I think that this country will turn to socialism for social justice's sake

[Mountainman]

Because of the "conservative revolution" during Reagan's term the gap between the haves and the have-nots widened. It grew smaller in the 90's but has widened again since the Bush selection.

If the rethugs remain in office, there will be no middle class. Just the wealthy ruling class and the working poor if they can find jobs at all. There will be no safety nets. No welfare, no social security, no health care for the working poor.

I just can't imagine or believe that the people would want to live like that. I tend to doubt the words of the freepers who are now attacking the grocery store strikers because I doubt the freepers are wealthy. I think that there are many laid off freepers who understand what I am saying and no longer post over there. They must get pretty mentally screwed up when they see the direction this country is taking and it personally affects them negatively.

So what will people do? If they are oppressed will they rise up and violently take over the government? I think they will try. There will be civil unrest much worse than during the civil rights-Viet Nam war era.

The logical conclusion to the conservative revolution is a social revolution. People will demand that the government provide social safety nets and health care. The working classes of the world will unite in forcing their governments to seek social justice.

There can be free trade and social justice existing together.

In a way I am glad the right-wingers are pushing us in the direction they are because we will only have social justice when people hurt enough to start demanding it and are willing to do something about it.

The freepers who call us socialists are doing everything they can to make socialism happen. They are working harder to make it happen than we are because conservatism is not about social justice but about individual personal wealth building. Conservatism doesn't care about sharing the pie it is about grabbing all the pie for yourself. The more wealth you have the more powerful you are. Then you have to start building the walls to protect your wealth while those outside the walls are finding ways to tear them down.

[Mikimouse]

1. What confuses me about all this is...

that we tout ourselves as a 'Christian' nation. As I recall, Christianity embraces tolerance, generosity, altruism, and love of otehrs; in short, the opposite of what we generally practice. Before anyone decides to flame, I consider myself a Christian spiritualist. I am not religious, and have little use for the institutions of men. I agree with some of the things you have put in your post, but somehow doubt that people will metamorphose into 'socialists' anytime soon; it is simply too easy to use personal wealth as a lever against the poor, and in this 'gladiatorial' social environment, we seem to derive a great deal of satisfaction from denigrating those who have less in terms of material wealth than do we.

[Mountainman]

3. denigrating those who have less, Yes I see that all the time

But I think that it is fear that makes people do that. It is fear that they too will be the ones who have less. Most of us are one paycheck away from poverty.

I remember when my dad who was a poor factory worker was a racial bigot and I figured out that he had to have someone lower class then he was or else he had to admit he was on the same social class as those he was prejudiced against.

[CaptAhab]

2. This is not socialism

I guess there is a misconception that socialism means merely a "social safety net," that is, a certain set of social services such as universal education, health care, and retirement funds provided by or guaranteed by a central government, regardless of the actual type of that government.

However, the term "socialism" actually refers to a social system where the community has public ownership and control of the means of production, capital, land, property, etc., and their administration or distribution is conducted by a governing body in the interests of all.

Certain elements of this were incorporated in the government systems of many European countries today, and some of these countries even refer to their government as "socialist" even though they may have a private sector that dwarfs the public one.

I'd say such a system of government (which closely resembles the vision of Johnson's Great Society) should be properly called "moderate capitalism," in contrast with the destructive, irrational greed of Reagan & Co. But it is very different from socialism, and it is unlikely that in our lifetime we will see public ownership of most of the means of production, either here or in Europe.

[Mairead]

5. um, that's only one form of socialism

Central governance and control is not integral to socialism qua socialism. Socialism is really only about the democratic (fully-distributed) ownership of wealth production. How things are managed and planned might also be distributed, as is the case with the cooperative movement.

That said, I agree with you that what Mountain is describing is the weaker 'social-democratism' (or whatever the noun form would be from 'social democrat'...'social democracy' doesn't sound right) rather than full socialism.

