BS: The Road to Socialism

Subject: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 03:50 PM

I posted this elsewhere, but it deserves its own thread.

Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who sits on the Senate Budget Committee, said he wouldn't reject the idea of nationalizing U.S. banks.

"I'm very much afraid that any program to salvage the banks is going to require the government," the South Carolina senator said today in an interview on ABC's "This Week" program. "I would not take off the idea of the nationalizing the banks."

And guess who's opposing it: Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Shumer (who seem to be some sort of bastion against creeping Republican Socialism)

Who woulda thunk it?

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 04:04 PM

??? I shore wouldna thunk it. I have not seen the reasoning.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 04:09 PM

I think I would nationalize the banks if it were up to me. Not that I'm hugely knowledgable on the subject...

I'm not.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: pdq
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 04:16 PM

David Frum on the demise of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Posted: July 11, 2008, 4:00 PM by Marni Soupcoff
David Frum

"The shapers of the American mortgage finance system hoped to achieve the security of government ownership, the integrity of local banking and the ingenuity of Wall Street. Instead they got the ingenuity of government, the security of local banking and the integrity of Wall Street.

Yesterday, shares of the two U.S. mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapsed. Freddie's shares have lost 70% of their value in a week; Fannie's 55% over the same period.

Fannie and Freddie are technically known as government-sponsored enterprises. What that means in practice is that everybody assumes they carry a government guarantee even though in reality they do not.

This assumed guarantee has allowed them to engage in decades of dubious market activity, which has now come to a disastrous head.

For its first 30 years of life, Fannie Mae actually was owned by the government. In those quiet early years, Fannie (formally known as the Federal National Mortgage Association) borrowed at very low rates, typically an eighth of a point above the U.S. Treasury itself, then loaned the money to banks for middle-class mortgages.

In 1968, the Johnson administration decided to privatize Fannie — not for any free-market reason, but because the federal government's debt was rising fast, and the administration realized it could make the government's accounts look better by moving Fannie Mae's obligations off the books.

The administration then created a second company to provide competition to Fannie. Thus was born Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan and Mortgage Loan Corporation. (It owes its nickname to its ticker initials FRE.)

Today the two companies together are responsible for some US$5-trillion of mortgage debt. To put that in perspective, that's more than half the entire U.S. federal debt.

Fannie's and Freddie's ability to pay their debts depends in turn on their ability to collect from retail mortgage lenders. And with those lenders dropping dead like roses in a heat wave, collection suddenly looks very much in doubt.

The two institutions have long been run not by bankers but by retired political figures, predominantly Democrats. From 1991 to 1998, Fannie Mae was headed by James Johnson, a longtime aide to former Democratic vice president Walter Mondale. Johnson's successor, Franklin Raines, had served as budget director to Bill Clinton. Jamie Gorelick, vice chair of Fannie Mae from 1998 to 2003, served as deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration.

These figures have paid themselves impressive private-sector salaries. Johnson earned US$21-million in just his last year at Fannie Mae. Raines earned US$90-million for five years' work at Fannie Mae. Gorelick got US$26-million.

Yet the companies never had to meet the discipline of the private marketplace. They paid no taxes, and they had access to a line of credit at the Treasury department. More ominously for today's crisis: They were not required to provide anything like the level of information about their internal operations expected of a privately owned company.

This non-transparency allowed Fannie Mae to engage in serious accounting fraud, overstating its earnings by more than US$6-billion over the Raines years — overstatements that incidentally justified the company's lavish compensation packages. (Both Johnson and Raines incidentally also received below-market mortgages from the large mortgage company — and major Fannie Mae beneficiary — Countrywide Mortgage.)

The loss of confidence that struck the markets this week has been gathering for years. It is the natural byproduct of the bad practice of merging private business with government power.

As so often happens with large scandals, the cost will fall on everyone except the responsible parties. In 2006, federal regulators sued Franklin Raines and two other Fannie Mae executives to recover  US$115-million of compensation. The case was settled for US$3-million, plus the surrender of some (now probably valueless) stock options and other contingent benefits. The US$3-million was paid from Fannie Mae's own insurance.

And at the polls this November, the voters will likely exact a political price for the debacle from John McCain and the Republicans — even though the party most tainted by the failure ought to have been the Democrats. Indeed, James Johnson until recently chaired Barack Obama's vice presidential selection committee.

