for smaller comunities such as Poughkeepsie. I'll bet nine out of ten of the commercial buildings are registered as sole proprietorships. We can't have socialism in Detroit but not in Poughkeepsie.

Posted: 30 Jun 2007 09:46 pm Post subject:

commercial bldgs is not the point if you don't distinguish between production that relates to enabling fulfilment of human needs as opposed to peripheral stuff needed becuase of capitalism - like the building that is either owned by an insurance company or rents to an insurance company. Workers will have no need for such in order to produce the bricabrac of life. So it's not the idea that we have to seize the property of all corporations - At this point its not an issue. I don't see it every becoming an issue. they'll go out of business and the owners and workers in those places will have to be tided over until they can get productive jobs.

Of course this is another issue re: labor vouchers - Even under the best of cirmstances - everyone on the same page - come socialism well over half of the workers are going to be in jobs that are simply not needed. So those who grow the potatoes and the people who make the socks are going to have to continue supplying not only for the productive population but also the nonproductive population until the ones out of work can be integrated into production.

Perhaps we're going to have to work at for a per centage of actual value in LTV. Say if everyne worked there would have to be a 30% discount for public infrastructure, universal health care, training programs, libraies, shared research facilites and programs, etc. Prior to getting to that point wouldn't you also have to discount for the nonproductive workers who haven't gotten into productive jobs yet? Let's be realistic and say that there is going to have to be an 80% discount on LTV return.

Posted: 30 Jun 2007 09:54 pm Post subject:

Does that mean society doesn't have to socialize the little office building of the local insurance broker? Or that it doesn't have to do that on day-one but should do it next month, because everyone is initially busy with more important things?

Posted: 30 Jun 2007 10:53 pm Post subject:

I don't see why we shloud worry about it at all. What's going to happen to the insurance industry? Will that continue under socialsim? Spread the risk of the danger of your house burning down by banking your LTVs? Ditto your ife? I guess so. But since we can't eat what the insurance broker produces, let him/her stay there. The bldg is not used for production so how would it benefit the workers to take it? I think that we need to be very clear as to a line of demrcation so as to stiffle an urge for anarchy. We need the means of production - of actual production and that's what is going to be socialized. I would go further with htis line of demarcation -- newspapaers, TV and radio. Obviousy they are not needed for production when there is the internet - we're not going to take wealth just to say that we can. There better had be discipline in all of this or very easily there could be senseless carnage. Even a drop of blood would be way too much.

Posted: 01 Jul 2007 01:52 am Post subject:

Dave wrote:

Posted: 01 Jul 2007 02:46 pm Post subject:

It's good that we're going through this exercise, but we don't actually have to conclude with the "answers." Maybe what we should later do with this topic is publish a list of importance considerations that need to kept in mind and further investigated. Then the readers of that list will think of some additional answers, but we will prompted them about a few of the issues that deserve to be worried about. Best of all, everyone's getting some practice in starting with the assumption that socialism is actually a practical goal and therefore counting up the nuts and bolts for erecting it. I say that one failure of the socialist movement is that when people were already floating in the la-la-land of believing in capitalism, the only thing the socialists usually offered them was the prospect of floating in the la-la-land of believing in socialism. I support many of these projects that give us practical exercise in drawing up the plans: how the new management would work, how the currency would work, etc. This investigation into amending the Constitution is one of these practical laboratory sessions.

Posted: 01 Jul 2007 03:17 pm Post subject:

Lets look at a possible opening to the amanedment:

We the people of the United Stated do ordain and establish through this constitutional amedment a fundamental change in the present economic structure and legal basis that supports that structure: It is recognized that all the materials upon which our society and the people within that society requires are the product of nature and labor, however ownership the means of wealth production have passed beyond of the reach of the workers to control despite the fact that the workers themselves have built the means of production. The lack of control of the means of production by the workers has resulted in the vast majority of people having no means of subsistence other than selling their ability to labor to the owners of the means of reduction or by living off of charity. As control of the means of production becomes further concentrated poverty of the people increases as more efficient methods of production generally result in fewer workers being employed and a deceasing relative wage paid to the workers that are able to find work. What next?

Posted: 01 Jul 2007 11:34 pm Post subject:

lets put in what Mike wrote:

The industries and services, including, for example, but not limited to, the factories, mills, refineries, mines, construction equipment, farms, ranches, fisheries, forests, laboratories, offices, railroads, airlines, ships, utilities, schools and hospitals.
Lets make sure we get everything in the amendment. I'm going to have to let both of you fill in the blanks. Don't forget, debt cancellation and land dwelling allotment.

Posted: 02 Jul 2007 12:07 am Post subject:

If we go beyond h means of wealth production we have to keep it close to the idea that it pertains to actual production - no e.g. typical legal services, advertising, and other marketing, not the entertainment industry, e.g.

And really not the elementary and secondary schools, and probably not colleges and universities either - the education industry - the "news" industry and magazines

I want to look at bread and butter, basic production, transportation, energy, construction, health care, stuff we couldn't do a day without. He who owns the means whereby I live owns me. Shakespeare understood it. Should we just go with that?

Yes, we'll get to the debt elimination but the biggest is what we want. I don't give a fig for debt elimination without worker control of industry. Although I assume that many will grab at it. Got to be careful of stuff like that.

I was thinking giving the general framework of what we want and direct congress essentially as an administrative agency to bring it into being.

What else can we do?

Posted: 02 Jul 2007 12:33 am Post subject:

So, in essence you are saying just the industries that produce things for consumption? Well, has not a lot of those industries been outsourced out to Third World Countries? I am not saying that those industries are not here in the U.S. Mining coal, natural gas, agriculture are still done in the U.S. but how much is there left of industries that produce commodities? We also have to focus on the service industry as education, entertainment, health care, social services, etc. We know why the capitalist out sourced industries was to keep wages low and to sell high in the U.S.

Posted: 02 Jul 2007 02:24 am Post subject:

I think differently about that. I would vote for social ownership of that little office building that's now used by the insurance broker. Not because society needs that insurance business, because it's a building, and it has land under it, and it isn't a home. The Mason's clubhouse too. If they were meeting in a member's home then it should be immune. Socialism can also make public meeting rooms available for temporary use by private clubs.

Social ownership of the schools and media. To me the yardstick is: can everybody own one? Anyone could put out a newsletter, so that is a medium suitable for private ownership. Not everyone could put out the Los Angeles Times or NBC TV, or operate a school or college, so these are suitable for social ownership.

Of course, the technology is changing the answer even now. It's almost fully installed even now via the internet that everyone can own their own television station, so if the result of my yardstick changes then okay.

However, if Dave's proposal is likely to be adopted, and mine is not, then I will vote for your proposal. It would be selfish of me to impede the attainment of the good just because I have a different wish for getting my own way about something. In this earler phase, when I don't yet know that your proposal is likely to be adopted while mine is not, I generate a different suggestion.

Posted: 02 Jul 2007 02:37 am Post subject:

I think Dave's suggestion also reverses the earlier intention to adopt socialism the whole hog at once. In practice, it would result in a phase-in plan. Social ownership will get that little office building eventually, just not during the first month. Maybe this is okay and good, but it should be called what it is.

Ha-ha! Great idea for a new wall poster.... movie photo of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and below that, the caption, "Creeping socialism."

Posted: 02 Jul 2007 11:17 am Post subject:

In addition to the "services" that should not be socialized I had given as an example legal services, but now that I think more, things like barber shops, small restaurants, small farms. which are part of production of course (not the lawyer) And then look at the insurance person - hard workers to be sure but it's not even a a part of production, nor are lawyers any part of the productive process.

By whole hog I don't mean that in an instant every little shop in the country is going to be melded into the great industrial economy I am nor sure that you even want them as part of it. I have talked about this before - of an industrial economy and a collection of niche enter prizes that take up the slack where "industrialization" would be counterproductive. I am thinking of a certain breakfast lunch restaurant. You wouldn't want to loose a place like that to McDonaldization, even of a socialized variety.

And the bldg. of the insurance guy? Production doesn't go on there. Why would we socialize it at all?

But industrial production - that has to be switched over in an instant. Whole hog as I say.

Posted: 02 Jul 2007 12:44 pm Post subject:

I too have thought about how socialism can and should retain that charming little breakfast and lunch place that auntie and ma and pa operate. But my idea about how to do it wasn't to keep it in private ownership. It was to socialize it but also to recognize that, since auntie and ma and pa and cousin Jethro are the people who operate it, they are also the roster of workers, so when the workers democratically control the means of production, and have self-supervisory power at the local department level, their localized control continues as it did under capitalism. It continues to be their baby, the object of their pride and creativity. The place keeps its personalized charm.

Then in what sense was it socialized? It was socialized in the sense that it's no longer a financial entity. It has no financial income or outgo. It doesn't have any bills to pay to keep operating, for labor, inventory, utilities, or repairs. The operators are compensated by the same labor TLV system as other workers. If the customers do have to pay for each breakfast, which may or may not be the kind of socialism enacted, then the customer would pay, not with green money, but with TLV units, which don't go to into the pockets of the family operators but sink back into society's global bit-bucket. If the family operators decide to expand the operation to the point that they need more staff to run it, adding cousin Tammy to assist cousin Jethro, then those new people become equal partners. Maybe auntie and ma and pa don't want to dilute the control they now enjoy, and that means they would rather do all the work themselves instead of adding new staff members to share the work.

I think my suggestion does everything essential to keep the quaint charm created by that proud family. My suggestion mainly takes awsy the bean-counting aspect of balancing positive-money-in versus negative-money-out.

Do it any other way besides my suggestion and I think capitalism the whole hog stolls back in. Let me demonstrate why. Say auntie and ma and pa continue to be owners as the word "owners" is today conceived. The breakfast shop must have its own financial pluses and minuses. The business has to spend money to pay for labor, inventory, utilities and repairs, and possibly suffer from bankruptcy. (I wonder, from whom do they buy their food supplies -- from a network of privately owned farms and ranches? I don't see how socialized farms and ranches could accept private-business green dollars to make deliveries, because it would have no purpose that it needs to use them for.) The money the business needs to keep operating can only have come come from sales revenues; that is, the customer pays for breakfast. The proprietor and customer exchange money. Where did the customer get the green dollars to pay for the breakfast? It's not the TLV unit that social industry uses, so it must be tradiitonal money, whose value depends on having a fixed quantity, that is, it is inflation-prone and therefore regulated by one authorized printing source. Since social industry doesn't pay people using that green money, did the customer have to work for a private business to aqcuqire the money to spend at the breakfast place? I think we have still have capitalism the whole hog.

