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Are You Really into Socialism?
+6
2seaoat
zsomething
polecat
EmeraldGhost
Wordslinger
PkrBum
10 posters
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2 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 3:52 am
Wordslinger
I'm a Democratic Socialist. I believe in single payer healthcare, free college and trade school education, and a living wage of no less than $15 per hour. I believe in strong and effective environmental laws and regulations, and in replacing all fossil fuel energy with renewable energy. I believe workers should own a major share of the companies with whom they are employed.
If you want to keep giving everything to the biggest employers and the ultra rich, at the cost of increased poverty for the workers, than you're a real capitalist motherfucker.
If you want to keep giving everything to the biggest employers and the ultra rich, at the cost of increased poverty for the workers, than you're a real capitalist motherfucker.
3 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 7:28 am
EmeraldGhost
So ... is there gonna be a queue for all that free stuff? And will I be able to smoke while I'm in line?
4 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 8:38 am
Wordslinger
EmeraldGhost wrote:So ... is there gonna be a queue for all that free stuff? And will I be able to smoke while I'm in line?
I imagine there will be lines. Wouldn't you like to be covered for the cancer your smoking will bring on? How about going to school to learn something that will get you a job you'll actually like? Consider: Free health care and college and a fair minimum wage (plus enforced vacations for all) are present in the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Spain, Portugal, France and England. The biggest companies and the richest folks pay their fair share so that everyone can enjoy life.
Here, as you damned well know, people living below the poverty level continue grow in number, the middle class is rapidly vanishing, and the rich get fat tax breaks they've paid for by buying elected congressional candidates and senators. Read the statistics yourself. Pure capitalism doesn't work except for those who are rich and powerful. Reality.
5 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 8:55 am
polecat
Remember in 2008 when capitalism failed after a handful of coked up financier vampires shit out a global real estate bubble and the government sucked the marrow out of everyone else to keep feeding them?
Seems like that should come up when bootlickers say socialism doesn't work.
Seems like that should come up when bootlickers say socialism doesn't work.
6 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 9:20 am
PkrBum
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/08/venezuelas-great-socialist-experiment-has-brought-a-country-to-its-knees/
7 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 10:20 am
polecat
PkrBum wrote:https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/08/venezuelas-great-socialist-experiment-has-brought-a-country-to-its-knees/
How about these countries? Are they on there knees?
Denmark
Finland
Netherlands
Canada
Sweden
Norway
New Zealand
Belgium
8 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 10:35 am
PkrBum
polecat wrote:PkrBum wrote:https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/08/venezuelas-great-socialist-experiment-has-brought-a-country-to-its-knees/
How about these countries? Are they on there knees?
Denmark
Finland
Netherlands
Canada
Sweden
Norway
New Zealand
Belgium
They aren't truly socialist. Granted the have a huge public sector and enormous taxes... but the also have large private sector capitalism that in some ways is freer than our system. They also have publicly owned carbon reserves that without would give a more honest account of their "third way".
9 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 11:36 am
Wordslinger
PkrBum wrote:https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/08/venezuelas-great-socialist-experiment-has-brought-a-country-to-its-knees/
Venezuela is a Socialist country. You are confusing Socialist Countries with Democratic Socialism. Not the same. Catch up booby. Norway, Finland Sweden etc. have a mix of capitalism and socialist components. I like that mix a helluva lot more than the one we suffer under!!
10 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 11:48 am
zsomething
Wordslinger wrote:PkrBum wrote:https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/08/venezuelas-great-socialist-experiment-has-brought-a-country-to-its-knees/
Venezuela is a Socialist country. You are confusing Socialist Countries with Democratic Socialism. Not the same. Catch up booby. Norway, Finland Sweden etc. have a mix of capitalism and socialist components. I like that mix a helluva lot more than the one we suffer under!!
Socialism is like capitalism -- if you go pure with it, the results usually aren't good. Take a little of each, though, and good things happen.
Conservatism, meanwhile, is a disaster wherever it's practiced.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2017/06/07/the-great-kansas-tax-cut-experiment-crashes-and-burns/#7d877075508f
See also: The American South. I keep saying it over and over, but if you want the kind of results Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee get, then elect the kind of people they do. Kansas learned that the hard way.