That's not close enough to justice, not even close enough for government work. "

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: kendall
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 04:22 PM

pdq, interesting. However, Phil Gramm. (Senator Deregulate), is at the top of the blame list, and both Pat Buchanan and Allen Greenspan have both said the fault lies with Mr. Bush himself.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 05:09 PM

Very interesting stuff, pdq. You can't go halfway on something. It either has to be genuinely government run and guaranteed...or it has to be privately run and face the rigors and risks involved, seems to me...but not poised vaguely somewhere in the nebulous middle ground between the two.

"the Johnson administration decided to privatize Fannie — not for any free-market reason, but because the federal government's debt was rising fast, and the administration realized it could make the government's accounts look better by moving Fannie Mae's obligations off the books."

Right on!!! That is exactly what a long series of governments...both liberal and conservative...have been doing in Canada now for at least 2 decades. They have been privatizing government-run businesses and public services...not to improve those services...not to reduce costs...not to give the public a better deal...but simply to make the government's accounts look better by taking an obligation off the books!

In other words, they've been ducking their real responsibilities for a quick cash windfall. The normal result of this has been: much higher prices for the services that have been privatized, and no improvement in those services whatsoever. Both the Liberals and the Conservatives do it. The Conservatives are much prouder of themselves for doing it... ;-) ...but they both do it just the same.

And they pretend to be "public servants"! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 05:15 PM

Seems to me that problem-solving and blame-assigning are separate and different activities.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 05:24 PM

Oh, indeed. And how does the field mouse solve the problem of the hungry wolfpack, dick? We are discussing great events in the field of politics that most of us have no personal control or influence over at all. What we do have personal control over, however, is our own lives.

My way of handling that part is: I don't break the law. I do the work that is in front of me, and I try to do it well. I don't get myself into debt. If the ruling wolfpack performed according to those same simple three steps, we wouldn't have a problem here to complain about, would we? We could complain about something else. ;-) Like the neighbour's dog...

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: pdq
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 05:26 PM

Johnson's decision to put Fannie Mae in private hands was not based on conviction, philosophy or anything positive. It was done to get the increasing Federal indebtidness "off the books" so he could spend huge amounts of money on social programs that most of his party demanded, and on war in Viet Nam at the same time, without exploding the National Debt.

When you look at graphs of which president ran up "how much" National Debt, you start to see that the numbers have been doctored. The last 1.5 trillion, TARP and the "stimulus package" will be blamed on George W. Bush. In the Stimulus Package actually raise the Debt limit to 12.1 trillion in a provision within the bill itself.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 05:43 PM

"Johnson's decision to put Fannie Mae in private hands was not based on conviction, philosophy or anything positive. It was done to get the increasing Federal indebtidness "off the books" so he could spend huge amounts of money on social programs that most of his party demanded, and on war in Viet Nam at the same time, without exploding the National Debt."

No kidding! ;-) And don't I know it. That's why privatization is done in Canada too. It's done to get Federal indebtedness off the books. It's done by both Liberals and Conservatives. The Conservatives also do it because of their convictions, their political philosophy, that sort of thing, that's why I say they're proud of it when they do it....but they still really do it just to get the debts off the federal books.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Stringsinger
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 05:48 PM

It wouldn't hurt the US to apply a little socialism to the economic problems. We don't have to become a socialist country to do that.

The banks are not able to adequately regulate themselves so they don't deserve to be bailed out. A nationalized banking system would be better than what we have now. It wouldn't have to be a permanent system but it certainly could be better regulated if it went back to privatization.

Stringsinger

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 05:49 PM

That's about how I figure it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Big Mick
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 06:45 PM

Ever heard of the National Bank of Scotland. Plenty of countries that are built on the pseudo capitalist model do just fine with a nationalized banking structure. What the greedy ones don't want you to figure out is that if they were nationalized, we wouldn't have had the lunacy of what we have just, and will continue, to experience. They like it like it is because they can take exhorbitant salaries without accountability or even the expectation of profitability, then when they inevitably melt down, they have ridiculous golden parachutes which reward them for incompetance, or worse, theft.

I will never understand how folks who will never see that kind of income, and whose savings programs have been decimated, still defend the system, and act like "Socialism" is such a dirty word. You already have a broken system that has insured many of you will never see the fruits of your life's labors. Nationalize banks is not the road to socialism. It simply puts the regulatory machine in place to PROTECT YOU.