Posted: 02 Jul 2007 05:15 pm Post subject:

You made a good point Mike, Ma and Pa Kettle should retain their little operation but under the LTV system. Ma and Pa own the establishment before Democracy Day. They get full ownership of building and land with all debts canceled. Same goes with Joe's Garage. He don't get to make that small profit anymore. He won't have to worry about paying anyone from his TLVs or have to worry about all those taxes. His building and land belong to him including where he lives at. Of all people to be compensated are those who have the small service businesses. That compensation is that they retain their business that offer services. Same with the beauty parlor. I don't know about insurance brokers.

Posted: 02 Jul 2007 05:39 pm Post subject:

It's a discussion for another thread - but I disagree - I can't recall where and when, but I think I wrote here about how this could work bartering LTVs. So except for the typical health and zoning stuff, anyone could set up any kind of shop that they wanted. A guy who ties flies along the Delaware river. They really can't be made up industrially because they have to be made according to the preference of each angler according to how and what the fish are biting at. Some say it doesn't make a damned bit of difference, some do. Or if Swami Mike wanted to tell fortunes - why not? Perhaps there should be some kind of income tax minus legitimate business expenses on such. Make it steeply progressive to discourage rip offs beyond someone just trying to make an honest ltv.

But I am pondering the actual wording of this amendment.

Beyond stating certain facts as to the concentration of capital blah blah - one (I do not think) can set up the entire mishmash in anything under a million pages and the more that you put in, the more there are going to be the inevitable loopholes and factors that set sup unintended consequences.

Let us step back from this for a moment.

There are two methods to get an amendment, both require three fourths of the states for ratification: Either congress proposes, or a constitutional convention proposes. I just do not see a convention being able to even order lunch let alone draw up a constitution, let alone draw one up with the required precision to accomplish the goal.

Maybe congress could do slightly better - however you look at the developments in the last 100 years concerning administrative law. More and more congress legitimately acknowledges that it simply can't draw up a statute with the precise wording that is going to cover every situation without congress having to re-look the matter over every 6 months or so to make course changes. More and more they write up a statute with general guideline and say to an administrative agency - you you take it from here. Draw up regulations within the guidelines that we set and you enforce them as well.

I think that realistically, that unless someone can come up with something better - the constitution is going to have to be written like a statue and essentially use congress as an administrative agency to make the proper adjustment, and even have administrative agencies below them - say one agency for the mineral extraction, one for timber, etc. and then have these agencies hand off authority to the SIUs, almost like charter schools.

Just how far from traditional SLP doctrine do we want to go here?

Of course our present congress could not would not di this - but the idea of this amandement is to write it in such a way tat it will be sed as an agitation device - get the workers to support it and force the politicians to pass it. (Easy to do right?) Oh well, it truly is the only thing that I can think of.

Posted: 03 Jul 2007 02:41 am Post subject:

Posted: 03 Jul 2007 03:00 am Post subject:

Posted: 03 Jul 2007 03:00 am Post subject:

Another thing bothers me. The reasons I became a socialist in the first place wasn't only because capitalism exploits (uses and robs) people. If that were the only reason, the voluntary nature of what you suggest would be all-sufficient. However, I also became a socialist because I believe that profit seeking has undesirable social effects, as varied as false advertising and air pollution and bribing the law-maker and cost-cutting on safety. Your suggestion retains the positive-income negative-outgo balance sheet, and that means there will be profit seeking, as the saying goes, "because we can." Does that also means the influx of the undesirable social effects that go with profit-seeking, regardless of the voluntary nature of participation?

Posted: 03 Jul 2007 03:10 am Post subject:

I think I'm hearing the suggestion to pack a lot of information into an amendment.

I repeat my earlier suggestion that the present political constitution only has to be amended to say that that socialism as described in the new economic constitution is adopted. It's the economic constitution, a separate document which will have to be written, that will need tens of thousands of words to cover everything (and be subjected to many future amendments as the bugs get worked out).

Posted: 03 Jul 2007 03:26 am Post subject:

Posted: 03 Jul 2007 01:09 pm Post subject:

John wrote:

So, in essence you are saying just the industries that produce things for consumption? Well, has not a lot of those industries been outsourced out to Third World Countries? I am not saying that those industries are not here in the U.S. Mining coal, natural gas, agriculture are still done in the U.S. but how much is there left of industries that produce commodities? We also have to focus on the service industry as education, entertainment, health care, social services, etc. We know why the capitalist out sourced industries was to keep wages low and to sell high in the U.S.

dave writes:

The industries that produce material "things" of course including the planning and design for such as well.

Yes they are being outsourced. Once they are gone, form the US I see very little that workers within the US can do to institute socialism without waiting for the Chinese to do it for us. "Service industry" such as education - since the need for educated workers under capitalism is practically nil except for niches that require but a few with certain training I do not see it as strategic in the workers exerting their authority overall anymore than the so called entertainment industry.

Mike what is your take. Am I off my rocker?

Posted: 03 Jul 2007 02:02 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Another thing bothers me. The reasons I became a socialist in the first place wasn't only because capitalism exploits (uses and robs) people. If that were the only reason, the voluntary nature of what you suggest would be all-sufficient. However, I also became a socialist because I believe that profit seeking has undesirable social effects, as varied as false advertising and air pollution and bribing the law-maker and cost-cutting on safety. Your suggestion retains the positive-income negative-outgo balance sheet, and that means there will be profit seeking, as the saying goes, "because we can." Does that also means the influx of the undesirable social effects that go with profit-seeking, regardless of the voluntary nature of participation?

dave writes:

The explotaion of labor - yes I became a socialist for many varied reasons as well. But unless we convince the entire populus to embrace the very essence of communal living from the get go - it's not going to happen right way, or perhaps even ever. As long as one person has something that another person wants this so called profit motive will set in. Simply not facilitating it by not having a medium of exchange is not going to prevent it - perhaps slow it down some. Let it be out in the open. "Swami Mike tells your fourtune 10 minute reading for 2 ltvs." If I'm fool enough to be taken it, there is nothing that is going to change that if the bargain is 10 minute reading for 2 ounces of silver instead.

Posted: 03 Jul 2007 02:13 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

I think I'm hearing the suggestion to pack a lot of information into an amendment.

I repeat my earlier suggestion that the present political constitution only has to be amended to say that that socialism as described in the new economic constitution is adopted. It's the economic constitution, a separate document which will have to be written, that will need tens of thousands of words to cover everything (and be subjected to many future amendments as the bugs get worked out).

dave writes:

Of course I'm going back and forth:

I think that we do need an introduction that very clearly states in general what is to be achieved - ownership if the means of production - however that is worded, return of equal value to the workers as they put in - again wording.

But then not say how it is to be brought about only that 21 days after the amendment is ratified by the last state required - that all industrial property will belong to workers democratically self organized . Again wording of course is crucial.

Posted: 03 Jul 2007 02:17 pm Post subject:

davesearles wrote:

I just do not see a convention being able to even order lunch let alone draw up a constitution, let alone draw one up with the required precision to accomplish the goal. Maybe congress could do slightly better - however you look at the developments in the last 100 years concerning administrative law.

Mike answered:

Are you counting what politicians typically do? The De Leonist assumption is that what politicians typically do will not be part of the picture, because it's the scenario of socialists capturing the state away from the traditionalists. Picture the one hundred chairs in the senate being filled by three republicans, three democrats, and ninety-four socialists.

dave answers:

perhaps so. Then just leave it up to the workers as in my post immediately above. Give them cover of the amedment making the transition legal under the supreme law of the land.

Posted: 03 Jul 2007 02:45 pm Post subject:

I don't know many facts about outsourcing, and I'm skeptical about whether the news ever tells us the truth. The rulers want us to blame economic crises on those damn Asians who steal our jobs because they are willing to work for pennies per hour. Well, duh, it's no big deal to work for pennies per hour when your rent is two dollars a month and groceries two dollars a week. So capitalists perform a trick of paying their business expenses at the currency's going rate in Bombay and setting their consumer prices at the currency's going rate in New York.

I doubt whether this has really sapped North America of production capacity. It has relocated some production in progress, but not our abilty to produce. I don't think Americans have forgotten how to do those jobs.

I argue that socialism won't display its main benefits until it becomes worldwide. Every country lacks something essential. In this tendency to lack, is a product category really any different from a natural resource? Japan leads in electronics manufactiring, making the U.S. a net importer; on the other hand, the solder used in that electronics is 95 percent tin, but Japan doesn't have a single ounce of tin in the ground and must import all of it. So who is really outsourcing to whom?

Perhaps North Americans just got spoiled by the initial "shot in the arm" of being able to rob this entire continent away from the native people, so resources would seem to be infinite for a couple hundred years. It's the strange feeling of returning to normal that people are now complaining about. Gee, you mean that six million square miles of forest didn't last forever? We don't know what to call this sensation of returning to normal, so we perceive it as various kind of trade deficit, of which job outsourcing is one kind.

Posted: 03 Jul 2007 03:00 pm Post subject:

Dave, it's interesting that several of your posts had the new amendment including the "why", namely, because the workers have produced the wealth, etc. Throughout all of the articles in the constitution as it exists today, the only place (that I know of) where a "why" explanation is ever supplied is where the 2nd amendment offers, in the first half of the sentence, the need for a well-regulated militia as the reason for proclaiming the right in the second half of the sentence. Nowhere else does the constitution ever give reasons for specific articles. (Of course the preamble is all the big "why", but it doesn't explain the reasons for specific articles.)

Posted: 03 Jul 2007 03:06 pm Post subject:

Posted: 03 Jul 2007 03:19 pm Post subject:

In any forms of private trade that continue in a socialism system, I would also suggest imposing legal liability. For example, if mom and pop who own that breakfast place use a chemical additive to flavor their food, they had better make sure they're on the distribution list to be informed immediately if researchers announce that this chemical additive causes cancer. Then, if they are still using that chemical several days after the bulletin is issued, I think their indictment for attempted murder would be justified. There's no reason for socialism to uphold the old capitalist practice that nothing is ever a crime if a business did it.

