People have been brainwashed to believe that socialism is evil...

reply to post by robhines


Maybe you're not personally aware of the influential Venezuelan Jewish population. Or, is that Jewish Venezuelan population?

Oh, well...whichever.

We have no doubt that Hugo Chavez is much closer to Ahmadenijad than to anyone in the Jewish community. After all, Ahmadenijad was at Chavez's funeral standing beside Sean Penn, both emotionally claiming to be on the verge of suicide, they were in such psychological disrepair over the death of Hugo Chavez.

I particularly enjoyed the Beck comment that Hugo might still be alive if he had sought real medical treatment, rather than going to Castro's hospitals. I mean, like after pilfering billions of dollars, Hugo could have afforded any doctor or medical treatment he wanted. Give Hugo credit for sticking to his political guns and dying for those beliefs.

Now, if only Ahmadenijad and Sean Penn can find some relief from their pain.

ATS reminds me of what George Santayana, the poet, said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" Good Grief, most of you are so young that you don't have much in the way of first hand life experiences and personal observations that you think you discovered tying a second knot in your shoe laces to keep them from coming undone or worse, you are one of these "Closest Geniuses" who is a product of the Modern Brainwash System aka Public Education System where for example "History" has been re-written to not reflect the facts but to reflect the facts according to the winners.

If for example, you had survived Stalinist Russia of the 30s-60s you would not be so quick to think Socialism was so great; If for example, you had survived Communist China during the Maoist Purge, you would not think Communism was so great. None of you have stood in line for a day or two for Toilet Paper or Bread or lived when a few Boiled Potatoes to eat was a luxury or lived in a city where "Stray Dogs and Cats' were non-existent because they with eaten with great exuberance by those lucky enough to have caught and killed one.

In the minds of some of us, you Marxists are beyond help and will inevitably die for your ignorance, just as the "Owners" of this world hope you will do. You are not going to believe me or anyone else when we tell you that if any form of Marxism, Communism, Socialism is allowed to be fully embraced and implemented, the 2% will still live like Royalty, the 25% who are their Bind Slaves will live like "Bosses" and the rest of us will life like the Slaves they will inevitably make us.

Frankly, I do not know how to wake you up but I will make you a bet that there is not a one of you here who is espousing Socialism who knows the first thing about shooting, about hunting, about making your own reloads, about being a survivalist living off the land but know plenty about being a dependent to one extent or another upon the state/government. If we took a survey of all you who think Socialism is the way of the future, my bet is every single one of you at some point has collected Unemployment, Welfare and/or benefited from some State or Federal Government Subsidy. Behind the current, the wealthy elites see you are cannon fodder or worse, Useless Eaters.

There really is no educating you so, I say, stand right where you are; stand for what you believe, as I am sure you will inevitably be given the opportunity to die for what you believe in.

If you were to really want to help humanity, you would join a group that is going after the 1% because humanity is never going to have a chance to be more than Bond Slaves as long as the wealth and power of the world is in the hands of a few thousand Elites and their Minions. Sorry,I don't dare be specific here.

If you can force yourself to have the attention span beyond that of a Goldfish, you should listen to the Norman Dodd interview...to start with:


PS. TOS prevent me from personal attacks but I can suggest to a few members here who are pushing the Socialist Line real hard that you buy some Life Insurance or be very careful about what you say outside in the real world because there are still a couple of generations alive in this country who fought and hate Communists.
It is too bad you don't know my ex-wife who is from Belarus; she could tell you just how horrible Socialism is.

Originally posted by coltcall
reply to post by robhines

 

Maybe you're not personally aware of the influential Venezuelan Jewish population. Or, is that Jewish Venezuelan population?

Oh, well...whichever.

We have no doubt that Hugo Chavez is much closer to Ahmadenijad than to anyone in the Jewish community. After all, Ahmadenijad was at Chavez's funeral standing beside Sean Penn, both emotionally claiming to be on the verge of suicide, they were in such psychological disrepair over the death of Hugo Chavez.

