[amilcarkabral]

It's not that i lack the understanding of capitalism. it's just that, for a while, i'd like to restrict the discussion to the economic system of capitalism to figure out what it is. Think about it this way, if you're sick for three different reasons, wouldn't it be prudent to attempt to diagnose each disease separately to figure out how each is affecting your body, and then dealing with all three either in turn or at once (depending on the interactions of the three sicknesses)? We can analyze and combat the deleterious effects of capitalism and government incompetence and malice separately. And when they work in concert, we can combat them together.

Don't mistake my short-sighted analytical goals for fundamental mis-understanding of the issues. I know i'm new, and it'll take a while for you gals and guys get used to my analytical, rhetorical methods. I'm still less than a hundred posts into this community. I don't think you'll get my drift until about at least a thousand. And hopefully in the mean time i can study how you respond to what i say fast enough to craft better questions and responses that lead to not only clear understanding of our respective positions, but perhaps communal ground and/or a common analytical method with which to fillet and slay the demons among us.

I know that any government either explicitly or implicitly gives its validation to capitalism. I also know that big business influence in government makes for laws that protect the business interests against that of the citizens, usurping the proper role of government as the entity created to protect citizens from each other, businesses and foreign invasion. But that particular aspect of today's society, where economics runs the government, isn't the topic i'd like to discuss at this point in time, or at least in this thread.

And i don't wish to tell others to not talk about the government. I invited the people who were talking about the AC(I)E/Katrina incident to set up a specific forum/thread for that.

I want to pull apart this beast one cell, hair, limb and organ at a time. Such that when we deconstruct it we know how it ticks, and how to retrain it and/or destroy it such that it cannot impinge upon our health and freedoms.

For now, let's discuss what people think capitalism 'is' and what it 'is not'.