11 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 11:48 am
PkrBum
Wordslinger wrote:PkrBum wrote:https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/08/venezuelas-great-socialist-experiment-has-brought-a-country-to-its-knees/
Venezuela is a Socialist country. You are confusing Socialist Countries with Democratic Socialism. Not the same. Catch up booby. Norway, Finland Sweden etc. have a mix of capitalism and socialist components. I like that mix a helluva lot more than the one we suffer under!!
You can confuse the name of your ideology all you like... that doesn't change the basic marxism element.
Btw... that "third way" you seem to support is basically an economic system called fascism.
https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html
As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied bundle of rods with a protruding ax. In its day (the 1920s and 1930s), fascism was seen as the happy medium between boom-and-bust-prone liberal capitalism, with its alleged class conflict, wasteful competition, and profit-oriented egoism, and revolutionary Marxism, with its violent and socially divisive persecution of the bourgeoisie. Fascism substituted the particularity of nationalism and racialism—“blood and soil”—for the internationalism of both classical liberalism and Marxism.
Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.
12 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 12:03 pm
2seaoat
Your cut and paste on misguided political concepts is tiring. Socialism is like the color gray. It has many shades. You use the words as if there is a universal color of gray which does not accept shades of the color. One color fits all, and one silly misguided swipe at political concepts is at least consistently wrong in your regard. Your paradigm is feudal. You simply cannot get your mind around political nomenclature, and your oversimplification at times seems to be borderline idiotic or intentional distortion.
13 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 12:08 pm
PkrBum
Or... a clear eyed look at the reality minus your politically corrective lenses. Results matter.
14 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 12:25 pm
2seaoat
Results matter.
Agree. Good government results do matter. Social security is deemed to be socialistic.
Large majorities of Americans say they don’t mind paying Social Security taxes because of the security and stability the benefits provide to millions of retired Americans, disabled individuals, and children and widowed spouses of deceased workers. These findings hold true across party lines (those agreeing include 87% of Democrats, 81% of Independents, and 72% of Republicans). Americans are also willing to pay for Social Security because they value it for themselves (73%) and their families (73%).
https://www.nasi.org/learn/social-security/public-opinions-social-security
Agree. Good government results do matter. Social security is deemed to be socialistic.
Large majorities of Americans say they don’t mind paying Social Security taxes because of the security and stability the benefits provide to millions of retired Americans, disabled individuals, and children and widowed spouses of deceased workers. These findings hold true across party lines (those agreeing include 87% of Democrats, 81% of Independents, and 72% of Republicans). Americans are also willing to pay for Social Security because they value it for themselves (73%) and their families (73%).
https://www.nasi.org/learn/social-security/public-opinions-social-security
15 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 12:47 pm
Wordslinger
PkrBum wrote:Wordslinger wrote:PkrBum wrote:https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/08/venezuelas-great-socialist-experiment-has-brought-a-country-to-its-knees/
Venezuela is a Socialist country. You are confusing Socialist Countries with Democratic Socialism. Not the same. Catch up booby. Norway, Finland Sweden etc. have a mix of capitalism and socialist components. I like that mix a helluva lot more than the one we suffer under!!
You can confuse the name of your ideology all you like... that doesn't change the basic marxism element.
Btw... that "third way" you seem to support is basically an economic system called fascism.
https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html
As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied bundle of rods with a protruding ax. In its day (the 1920s and 1930s), fascism was seen as the happy medium between boom-and-bust-prone liberal capitalism, with its alleged class conflict, wasteful competition, and profit-oriented egoism, and revolutionary Marxism, with its violent and socially divisive persecution of the bourgeoisie. Fascism substituted the particularity of nationalism and racialism—“blood and soil”—for the internationalism of both classical liberalism and Marxism.
Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.
Q: When you go to a public school or drive on an interstate freeway, are you taking advantage of a fascist benefit? LOL
16 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 12:50 pm
othershoe1030
I agree. We need a combination of democratic socialism and capitalism. Capitalism unchecked is like a Monopoly game with drastic winners and losers. It is not good for society as a whole. It would be back to a Charles Dickens social order if the economy wasn't managed by tax programs and regulations, let's be clear about that. Industries and bankers will not regulate themselves to anyone's benefit but their own.