Posted: 03 Jul 2007 03:21 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 03 Jul 2007 04:56 pm Post subject:

Posted: 03 Jul 2007 05:39 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Dave, it's interesting that several of your posts had the new amendment including the "why", namely, because the workers have produced the wealth, etc. Throughout all of the articles in the constitution as it exists today, the only place (that I know of) where a "why" explanation is ever supplied is where the 2nd amendment offers, in the first half of the sentence, the need for a well-regulated militia as the reason for proclaiming the right in the second half of the sentence. Nowhere else does the constitution ever give reasons for specific articles. (Of course the preamble is all the big "why", but it doesn't explain the reasons for specific articles.)

Dave writes:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

From Wikipedia:

Technically speaking, the preamble of the U.S. Constitution does not assign any powers to any entity within the national government,[1] yet the Supreme Court has cited from the preamble in consideration of the history, intent and meaning of various clauses which follow it in the Constitution.[2] As Joseph Story said in his Commentaries, "Its true office is to expound the nature and extent and application of the conferred by the Constitution, and not substantively to create them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preamble_to_the_United_States_Constitution

And for the current constitution is was clear why it was being put forth, from the resolution that had called for the constitutional convention to address problems in the then current Articles of Confederation.

We need a preamble that (SUPREME ANALOGY ALERT) that rings out like a declaration of independence - because that's what it is. When in the course of human events is becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them"

and makes it very clear from first reading that this is the real deal - not a reform - no going back.

or this from Big Abe:

"a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. "

"this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. "

or from the other guy with a beard:

...it becomes evident that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an overriding law. It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.

dave continues-

It has to be unequivocal from just a sentence or two that the adoption of the text can only mean a complete revolution in the economic basis of society.

Posted: 03 Jul 2007 11:21 pm Post subject:

Is it really true that the amendment is something that will need to be "interpreted" in the future? Clearly declare the intent and close the loopholes? Looking back today, we don't actually need to check the details regularly to understand that society has gone beyond slavery or feudalism or monarchy. Has this conversation implied that future Supreme Court sessions might literally review: "Was Aunt Bertha's bed'n'breakfast intended to be socialized? No, that wasn't part of the drafters' intent. How about the Union Pacific Railroad? Yes, we find that the drafters intended this to be included." I think I hear both of you guys suggesting that people will "make a federal case out of it" on into socialism's future. Should socialism continue to use judicial review by the Supreme Court? If so, this is a totally new concept to me. I never thought about it for a single minute.

Posted: 04 Jul 2007 05:36 am Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 04 Jul 2007 10:49 am Post subject:

Yes, very good point Mike-

As you can see I am rumaging around-

One method would be for the amendment to specify the general principle of socializing the means of production - and then it can leave it up yo some body to direct the process.

Or it can specify some chunk up front - i.e. all property owned or fornerly owned by corporations is to be socialized up front and let some body direct from there.

of course the current constitution didn't have to deal with this mainly because it was a product of political entities that were already in existence under the king and were to be an integral part of the new form of govt. - the states.

Unless we want to give it to each state govt to determine what is to be socialized - and I don't see that as working even under the best of circumstances. Does anyone?

Posted: 04 Jul 2007 02:37 pm Post subject:

I gather that the ideas for a 28th amendment in our present form of government is that the government would serve as a transition from capitalism into a economic socialist structure. This is something for another thread but I don't believe that any actual socialist society would ever become a communist one. From what I see from automation is that now machines do more things faster making people move faster. People will always be part of the process and volunteers just won't cut the mustard. The workplace will always need to be organized and someone to direct. I just don't understand why this is so often over looked? Confused

Posted: 04 Jul 2007 03:04 pm Post subject:

By way of interest, that use of two separate words "socialist" and "communist" in entirely Lenin's invention. In Marx's writing it was "first phase" and "higher phase", but either phase could be called either socialist or communist.

Posted: 04 Jul 2007 03:26 pm Post subject:

Let me reverse my previous post, where I expressed some bewilderment about the socialist amendment actually having to be interpreted later on. Suppose everyone needs to interpret it so there will be a a reference or guideline for what they're in the process of doing.

Maybe a lot of problems can be prevented by getting away from the tradition that the constitution only gives a general principle and then leaves it up to other to fight about the meaning. Think about how much argument has been caused by being too brief. Yeah, you have freedom of religion, but that doesn't mean the Navajo tribe can perform its ritual involving the use of peyote. Sure, you have freedom of speech, but that doesn't mean you're allowed to openly disagree with the war policy of Woodrow Wilson. Could it be that the initial implementation, and ultimate routine operation, of socialism might have this experience, where you thought a statement was clear but then people still disagree about the meaning? If so, let every clause be as long as an essay, if that's what it takes to be clear.

But putting all this content into the "amendment section" would result in a mess. The amendment just needs to link to a separate economic constitution. The political constitution should focus on the legislative, executive and judicial branches, and the guarantees of individual rights. Let the economic constitution have it's own we-the-people. I would prefer a sharp divide between the political and the economic.

Posted: 04 Jul 2007 03:32 pm Post subject:

John, you're optimistic to call it the 28th amendment :o) I thought it would be more like the 228th, while we first have to go through another hundred years of pointless reformism. Maybe a string of amendments to outlaw beer and ban flag-burning and ban gay marriage and other political idiocies. I sure hope you're right.

Posted: 04 Jul 2007 06:36 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Let the economic constitution have it's own we-the-people. I would prefer a sharp divide between the political and the economic.

dave writes:

Now we are getting there. Start it off - get us beyond we the people.

Posted: 05 Jul 2007 12:07 am Post subject:

How about starting a bullet list of some things that we now recommend should be in the new we-the-people, although, in the future, a properly democratically elected committee (with writing skills) can find the flowery language.

* that, for a long time, the working class has built and operated the industries, produced the goods and services, and yet nonproductive owners have ruled over them;

* that this situation has produced numerous problems for society, some merely inconvenent but others very intolerable;

* that the new social system is intended to removed the hazards and injustices, and, in their place, provide general security and prosperity;

* that the new society will promote the dignity of every human being, offer each individual the means to develop personal potential, guarantee personal liberty to all, provide all people with the enabling means for happiness and peace.

Posted: 05 Jul 2007 01:24 am Post subject:

Flowery language is something lawyers and propagandist are good at but do continue it is interesting.

Mike wrote:

Posted: 10 Jul 2007 03:19 pm Post subject:

How about this for a beginning?? -

Upon adoption of this amendment:

The workers shall have an unalienable right to all of what they as a whole produce. To secure that right the workers shall form into a single union democratically organized generally along industrial lines, of which all workers shall be a member. That union shall determine what goods and services are to be produced, how they are to be produced and how they are to be distributed.

I. In concert with the above individuals shall have the following rights:

a, b, c, ......

full employment, participation in decisions, etc

II. In addition the following apply:

A, B, C, .....

Cancellation of debts - authorizing labor vouchers as a medium of exchange - possession of residential property etc

III. relationsip between SIU with federal and state govt.

.....

Posted: 10 Jul 2007 06:48 pm Post subject:

I wonder, when we refer to the workers receiving all that they produce, if that only has meaning to those who already agree wth us. A supporter of capitalism also says that workers shuold receive all they produce, which, they say, is achieved when workers receive very little, since labor is only a minor contribution, and the capitlaist gets most, since the leadership of the capitlaist is, according to them, the major type of productive work. They actually say that! This is why Spencer said that the intensity of slavery is the proportion that producers have to yield to nonproducers, and the SLP quotes him out of context because Spencer was saying this in defense of capitalism. Similarly, all of Lincoln's comments about some have labored and other have, without labor, appropriate the fruits of other people's labor. He was saying this in favor of the capitalist, that is, when he said labor he meant the "long hours at the office" on the part of the capitalist. Again, the SLP makes clever use of these quotes by quoting him out of context. We say that producers are entited to all that they produce -- The Libertarian Party says exactly the same thing, but means something entirely different. Even fascists use this motto. Anyway, my point. Maybe we need to reconsider if we have really been saying anything by this phrase for so many years, or are they words that anyone can think vindicates themselves, like saying "for the people"? Without the whole argument that the work of the capitalist is socially useless, a form of the work of a thief, everyone nods at the phrase but mean something different.

Posted: 10 Jul 2007 06:55 pm Post subject:

Posted: 10 Jul 2007 07:04 pm Post subject:

Your idea of starting right off with a list of rights could be the best way . It shows that individual rights are with it all about. Maybe stick happiness in there somewhere too -- it's nonspecific, but it still says that the experience of the individual in important. Efficiency is only a means.

Posted: 10 Jul 2007 07:14 pm Post subject:

A thing that has to be considered at some point: should the constitution be a rarely amended thing that leaves details out, or should it be a cocstantly amended thing that includes details? On the side of details, it might say, based on demographic proportions, the all-industry congress shall include two representatives of shipbuilding workers but fifteen representatives of farm workers. Put that level of detail in there, and then, everytime it gets tinkered with numerically, that's another amendment. (Not an amendment to the U.S. constitution, but an amendment to the SIU charter.) Is that a good way? I think it has to be that way, because it wouldn't make sense for each current session of the all-industry congress to decide on its own form of constituency.

Posted: 10 Jul 2007 10:17 pm Post subject:

davesearles wrote:
III. relationsip between SIU with federal and state govt.

Mike wrote:
I'm still unconvinced that there should be one. Yeah, the government outlaws murder, and then there's a government relationship with industry in the sense that people aren't allowed to commit murder at work, just as much as they aren't allowed to do in the street or anywhere else. I think that's called "it goes without saying." Beyond that, we may have generated a few elements of "here's one possible way" and "here's another possible way", but we didn't get too close to a consensus.

Dave writes: Be one what? A relationship? A SIU? or a state and federal govt?

Posted: 10 Jul 2007 10:48 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

A thing that has to be considered at some point: should the constitution be a rarely amended thing that leaves details out, or should it be a cocstantly amended thing that includes details? On the side of details, it might say, based on demographic proportions, the all-industry congress shall include two representatives of shipbuilding workers but fifteen representatives of farm workers. Put that level of detail in there, and then, everytime it gets tinkered with numerically, that's another amendment. (Not an amendment to the U.S. constitution, but an amendment to the SIU charter.) Is that a good way? I think it has to be that way, because it wouldn't make sense for each current session of the all-industry congress to decide on its own form of constituency.

dave writes.