.... and to the basic premise of this thread, I think Dick is trying to get you to see that we already practice the socializing of loss. If half the nitwits who toss the word around really understood socialism, they would be clamoring for it.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 06:59 PM

Where are the socialists when you need them?

Sherlock Holmes's advice fits in very well in this situation: "It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 08:00 PM

Nationalization of US banks won't work... Too many of them... Yeah, Sweden nationalized their banks but there were only half a dozen... We have some 22,000 banks and I fear that nationalizing them would be very costly and difficult...

But if that's what we have to do, then we have to do it but I'd say it should be considered the last resort...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 10:09 PM

Some pretty hefty regulations could be put on them, though. Should be put on them.

Or, for that matter, get rid of the people from the industry who are currently running those regulatory agencies and enforce the regulations that are already there.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: GUEST,Slag
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 10:13 PM

"Road? Where we're going we don't need roads!" Doc Brown to Marty at the end of "Back to the Future".

Road? It's a infundibulum lubricated with lies and deceit and a charade of greenbacks printed by some of the biggest liars of all: the Federal (not!) Reserve banks. Travesty upon travesty. Bush? You bet! Clinton? Without a doubt! Obama? Just watch!

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: bald headed step child
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 10:14 PM

You really don't need to nationalise the entire system. Many of the banks in the US are run fairly well.

If the gov't would take the money they have been giving the large banks, and instead buy up voting shares in those banks, they would control them and be able to fire the idiots who have been running them, straighten them out, and then re-sell them into the private market.

This idea has been going around the progressive talk shows for awhile now, and the more I hear about it the more it makes sense.

Mick, you are right, I believe, that most here don't understand what socialism means. Hell, the republicans don't even know what conservatism means. They say they are conservatives, but I think the idea of every man for himself, dog eat dog, only the strong survive, and no gov't regulation would actually classify them as anarchists.

Too many people confuse socialism with communism, and communism with the USSR.

How many of the socialist programs we already have are they willing to do without? Police? Fire departments? Sewer systems? Water treatment and distribution? Gas and electric distribution? Schools? Ambulance service? Health departments? Roadway systems?......

Yeah, they're probably right. Socialism is evil. We should just get rid of all that stuff.

Hey, at least we might finally do something about all the overcrowding.

BHSC

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 10:46 PM

Litle Hawk-
Clearly the field mouse is in a lousy position re. hawks. One approach is to try to strike a deal with hunters.

Whay I found intriguing is the source of the proposal. Mr. Graham has never been in favor of nationalizing anything as I recall. As to the proposal--why not? Nationalize a;ll those banks that are "too large to fail" but are failing nontheless. The thousands of small banks that didn't cut their own throats with toxic loans can keep on jes' fine.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 11:23 PM

A 2-tier approach? Nationalize the huge banks and leave the smaller ones be? That might actually be the best way to go in the USA where there are so many different banks.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: wyrdolafr
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 02:04 AM

If you were nationalising industry and the means of production - rather than 'socialising loss' as Big Mick put it or nationalising banks - then America would be on the road to socialism.

As it stands, those in suits at the top of the economic food chain have found just another way of perpetuating something that's already rotten to the core. Not just through 'socialist bailouts' (which are anything but socialist), but by people using the word 'socialist' in such bizarre ways and with such negative connotations that it's like the 1940s and 1950s all over again.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Greg F.
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 09:08 AM

Some pretty hefty regulations could be put on them, though. Should be put on them.

Uh, you mean put BACK on them, dontcha? There were such controls pre-Reagan & his de-regulation worshipping neo-con successors.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: bald headed step child
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 11:50 AM

1: Re-regulate what was deregulated, not just the banks either. The regulations were there for a reason. Some industries were a little over regulated, but those need to be addressed as single issues.

2: Forget about the Bush tax cuts. Roll back the Reagan tax cuts so the ultra rich start paying their fair share again, and are forced into expanding opportunity here. Hell, even guys like Warren Buffett say they aren't paying enough now.

3: Remove the cap from social security. This would almost immediately solve the insolvency of the social security system, and give the needed income for the health care proposals being offered.

4: Go back to FAIR trade instead of this free trade bulls$%#. Set the tarrifs in accordance with that country's policies on labor to encourage them to help their own workers. The current system is the way it is because we outlawed slavery here so the big corps just moved the work to countries where it is still basically legal. Those tarrifs need to be enforced on US companies who produce products overseas also, instead of giving them the blanket exemptions they currently enjoy.