[Mountainman]

6. I have use the word incorrectly but I meant a form of social democracy

I'm thinking of the social justice idea from the Democratic Socialsts of America.

This is from their web site:

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in the United States, and the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International. DSA's members are building progressive movements for social change while establishing an openly socialist presence in American communities and politics.


At the root of our socialism is a profound commitment to democracy, as means and end. We are activists committed not only to extending political democracy but to demanding democratic empowerment in the economy, in gender relations, and in culture. Democracy is not simply one of our political values but our means of restructuring society. Our vision is of a society in which people have a real voice in the choices and relationships that affect the entirety of our lives. We call this vision democratic socialism ? a vision of a more free, democratic and humane society.


http://www.dsausa.org/about/index.html

[Mairead]

4. Well said! I agree with everything except one thing:

the gap did not grow smaller during Clinton's time, it only grew more slowly. It continued to grow larger, only not as fast.

[DianeK]

7. capitalism, like communism

can not survive in pure form. eventually human greed will destroy it. capitalism balanced with socialism can survive quite well and has as we have seen in scandinavian countries. no system is perfect and even scandinavian countries have there problems but you will see no homelessness or poverty in norway, you will see no one wanting for health care services or other necessary human needs unmet. it is in the interest of the whole to strengthen the weakest among us.

[Saudade]

8. Good Post

It's clear to me and many other people wiser than me that the Bush hardliners want to continue what Reagan began, namely, a bankrupting of the Federal Government so as to render obsolete most of the major social welfare programs that Americans have come to depend on since the New Deal, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.

Realizing this, however, I ask myself: "Millions of people are going to be really, really angry about this, when they find themselves in desparate straits. What is the GOP plan to deal with this desparate anger?"

If the Republicans are indeed planning a social revolution on this scale, they may have bit off more than they can chew.

I am interested in peoples' thoughts on this.

Thanks for the provocative post.

[Mountainman]

13. What is the GOP plan to deal with this desparate anger

I think they don't have a plan. Conservatism is a dogma driven thing I think. They believe in conservatism like a religion. There dogma teaches that all will be well when each of us works for our own individual good. The strong will survive and the weak will die out. No problem then.

[Saudade]

14. Agreed

"I think they don't have a plan. Conservatism is a dogma driven thing I think. They believe in conservatism like a religion. There dogma teaches that all will be well when each of us works for our own indivedual good. The strong will survive and the weak will dye out. No problem then."

This is sort of astonishing to my common sense, but I think that you are correct. The religion analogy (if it's an analogy at all) is apt. They have faith that their ideas can change the facts, which is the definition of a fanatic.

[radwriter0555]

9. Notice how the word 'socialism' is demonised? Take the bite out of it

and appreciate socialism. Socialism is about the PEOPLE. By virtue of itself, it takes the greed out of our society and replaces it with empathy.

Freep Cons are convinced that words like socialism and communism are a bad thing, when in fact, their roots are in SOCiety and COMMunity. How can these be bad things?

We NEED more SOCIALISM and COMMUNISM to take care of our people apparently because the socio-economic divide is greater broader by the moment. Under this bush regime the rich are sure as hell getting richer by making more and more poor people poorer.

Embrace the idealogies of socialism and communism and let's redefine those simple words for this century, as GOOD words and GOOD things and things we need.

[Walt Starr]

10. The new feudalism

That's what the Repugnant party is pushing. And the peasantry doesn't even have a clue because they're too concerned about abortion, and Clinton's cock.

[onebigbadwulf]

12. It's so easy to stop

It's so easy to PERMANENTLY end the repugs once and for all but people are too stupid or stubborn to enact it...but I will say it three more times just for kicks...

LIBERAL COALITION.
LIBERAL COALITION.
LIBERAL COALITION.

Outvote the repugs in every district of every county of every state of every election until it is a non-existent party.

