Nine Myths about Socialism in the U.S. Redo

www.commondreams.org...

Glenn Beck and other far right multi-millionaires are claiming that the US is hot on the path towards socialism. Part of their claim is that the US is much more generous and supportive of our working and poor people than other countries. People may wish it was so, but it is not.

As Senator Patrick Moynihan used to say "Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. But everyone is not entitled to their own facts."

The fact is that the US is not really all that generous to our working and poor people compared to other countries.

I thought I would post a little intelligence from some of the ignorance that has been spewing as of late. So please read as it is a good article.

Any thoughts?

Pred...

Mod Edit: External Source Tags – Please Review This Link.

Mod Note (This Appears On Every New Thread Page):
AboveTopSecret.com takes pride in making every post count. Please do not create minimal posts to start your new thread. If you feel inclined to make the board aware of news, current events, or important information from other sites; please post one or two paragraphs, a link to the entire story, AND your opinion, twist or take on the news item as a means to inspire discussion or collaborative research on your subject.


[edit on 11/4/2010 by Mirthful Me]

Thankfully we here in the U.S. have something called the Constitution that supposedly limits the powers of the federal government.

Many of the things you listed above have no Constitutional backing for the government to do. Thankfully that has stopped them so far, but given the current climate in DC, I'm sure some of that crap will soon be policy.

There are plenty of socialist nations out there for people to move to if thats what they desire.

For 3 decades now, American workers have been part of a grand magic act, complete with the misdirection of "family values" and nationalism (bordering on jingoism), while their wealth has "magically" disappeared.

The problem is..."family values" and "patriotism" were merely political rhetoric to garner votes, not being universal, but for only certain "families" and "patriots". Anyone else was a Godless traitor.

Thank God the Center for Constitutional Rights has put out these facts and have been posted here. The conspiracy to make Americans turn over their power to politicians, who then turn over their government to corporations, seems to have worked.

The Great Oz is being exposed as a fraud, as these facts point out. The Flying Monkeys who were sent to scare people are still out there; however, be aware if they tone down their howling...as they still could throw scat and laugh at their victims.

Why was this deleted first time around??

I was about to reply when i got the message that the thread was moved to the trashcan??

Edit to say that...
OK just seen the mods update... didn’t realise that predator0187 had originally just copied and pasted the whole thing from another website... i thought it was all written by the predator0187... That’s against ATS rules and its kind of plagiarism!!

However... still some great points worth reading from the original source!!



oh well... my original reply...

Excellent OP S+F

I am not a socialist... but i do believe that parts of socialism can be incorporated into a democratic society to make it fairer... I believe that certain things should be nationalised like Healthcare, Schools, power and utilities etc...

Under the ownership of the corporates, these services are just moneymaking ventures and therefore the needs of the stakeholders will always be put before the needs of the public. In my opinion, this is shameful and will always lead to greed and corruption.

A free market simple means freedoms for rich people to make more money at the expense of the little man... Regardless of what the greedy corporates would have us believe, they need to be regulated. They have proved, on numerous occasions, that they cannot be trusted to regulate themselves!!




[edit on 11-4-2010 by Muckster]

We need FDR back! NOW!

After ww2 we hit a period of extremely stable growth between 15-20% every year. 1% unemployment and the gap between the rich and poor was the lowest in our history. Corps were strictly regulated, we were producers not consumers, and the super rich had 90% income tax. We called this time the 'golden days' that is where the baby boomers come from. We had jobs, money, and dignity but thanks to corporate crooks that followed JFK all that was over. The only way to save our nation now is to reinstate everything FDR wanted and did, that will give us back our jobs and our growth.

He was our only socialist president and he did more for the people than any other president in history. He layed the foundation for a fantastic future free from corporate control, but they decided they wanted their control back so they placed corporate crooks in control after FDR died.

[edit on 4/11/10 by Misoir]

reply to post by Misoir


He also violated the Constitution in numerous ways, but you dont really care about little facts like that do you?

Originally posted by brainwrek
reply to post by Misoir

 

He also violated the Constitution in numerous ways, but you dont really care about little facts like that do you?

Yeah he screwed up I will admit that. But when it came to the economy he got it right.

I think you might need these so called "elites" shaping policy.. Not because they represent how I think, necessarily, but because the masses of American people are stupid and easily tricked.


Hopefully that changes, as information becomes more available.. but I have a feeling it wont. There's a lot of fluff on the net, and when a person isn't equipped to filter out BS from truth, it wont matter that truth is abundant. That person will still be consuming large amounts of BS in his "info-diet."

reply to post by Misoir


I think FDR was a disaster. Yes, he was a socialist, a typical socialist who has so much money that no amount of government control over the creation of wealth was ever going to impact him or his family. FDR considered himself royalty, not a common man for any sense of the term. Read a bit about FDR and you will learn that he was extremely paternalistic in his views. He abhored freedom and felt that the government needed to take care of the citizens. His general world view was that of a gentle Mao when boiled down to the essential elements.

What FDR did was begin the march to a society where an increasing number of people feed of the state for their livelihoods. This is by design, not accidental. LBJ took the next step with the Great Society and the War on Poverty and it is now being finalized by BO. I won't deny that many of the government projects that were instituted by FDR did much to improve the lives of Americans. He did and for that he is to be acknowledged. The current administration could take a few pointers out of FDR's handbook and embark on some true public works rather than slapping curbs in in neighborhoods that already have curbs which is what they are doing here. Many of the projects instituted during the FDR era are things that today we can look at and say - "see that fantastic library? It was built during the depression". Now we'll be able to look at round-abouts and off-ramps. Real source of pride being generated there....

As far as the sustained economy during those years, it was all due to the build-up of the military industrial machine that continues to haunt us today. The Cold War started the day after WWII ended. The whole business of graft, corruption and corporate influence over government got a massive head of steam during the FDR years. The other factor that had a significant impact on the sustained economic health was due to the advent of women in the workforce. Rosie the Rivitor showed that women could contribute in the workforce in ways that historically were denied them, that fact alone injected massive talent into the American workforce. FDR had nothing to do with that, it was simple supply and demand of labor, but it had a demonstrative impact on economic growth.

This country has reached a place from which there is no recovery. We are worse than a typical socialist state. We don't have politicans who have the stones to say that they desire a socialist society. We don't have people who have the stones who are willing to say that they want socialism. We have politicians who want the benefits of socialism such as giving out tax payer cash to make themselves feel good, but don't have the integrity to acknowledge that each time they do that they destroy a bit of the freedom of the society. We have an increasing percentage of citizens who want the government spiff, but rail against the government.

What we have is a quasi-socialist society that is so complex due to the intellectual dishonesty or incompetence of out political leaders and the weakness of our citizens that it will be impossible to dismantle.

We would be better off nationalizing everything and getting rid of the half measures and then unwinding the entire to a clean capitalist system. The mess we have today can not be fixed. The politicans and corporatists don't want it fixed and the complexity of it numbs the average person, so while getting raped, they just figure they'll lay back and enjoy it.