Good point.

I assume the SIU will have its own charter or constitution just as the states write up their own and what is ussually done with such a document is that it's made to not be able to amnended pdq. In an exteme case the Vermont constitution has an amendment possibilty window only once in ten years. That is extreme but as a practical matter you can't change the basic rules everytime you can muster a majority even a super majority vote.

But now let me really shake things up here by attacking a basic notion-

Who said that it would be by industry - each industry having representatives??

This industrail lines thing came from Deleon in BQTU and before that from LHMorgan?? Talking about govt organized around the tool of production?

We need to track that down some but well hell the tool of production is the computer, energy, the "information highway" (More like a parkinglot with cars going every which way). Anymore other tools are looked at only incidentally as part of the overall tool organiztion. This industrail organization stuff looks clear with 1890s through the 1940s tools, but less and less now.

I know that we need to be organized at work - teams, direction, responsibility etc. It would almost amke as much sense for small coopertives to be formed to take on some task or series of tasks identifed by planning and each coopertive taking on its own governance. And each of these cooperatrive having its own planning/research function not only for interior consumption but to pass to the outside as well. So not based upon industrial LINES - you see how those metaphors always screw us up?

Posted: 11 Jul 2007 03:04 am Post subject:

Posted: 11 Jul 2007 03:21 am Post subject:

Posted: 11 Jul 2007 03:37 am Post subject:

Posted: 11 Jul 2007 02:56 pm Post subject:

the government union relationship

Constitutionally do we have to address the specifics of the relationship?

Can we institute socialism with the current basic struction of govt still in tact? Can a worker elected political congress deal twith this? But just as the 5th and 14th amendment guaranteee at least some seperation between the function of political govt and provate proerty - ought there be something similar in the worker democracy amendment? I think that there should. What is the million dollar question it seems.

dave

Posted: 11 Jul 2007 03:09 pm Post subject:

And going back to organizing around the tool of production - is Deleon the only one to talk abot this? I have to sift through some more of Debs. He and our Dan did have a lot of similar verbiage - Gene a little more rivitng speaker I think, reading his stuff.

Posted: 11 Jul 2007 07:25 pm Post subject:

Dave wrote:

Posted: 12 Jul 2007 05:34 pm Post subject:

[quote="davesearles"]is Deleon the only one to talk abot this?quote]

Don't know. If you bump into some others, please let us know.

But was it De Leon as much as it was the SLP writers who came after him?

We always did like to pick and choose. For example, Marx says something only one or twice, and in some obscure place, and then some of us go on and on about it as though it's Marx's whole story. For instance, that "first phase" and "higher phase" issue, or "alienation" -- all mainly material that got picked out of Marx's discarded scrap paper after he was dead.

I wonder if we're doing almost the same thing on this issue. There are a couple utterances from De Leon. Then it seems to be Petersen and Hass who really dwelled on it. De Leon, a sentence here and a sentence there. Petersen and Hass, a hundred pages here, and hundred pages there.

This is just a curiosity. Whether an idea is right or wrong really doesn't depend on who said it. I'm just wondering.

Posted: 12 Jul 2007 05:41 pm Post subject:

Posted: 12 Jul 2007 05:55 pm Post subject:

Posted: 12 Jul 2007 06:12 pm Post subject:

Posted: 12 Jul 2007 06:23 pm Post subject:

Posted: 12 Jul 2007 06:57 pm Post subject:

No don't confuse a platform with a constitution. No supreme court would even bother to have themselves sworn in if they had to adjudicate "purisut of happiness" respect for the envirment yadda yadda. This stuff is supposed to be addressed by the standing govt. "political questions" but you can't have a amendment to guarantee the vague. A term like due process is way hard enough.

Posted: 12 Jul 2007 09:29 pm Post subject:

I thought it was the other way around - that the Constitution was intended to be entirely vague. "unreasonable searches and seizures" ... "cruel and unusual punishment" ... "Congress shall pass no law respecting" .... I always wondered: did they set out to be a confusing as possible? That the kind of vaguery a six-year-old gives when a parent asks, "Who broke the lamp?"

Posted: 12 Jul 2007 10:12 pm Post subject:

I have a particular idea of how personal freedom has to be legislated. The idea of rights has to be self-referential, defined in terms of itself: People have the right to do anything as long as they don't infringe on the rights of others. That's clearly a recursive definition. It also starts out empty, and it has to be filled in by increments. In order to make it a cirme to kill, we must have the right to live. To make it a crime to steal, we must have the right to property. Little by little, it gets filled in, so then it actually has some content to say: you have the right to anything you want, as long as you don't infringe on the rights of others.

Once it's filed in sufficiently, with freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and many more, now you can test something against it. Take any test question: should smoking marijuana be legal? It's entirely obvious that the answer is yes, because anyone can go down the list in sequence. Does smoking marijuana violate another person's right to religion? No. Does smoking marjuana violate another person's free speech? No. Keep checking until you get to the end of the list. You have reached the end without finding any right of another person being violated by the action, so the obvious answer is that smoking marijuana should be legal. So why do some people come to a different conclusion, and want the act to be illegal? Only because they don't accept the premise, "you have the tright to do anything as long as you don't infringe on the rights of others." They don't accept the recursive or self-referential definition of human rights.

The self-referential definition of freedom is initially empty. The initial emptiness is replaced by substance only by giving examples. Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, etc. -- these are examples. The enumeration of rights shouldn't be construed as "the list of our rights", but, rather, some of the examples that are provided to illustrate whatever general principle is behind them all. These rights, speech, religion, and more, must have something in common, and whatever they have in common is the point to be communicated, and these are only several examples which hopefully will help the Supreme Court to arrive at the general principle by inductive thinking.

Unfortunately, the legal scholars today won't recognize that there must be something more general behind the enumerated rights. They think that it's a complete list of all of our rights. That allows the government to outlaw anything that isn't specifically listed. If Congress were to legislate that anyone who scratches their ear shall get life in prison, today's legal scholar would say that the law is constitutional, since the act isn't among the very short list of protected acts in the Bill of Rights.

The ninth amendment even says that the enumeration of certian rights doesn't mean that we don't also have additional rights. The ninth amendment has been almost totally ignored ever since it was passed! Laywers have gone before the high court and cited the ninth amendment, and the nine demigods have acted as though those petitioners were talking Martian.

I want the opposite kind of system. I don't like the system in which the government can ban any act as long as it's not on the list of constitutionally allowed acts. I want a system in which an act is allowed unless it's on the list of constitutionally banned acts. I want a system in which the burden of proof is on those legislators who would like to outlaw it.

This requires two things. The first is a self-referential definition of freedom: the individual has the right to do anything that doesn't infringe onthe rights of others. The second is a very long list of examples of individual rights, making it clear that they are only examples, and not a complete list of allowed actions.

That's why, in my previous post, I mentioned health and safety, environmental conservation, etc. These are examples of something more general, but the generality is very difficult and perhaps impossible to define. The more examples we give the easier it is to understand it inductively.

A constitution should list hundreds of individual rights. It should also point out it is not a complete list of rights, but a list of some examples of the general kind of things that people have rights to.

Posted: 13 Jul 2007 10:40 pm Post subject:

Yes you are right about the vague terms but they only apply to small areas Due process of law comes up in the adjudication of property and liberty rights. Cruel and Unusual punishment same. Equal protection it's a narrow guarantee. And courts a generally good are keeping these meanings from going all over the place. A court would look at something like respect for environment or something like that as "precatory language"

There's a new word for you. They wouldn't even try to enforce it.

Posted: 14 Jul 2007 01:33 am Post subject:

Some have said that's one of the reasons for the absense of freedom in the USSR. Freedom of speech and freedom of religion were supposedly guaranteed by their constitution only as vague wishes (precatory and not mandatory). Supposedly, these rights are more narrowly defined in the U.S. Somehow, in the U.S. freedom of speech actually means that the police are prohited from arresting me because they didn't like my speech. In the Soviet system, they would say that freedom of speech is guaranteed, then I make a speech and get arrested anyway. Is the reason for the difference between the two countries in the wording in these respective constitutions. I don't think so. More generally, it's the assumption in U.S. law that once the constitution says something then we literally have to obey it. In the U.S., the government can also take away our freedom of speech but they do it by generating a few thousand words to distort the meaning of it. In the Soviet system, they didn't even have to do that, but just brush it off as "rights" meaning only that society hopes to move in the direction of some pleasant future.

The problem with that whole inerpretation is that it ignores occasions in which the U.S.constitution is ignored as well. The 13th amendment says "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist...." Fact: when a judge issues an injunction against a strike, workers who don't show up for work are jailed. Important - I didn't say "get fired"; I said "are jailed." You didn't show up at work on Monday by 8 o'clock so an arrest warrant was issued. So to those who believe that difference between the U.S. Soviet constitutions was that articles are mandatory in the first but precatory in the second, they have some explaining to do. Why aren't officials in the U.S. bound by the prohibition of involuntary servitude?

An interesting thought experiment. Suppose, in addition to the present wording, "slavery and nvoluntary servitude shall not exist in the U.S. or any place subject to their jurisdiction" ... suppose that it had been written to go on to say: "Article 2: "Therefore, anyone who enacts or cooperates with any form of involuntary servitude, such as implementing military conscription or enforcing injunctions against strikes, is guilty of high treason." Now it would appear to be less precatory and more mandatory. Oh, you mean we are actually enjoined against adopting involuntary servitude? Gee, when it said it "shall not exist", it actually meant that we weren't allowed to bring it into existence?

After my long ramble above , I had better sum up my point:

U.S. oficials are, and always have been, capable of ignoring their own constitution whenever convenient. It's not merely endemic to the "rights" suposedly guaranteed in the USSR.

Posted: 14 Jul 2007 01:50 am Post subject:

I got off on that tangent because you said that, if protection of the environment were in the constitution, it would be regarded as precatory.

Yes, "environment" would be, but can't it be made more specific and therefore more enforcable?

Somewhere in a long list of enumerated rights ...