5: Reinstitute the ban on "bucket shops". Bucket shops were one of the big problems 100 years ago, and were outlawed around 1908. The effective parts of the legislation were overturned in the late 1990's and signed by Clinton. This is what has caused the commodities speculation that among other things drove the oil prices to record highs last year, and continue to make the stock market so volatile now. It also effects the banking industry, as interest rates follow the markets, which are being manipulated to the advantage of "investors?".

These are just a few of the many "key" issues that are being ignored by Fox Noise and much of the other media.

The banking system very much needs to be overhauled, but without the rest, it will just spin it's way right back down to the bottom.

BHSC

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 12:27 PM

One thing that--to me, at least--seems indisputable: You can't have Businesses "too big to be allowed to fail" and free-market capitalism at the same time.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 12:52 PM

You can't have a government which abandons its common folk in time of need. You can't have an ocean liner with not enough lifeboats on it to carry off all the passengers when the ship sinks.

Well, you can. But you shouldn't. It shouldn't be allowed...and it isn't anymore, with ocean liners.

Free market capitalism does not exist in order to protect or safeguard the general public. It exists simply so that individuals can find their own unique ways to earn money. And that's fine, but it doesn't protect or safeguard the public from anything. The government exists to do all the things that free enterprise either cannot do in terms of safeguarding the public...or will not do, because it's not profitable for them to do it. The government therefore is an essential service that MUST be there to protect the public and keep a society from being in a state of anarchy, and that government is socialism in action. All governments are forms of socialism in action. They cannot help but be that way. They ARE a socialist institution. This seems not to be understood by a majority of Americans.

To have a government at all is to have socialism. That doesn't mean that everything else in the society has to be socialist. Most societies are a combination of socialism and capitalism...because you have the government at various levels...socialism...and you have the private business sector...capitalism...........and they are BOTH there to do what they do best and let the other do what it does best.

Socialism governs and regulates and provides public services for the purpose of maintaining public order, law, health, education, defence, and functionality of the overall society.

Capitalism markets profit-making goods and services of all kinds to earn a profit and to provide all those desired goods and services to the public.

Socialism and capitalism are NOT enemies! They are the right and left hands of a normally functioning modern society.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 01:26 PM

". . . you mean put BACK on them, dontcha? There were such controls pre-Reagan & his de-regulation worshipping neo-con successors."

Exactly so, Greg. I should have made that clear (for those who don't know). The regulations are there. Most of them were instituted in the Roosevelt administration in an effort to combat the abuses that led to the Great Depression. The Republicans and other conservatives have been trying to get rid of them ever since. Along comes Reagan, who essentially nullified them by either ignoring them entirely or by appointing people to the regulatory agencies who were from the various entities being regulated. Such as people from the pharmaceutical companies appointed to the Food and Drug Administration or stock market flaks on the Securities and Exchange Commission.

I believe this is referred to as "putting the foxes in charge of the chicken coop." Look where it got us!

Capitalism works fairly well when it is duly and objectively regulated. If that is Socialism, then so be it! Without that regulation, it becomes an Aristocracy of Greed.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: bald headed step child
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 01:31 PM

You are right on that Dick. Too big to fail is too big to exist,IMHO.

And what did the first part of the bailout do that Bush administered?

We gave the banks, that were too big to fail, money which they used to buy up more banks, which makes them even bigger.???!

De-regulation put us here, and the republican answer is to de-regulate more???

More tax cuts for those who don't pay now???

I think some who oppose the "socialist" agenda would have been on the Titanic cutting the lifeboats adrift with the argument that the ship will sink slower without the extra weight.

LH, you said what I was trying to get across in my post yesterday, but you probably said it a little better. Things are getting a little grim around here, and the projections for the trucking industry just say it's going to get even worse, so I get a little frustrated.

BHSC

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: bald headed step child
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 01:41 PM

Yeah, Don.

One of Bush's big ones has been to fill the Department of the Interior, and fish and wildlife, with people from the mining and lumber industries because of all the pesky regulations that slowed down mining and logging. He also declared that they cannot use scientific environmental impact evaluations to determine whether an area can be mined, or logged, or drilled.

Lewis Black regularly says "I couldn't make this s^&* up if I tried".

It's just beyond belief.

BHSC

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: robomatic
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 02:27 PM

The surest way to EFF up Socialism is to put the government in charge!