From there we can have greens and dems as the two parties which would lead america into a path of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and socialism.

We have no one to blame but ourselves for not uniting against the most wicked of enemies- the fundamentalist right-wing class dividers.

[tlcandie]

23. Can you explain this more, please?

It sounds great, but not sure exactly how this would work.

[Vogon_Glory]

11. The Right Wing Has Turned on the Pressure Cooker

George Bush, Karl Rove, Tom DeLay, and other right-wingers gleefully slapping each other on the back about their successes at seizing the levers of goernment don't realize it yet, but they're unintentionally set the stage for a reaction to their radical policies. I suspect that in the medium to long term, there is going to be a political earthquake at least as powerful as what the US went through in the 1890's and very early 1900's.

The right wing has been so successful of late only because of their all-too-successful propaganda campaign and because a good chunk of the electorate has chosen to stay asleep. Part of the citizenry remains apathetic because they continue to wrongly believe that their Social Security, their Medicare, their enviornmental protections, their kids' chances at college loans will remain intact if they continue to listen to Boortz, Ingraham, etc. and continue to mark their ballots for the GOP. The other part continues to believe that what the government does doesn't affect them.

If the Republicans continue in office, the US will continue to revert to the sort of place it was as late as the 1920's--a nation half prosperous, half poor, with a large pool of badly-educated citizens, racially divided, and where major corporations can scoff at their neighbor's property rights or health concerns, and their elected and appointed officials are utterly apathetic to their plight. Even the most dimwitted and inattentive citizens will eventually notice, especially in a major recession, that they don't have unemployment insurance, their home has been foreclosed on, they can't get treated at a hospital, and that their lot was considerably worse than what it was in their parents' day.

It is one thing never to have had the social safety nets so laboriously put into place during the New Deal and the Great Society, it is another thing to realize that these nets were once there, but have been taken away by dint of right wing greed and right wing arrogance. Surely everyone except the most hard-core dittoheads and country club Republicans will notice.

That is the sort of tinder for the sorts of political earthquakes that shook Machado's and Batista's Cuba back in the last century, South America during the 1960's and 1970's, the Phillipines in the 1980's, and is currently shaking Venezuela.

I suspect that the political temblors won't start in dead earnest until there are major riots and dead men, dead women, and dead children lying dead in American streets. But it will come.

To be blunt, I don't know if the Democratic Party is up to reversing what the right wing is doing to the country. But eventually, someone will take up the challenge. I suspect that that someone would have share many of the uglier aspects of Huey Long's, Benito Mussolini's, and Juan Peron's drive to power, because they will have seen that our Democratic efforts at undoing the GOP agenda through debate, discussion, and fair campaigning had failed.

[Loonman]

15. Too much socialism

Too much socialism causes shortages and joblessness.

[Mountainman]

16. So does conservatism cause shortages and joblessness. They exist today.

Shortage of social services and goods exist now, not because they physically don't exist but because people don't have the means to pay for them. Health care is a good example. And joblessness exists because of out sourcing to countries that pay less. Call Direct TV and you get connected to someone in India. My wife did that yesterday. The person she talked to could not even communicate with her. We had to ask for someone who could understand what we wanted to get accomplished.

[LeahMira]

17. Oh?

Too much socialism causes shortages and joblessness.

How do you figure that?

[Loonman]

19. It eliminates marketplace competition

You end up standing in line for toilet paper and in a marketplace with centrally-planned socialism, currency is worthless.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. Socialism does not necessarily imply a planned economy

which was a stupid move on the part of the Soviet Union.

The Western European countries do not have planned economies, and while their "on paper" unemployment rates are higher than ours, that's because they actually count discouraged workers, students just out of school, and others who are not counted as unemployed in our statistics.

[radwriter0555]

24. Why is competition a good thing? How many KINDS of toilet paper

do we NEED?

What is the function of toilet paper? To wipe your ass. You clench it for merely a moment, then dispose of it. MUST it be quilted?