I particularly enjoyed the Beck comment that Hugo might still be alive if he had sought real medical treatment, rather than going to Castro's hospitals. I mean, like after pilfering billions of dollars, Hugo could have afforded any doctor or medical treatment he wanted. Give Hugo credit for sticking to his political guns and dying for those beliefs.

Now, if only Ahmadenijad and Sean Penn can find some relief from their pain.

Pilfering billions of dollars seems to be the norm by the corrupt in most countries, the American government just didn't like the fact that he couldn't be easily manipulated and stood up to them and their propaganda. There'll sure be a race to work out how they can get to those oil reserves now though I guess.

People in power who had a go at Chavez are just hypocrites, with the added bonus that they could blame it all on socialism too, difference with Obama is that he'd just be helping the pilfering take place for corporate bosses who'd pocket the money instead.

National Iranian Oil Company, Afghan drugs and minerals, Iraqi oil, etc, etc, same thing, different country.

If they're having a go at some "dictator" or "regime" it's usually because they want to raid the country for some thing they can make cash from, with Syria it's probably to install a Rothschild banking system and so on. In fact that's probably another aim in Venezuela from what I remember reading about from time to time. Only a few countries to go when it comes to those banking systems being installed now.

Mali was said to be gold reserves too, Sudan oil, and so on. It's just a sham.

reply to post by Cabin
Hear! Hear! You are absolutely right. People have been brainwashed to believe Socialism is bad or wrong or dangerous. Yet socialism (not as a system but as an institution) has always been around. Post offices, libraries, school day-care, roads, bridges, etc. are all socialistic projects, they help people who do not necessarily pay into the program except with their taxes and the program is built or run buy the govt. Now, the word Social Security is often attacked as socialist simply because the word social is in it! However this is a program run by the govt. but paid for by the people. What people like Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity are screaming about is the oppressive Totalitarian Communist regimes, which were and are, as you said, not true Socialist systems. They were anti-human, and really not a form of socialism at all but forms of dictatorships. Of course this is what they are saying that the duly elected president of the United States is a communist dictator. Forgetting that is Obama were Stalin, they'd all be dead. The fact that they can even speak out against him shows he is no dictator. And of course Obama is still bound by the laws of the Constitution. Which means he cannot be a dictator. Nor can he simply pass socialist laws. They are afraid of Obama because he is a Black liberal. And they fear that as they have done to Black liberals in the past, so the same shall be done unto them. So it is their own fears which cause them to conflagrate a proper Democratic candidate and process into a Communist nightmare for themselves. But no one is lynching them, burning their homes or churches. And really they should have been more concerned with Bus and Cheney's Socio/Religious-Fascist World View (Where you take all the people's money in order to foment war and take the people's power away from them with laws that take away privacy, jail them without warrant, and make everyone believe on way or be seen as traitors...etc. Like Hitler and Stalin and Mao all did...) However they are mouthpieces for this sort of Socio/Religious-Fascism, so they won't decry it, they will promote it. Socialism in and of itself, has never been tried. As you said. It's always watered down. And yet, a government truly BY the People, FOR the People and OF the People is actually true socialism. If we stopped having representatives and had one person-one vote, we'd have the perfect Social Democracy. (Not socialist democracy which is what the demon nazis tried to foist on Germany). Fear and panic gets us nowhere. Good to hear a solid and rational voice come out of this debate!

reply to post by MajorKarma
Neither Stalinst Russia or Maoist China were true socialist systems. They were tyrannical dictatorships that used the word Socialist in the wrong way. Truly educated people understand that the word Socialism is in and of itself innocuous. When you use it Soviet Socialist Republic, it sours the term. Just as Nationalist Socialist Democratic Party sullies both the words socialist and democracy when in fact it is Nazism. Dictatorships do not work. They use the words of political systems as disguises for tyranny. I lived during these times. I am educated in public schools and I can tell the difference between socialism and tyrannical totalitarian regimes pretending to be socialist. Whether it is Venezuela under Chavez, or Cuba under Castro or Spain, Russia, China, North Korea, etc. it is all DICTATORSHIP. We here do not have to worry about a Dictatorship...unless you run another BUSH as a candidate and he wins! This is a family empire stretching too far into our political lives and causing way too much damage. But if we hire these fiends, then we have to live with what they do WRONG to us. We vote them in. This is democracy. We voted in Obama. Let's see how it works out. That is Democracy.

reply to post by robhines


Yes, Obama is NOT helping the poor people.