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Peace
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 02:29 PM

The government--both there and here--could screw up a one-car funeral.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 05:01 PM

Ah...fashionable cynicism. ;-) But, guys, try living somewhere where there really IS no government. I'm thinking.....Somalia.

When there IS no government then you can expect to be accosted at any time by the meanest son of a bitch in the valley, carrying a large gun, and accompanied by his vicious hangers-on. If you are a man, they will rob you, beat you up, maybe kill you. Or they might recruit you to join the gang and do that to other people. If you are a woman who is still young enough to attract their attention, they will rob you, rape you, and then kill you.

That is a complete lack of socialism...and of government.

You don't notice all the stuff the government IS doing right every day of your lives, and you know why? Because people only notice something when it goes wrong or stops working.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: akenaton
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 05:35 PM

Perhaps the rape, robbery and murder are symptoms of our modern society.

Primitive societies do not operate like that, although there is no "law" as such. The notion of personal gain or personal power for its own sake, does not exist.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 05:46 PM

Primitive societies were a whole different situation. Most of them had no money. They had a very cohesive family and small community-oriented structure. In a situation like that, where everyone knows everyone else, people are inhibited from bad behaviour by the fact that they would be shunned by the whole community or outcast for it. And they are free of much of the stress and anonymity we experience in a modern civilization.

Most crime stems, directly or indirectly, from people's relationship with money...and the great disparities in people's financial circumstances. Where you have massive poverty, combined with a lack of good government, you have a high crime rate too.

Primitive people did not face those kinds of challenges. If they were poor, they were all poor together, and they worked together to address that problem. If they were prosperous, they were all prosperous together. That's why you didn't get much crime in those societies. It is gross financial inequality that breeds most crime.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 05:48 PM

That's the "nobile savage" view of the world, Ake, and althought it sounds idyllic, unfortunately it never really existed. Sorry.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 06:04 PM

Hmm. Neither "nobile" nor "nubile." Should read "noble."

(Washed my hands last night and can't do a thing with 'em!)

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 06:08 PM

It was far from idyllic, Don. Life was usually hard, fraught with danger, there was much intertribal warfare, privation, sometimes disease, and women in particular worked extremely hard all their lives, while men faced everyday dangers in hunting and in war that most of us never face.

How does that translate as "idyllic"?

I was simply pointing out that they didn't have some of the chronic social problems we have...I was not saying that they had no problems.

The "noble" savage is to a great extent a myth. But it's not completely mythical. It contains a certain grain of truth, in that tribal peoples often had a more consistent spiritual life and honor system than the Europeans who came in and displaced them. For instance, the concept of lying seems to have been virtually unknown to some of the Amerindian tribes when they were first encountered by Whites in the northeast of North America. This, again, would hardly mean that their lives were idyllic.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: akenaton
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 06:15 PM

Exactly so, Master!

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 06:28 PM

I think what Bald Headed Step Child has said covers it...

Regulate the banks and tax the rich...

Purdy simple...

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: robomatic
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 08:34 PM

When there IS no government then you can expect to be accosted at any time by the meanest son of a bitch in the valley, carrying a large gun, and accompanied by his vicious hangers-on. If you are a man, they will rob you, beat you up, maybe kill you. Or they might recruit you to join the gang and do that to other people. If you are a woman who is still young enough to attract their attention, they will rob you, rape you, and then kill you.

Welcome to Venezuela!

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 12:15 AM

You know what? Trinidad's a lot like that too....after dark. You are not wise to go out much at night there. And they have a government, it's just a lousy government and a very corrupt police force, that's all. They also have extreme poverty existing alongside conspicuous wealth. That usually does it. If you're wealthy down there, your family members are in considerable danger of being kidnapped and held for ransom. Sometimes they return alive after the ransom is paid. Sometimes they don't.

We don't hear about how bad Trinidad is in the North American media, though, because Uncle Sam hasn't decided that Trinidad is a problem for corporate America at the present time. So it doesn't matter to Uncle Sam what happens there.....

This is not the case with Venezuela. Anything goes wrong in Venezuela?...you'll hear about it. I guarantee that. There are a lot of problems in the world. You will only hear about those you are supposed to hear about so you will support various future foreign policy moves by the USA. Never a word about the rest. If it doesn't matter to Uncle Sam, it's simply not deemed to be "newsworthy".