...

57. The right to a healthy environment.

[subheadings of the above]

57a. The availability of free and unlimited medical care.

57b. The purity of food, water and air, without the addition of disease-causing ingredients.

Of course, there's more to "environment" than health and safety. The policy of not wasting limited resources is also "environment". I wouldn't know how to express that.

Posted: 14 Jul 2007 01:04 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Somehow, in the U.S. freedom of speech actually means that the police are prohited from arresting me because they didn't like my speech.

It took the courts a long time to get to that point.

There was a right to protection from the federal govt. but not the state - the 14th amedment was begrudignly exapanded in the 1930s to cover a few fundamental rights.

For the vast vast majority of what we usually think of as rights under the constitution the courts view as political rights. Boys and girls you want better education or in fact any education at all for your children? Go out and elect some representives to give that to you. if you can't do that don't come to us." How people end up in court usually is when the political right is improperly denied to an individual when it is given to the group.

I need to address some more of your points but I also need to mow some grass.

dave

Posted: 14 Jul 2007 07:12 pm Post subject:

In principle, the "strict constructionists" are right about that. It's better that acts of elected representatives rather than acts of life-appointees define our rights . However, and I suspect that this is a coincidence, it has often been true in practice that those life-apppointees have often been more libertarian than elected representatives, particularly if people have to wait for the some of the southerners.

Posted: 14 Jul 2007 07:34 pm Post subject:

I think this goes under the would-be-funny-if-it-weren't-tragic category....

It's remarkable that scholars actually have to speak of Hugo Black, "Oh, he was that Supreme Court justice who used to argue that, where the Constitution says 'Congress shall make no law' that it literally means 'Congress shall make no law.'"

That which should always go without saying is so rare that it's news.

Posted: 14 Jul 2007 11:51 pm Post subject:

Mile wrote"

In principle, the "strict constructionists" are right about that. It's better that acts of elected representatives rather than acts of life-appointees define our rights .

Dave writes:

I haven't actually studied this (therefore my opnion shall not be prejudiced) but I think that "strict construction" does not exist. Becuase the founders as you note did not write in language in many instances that was capable of transferring a strict meaning. Remember this was the first time it was done - a written constitution. I am going to look into this some more.

Posted: 15 Jul 2007 05:26 am Post subject:

Some phrases genuinely require interpretation because of the way language is, and other phrases require interpretation only because law-makers refuse to obey the constitution.

The prohibition of "unreasonable searches" is unclear to the point of uselessness. I'm sure all tyrants consider their searches to be "reasonable."

"Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohbiting the free exercise thereof" is not that vague; in fact, I border on the viewpoint that it's crystal clear, and the supposed vagueness is a politicians' lie. Since Timothy Leary believed that LSD would allow people to see God, and using it was his religious sacramant, he had the constitutional right to use it. To deny that conclusion is hypocrisy.

"Unreasonable searches" ... "Congress shall make no law...."

Compare the word "unreasonable" to the word "no." Note the difference in the degree of vagueness.

In the first case, the debate is genuine. "Unreasonable" doesn't only seem vague; it actually is. Even if politicians were honest and sincere.

In the second case, "no law" is quite precise. Timothy Leary could be persecuted because the law-makers simply found it inconvenient to obey the constitution and therefore ignored it.

Posted: 15 Jul 2007 05:30 am Post subject:

Here's one I love: when the constitution says that the government can't take away your rights "without due process."

They can do it if they want to, but then they would have to fill out a little bit of paperwork first.

Posted: 15 Jul 2007 05:42 am Post subject:

Here's a little addition that would really add teeth to a Bill of Rights:

Section 1: Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging freedom of speech or of the press, or the right to assemble and petition for redress of grievances.

Section 2: Any legislator who enacts or votes to enact any law which contradicts Section 1, or any judge or district attorney or law enforcement officer who enforces or attempts to enforce any law which contradicts the Section 1, shall be punished by a term of imprisonment of not less than forty years.

Posted: 15 Jul 2007 10:41 am Post subject:

Wow we've hit the mother lode here.

I am going to have to deal with these things bit at a time - you are putting so must stuff out there at once.

The religion and Timmothy Leary thing.

No absolutely not.

"prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

You may shoot someone out of exercising your religion? No I don't think that anyone would say that is what it means.

If it doesn't mean that you can shoot someone, what does it mean?

Free exercise means that you can violate any statute or common law provision?

I know this isn't what idealists or anarchists think is what the constitution ought to be about - but actually the free practice right is pretty mundane because it gets applied in the opposite direction. Whatever you do is subject to state and federal laws EXCEPT that whatever you do cannot be made illegal because of you practicing your religion. They can't make certain practices illegal simply becuase of their religious implications in yours or someone else's religion. (Also there is a privacy issue which arguably is implicated in a generalized substantive privacy right.) e.g. it's generally recognized, I think that you don't have to tell anyone in general what your religion is. (I asserted this right in court one time and the judge backed right off.) Whether that's 1st or privacy or some combination is academic.

Posted: 15 Jul 2007 12:36 pm Post subject:

More thoughts on a proposed constitutional amendment:

The only thing that can guarantee the success of the amendment is the workers active participation in the union under it. Now assuming that we are in fact at some point going to seriously propose amending the constitution , it cannot go anywhere without two thirds support in both houses of the political congress. So like it or not during the birth of the SIU government- the US Congress if going to have to pass enabling legislation - I just don't see it any other way - although I wish someone would convince me of the opposite - that the amendment can contain the whole set of instruction for the workers to set this up without reference to the outside.

Assuming the former to be the case then as in some amendments a phrase congress has authority to pass legislation to implement this amendment or maybe more directory - congress shall implement this amendment by apropropriate legislation. (this last part, I'll have to see if any of the state's constitution has this type of phrase in t. I don't think that there is one in the federal.

Posted: 15 Jul 2007 01:48 pm Post subject:

Posted: 15 Jul 2007 02:10 pm Post subject:

OK now I see what you are saying - now what do we do - rewrite the constituion as presently written but alter it to have socialsm AND THEN deal with issues of being assaulted etc. afterward - or is this all one unit. If it is all one. I can't make yself think that the whole magilla can be changed like that - and the biggest stumbling block can be something like abortion. If we have to wait for consensus on that - NEVER EVER gonna happen. And believe me someone will take that provison and say that either it inlocudes the rights of fetus or that it will be bottled up interminable until that is added. They did this in Vermont. They wanted to get a parental agreement bill for minors to get a tatoo. They turned that into a parential notification argument for inors to obtain an abortion so they strangled the bill to death. And truth be known they practically all wanted the bill for the parential agreement for mnors to get tattoos but becuase it was too delicious of a toll yo use in the anti abortion crusade they crushed it.

Posted: 15 Jul 2007 02:22 pm Post subject:

One step further:

1. Negative rights -- the right to be free of something (being killed, being enslaved). This is "negative" in the sense that is the right to be within a reality in which a certain thing doesn't exist around us.

2. Positive rights -- the right to do something (speech, religion) This is positive in the sense that it is the right to bring a thing or action into existence.

Negative rights are the more important kind and must be expressed in the more absolute words.

Positive rights must be conditional. Your right to throw that stone is not as fundamental as my right not to be hit by that stone.

One more category for completeness:

3. Dave recently reminded us about precatory rights. These are logically equivalent to the asserted rights to "have". They are arguable. We may argue that we have the right to health care and education, and someone else may argue that we don't. These goals of having something are more difficult to express in a mandatory form.

---

Failure to understand these basic classifications has caused all sorts of disputes. Consider the prohibition of alcohol (the Volstead Act of 1919). The prohibitionist is saying, in effect: I have the inalienable right to exist in a world in which all other people are always sober. When we realize in this way what their claim is logically equivalent to, it becomes clear that they arbitrarily pulled it out of their butt.

Posted: 15 Jul 2007 02:51 pm Post subject:

Posted: 15 Jul 2007 03:10 pm Post subject:

Posted: 16 Jul 2007 02:23 am Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 16 Jul 2007 04:21 pm Post subject:

I think the age in which Leninists introduce dictatorships is over. The ongoing danger from Leninists is that they mislead people and cause the majority to be unwilling to listen to the democratic concept of socialism.

Posted: 17 Jul 2007 04:32 am Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 17 Jul 2007 06:04 am Post subject:

I don't know much about Lenin's theoretical writing, but he actually attained the position of a national leader. That means he wasn't limited to being remembered only by his dreams -- he was actually in a position to be remembered by the way he ran a country. What a rare opportunity for anyone. Any then what did he do with that opportunity? He established the firing squads, the iron curtain of secrecy, the police spying on citizens, an atmosphere of fear. He established the rigged "elections" with only one name on the ballot (now we know where Saddam got that idea from). All this -- after an actually uprising by idealistic workers and peasants against a monarch. Perhaps we could say of it, never before such a great potential utterly wasted so quickly.

Posted: 17 Jul 2007 04:31 pm Post subject:

It was a waste from what I read. So many wanted socialism from peasants to workers. I haven't got to the part where Lenin took over. It is just beyond my comprehension that people still want to be Leninist and be rulers. I believe it may have to do with Lenin believing workers could not become class conscious. workers could only establish trade union consciousness. What I read Lenin did not trust peasants or most workers. What you listed in your post just proves how much propaganda can be used against socialism from Lenin and Stalin's action. It gonna be very very hard to convince people how democratic socialism could be.

Posted: 17 Jul 2007 07:40 pm Post subject:

Posted: 17 Jul 2007 07:55 pm Post subject:

This is where I read about Locke's influence on Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton ....

Posted: 17 Jul 2007 08:37 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 22 Jul 2007 06:45 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Section 1. Whereas the workers produce all social wealth, and are therefore entitled to direct it and receive the full proceeds, collective ownership and democratic control of the industries and services by workers' organizations is adopted.

Dave writes:

And the following will be as contraversial as it is necesarry:

Section 2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Posted: 22 Jul 2007 06:55 pm Post subject:

Why is the last sentence necessary? Doesn't the Congress always have the power to pass legisation to enforce what the Constitution mandates?

I noticed that the ERA also includes that last sentence. I always wondered why.

