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Saving the Wealthy With Socialism, Conservative-Style
Like it or not, we're all socialists now. You can thank those free-market conservatives and their deregulatory idol, George W. Bush, for that.
Conservatives love to wield the word socialism like some all-purpose, liberal-slaying sword. Redistribution to the poor, the right to unionize and affirmative action are decried as anti-market, unfair advantages for filthy socialists who can't compete and fail to appreciate the almighty, equalizing power of self-determination and an unfettered market.
To social conservatives, Darwinism is merely an unproven "theory" about how our species evolved. But "social Darwinism" is an ineluctable fact: The smart and hardworking prosper, while the stupid and lazy fail.
Yet notice how those same chest-thumping capitalists of talk radio and at the corporate-funded think tanks often fall silent in the face of fixed markets, no-bid contracts, bailouts and subsidies for the very corporations that demand less government oversight when things are going well, then turn to Washington when things go horribly wrong.
The hypocrisies abound.
If unionized teachers were given 15 percent annual raises, regardless of performance, that would be socialist. But when easily repaired military equipment in Iraq is discarded so no-bid defense contractors can charge the automatic 15 percent overhead for replacements (watch Iraq for Sale, a documentary exposing Defense Department contracting), that's the cost of doing business during wartime.
If Congress proposes legislation to extend leniency to Americans who, because of unexpected medical expenses or a job recently shipped overseas, go bankrupt, Republicans fret about governmental dependency. But when Chrysler, insurance giant AIG or the airlines after 9/11 take Beltway bailouts, executives such as Lee A. Iacocca are still esteemed as corporate masters of the universe.
If affirmative action provides a minority or female applicant the inside track for a job or college admission, conservatives lecture us about the power of competition. But when the pharmaceutical companies and the Bush administration collude in passing a Medicare Part D prescription drug bill that expressly prohibits the government from using its competitive buying power to negotiate the best price for those taxpayer-funded drugs, Fox News cues the video for the latest Paris Hilton scandal.
Propose a national health care program to cover everyone, or invest a mere $7 billion per year over five years to expand the children's health insurance program? Sounds like "each according to need" Marxism. But spend several times that amount to bail out AIG, the nation's largest insurance company? That's, um, market stabilization.
While we're debunking myths, now is a good time to revisit those free-market, tax-cutting promises that economic conservatives have been feeding us for years.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average recently dropped to the level it was back in summer 2001, when Mr. Bush signed the first of his four income-tax cuts. That means that if you put $5,000 into blue chip stocks seven years ago, and rolled another $5,000 into sweat socks and hid them under your mattress, your socks and your stocks would have about the same value today.
And you may have to break those socks out now, because the government's proposed $700 billion bailout of the mortgage and finance industries will translate into $4,000 from the pocket of every employed American. (Plus interest, since the money is all borrowed, and Mr. Bush will soon retire as the fifth straight Republican president to leave office without submitting a single balanced budget.)
Meanwhile, rising unemployment means those who are working will continue to shoulder a larger share of our mounting national debt.
The U.S. economy must generate about 150,000 net new jobs each month just to employ Americans entering the work force from high school, college or the military; in a seven-year period, that requires 12.6 million new jobs just to keep pace. The Bush administration's job creation record these past seven years: 4.7 million.
Those of us who work hard and pay our taxes are getting screwed. Our Christmas bonus this year? The privilege of covering the tab for greedy executives in the deregulated insurance and mortgage industries who scoff at safety nets for you but demand a safety trapeze for themselves.
As I said, we're all socialists now. Too bad all that filthy, pinko socialist redistribution is moving up, rather than down, the economic food chain.
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19 Comments so far
Show AllWhat we have forming in this country is Fascism, not Socialism. The complete basis behind socialism is protection and redistrubution to the masses. This is the protection and enriching of a select few.
Capitalism, when left unchecked, has no place else to go except Fascism.
“Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power”
-- Benito Mussolini
Exactly. The right word is fascism, not socialism................lizard
The rich and ultra rich have made enough in the last 8 years alone to pay for their own damned bail out, while the rest of us have lost money, jobs, homes, and cost our children their futures. And now WE are supposed to bail out the rich so they can keep what they have stolen from us? I don't think so.
The rich and ultra rich have multiple homes, jets, yachts, artwork, cars, and we are struggling just to hold on to ONE home. Any one of their multiple homes would finance how many college educations? Or how much health care?
This is a crisis made by the greed of a few, I say take back what they have stolen from the country and make THEM pay for it. I'm tapped out. We gained NOTHING from their profitting, why do WE need to be the ones who take the loss? What is "free market" about that? A free market says that these people should lose THEIR asses, not WE lose ours.