Chavez and Castro did NOT help the poor people. Made them think they were being helped. But, alas, the poor people have been destitute for so long they really don't know what help looks like.

The difference is that Chavez and Castro were able to mobilize their military strong arm to take care of political opposition (including JFK).

I don't know if Obama is that confident he can get the American military to fire on American citizens. So far the FEMA camps haven't become overcrowded. Yet. Though Obama could easily fill the FEMA camps with the poor. But then he wouldn't have a political base to deliver speeches to their adoring facial expressions.

He can't fill the FEMA camps with the successful, because then he'd have nobody to fly Air Force One to his vacation retreats. What? He's going to imprison Tiger Woods? Who'd he play golf with, then?

Sycophants like Sean Penn live in an alternate universe of celebrities that have absolutely nothing in daily common with those who are not celebrities.

Venezuelans could not make Hugo Castro listen to them. Cubans could not make Castro listen to them. America is great because Obama has to listen, even if his welfare liberal constituency get angry when Obama makes personal profits.

Don't cry for Obama,. Venezuela. He and George Soros are raking in tons of personal cash off their investments (with American tax dollars) into the Brazilian oil giant Petrobras.

Originally posted by ProfessorChaos
The REAL problem is not the system itself, the real problem is the people in charge of the system. As citizens in the U.S. ( I can only speak of the society to which I belong), We think that we can change the way the government manages the system which we live under, the unfortunate truth is that though on paper (for now) we can do just that, yet we fail to do so when the need arises. The average voter in the U.S. is lazy when it comes to keeping up on the doings of their representatives. Most are easily swayed by the most outlandish propaganda and re-elect proven liars. It happens in our Capitalist society, It will happen in a Socialist one as well.

In a true utopian socialistic society, there would be no "other" people "in charge" of the system since the goal would be that "the society" in some way would be in charge for itself. (Or varieties of this, for example when a society is split into "communes" (read: COMMUNISM) where the ideal case would be that people live in self-sufficient communes WITHOUT the needed interference of a greater government or anyone else "in charge".

That this is an UTOPIA is out of the question since humans will always organize themselves in some way that one or a group will be in charge of things, of course.

On a side-note, in the more "socialistic" countries such as Western European countries, there exists LESS OF A DIVISION between the "common people" and "the government". (There is a reason why most conspiracy theories that involve the "bad government" originate from the US). The separation of the people and the government is NOT always perceived in such a way as in the states.

Look to Sweden and Denmark etc. Rather than seeing their government as those "in charge who screw everything up", in fact many people there are entirely fine how their government and their entire society works since "those in charge" are more perceived as actually benefiting (mutually) rather than OPPOSING the general populace. There is not such a big divide between "those in charge" and the rest of the people, such as in the US. This is, to some extent, astonishing if we consider those countries "pretty much socialist", but the REAL result is that people are much more content with their government - as opposed to those countries where socialism/communism failed. In other words: This is proof that socialism (in some way) CAN and DOES work *if done right*.

Originally posted by whisperindave
reply to post by MajorKarma

 

Neither Stalinst Russia or Maoist China were true socialist systems. They were tyrannical dictatorships that used the word Socialist in the wrong way. Truly educated people understand that the word Socialism is in and of itself innocuous. When you use it Soviet Socialist Republic, it sours the term. Just as Nationalist Socialist Democratic Party sullies both the words socialist and democracy when in fact it is Nazism. Dictatorships do not work. They use the words of political systems as disguises for tyranny. I lived during these times. I am educated in public schools and I can tell the difference between socialism and tyrannical totalitarian regimes pretending to be socialist. Whether it is Venezuela under Chavez, or Cuba under Castro or Spain, Russia, China, North Korea, etc. it is all DICTATORSHIP. We here do not have to worry about a Dictatorship...unless you run another BUSH as a candidate and he wins! This is a family empire stretching too far into our political lives and causing way too much damage. But if we hire these fiends, then we have to live with what they do WRONG to us. We vote them in. This is democracy. We voted in Obama. Let's see how it works out. That is Democracy.

edit on 9-3-2013 by whisperindave because: revised.