Posted: 25 Jul 2007 04:59 pm Post subject:

There are some quirks that you want to cover without having to go back and fix it through the amendment process to fix it if there is found to be a problem. Sometimes the constitution says things and does not specify who enforces (remember this is a document of assigned functions) e.g. in the constitution where it talks about that fugitives from justice being turn over by one state to another. The courts have said - that may be in the constitution but it is up to the states to enforce it - its a political question. And no doubt5 if congress tried to step in with some uniform law of governors surrendering parisioners to other states the court would rule it outside of congress' authorities.

The phrase started with the 13 amendment.

But I thought that you would have some objection like - it ought to say that Congress must... The problem there is that that probably would be an area the the courts would say - we cannot tell congress what to do. We can examine its laws when and only when someone with standing makes a legitimate complaint but that's all.

Having this sentence in also recognizes that the amendment certainly is not going to be self-fulfilling and that once the workers the amendment passed it is now up to the workers that the keep that same pressure up to ensure that Congress enacts intelligible and effective laws that actually implements it.

I am sure that we need to discuss this a bit more.

Dave

Posted: 25 Jul 2007 05:58 pm Post subject:

Your reason for adding the second clause has to do with actually making socialism work. However, if we are actually trying to make socialism work, then we also need about a hundred more clauses to cover many structural issues, an entire constitution for a new system, how many levels (municipal, regional, federal), offices established, terms of office, how many departments (is television broadcast in the entertainment industry or the electronics industry?), all that stuff. So no matter what, this amendment isn't going to make socialism work unless it either contains ten thousand words or points with recognition to a separate document of ten thousand words. Now, in the most recent case, you were proposing the use of an amendment for the educational value that is believed to be implicit in issuing a reach-for-the-stars demand, which the Trotskyoids call the Transitional Program [TP]. If the purpose of this amendment campaign is TP-ish, then it doesn't need contents that would really make socialism work. If it's really successsful it will awaken millions of people, and when that happens the real, workable, ten thousand word plan would be drafted in place of the primitive TP-ish one. Therefore, the TP-ish proposal is brief enough to be catchy, and within the limited space alotted for that purpose, as much socialist education as possible should get packed into it. So if you really wanted to add another sentence, I would suggest that it be, not a sentence that would make socialism work structurally, but some more basic education. The dependent clause that I formed after "whereas" is one possible example of packing basic principle into a limited number of words. If we were to allot a greater number of words, more education could be added, while making it less catchy. That's the tradeoff. With this tradeoff, I don't recommend adding a sentence that lacks education in basic principles but instead duscusses the mechanics of enforcement.

Posted: 26 Jul 2007 05:14 pm Post subject:

Practical consideration.

Figure it will take about 5 years to pass a constitutional amendment. Do we want to write something in that takes 5 years to undo?

Tactical consideration.

Congress with the amendment can do everything that you say ought be in the constitution.

This amendment cannot take effect unless two thirds of each house and 3/4 of the legislatures of the states adopt it.

I imagine that it will take the workers some degree of effort to elect representatives and senators at both the state and federal level who will do this. Then what do you want congress to do? Adjourn sine die as Petersen or Deleon said??

IF IF IF the SIU had developed from the labor unions it could take care of its own organizing. But that did not happen - what are we going to do on D Day - alright everyone report to work 20 minutes early on D day so we can come up with the organizational charts for the entire collection of industries and services?

I think that congress needs to pass implementing legislation for this to happen and patch together whatever existing state and federal administrative expertise to be able to certify union organizations and I don't know what else.

There has to be some degree of order while the workers go about figuring it out for the long term. If not th revolution will fail and won't be reasserted for years, perhaps decades.

Another reason to give congress and the states some authority - it gives incentive to the workers to keep their eyes on them.

proposed change in wording:

Workers produce all social wealth and are
entitled to direct it and receive the full proceeds. Upon adoption of this amenedment ownership and control of the industries and services shall be by the workers democratically organized, all contrary claims extingusished.

Congress shall have authority to enforce this amenment.

Comments? Also think about changing "entiltled to direct it." And how about just taking out the first sentence entirely?

Posted: 26 Jul 2007 06:24 pm Post subject:

I don't know the meaning of Congress "enforcing" it.

The general public will certainly have this interpretations of your word "enforce": "The capitalist class, if that's one percent of the population, that's about two million people in the U.S., so are they going to be shot by firing squads or merely imprisoned in gulags under these new enforcement measures that will be arranged by the Congress?"

De Leonists wouldn't understand your word "enforce" either. To a classical De Leonist, the enforcement of a political mandate for socialism is: "Even if this majority were to sweep the political field ... they would find the capitalist able to throw the country into the chaos of a panic and to famine unless they, the workingmen, were so well organized in the shops that they could laugh at all shut-down orders, and carry on production." (BQTU)

Posted: 26 Jul 2007 06:35 pm Post subject:

The purpose of the first sentence is because the rest of it doesn't tell people why they should even bother. Everybody "knows" that capitalism is synonymous with democracy. Everybody "knows" that the capitalist creates all wealth by having a "good idea", and then the capitalist does workers a favor by allowing them to have jobs to take care of the minor detail of doing the labor related to the capitalist's wealth-generating idea. So why bother? There's nothing that seems worth even discussing. If you suggest an amendment that doesn't contain anything argumentative, it doesn't have one or two whereas remarks, if it just says to adopt democratic control by the workers, etc., the listener can dismiss it without thought or comment. But if you put in a few whereas arguments, a debater can corner someone with: "Wait a minute, are you denying that labor produces the wealth? Why or why not? Are you denying that those who produce something also have the right to have it? Why or why not?" That's what we want in reaction to the amendment, an ensuing discussion, not a simple "yeah, right -- buzz off."

It doesn't have to be the particular whereas that I thought of before. For example, it could be: Whereas the capitalist economic system has been determined to be the major cause of warfare, poverty, economic recessions, bigotry, environmental pollution, the inadequacy of health care and educational services, violent crimes and financial crimes, and most other severe problems that society faces, therefore, ....

But I recommend the use of some sort of whereas clause.

Posted: 26 Jul 2007 06:38 pm Post subject:

I suggested that the whereas part be a dependent clause of a sentence, instead of a separate sentence, because there aren't any sentences of observation anywhere in the Constitution. It is precedented to have a whereas in a dependent clause.

The 2nd amendment has one. But all English scholars agree that the 2nd amendment uses bad grammar, which makes it ambiguous: P "being necessary", Q. Since I'm wiser than the founding fathers, I proposed mine in the form of good grammar. Whereas P, therefore Q. (In my earlier post, I forgot the word "therefore'.)

Posted: 26 Jul 2007 06:50 pm Post subject:

Posted: 26 Jul 2007 07:16 pm Post subject:

Posted: 26 Jul 2007 07:34 pm Post subject:

Posted: 26 Jul 2007 07:41 pm Post subject:

It is with just a small degree of sarcasm, and being 75 percent serious, that I toss this idea out:

Article 3: The rights to life, liberty and property, and all other enumerated rights, shall not be applicable to any individual who resists or impedes the enforcement of this mandate to establish socialism.

I'm way more ruthless than you other guys in this forum, because I say unabashedly that a socialist reconstruction is literally the process of slaves escaping from bondage, and they have the right to do absolutely anything necessary to get past anyone who attempts to block their path.

Posted: 26 Jul 2007 08:15 pm Post subject:

Not the amanedment but congress supplies the orderliness during the transition to more SIU govt., setting it up.

Posted: 26 Jul 2007 08:20 pm Post subject:

Mike: I lost my reading glasses so I am doing ths blind so I can't quote yoursentence above but the wording "direct it" what can you do about that?

Posted: 26 Jul 2007 08:32 pm Post subject:

(Bad-taste joke deleted)

Posted: 26 Jul 2007 08:48 pm Post subject:

Posted: 27 Jul 2007 12:43 am Post subject:

Posted: 27 Jul 2007 01:42 am Post subject:

davesearles wrote:
to give congress and the states some authority

Mike wrote:
I have come here with a prejudice against the idea of giving the states any part in it. The states are nothing but a fossil of the past when the fastest possible medium of communication was the horse.

Dave writes:
absolutely but think of the practical prospect of even trying to get rid of the electoral college. We did not ave any federal election laws at all in this country until some time in the Nixon administration. There is virtually no election apparatus that the states have. Actually the census is a part of the election process - the federal govt counts how many people in a state and figure the number of house seats from that (believe it or not a complicated mathematical formula which was taken to court becuase of some fluke somewhere that a state cold have more people and loose a seat or some damned thing.) Anyway without the federal census and without having the number of votes a state can cast in the electoral college - there would be nothing whatsoever from preventing ballot boxes to be stuffed with millions and millions of non-existent voters - and this would happen in every state. That's why they have system that says to a state you are only going to get x number of votes for president, we don't care how many votes are cast. (actually there is nothing in the constitution that even requires a popular vote for president - the legislature could vote by statute which candiate was to receive that state's votes.

Anyway - how did I get here? Oh yes the states. As long as there is the federal FEDERAL govt you've got yo have states and this will remain until the SIU gets a whole lot of things running smoothly without any outside interventions - truly I can see the SIU/political govt set up running anywhere from 50 to 100 years if not longer. As I wrote before - things will run so smoothly, who the heck cares that a bicameral legislature is redundant. So what. We have an interesting post here in Vermont. I know that I have written about this before - its called the high sheriff or something like that. The high sheriff's one job is to arrest the sheriff if the sheriff steals the county's money. Since we don't have functioning counties anymore and we have state police we don't hardly need the high sheriff. But people like to keep it so some guy gets to call himself the high sheriff. He doesn't get a salary so what the heck?

But I think it is clear that we can only deal with the economic issue of worker ownership and control of the means of production right off. Everything else will work itself out in due course.

WHAT KIND OF FUCKING REVOLUTIONARY AM I??

dave

Posted: 27 Jul 2007 03:01 am Post subject:

Posted: 27 Jul 2007 12:45 pm Post subject:

People in support of the economic revolution are going to have to be elcted to positions to amend the constitution -

Now since we have those positons why shouldn't the political govt be used to faciltate the SIU??

It would seem perhaps counter revolutionary not to, wouldn't it?

Can you rephrase that wherefore clause? And I would not start with wherefore. 95% of the people in this country would not read anything beyond a "wherefore".

