What a fucking kick in the head. Thanks, DU for the response

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

to the Why is America Afraid of Socialism thread.

We aren't talking the end of reward for work here but only a system that might curb the top and bottom. China for all its faults is buying every god damn big business it can get its hands on now.

Oops, they're commies.

There's an answer in here somewhere and it's not black or white, it's somewhere in the history of America in the Dust Bowl.

I love all you people here. There's hope where there's numbers.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. *hugs*

[IChing]

2. no problem

:toast:

[H2O Man]

3. Right on!

The best programs this country has seen were under FDR and LBJ. They were called socialists by their enemies. Funny thing, they were. Thank goodness for that. They brought out the best in communities across this nation.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

4. Spot on.

The vitriol that is spread toward those that want the "average Joe" to get an "even deal" is making propoganda look like the daily news.

[H2O Man]

6. It is no

coincidence that the same vipers who complain about programs which assist the working class are the ones who are looking to take American jobs out of the country. They are the same snakes that set-up HQs off-shore, so that they do not have to carry ANY of the responsibilities of American citizenship. There are examples that expose these greedy bastards for what they are -- including the cut-backs in veterans' benefits -- but these will never be given fair air-time on the corporate media. Yet it should be clear -- the working class is being targeted for huge squeezes in the upcoming years. This is why I am convinced the democratic party needs to move significantly to the left.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

7. I asked a freeper type once what they thought about roads, police and

the mail...

Kinda of pissed them off.

Socialism is a necessity in a civilized society. Otherwise, we are headed back to feudalism.

[AndyTiedye]

5. Perhaps Because The Word Has Been Much Abused

We aren't talking the end of reward for work here but only a system that might curb the top and bottom.

Often known as a "mixed economy", because it has elements of capitalism
and socialism (which is true in all countries to some extent).

Even in the USA, governments build nearly all of the roads, run nearly all of the public transportation, the postal service, most schools, many hospitals, airports, sports stadiums, etc.
In some states, the government gives itself a monopoly on the sale of liquor.
Most other "capitalist" countries have even more of these and other activites run by the public sector.

There's no such thing as pure capitalism, here or anywhere else.

China for all its faults is buying every god damn big business it can get its hands on now.

no pure communism or socialism either.

But the words themselves have been so abused as to have lost meaning to most people.

[halsaxby]

8. Wouldn't it be funny?

How funny would it be if in 10 years China announced, "Oh, shit. We're supposed to be communists" and then proceeded to nationalize all of the factories, technology, and associated infrastructure that we have given to them.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

9. Psssst..... They're doing it as they buy us out you dumb shit.

[halsaxby]

13. Idiot

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

14. LOL, did it take you from Thursday to Saturday to formulate that

response?

[newswolf56]

10. Missed the discussion and would like to read/participate. Where...

is it? Could you please provide a link?

That said, it is easy to understand why America is so afraid of socialism. Four reasons: (1)-decades of methodically malicious brainwashing, starting with the McCarthy Era and the House UnAmerican Activities Committee purges and continuing ever since; (2)-betrayal of humanitarian (i.e., socialist) principles by avariciously careerist bureaucrats (as in the welfare bureaucracy's wanton reduction of stipends and services while feathering its own nest by wildly inflating administrative costs); (3)-the fact such betrayals, when publicized, invariably discredit government in general; and (4)-the infinite, I-might-still-be-a-winner greed of Americans themselves, intensified to pathological madness by advertising and yet further inflamed by growing economic insecurity.

But the ugliest fact of all is that -- precisely as the welfare bureaucracy's behavior suggests -- humanitarianism itself may be truly unAmerican: an impulse utterly alien to the U.S. economy and thus to U.S. society in general. Look at the viciousness with which we treat the homeless and the poor -- a viciousness that has escalated rapidly since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Why since then? Because the threat of a Communist revolution so terrified the oligarchy they imposed humanitarian reforms even on themselves -- it was in fact the sole reason for the New Deal. But now with the U.S.S.R. gone, the oligarchy sees no reason not to revert to true capitalist form -- infinite greed and unrestrained viciousness imposed with a vengeance.

But even the brightest plutocrats seem to have forgotten that, beneath China's long-range strategy of using capitalism to fight capitalism (and thus avoiding the fatal errors of the Soviets), China is still a Marxist nation -- ever-eager to export its revolution, whether by subversion or force. And the rapidly deteriorating economy here in American is making Marx again wholly relevant: the emergence of global monopolies and the resultant imposition of world-wide wage-slavery is the fulfillment of predictions Marx articulated 150 years ago.


Edit: typo

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

11. Wow. great post. Here's the link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4215412

[enough]

12. Terrible truths, newswolf, but there is something bracing about

having it expressed so well.

[EFerrari]

15. I didn't feel up to reading that thread because I expected

a flame war. But now I will.

Humanitarianism is unamerican. Founded by authoritarian individualists who proceeded to wipe out the native cultures of extended families where orphans where virtually an unknown phenomena.

I don't mean that the founders or the original immigrants were antihumanitarian, nor do I mean that they wiped out a Utopian population.

But, the ethic here has always been bootstraps, not collaborative effort.