Same old song and dance from the defenders of socialism.

Blah blah the elite this and if everyone would work together to benefit mankind and the best one "we haven't had any true socialist" societies. A little protip for you - you will never see your utopia society because people don't work that way. Get it through your skulls - no one is saying socialism is evil, we are simply saying IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO IMPLEMENT.

Originally posted by MajorKarma

Frankly, I do not know how to wake you up but I will make you a bet that there is not a one of you here who is espousing Socialism who knows the first thing about shooting, about hunting, about making your own reloads, about being a survivalist living off the land but know plenty about being a dependent to one extent or another upon the state/government. If we took a survey of all you who think Socialism is the way of the future, my bet is every single one of you at some point has collected Unemployment, Welfare and/or benefited from some State or Federal Government Subsidy.

How many of those collecting welfare or or unemployment do so BECAUSE THEY CHOSE SO?
WHY is it even that some/many people are depending on welfare or unemployment in the first place?

I think it's bizarre and entirely absurd to realize that a country might have a big budget spending on all kinds of unnecessary #, however then when it comes to unemployment (which more often than not might very well NOT on fault of the people who ARE unemployed) would require "hunting and shooting" as a survivalist so they can eat? Maybe they should also learn to dig holes in the dirt so they have a place to sleep?

Look, you very well have the liberty to condemn unemployment and welfare, but THEN I'd kindly ask you counter with a solution what the better alternative would be, in your opinion? Hint: Telling the unemployed to "get a job" OFTEN might not cut it - UNLESS you are blind what's going on? So..what's your plan?

*

And by the way, be assured that it would be all great for most people if there was no globalization (outsourcing etc) and each and any employer would have as his FIRST goal to employ as many people as possible instead. No outsourcing, no production in 3rld world countries, maybe even no trade with other countries altogether. Maybe THEN our unemployment rate would be almost zero. Problem only, THIS IS NOT THE CASE. Unemployment is a direct result of how our system works. If Toshiba, Intel, Microsoft etc. let's people work in India/Pakistan, it means people have no work HERE and/or it means less money, reduced wages etc.etc.
Since unemployment is a direct result of this system, the system MUST also have measures in place to support those who are negatively effected.

RIGHT NOW, it does not. You can not allow corporates to outsource and literally drain money and jobs out of the country and then blindly turn your back to what happens when this is done...and/or blame THE UNEMPLOYED for their misery (because those are the "bad guys" who want a hand-out) rather than THOSE who are responsible for this in the first place. (Corporates).

Originally posted by blupblup
Americans have been brainwashed to believe that socialism is evil...

What he said

Originally posted by whisperindave
reply to post by MajorKarma

 

Neither Stalinst Russia or Maoist China were true socialist systems. They were tyrannical dictatorships that used the word Socialist in the wrong way. Truly educated people understand that the word Socialism is in and of itself innocuous. When you use it Soviet Socialist Republic, it sours the term. Just as Nationalist Socialist Democratic Party sullies both the words socialist and democracy when in fact it is Nazism. Dictatorships do not work. They use the words of political systems as disguises for tyranny. I lived during these times. I am educated in public schools and I can tell the difference between socialism and tyrannical totalitarian regimes pretending to be socialist. Whether it is Venezuela under Chavez, or Cuba under Castro or Spain, Russia, China, North Korea, etc. it is all DICTATORSHIP. We here do not have to worry about a Dictatorship...unless you run another BUSH as a candidate and he wins! This is a family empire stretching too far into our political lives and causing way too much damage. But if we hire these fiends, then we have to live with what they do WRONG to us. We vote them in. This is democracy. We voted in Obama. Let's see how it works out. That is Democracy.

edit on 9-3-2013 by whisperindave because: revised.

You do not know what you are talking about.