Posted: 27 Jul 2007 04:07 pm Post subject:

Posted: 27 Jul 2007 04:16 pm Post subject:

Posted: 27 Jul 2007 06:22 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

If socialists are already a majority, the revolution would be or could be done already before the "help" can get underway, and if the socialists are still a minority then they can't get anything passed.

dave writes:

Let us assume that on the way to 2/3 of congress and 3/4 of the state legislatures workers everywhere or just about everywhere formed into clubs or pre SIU orgs and all got together and worked out just who what and how is everything going to happen - and it all gets tested on a computer program to simulate everything, and some experimental labs are set up to try to test the assumptions of the thing - then sure there wouldn't seem to be a whole lot of need to have the local town clerk or state secretary of state or the local constable to much get involved.

That seems just a bit too much to expect. Call me pessimist but I just don't see it happening like that.

I know that the trots have ideas that "workers councils" will set these things up but I just do not see a democratic consensus forming around all of the minute organizational tasks which must occur beforehand. What of Farmer Jones down the street who says - yeah I support you workers to the hilt but if you give my cows over to the animal preservationists you're not going to have, milk, cheese ,leather or cow manure for fertilizer, and if I'm not supposed to take care of cows specifically what do you want me to do? And when is the equipment that I need to do what you want going to be delivered? Can you see the worker's councils coming up with an answer?? Shoot me for being a counter revolutionary - but I just don't see it happening.

So no - prior to a workers majority the state won't have much to do - perhaps maybe to help facilitate some planning if they see a majority in fact coming in? But afterward the state will be plenty busy, and if it wasn't wouldn't they be accused of not helping to facilitate the revolution?? I don't see it being a problem.

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. "

Posted: 27 Jul 2007 06:52 pm Post subject:

"Whereas the workers produce all social wealth, and are therefore entitled to direct it and receive the full proceeds, collective ownership and democratic control of the industries and services by workers' organizations is adopted. "

davesearles wrote:
95% of the people in this country would not read anything beyond a "wherefore".

Mike wrote:

I said "whereas", and it means "since...'"

Since [capitalism sucks], therefore [do it].

Clearer:

Since we have learned that [capitalism sucks], therefore [do it].

Dave writes:

[capitalism sucked]. [that which is socialism starts now]. [fed/states assist in transition]

but this part:

workers produce all social wealth, and are therefore entitled to direct it

entitled to direct it doesn't flow through the neurons as well as it might. Anything you could reword here?

Posted: 27 Jul 2007 10:42 pm Post subject:

Having their cake and eating it too. We all know the lawmakers like to speak, as Mike would say, in code. Communicating the amendment in the most simplistic way would cause discussion and debate.

Posted: 27 Jul 2007 10:59 pm Post subject:

I. Because people who perform labor produce all wealth, and have the right to control that wealth and to receive its benefits, therefore, organizations of workers shall democratically perform management of the industries and social services throughout the nation. II. Congress is empowered to enforce this act.

Posted: 27 Jul 2007 11:04 pm Post subject:

Shouldn't there be something in there to say unambiguously that the workers shall get the goods and services in full without someone extracting a profit out of it? The previous wordings could be interpreted to mean its still okay if a class of stockholders suck out a lot of the wealth.

Posted: 27 Jul 2007 11:12 pm Post subject:

"I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer." -- Leonard McCoy

Posted: 28 Jul 2007 02:29 am Post subject:

Because people who perform labor produce all wealth, and have the right to control that wealth and to receive its benefits, therefore, organizations of workers shall democratically perform management of the industries and social services throughout the nation.

I. The people of the United States who perform and produce all social wealth within her borders, have the right to control that wealth and to receive the full value of that wealth, whereas, the organizations of labor, having complete collective ownership of industries and social services, shall dutifully perform democratic management in production, distribution and giving of services throughout the nation.

II. Congress is thereby empowered to enforce this amendment.

Posted: 28 Jul 2007 04:04 am Post subject:

Why does Dave have us doing this? Politicians and lawyers do this. My field is physical science. Do you want to know what causes a rainbow? How a microwave oven works? That sort of thing I can tell you. This legal stuff is someone else's job.

Posted: 28 Jul 2007 04:45 am Post subject:

Why does Dave have us do this? My best guess is that Dave is formulating a political platform for his bid for Congress. He just wants some help.

Posted: 28 Jul 2007 05:47 pm Post subject:

This is an interesting and enjoyable exercise, but it's not a prerequisite for going forth with a political campaign.

We have a wonderful little word "that" which makes it unnecessary to know the exact words for anything. Saying "an amendment saying ..." has to be followed by the exact words to be used. Saying "an amendment saying that ..." is followed by a description of the words, not the actual words. "I propose a constitutional amendment saying that the workers are entited to elect the management of the industries and receive all of the profits." If someone asks me what the exact wording will be, I reply: People who went to law school must be used to determine that.

If you give people the exact words, many people will respond, not by talking about the content, but by quibbling, "You need to change this word and that word, and add a comma after that." The reediting that we have done here, everyone else who reads it would do also. No one would be talking about socialism; everyone would be talking about grammar.

Posted: 28 Jul 2007 08:46 pm Post subject:

Posted: 29 Jul 2007 09:20 pm Post subject:

Now I am going back to thinking that it should be a short document which contains a preamble - a document that reading it will provide the basic arguments for it - that makes it unmistakable to anyone that hears it that this is not a technical fix that will make everything all better but a revolution.

One night I will come upon some wording. I googling constitutional amendment and socialism and I came up with a trial of some SWP member, and he talked about that bringing socialism in under the established laws (via an amendment) would deprive the majority of their right to make changes - that a few 'backwards" states could block it.

I used to, but no longer, find that convincing.

But I do disagree with you Mike, this is not a lawyer's task at all. Probably had not the ERA been written by lawyers it would have passed. There wasn't a fucking bit of life to it. The constitution is (or should be) looked upon as a statement of the sovereign people - not as a legislative document.

There are a couple things that an amendment can generally do:

establish a right - freedom from involuntary servitude except upon conviction of crime..

extend authority - give congress the power to establish an income tax or to prohibit alcohol

structure or restructure government - alter election of senators from state leg. to direct election.

*********
If the states don't do anything to help plan prior to the effective date it of course will make things harder for people in these states. I don't see local and state govt. as being that indifferent - but of course I'm a god damned idealist.

Posted: 29 Jul 2007 09:55 pm Post subject:

A couple of things I hadn't thought of before - how this applies to anything is any's guess:

18th amenedment actually prohibited manuafacture etc. of intoxicatng liquors (I don't know if beer and wine was included in this)

Perhaps congress had the powoer to probitit it without the amendment, at the time even without the amanedment, but perhaps not.

21st repealed the 18th but also made violating state alcohol laws an actual violation of the constitution of the US.

So here is an example of the constitution refering to something not in the constitution (state alcohol laws) and incorporating them into the constituion. Had never thought about this before.

Posted: 30 Jul 2007 01:08 am Post subject:

Posted: 30 Jul 2007 01:15 am Post subject:

You know our old classmate Bryce K. from high school. He once built a cabin accidentally on someone else's land. It happened because his deed said the line of his property began at a certain point and from there went in a northerly direction. He thought that northerly meant to go north. It doesn't. It means to go exactly parallel to the highway, in the direction that is closest to north.

A lawyer would know that.

Just watch something like this to happen to us when we write something like "control the industries and receive the proceeds."

Posted: 30 Jul 2007 01:22 am Post subject:

Did you know, if your house is burglarized, and you later testify that you were robbed, you could get in serious trouble. Most people don't know that a burglary isn't a kind of robbery. Now you have defamed that burglar's reputation. He's only a burglar, but you accused him of being a robber. He can sue you for slander. I wouldn't be surprised if the burglar ends up owning that house.

Posted: 30 Jul 2007 04:35 am Post subject:

Mike, people who, for the very first time, are elected to local or state government are not lawyers. I was fortunate enough to know a person, many years ago, who was a representative. He knew how to campaign and to write legislation. It is important to have good wording so that everyone would have a clear understanding of what is written. Arguments of what the states can do and the federal government can do, IMHO, is a political smoke screen to keep the masses apathetic.

Posted: 30 Jul 2007 06:08 am Post subject:

People who get elected to office don't have to be lawyers, but if they were going to propose an important change to the law I'll bet they would ask some lawyers to edit it to correct the wording.

Posted: 30 Jul 2007 02:57 pm Post subject:

Yes I remember Bryce - a common mistake when people read deeds. Deed descriptions get people into a lot of trouble. If I were to sell you my property in Ulster County and I only owned that one parcel it woujld be best to write you a deed stating simply that I convey to you all of my property in Ulster County, that way someone else can't read your deed and determine from that where in fact your property line is. It's not like title to a car. Moreover you can't properly singulay read your deed to tell where your neighbor's line is. These are claims that have to be weighed agnst one another as to longevity and provenance. Northerly is a modifyer not a noun. Going in any direction from 270.001 to 89.999 degrees azmuth could be called traveling in a northerly direction. (but no - there is no presumption whatsoever that the lines are perpendular or paraell to streets or roads unless the streets and lots were subdivied and laid out together. Also if the deed says 300 feet to the stone wall - the stone wall contols for distance not the 300 feet. So if the stone wall doesn't exist anymore - you just cannot automatically use 300 feet - you have to figure out where the stone wall was. More later.

You know our old classmate Bryce K. from high school. He once built a cabin accidentally on someone else's land. It happened because his deed said the line of his property began at a certain point and from there went in a northerly direction. He thought that northerly meant to go north. It doesn't. It means to go exactly parallel to the highway, in the direction that is closest to north.

A lawyer would know that.

Just watch something like this to happen to us when we write something like "control the industries and receive the proceeds."

Last edited by mikelepore on Mon Jul 30, 2007 1:33 am; edited 1 time in total

Posted: 30 Jul 2007 03:10 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 30 Jul 2007 03:49 pm Post subject:

Reforms are easy to word. Suppose you want to say: Playing the harmonica on a public sidewalk shall be punishable by thirty days in the city jail. It was easy to choose the words. But to say that that we are adopting socialism, a new democratic method to make decisions, production for social use instead of private profit -- and make it specific enough that it has meaning to others -- that's many degrees of magnitude more difficult.