Didn't the country (well mostly middle class white folks) do well after WWII with the GI Bill that offered money for college and deals on mortgages?
Social security and medicare work well and would work better if they were properly funded, those are socialist style programs as well as our Interstate highways, military and so many other programs that we take for granted.
It is obvious that whenever a serious discussion comes up about a more socialistic culture in this country the opposition will throw out the usual totally over the top extreme examples of where a system they think represents socialism dismally failed such as Venezuela. I venture to guess corruption had something to do with that?
Economic stress permeates our culture. People are struggling to make ends meet. Inflation is destroying any small benefits gleaned from tax cuts for working people. A large percentage of households could not weather a financial problem of as little as $400 without serious problems.
Many countries do much better than this as has been pointed out here. We are not reinventing the wheel. These are systems that work very well with good results that produce a calmer and happier society. Americans have been brainwashed into thinking we are the best at everything and are frightened by these over-the-top extreme arguments against changing our status quo. Hopefully the tide is turning.
Didn't the country (well mostly middle class white folks) do well after WWII with the GI Bill that offered money for college and deals on mortgages?
Social security and medicare work well and would work better if they were properly funded, those are socialist style programs as well as our Interstate highways, military and so many other programs that we take for granted.
It is obvious that whenever a serious discussion comes up about a more socialistic culture in this country the opposition will throw out the usual totally over the top extreme examples of where a system they think represents socialism dismally failed such as Venezuela. I venture to guess corruption had something to do with that?
Economic stress permeates our culture. People are struggling to make ends meet. Inflation is destroying any small benefits gleaned from tax cuts for working people. A large percentage of households could not weather a financial problem of as little as $400 without serious problems.
Many countries do much better than this as has been pointed out here. We are not reinventing the wheel. These are systems that work very well with good results that produce a calmer and happier society. Americans have been brainwashed into thinking we are the best at everything and are frightened by these over-the-top extreme arguments against changing our status quo. Hopefully the tide is turning.
17 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 1:05 pm
2seaoat
Socialism is the new mantra of the slave militia........those colored folks cannot take care of themselves, so let the white privileged economic system take care of them by letting them hang onto the end of the rope of capitalism as they are tossed about with no stability. Socialism means the colored people have a part of the whole where their labor and capital accumulation are not stolen for two hundred years in an exploited capitalist system. No, Trump supporters in the end fear people of color getting free stuff because make America great again is code for bring back Jim Crow and corrupt capitalistic system, and do NOT allow colored people to share in the bounty of America......which they built with stolen labor and stolen capital......capitalism is not perfect and socialism is not evil, but then again this is just code for the haters.
18 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 2:27 pm
EmeraldGhost
I want some a that free stuff ... Where do I sign up for the free motorcycle tires? 
19 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 3:38 pm
Deus X
Wordslinger wrote:
Venezuela is a Socialist country. You are confusing Socialist Countries with Democratic Socialism.
And you're confusing Democratic Socialism with Social Democracies. The countries Word listed are Social Democracies--there's a difference.
Socialism, Democratic or otherwise, is a political-economic system where the means of production are owned by the state. That's not the case with those countries; they are Social Democracies, no matter what Bernie and Ocasio-Cortez call themselves.
Sanders is not a typical socialist. Sure, he believes in a highly regulated and heavily taxed private enterprise, but he does not seem to want the state to own banks and make cars. Considering the negative connotations of “socialism” in America, it is a bit of a puzzle why Sanders insists on using that word. It would be much less contentious and more correct if he gave his worldview its proper name: not “democratic socialism,” which implies socialism brought about through a vote, but "social democracy".
In a social democracy, individuals and corporations continue to own the capital and the means of production. Much of the wealth, in other words, is produced privately. That said, taxation, government spending, and regulation of the private sector are much heavier under social democracy than would be the case under pure capitalism.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/03/bernie-sanders-democratic-socialism/471630/
20 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 3:48 pm
EmeraldGhost
Can't wait to get my new Trabi !! (I hear you have to get on a list though)
21 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 3:53 pm
Deus X
EmeraldGhost wrote:Can't wait to get my new Trabi !! (I hear you have to get on a list though)
If you're trying to make a point, asshole, use words. This is a discussion forum not a picture album.