That is how propaganda works. I'm sure Chavez does the very same thing, only his efforts are aimed in the opposite direction.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Big Mick
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 06:39 PM

I just read a couple of posts that made me skip ahead and post/react. If they are covered in the intervening posts, I apologize.

A couple of folks talked about the "way to EFF up socialism" was to put the government in charge, or something to that effect. Another person piped in with how they could "screw up a one car funeral". I am not attacking those folks for saying this, as this is emblematic of the knee jerk response mechanism that I believe gets us in trouble. Folks divided into camps based on cliche driven sound bites, and looking for answers that fit their own prejudices. As a social/political/union/community organizer this makes me crazy. As a lover of people, and vibrant democracy (whether with a Socialist bent, or whatever) let me tell you that people get the government they deserve. If it is screwing things up, it is because we have an intellectually lazy electorate that is not holding their lawmakers feet to the fire. It is what I fear for Obama. It is clear he values debate and vibrancy, and expects the electorate to be involved. I fear that far too many will sit on the sidelines, and congratulate themselves for electing a nice, black man and wait for change to happen. But the most important job in a democracy is NOT leading. It is following, contributing, and challenging. There must be an active, engaged electorate that is operating from a place of involvement.

Think "government" (do you see what a generalization that is?) is screwed up? Then agitate, and advocate. Patriotism is about embracing your democracy. It is about challenging what is presented to you, and it is about changing what does not work, instead of talking about "them" or "government".

rant off,

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 07:56 PM

Exactly so, Mick.

With an electorate filled with people who spend more time checking up on the latest antics of Paris Hilton's Chihuahua than they do following what's going on in Washington, D. C., those who do pay attention and are willing to speak out when they feel it's necessary have a lot louder voice.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: robomatic
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 08:52 PM

Big Mick:
you wrote:
A couple of folks talked about the "way to EFF up socialism" was to put the government in charge, or something to that effect. Another person piped in with how they could "screw up a one car funeral". I am not attacking those folks for saying this, as this is emblematic of the knee jerk response mechanism that I believe gets us in trouble. Folks divided into camps based on cliche driven sound bites, and looking for answers that fit their own prejudices. As a social/political/union/community organizer this makes me crazy. As a lover of people, and vibrant democracy (whether with a Socialist bent, or whatever) let me tell you that people get the government they deserve. If it is screwing things up, it is because we have an intellectually lazy electorate that is not holding their lawmakers feet to the fire. It is what I fear for Obama. It is clear he values debate and vibrancy, and expects the electorate to be involved. I fear that far too many will sit on the sidelines, and congratulate themselves for electing a nice, black man and wait for change to happen. But the most important job in a democracy is NOT leading. It is following, contributing, and challenging. There must be an active, engaged electorate that is operating from a place of involvement.

I think you should take my one sentence posting very tongue in cheek, as in who else BUT the government is playing around with socialism?

I am capable of idealism, I imbibed it with my mother's milk (which I've been informed, came from a bottle). But I cannot abide taking these subjects too seriously.

One of my favorite short stories was an imaginary meeting between a (naturally socialistic) Israeli and the ghost of Karl Marx, who was upset about the Russian abandonment of strict Communism and predicting that the Chinese (under then strident Maoists) would "teach the bastards". My favorite line in the story was:

"'Socialism is a great theory, the only problem is it CAN be realized,' a witty person once said and how right I was."!

A serious Socialist is too reminiscent of the "lean and hungry" look described by Shakespeare. Danger, Will Robinson!

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:35 PM

Who is playing around with socialism? The banks & the auto companies, to name two groups. .. If my tax dollars are being given to some failed organization, I'd like to have a say in how they spend it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: heatherblether
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 05:33 AM

I dont think the bailing out of Big Business and the banks by republican or democratic politicians can be even remotely described as socialism.
Capitalism has been described as "a band of warring brothers" and what we are seeing in the USA and Britain is an attempt to rescue some of these "warring brothers" in the interest of general capitalism.
Socialism is not going to be delivered by some rich financier or hard nosed banker......it will come through the mass conscious activity of the working class!

ifor

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: robomatic
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 08:49 PM

"it will come through the mass conscious activity of the working class!"

I see. Socialism via seance!

Subject: RE: BS: The Road to Socialism
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 09:05 PM

That would be mass social action which could take the form of...

1. political action
2. strikes and other forms of organized protest
3. full scale revolution

That's how it was done in the past.