Competition leads to greed. Greed is NOT good. Competition is NOT always the best thing for everyone.

Sometimes things just need to BE as they are, and as needed, instead of being bigger, better, brighter, broader. This quest for the best is what makes a few richer and far more poorer.

When the rich get more rich by paying the poor less, how is that a good thing?

Greed is NOT good, no matter what the movies say.

[Loonman]

28. So with Socialism...

Okay.

TP company A: hires 1,000 workers, pulls a profit, hires 1,000 more

TP Company B: hires 1,000 workers and wants to compete with company A by producing more TP and selling at a lower price, but skimps on quality. Company B remains solvent because even though people like Company A better, company B produces an acceptable product for less. Company B hires 1,500 more workers to meet demand.

TP Company C: hires a 1,000 workers and decides to automate their assembly line(now I know TP isn't made on an assembly line, but for sake of arguement). Automation saves Company C money so they can make a superior product to company A, and now they can produce TP faster. Company C clinches the market and forces Companies A and B to improve their product, cut the price, or introduce more products.

Company C hires 1,000 workers, company A and Company B hire more workers, market researchers, etcetera




Now, onto centrally planned socialism:


Toilet Paper Company GOVwipe(US Gov subsidized and Nationally owned and run, just like every other TP company in a socialized economy) has one factory producing for all GOVwipe stores. Toilet Paper company GOVwipe has 1,000 workers. Since everyone buys the same paper, there is no need to hire anybody new or produce more TP, because there are no incentives to gain market share. There is no market share, so company GOVwipe produces the same amount of TP per month, at the same price, since people will buy it anyway, regardless of demand. Demand does not need to be met, because the only place you can get TP, anyway is at GOVwipe. Govwipe does not have to make a profit, just meet a quota and pay it's workers a pittance, since there is no demand, now, for skilled TP workers.

[tlcandie]

18. If you want a REAL wakeup call, I suggest you read here ...

but since it's early morning, I would say to hold off a bit or your day might not have a bright outlook :(

We all need t move past the dissecting, hashing, rehasing, name-calling discussing candidates and find a way QUICK to get on top of this crap...

We are all falling prey to a lot of what I've read here...Good luck

Paul Krugman

http://www.pkarchive.org/

<snip>
There's a pattern...within the Bush admin-istration....which should suggest that the administration itself has radical goals. But in each case the administration has reassured moderates by pretending otherwise — by offering rationales for its policy that don't seem all that radical. And in each case moderates have followed a strategy of appeasement....this is hard for journalists to deal with: they don't want to sound like crazy conspiracy theorists. But there's nothing crazy about ferreting out the real goals of the right wing; on the contrary, it's unrealistic to pretend that there isn't a sort of conspiracy here, albeit one whose organization and goals are pretty much out in the open....

Here's a bit more from Kissinger: "The distinguishing feature of a revolutionary power is not that it feels threatened...but that absolutely nothing can reassure it (Kissinger's emphasis). Only absolute security — the neutralization of the opponent — is considered a sufficient guarantee"....I don't know where the right's agenda stops, but I have learned never to assume that it can be appeased through limited concessions. Pundits who predict moderation on the part of the Bush administration, on any issue, have been consistently wrong....
<snip>

<snip>
I have a vision — maybe just a hope — of a great revulsion: a moment in which the American people look at what is happening, realize how their good will and patriotism have been abused, and put a stop to this drive to destroy much of what is best in our country. How and when this moment will come, I don't know. But one thing is clear: it cannot happen unless we all make an effort to see and report the truth about what is happening.
<snip>

[Loonman]

26. I didn't say socialism

I said "too much socialism".