The American people voted Obama into office like the Cincinnati Reds defeated the Chicago White Sox in the 1919 World Series.

reply to post by flexy123


If there is a government, there are people in charge of it. Even if in your example countries people are "mostly" content with the running of their government, that still would indicate that there are plenty that are not.

Wherever there is someone with power, there is the great potential for corruption and unfortunately, you could never convince me that there is no shady side to the governments of those nations, or that the common citizens don't sit and bemoan decisions made by said governments' politicians.

My point is that regardless of the percentage of content people, not everyone is happy with the system, be it capitalism or socialism. There are always going to be those that find it unfair no matter how fair the system claims to be.

For instance:

Finland

Finl and

Denmark

These were the results of a quick search. You see, not everyone feels that they are living in a Utopia, even in the countries that you mentioned.

No-one can expect someone raised in a Socialistic system to believe it is bad. However there are those from Russia who detailed what really happened behind the scenes. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in his THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO paints a very dim picture of the Socialistic system of that era. For anyone who hasn't read it, it is a must read. You can see where the USA is headed from that book.

Then there was my grandmother, who escaped the country and warned her daughters, my father, and even me to never return to the USSR lest we be put in a camp or worse. I'd feel much more inclined to do so today than under the previous style regime.

Of course we can point to Cuba which became a depressing mess, and more recently Venezuela under Chavez.
The country is a giant oil producer but the people have suffered needlessly and Chavez amassed some 2 Billion Dollars in personal wealth.

At least in a capitalistic system the entrepreneur spirit is a driving force for progress. Yes it has some lousy features and if you apply monopoly laws and a few others, it can be a great system. However our USA government has buggered up the works with private corporation self serving laws that have destroyed our capitalistic system.

Complain about Social Security. OK But don't forget more is paid into that system than is usually withdrawn before death.

Like the USSR we do have a system that gives people limited housing, but in many instances landlords are subjected to that absolute worst in tenants, those who destroy the apartments.

Then there are parents who do not force their children to truly study hard so to raise their status and the potential for superior jobs or occupations. This is what happens when you give people everything and expect nothing in return.

The answer is simple.

ATLAS SHRUGGED

Long before Jesus transformed the story into my heart Howard Roarke did.

Who is John Galt?

I am.

Originally posted by tadaman
reply to post by Cabin

 

its not evil.

It is retarded.

it supports do nothings and makes productive people lose faith and the will to produce for do nothings.

It requires that someone pick up the slack, and while it seems fine when we exploit the third world to make our lives that much more comfortable and the level of waste we enjoy possible and that sure beats borrowing on future money that our kids and grand kids will have to pay back someday to do the same, it is shocking to us when we have to pay our own way.....

How about we notice that it was when we all had colonies that they made a wasteful and opulent life style possible back in our home countries. Now that we dont have colonies we need to keep certain areas in "third world" status to manufacture and produce for us at slave wages to make all the wealth possible back home. not providing for yourself is a LUXURY. Not a right.

I am living in a form of socialism now, and it sucks monkey balls. I am tired of paying up the ass for services I will never use. I am tired of paying up the ass for people to sit home playing X-box or so they can be out and about at bars and cafes until the weekend when they party like it wasnt irresponsible to entertain yourself with tax money....

Screw that.

Like I said, it is retarded.

edit on 8-3-2013 by tadaman because: (no reason given)

What you describe is welfare, not socialism. Welfare is a capitalist creation. There are no do-nothings in socialism, everyone is asked to contribute. There are also no fat cats getting exceptionally rich riding the backs of others. I also don't believe it stifles innovation. Capitalism stifles innovation because only profitable endeavors are considered worthy. The great wealth from innovation is never the reason the innovators innovate. In fact quite a few of our greatest innovators reaped few rewards while their masters raked in the billions.

Socialism for our needs

Capitalism for everything else.

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse
reply to post by Cabin

 

The native people of the Americas had elder people whom the younger warriors would listen to and decide what course to take according to experience, and btw, sorry to rain in the parade of the socialists/communists, but even in these tribes people had private property. If a man was to marry a woman he had to show his love by pretty much buying her with possessions, from hides, to horses. The concept of private property wasn't invented by western society, it has existed for as long as mankind has lived on this planet.