We can do it. I'm just advising Dave to be prepared to get attacked by a lot of quibblers, when he wants to talk basic ideas, and they want to talk about "hey, you used that word incorrectly!" When that happens, remember this day and call me Nostradamus.

Posted: 30 Jul 2007 06:44 pm Post subject:

Attacked by quibblers? No I would not stand for it.

yes it is orders more difficult as we are certainly finding out. No one else that I have ever seen has even come close to this exercise.

Actually I need this for a diversion as well. having some probs on the home front with a family member. Can't come up with any kind of reasonable response, nor is doing nothing reasonable so I just sit here writing about a constitutional amendment. It seems far more easier to write and get passed than successfully dealing with the home situation.

But anyway - as I writing about before - maybe about a 500 word exposition of the problem and then another 500 words on 'the solution" and then write something short and stupid for the amendment text based upon the preamble.

dave

Posted: 30 Jul 2007 08:54 pm Post subject:

You could want an example of something in essay form you could refer to slp.org > resolutions > declaration of fundamental principles (1940).

Posted: 30 Jul 2007 09:01 pm Post subject:

Something we do need, and we coud work on it now just as well as another time, is a statement about social problems. One sentence, how profit seeking pollutes the environment. One sentence, how the overproduction problem causes economic recessions. One sentence, how international competition for markets causes wars. One sentence, how prvate funding causes inadequate medical care. Every problem we can think of, one sentence.

After that it would be in good form to say something optimistic, how humans have intelligence and creativity, and we can have a better world as soon as we organize properly to being it about. But what is organizing properly? Segue into a description of the program.

Posted: 30 Jul 2007 09:02 pm Post subject:

If that discussion occurs here, a new forum topic should be started for it.

Posted: 31 Jul 2007 06:01 pm Post subject:

Mike, over in the preamble section you had talked about workers and people as being different. This may be another way of looking at the definition of legally what we want altered- instead of starting with the industries belonging to the workers start with the workers having a right to organize into "unions" to operate the industries or workplace (whatever wording works)

By starting with this aspect, we avoid the ridiculousness of socializing Aunt Tillie's sewing machine. If it's big enough for the workers to organize there, it's big enough for socialism.

Posted: 31 Jul 2007 06:36 pm Post subject:

I wouldn't use that guideline. I would say that the sewing machine should be private property because it is practical and realistic for any and every person to own one. If you have a city of eight million, could each person own a steel refinery, and have eight million steel refineries in the city? No. Therefore, steel refineries are not suitable for private ownership. Could you have eight million sewing machines in the city? Yes.

Posted: 31 Jul 2007 06:41 pm Post subject:

Sometimes there are no workers at all in the thing to be socialized. If I had a million acres of land, and a thousand tons of gold bars, they should be socialized.

Posted: 01 Aug 2007 01:14 am Post subject:

of course given enough words and enough time we could minutely define just where the demarcation is between sewing machine and steel plane - but is that something to put in a constitution - I don't think so.

Go back to the prohibition amendment - it said intoxicating liquors - but congress through the Volstead act detailed what was and wasn't covered. (i think. I will have to check it.) Yes, that's right " The act defined intoxicating liquor as any beverage over 0.5% alcohol " Wikipedia

But the constitution's intoxicating liquors presented congress with a standard upon which congress would judge as to what was reasonably covered by the term.

By going with a method that defines means of production by factory size, category, etc we'll always have these who will say - you but this isn't covered. I do see your point about tracts of land, stockpiles of precious metals. can both ways be done? And as this exercise shows - the devil is in the details.

Posted: 01 Aug 2007 03:23 am Post subject:

Try this on:

Any industry or service [operated/performed/provided] through the labor of two or more individuals shall be controlled by the organization of these individuals with equal powers for all.

Posted: 01 Aug 2007 03:28 am Post subject:

I knew the Volstead Act included wine. The Catholic Church had to get special permission from the federal govt to use it in the ceremony where it remains wine up until the moment when it's transformed into blood.

Posted: 01 Aug 2007 03:31 am Post subject:

Remind me again, why are you trying to disambiguate this amendment? Why not just say "the industries" and then, if someone in the audience doesn't know what that means, they can ask you? Isn't that the whole idea - to turn this into an excuse to educate people?

Posted: 01 Aug 2007 03:54 pm Post subject:

Comrade Lepore - I resent the implication that I am trying to disambligiate anything OR ANYONE when I do not even now the meaning of whatever it is that you are trying to accuse me of.

LET ME MAKE ONE THING PERFECTLY CLEAR NO I DID NOT HAVE SEX WITH THAT WOMAN - AND I CERTAINLY DID NOT DISAMBLIGLIATE HER OR WITH HER IF THAT IS YOUR IMPLICATION OF YOUR MOST OUTRAGOUS AND FOUL MINDED MISAPREHENSIONS OF THE TRUTH AS GOD HAS SO REVEALED IT TO ME!!!

Posted: 04 Aug 2007 03:18 pm Post subject:

Two things:

#1.

I read up on the Congress shall have authority clauses in constitutional amendments:

A statute of a state legislature (as well as laws of congress) are presumed to have been written with the intent to be in harmony with the US Constitution and if there is any ambiguity in the wording of a statute the courts will always read the statute as being in compliance with the constitution (unless the wording leaves no alternative but to declare it unconstitutional.)

So, just for instance the 13th amendment, where the clause first appeared. Without the Congress having authority clause - if a state passed a staute that applied an interpretation of the amanedment, as long as that interpretaion was reasonable in its spplication of the text the stature would be held to be constitutional. But with the Congress shall have authority - that clearly puts Congress as the ultimate legislative interpreter of the amanedment, so that no state statute can be contrary to either the constitution or be contrary to a law passed by congress enforing the amanedment which itself was constitional.

Interesting.

Otherwise Congress' authoirty would have to be found elsewhere and is not always reliable for enforecemtn in the courts - such as the relatively recent congressional ban on firearms within so many feet of a school. The Supremes said that it exceeded Congress' authority.

#2.

A reason that I am getting hung up on the industries is that the law is going to have to specifiy someone or something having authority over something - and we want to be god damned sure that it is not worded to even have a whiff of authority over people or their persoanal posessions. The amedment has to be very instructive, or should be anyway.

Posted: 04 Aug 2007 04:27 pm Post subject:

I wasn't so much stuck on that idea of Congress being authorized. I was stuck by not knowing what the Congress could do with it. Repeal the law that forbids grand larceny? Allocate money to buy the SIU a convention hall? Make it a felony for a store to redeem President dollars instead of SIU vouchers? Define it as an act of high treason for a capitalist to block the path of a worker? I'm okay with authorizing any part of the government if there's something necessary that they need to do. My question is about what you were thinking Congress might need to do.

Posted: 04 Aug 2007 07:28 pm Post subject:

how about passing passing legislation to facilitiate recognition of the SIU - for the workers to actually form into shop and industry organizations -

Much like the federal govt. (much belatedly) recognizing the rights of blacks to vote.

Today's congress do this? hell no. The congress, two thirds of each house which will pass the socialism amendment - that congress will do it.

Posted: 04 Aug 2007 07:40 pm Post subject:

I know thatthis very much goes against the idea of the workers waking up one fine moring, month or lmillenium and saying - you know what - we'd all should march ourselves right into work this morning and take over the means of production..

I do not care what quottations are pulled out of where about the workers not being able to take hold of the ready made state machinery blah blah. Someone is going to have to come up with a bit more than a 135 year old quotation applicable to a totally different time and culture to show me that we should not try to utilize congress. Why shouldn't we??

Posted: 04 Aug 2007 10:52 pm Post subject:

Marx's comment about the "ready-made state machinery" was a lesson he claimed to have learned from the experience of 100,000+ people taking control of the city of Paris for three months in 1870, until they all died. It's quasi-religious of Marxists to say that such sparse data gave Marx the power to prescribe good strategy to the people of the future. Hell, I can design Nasa's Mars missile -- after all, when I was a kid I propelled stones with a sling shot.

Posted: 04 Aug 2007 10:58 pm Post subject:

Posted: 05 Aug 2007 03:20 am Post subject:

Dave writes

Congress passed a law setting up NASA, gave it a few bucks, and we're on the moon.

Mike wrote:

So the Congress can pass a law that says on Tuesday the workers in each plant shall be excused from ordinary work tasks and instead they are to report to designated auditoriums where they are to elect a chairperson and proceed in a parliamentary fashion until they are a plant management organization? (I assume that ambulance drivers and nurses in the intensive care unit may choose alternative meeting hours, since it might not be safe for them to get to leave during the designated meeting hour.)

Dave writes:

Or designates some agency such as the post office to provide logistical support, registering committees at each work site.

hell of a big administrative task ain't it. Looks like we're sure going to need some of that ready made state machinery to help set things up.

Posted: 05 Aug 2007 08:32 am Post subject:

Why would they go somewhere else to register their committees when they talk to each other every day at work?

Posted: 05 Aug 2007 12:01 pm Post subject:

Doesn't have to be of course but no doubt there will be a few points of resistance that some federal oversight would be helpful. Just for example, right now I am fighting an administrative procedure against the last school district we were in. The hearing officer is appointed by the state education department but under a mandate of congress through the state's acceptance of special education money. And through this process the requirements of the special education law passed by congress are implemented by school districts (when parents fight really hard anyway)

But what we are getting at here is not to decide in advance specifically what laws congress has to pass in order to facilitate the workers setting up SIUs that will control the industries, but that Congress can do all sorts of things to make it happen. Since the 60s there have been grumblings here and there, but for the most part when congress decides something they can get it done. Of course you have to have the congress. That's a part of the reason to have the amendment. Get candidates who support the amendment elected. So the amendment will be the political unifier, not a party. Perhaps like abolition but I haven't studied it enough to make an intelligent observation here on it.

Posted: 05 Aug 2007 03:26 pm Post subject:

Posted: 05 Aug 2007 05:55 pm Post subject:

I'm not catching the point. Can you re ask the question?

I am saying that congress with legislation can help facilitate the actual setting up of the SIU organization. Things like setting up some kind of recognition process, mush as is dome with present day unions. The exact wording of the statute I am not aware of what it should be.. I suppose that I should tale a course in labor law to familiarize myself with the issue ultimately. I've never been a union member so I don't have any experience at all with it.