I'm done paying for rich peole to get richer. Let them rot. THey made enough to pay for this manufactured crisis, I say make THEM pay for it. I don't care if it bankrupts every single billionaire in this country. It's better they go belly up than the entire rest of the country.
Reaganomics has been shown to be the comnplete disaster I saw it would be over 25 years ago. Time to rid this country of it's Alzheimer's eceonmic system and get the money back into the hands of those who need it to survive, and remove it from those who have nothing but greed.
This article is a perfect summary of the hypocrisy. And I'm ashamed to see that the Dems are just as much a part of it as the Repubs.
Btw, what's up with Pelosi and crew ? Why are they not promoting their golden boy Obama ? McCain rightfully points out that our potential President doesn't have a plan ... why aren't the top Dems putting the spotlight on him and letting him take the lead ? Are they just selfish publicity whores or did Obama maybe burn a few bridges ?
online letter to representatives to stop the bailout
http://ga3.org/campaign/congress_no_blank_check/xixdkn34p7iewd3b?qp_source=20080922%5fnoblankchck
"Redistribution to the poor, the right to unionize and affirmative action are decried as anti-market..."
Guess the "right" hates the NFL, then, eh?
Redistribution to the poor (most pro players were poor or middle-class before turning pro,) the NFL Players Association union, affirmative action (60-70 percent of NFL players are non-white,) and, though unmentioned, the NFL also has salary caps, guaranteed health insurance, and shared revenue contracts.
Yet, as CNN reports: "The National Football League is probably the most lucrative sports league the world has ever known."
Damn stinking socialists!!!
(Go Eagles!)
"Saving the Wealthy With Socialism, Conservative-Style"
Why do so many believe that conservatives are all right wingers?
Because that shoe fits right on their head.
Same reason republicans think democrats are liberal. It's easier vilify your opponents when you have dichotomous labels for you and them. Especially pertaining to politics, people define and redefine words to suit their worldview.
I'm hoping that this charade will enlighten at least a few thinking "conservatives" to the contradictions endemic in capitalism which make it unworkable for the advancement of the human race.
Capitalism? The Soviet Union went bankrupt too! It doesn't matter who owns the means of production. What matters is what the owners do with it. Look carefully at the US means of production. Look at how it concentrates money amongst a few. See how it makes less money from exporting than what Americans spend on imports. Every year. Watch the reduction in the industrial base in favor of services and the export of jobs so that the means of production come to be in China. Watch how workers increase their productivity but not their standard of living while the owners get richer. And when something doesn't work out, watch how the owners get the workers to pay the price.........................lizard
I've posted here in the past that left/right, liberal/conservative, socialist/communist are DEAD pairs of opposites. We're dealing with top/down, rich/poor, powerful/powerless, corrupt/honest, liberty/totalitarianism, freedom/fascism. "Conservatives" have off-shored to "Communist" China, issued in some of the most unprecedented government powers, and demanded the largest bailout in US history. And "liberals" have helped them out every step of the way: they funded his war, and they'll be bailing out his crooks next week. There is no ideological divide at the top of the power structure. It's simply raw power, for its own sake.
Let's abandon the dead old metaphors and just go to this: "no war but the class war."
This is NOT Socialism. Authors that continue to refer to this as "Socialism" have no idea what Socialism is.
You can call it theft, a Plutocracy, a lootacracy and fascism, but it is NOT Socialism. It the polar opposite.
No one is better equipped by years of experience to fight "we the corporations" on behalf of "we the people" than Nader. That is the truth. That's who I am voting for.
I couldn't agree more. What is most interesting about Nader to me is how well he understands other things too. It is extremely impressive how much Ralph has done over the years to help Americans. One would have thought Americans would appreciate him. Unfortunately, he doesn't fit in the soap opera cast, and Americans don't seem able to see things any other way..........................lizard
abunny and lizard, you're right on. Nader should have been invited a place on the panel before the senate hearing.
Nader will never be invited to partake in anything having to do with the way our Government is run. He brings up the issues that none of our Representatives want out in the open. Why do you think he gets no media coverage? The media might be liberal, but they still talk about McCain. People, like Nader, who the media truly dislikes, simply get ignored, so that the masses know nothing about him.
If Nader was allowed to speak in the MSM voters would flock to him. But that would cause major shifts in power across the board... and we know nobody on top wants that.
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
-- Frederick Douglass
Grappa
The title of article seems to this reader to be a misnomer, it simply should read 'Moving closer to a fascist state, American style'.
The Democratic Party really takes the cake! First they bleat a little in protest about Bush's handout to the super rich, then they totally sign into it after their big pretense at 'opposition'! It's just like how they did the invasions and occupations two.