A Few Words on Socialism
From Newsweek: “DEVIN NUNES TWEETS ‘WELCOME TO SOCIALISM,’ WARNS OF PLASTIC ‘STRAW POLICE’ AT CALIFORNIA RESTAURANT.”
Yes, “socialism” is a dirty word today, much like “liberal” was 20 years ago. A couple of points:
Fox News devotees / rank-and-file Trump supporters have been taught to conflate “democratic socialism” as it exists in Europe and Scandinavia with a version of “socialism” that’s simply a euphemism for “communism.” In truth, the two have essentially nothing to do with one another, just like the Nazis (the “National Socialist Workers’ Party”) was a far-right, not left-wing group.
Regardless, how much staying power will this deliberate confusion have? Not much.
Yes, you can use the word “socialism” to malign all efforts to use government to maintain a healthy environment, provide healthcare for those who can’t afford it, educate our children, and criminally prosecute government bigwigs whose ideologies you support. Of course, to be fair, you then have to use the same moniker to describe all other uses of tax-payer money for the public good: police and fire departments, roads, bridges, airports, sewer systems, garbage collection and so forth, but that’s another matter.
Corrupting the language like this may work with people in Kansas who have never been to Oklahoma or Nebraska, but it’s unlikely to succeed with people who have actually visited cultures that offer things like universal healthcare (Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Brunei, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom (source: New York Dept. of Health)).
Again, it’s hard to imagine that a majority of U.S. voters are so ignorant that they can’t see through this blatant attempt to fool them. Of course, that’s what I said the day before the 2016 election.
Craig,
Poor ‘ol Craig, it’s kinda sad to witness the desperation for old style leftists like yourself desperately trying to keep the respectable disguise on the old monster, when enthusiastic youngsters are so determined to pull off the ‘liberal’ trappings so carefully constructed from half-truths, lies and distortions over the years.
Unfortunately, a younger generation has never witnessed what a dangerous monster lurks beneath the idealistic facade. Like those who forget to immunize against ancient diseases, they can’t comprehend the awful consequences of reactivating and restoring the monster to full power.
In fact the early NAZI’s were ardent socialists! That’s why they named the Party the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDA).
As the Party grew in size and influence, the ‘National” aspects assumed more dominance, but the Party always retained many economic and social aspects of socialist origin.
More than half of the clauses in the NAZI 25 point manifesto were socialist demands.
The NAZI “Strength through Joy” ( Kraft durch Freude) organization was a hugely popular socialist program.
Socialism was the scourge of twentieth century, killing, imprisoning and impoverishing hundreds of millions. The human misery created in the name of this odious and pernicious ideology is always brushed aside by adherents as being the fault of individual leaders, “not being followed perfectly enough” or “betrayed”, but never admitting the failures are the obvious result of following a deeply flawed, unworkable ideology that denies the freedom and worth of the individual and human aspirations.
No matter how many times societies try to experiment with “Socialism” and try controlling the monster, the monster always grows. Some societies realize the danger before too late, and beat the monster back, but it still lurks like an ancient evil, waiting for an era when foolishly naive idealists have forgotten the danger, only to re-emerge through ideologues and acolytes.
The socialist monster always appears clad in the innocuous disguise of “universal healthcare’ or ” free education” but at heart is the same old desire for expansion of central authority over every aspect of the economy, social and political belief, and eventual control of every aspect of life.
The ideology was created by envy, fear and jealousy. The heart of socialist philosophy is a hatred of human aspiration. Socialism needs to reduce every one (except an elite bureaucracy) to mindless automatons.
The colour of socialism isn’t really “red”, but a dreary, drab grey. It doen’t produce a BMW, just a Trabant and only after a long wait.
Advocates of socialism always imagine their followers are fools (and most are) but eventually these folk wake up, hopefully before it’s too late.
Ob, and incidentally, for you information
1) The National Health Service in the UK has been a vast failure extending over 60 years. It’s been estimated that it would have been cheaper to send each patient to a Swiss clinic than the cost of the UK nationalized health service.
2) Australia does not have a “national” heath service. Most Australians have private health insurance.
3) Bahrain, Brunei Kuwait, are oil rich absolute monarchies (Bahrain a little less so).
4) New Zealand has in recent decades moved away from its pioneering socialized healthcare system to the Australian system of a combination of private health care with a government safety net.
5) France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and Sweden are all moving away from socialized medicine to a system based on some form of user pays, but retaining a safety net of basic care for low income earners.
6)Hong Kong is not a country.
Curiously, the most advanced “free” health care nations, are those with large amounts of oil revenue !
Claiming services such as military, police etc are the creations of a socialist ideology is blatant obfuscation.
Whatever reform America needs to undertake, Socialism is the answer!