I'm going to call foul on this portion of your post in particular as I have lived with and studied a number of Native American tribes. Concepts of property vary from tribe to tribe. In one tribe, it may be as you state but in another tribe, such as the Dine (aka Navajo), all of the property that was exchanged in a marriage is actually a gift to the woman getting married. Should the woman choose to no longer be married to that particular individual, all the property from the marriage remains in her custody--he's the one that has to go. Using the same tribe as an example (many of the Na-Dene tribes followed these same principals, btw), the concept of wealth distribution was fairly simple. If one particular family began to have more wealth than others around them, it was perfectly acceptable to steal from them in order to balance circumstances. It was considered to be the way that things should be in order to maintain the balance and, in fact, the wealthy still tend to be viewed with suspicion on the reservation to this day. This is actually one of the tribe's traits that eventually led to the US government going to war with the Dine in the late 19th century (the other being the government's misunderstanding that elders do not speak for the entire tribe but only their own families, which you also seem to misunderstand). It's awfully risky to go ahead and try to paint all of the Nat Am tribes under one brush because their beliefs, ownership systems and more vary from tribe to tribe. The only time that you can make a generalization about them is if you do it by their language groupings as the shared language most likely means that those particular tribes were probably related at some point. Even then, it's not a good idea to generalize because there will still be distinct differentiation in fundamental areas.

Originally posted by Benchkey
No-one can expect someone raised in a Socialistic system to believe it is bad. However there are those from Russia who detailed what really happened behind the scenes. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in his THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO paints a very dim picture of the Socialistic system of that era. For anyone who hasn't read it, it is a must read. You can see where the USA is headed from that book.

Then there was my grandmother, who escaped the country and warned her daughters, my father, and even me to never return to the USSR lest we be put in a camp or worse. I'd feel much more inclined to do so today than under the previous style regime.

Of course we can point to Cuba which became a depressing mess, and more recently Venezuela under Chavez.
The country is a giant oil producer but the people have suffered needlessly and Chavez amassed some 2 Billion Dollars in personal wealth.

At least in a capitalistic system the entrepreneur spirit is a driving force for progress. Yes it has some lousy features and if you apply monopoly laws and a few others, it can be a great system. However our USA government has buggered up the works with private corporation self serving laws that have destroyed our capitalistic system.

Complain about Social Security. OK But don't forget more is paid into that system than is usually withdrawn before death.

Like the USSR we do have a system that gives people limited housing, but in many instances landlords are subjected to that absolute worst in tenants, those who destroy the apartments.

Then there are parents who do not force their children to truly study hard so to raise their status and the potential for superior jobs or occupations. This is what happens when you give people everything and expect nothing in return.

Capitalists ensured that Cuba became what it did. Cut a country off from trade and deterioration becomes a certainty. The bottom 80% now enjoy better lives in Cuba then they did before Fidel. The 20% not so much, they all left when the ability to exploit went away. i think you could say the same about Venezuela.

The 20% hate socialism because they can no longer exploit and thus always set out to destroy it. the rest that have an issue with it just have hopes of being the 20%. Socialism ran properly would make everyone live like the 20%.

reply to post by whisperindave


Unfortunately potus has made public his wish to merely go around Congress, as Congress is still reasonably bound to our Constitution and he really would like to just make all the rules he wants..he is so sad that he doesn't have a complete rule as Totalitarians and petty dictators do. It is only Congressional oversight and the Constitution keeping him from becoming the all-powerful dictator he wish he was. He even said he is not a dictator because it's becoming more obvious and he still wants to fool everyone.

reply to post by ThirdEyeofHorus


Obama wishes the 'Gun Grabbing' controversy would go away, because the more Feinstein screams about crazy military veterans owning guns, the more guns are being sold.

The 'Gun Grabbing' Democrats have become the best gun salespeople in America.

Getting up on that soapbox to preach just backfires on the Feinstein and Bloomberg types.