22 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 4:02 pm
EmeraldGhost
Deus X wrote:EmeraldGhost wrote:Can't wait to get my new Trabi !! (I hear you have to get on a list though)
If you're trying to make a point, asshole, use words. This is a discussion forum not a picture album.
Okay ... well how about the motorcycle tires then. Need new front and rear for my Wide Glide. Can I get those for free at least? I mean after all it is for a "medical" purpose ... as well as the greater public good. Periodic wind therapy is what keeps me from choking a lot of people to death.
23 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/20/2018, 9:35 pm
bigdog
I believe 100% in socialism. My husband and I both receive social security checks into our bank accounts every month. My husband receives a check from the VA into his bank account every month. I receive a retirement check from the State of Florida into my bank account every month.
When we drive to the doctor's office on a road paid for by the government from my taxes and when we receive our bills from that doctor they are incredibly small. We have both medicare and a supplemental plan that is partly paid by the government and it also pays most of the cost of our prescription drugs. We don't worry about someone hitting us over the head and taking our drugs away on the way home from the pharmacy because we know we can always call a policeman to help, and when he comes he will not send us a bill. Sometimes my husband just goes to the VA for his medical care, and then the only bill we get is for meds. No doctor bills at all for him. I'm pretty sure the government is paying those doctors. All of our kids went to public schools until they got into college and it cost nothing. It would have been very nice if we hadn't had to help them pay for those college expenses, but that would have been socialism, right? Sounds to me like the socialistic stuff costs a lot less than those capitalistic colleges do.
Without socialism, a lot of old people would be starving on the streets today. I'll guarantee you, the churches we have around today wouldn't be feeding them. They believe that if you don't work, you don't eat.
When we drive to the doctor's office on a road paid for by the government from my taxes and when we receive our bills from that doctor they are incredibly small. We have both medicare and a supplemental plan that is partly paid by the government and it also pays most of the cost of our prescription drugs. We don't worry about someone hitting us over the head and taking our drugs away on the way home from the pharmacy because we know we can always call a policeman to help, and when he comes he will not send us a bill. Sometimes my husband just goes to the VA for his medical care, and then the only bill we get is for meds. No doctor bills at all for him. I'm pretty sure the government is paying those doctors. All of our kids went to public schools until they got into college and it cost nothing. It would have been very nice if we hadn't had to help them pay for those college expenses, but that would have been socialism, right? Sounds to me like the socialistic stuff costs a lot less than those capitalistic colleges do.
Without socialism, a lot of old people would be starving on the streets today. I'll guarantee you, the churches we have around today wouldn't be feeding them. They believe that if you don't work, you don't eat.
24 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/21/2018, 5:24 am
Wordslinger
Deus X wrote:Wordslinger wrote:
Venezuela is a Socialist country. You are confusing Socialist Countries with Democratic Socialism.
And you're confusing Democratic Socialism with Social Democracies. The countries Word listed are Social Democracies--there's a difference.
Socialism, Democratic or otherwise, is a political-economic system where the means of production are owned by the state. That's not the case with those countries; they are Social Democracies, no matter what Bernie and Ocasio-Cortez call themselves.
Sanders is not a typical socialist. Sure, he believes in a highly regulated and heavily taxed private enterprise, but he does not seem to want the state to own banks and make cars. Considering the negative connotations of “socialism” in America, it is a bit of a puzzle why Sanders insists on using that word. It would be much less contentious and more correct if he gave his worldview its proper name: not “democratic socialism,” which implies socialism brought about through a vote, but "social democracy".
In a social democracy, individuals and corporations continue to own the capital and the means of production. Much of the wealth, in other words, is produced privately. That said, taxation, government spending, and regulation of the private sector are much heavier under social democracy than would be the case under pure capitalism.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/03/bernie-sanders-democratic-socialism/471630/
Thanks Deus, I appreciate your corrective input. I guess I'm a Social Democrat then ... Okay by me.
25 Re: Are You Really into Socialism? 9/21/2018, 7:33 am
PkrBum
Oh good... whatever the latest marxist de jure is fine... lol. Gawd y'all are easy.
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