[Mairead]

27. What Kissinger is describing, in the quoted passage, is clinical paranoia

Here's a bit more from Kissinger: "The distinguishing feature of a revolutionary power is not that it feels threatened...but that absolutely nothing can reassure it (Kissinger's emphasis). Only absolute security — the neutralization of the opponent — is considered a sufficient guarantee"....I don't know where the right's agenda stops, but I have learned never to assume that it can be appeased through limited concessions.

Someone afflicted with paranoia can never be reassured because their perception of threat has no rational basis (though in fact the person might also be genuinely threatened).

[NaMeaHou]

20. The idealistic in the 60s had numbers behind them

the boomers are now getting old and are not in any shape to start a revolution. There are simply not enough of the current youth to make a change, and most of them have already been coopted by the propaganda machine.

People don't give a shit. That's why we are where we are.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

22. Or they actually do care, but

they have been numbed into hopelessness by the mass media and the everyday concerns of life.

[ShimokitaJer]

25. We need to redefine socialism for the American public

Like so many other words, the Republicans have taken socialism and altered it for their own purposes, then used it as a club to beat the left with. I don't think it would take too much to redefine socialism for the American public.

First, point out the way conservatives regularly approve "socialist" policies when it comes to corporations and the wealthy rather than to the general public. Corporate bailouts, subsidies, tax breaks, etc. amount to public funding of private corporations. This is an oversimplification, but one which gets to the heart of the hypocrisy and one which middle America can appreciate.

Second, distinguish between luxuries and necessities. The Republicans love to pretend that socialism is all or nothing: if you don't stop the socialists, they'll see to it that everyone is driving the same kind of car, wearing the same kind of clothes, watching the same brand of VCR, and living in the same kind of house. But we can define a bare minimum that we guarantee to every citizen without denying those with money the right to buy something more. Reliable health care, affordable housing, and quality education are basic needs that we as a society should guarantee to all citizens. And that would prevent no one from paying more for a nicer house, better things,

The Republicans are NOT libertarians; they don't hate all public spending. They just want to control where the money goes and pretend it's all in the name of good fiscal planning. What we need to do is call attention to the money spent for the good of corporations and that spent for the good of the people.

[mermaid]

30. Well Said

Funny, I wrote mine before reading yours. You and I propose a very similar thing. Rd my post...I Hope You Are Right...within this thread.

[mermaid]

29. I Hope You Are Right

And I'm still alive to see it!

Because what I believe in is a system that places human need over human greed...that values people over corporations...a system that cares not about numbers...but cares about hearts, about people...about LIFE!!!

What I believe in is a baseline of minimum survival needs that should be provided for everyone...and then, if you are able thru hard work, skill, merit, whatever...to rise above that, then more power to you!

The sky's the limit...make as much money as you want...BUT NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHER PEOPLE'S VERY SURVIVAL!!

Capitalism, by it's very nature, is a cruel, cold, hard, and heartless system. It, by necessity creates deprivations in one area, and excesses in others. In a capitalistic system, what would happen if you gave everyone a million dollars? simple. As the ability of the people to pay increased, so would the price of goods and services...and you'd wind up with the same deprivations we currently have!

Capitalism, by it's nature, is the most amoral economic system ever devised by the mind of man. And I think it very ironic that the biggest proponents of this Godless system, are the ones who so avidly wear "Christian" on their sleeve!

And these damn Christians can STAY THE HELL OUTTA MY BEDROOM, while they are at it!! Their morals and laws are not welcome in MY bedroom...and it shall remain so until THEY are paying the bills! As long as I am paying them, thn my home is my castle, and they need to keep their nose OUT!

[ShimokitaJer]

31. I agree

Unfortunately, I think most Americans aren't ready to hear "capitalism" attacked yet. It's still has too strong of an association with "democracy" in the minds of most Americans for them to be see attacks against it as anything but an evil plot.

But I do think they are ready for the basic fundamentals you describe: a guaranteed bare minimum of the necessities of life for all Americans. It always amazes me that Republicans can decry that as socialism while they champion subsidies for wealthy congolomerates.