Socialism

[SHRED]

It won't be socialism that comes to decimate our veteran health benefits and retirements, our Social Security and Medicare, our public employee retirements, our social safety nets,...through privatization.

No, it will be capitalism via the Wall St investor-class hungry for wider profit margins feeding at the public money trough.
That is who wants their hands on our public Commons. Our tax dollar pool.

[BSdetect]

1. Remember W wanted to privatize Soc Sec?

We dodged that bullet when he fucked the entire economy

Lucky us.

[yurbud]

19. It took a lot of the Democratic Party base SCREAMING at Democratic pols and melting the phones

to get them to fight it after years of rolling over for Bush, but that was the move that broke him.

If Ryan started on that, he would cripple Trump and had at least House to Dems in 2018.

If that happened, I would hope the Democrats don't fall into the same timidity and incrementalism they did when they took back Congress in 2006.

[ZoomBubba]

2. It's a word ...

... we ought to avoid in describing ourselves. Too many negative connotations left over from the Cold War and it is largely embraced by radicals who like to wear Guy Fawkes masks and scream at people.

[SHRED]

4. I didn't see in my post...

...where I described us as socialists although I don't have a problem with the word.

[ZoomBubba]

5. I was just commenting in general because it was in quotes ...

... which lead me to believe we're talking about the word itself.

Socialism itself hasn't harmed America nearly as much as unrestrained capitalism, but capitalism kind of owns the dialogue. When I studied economics back in the day, they told us to avoid thinking of the economy in terms of capitalism vs. communism and think of it as market vs. command. Market being you spent money how you wanted and command is that you are told how to spend it ... socialism doesn't really factor in at all.

But for the old timers, socialism is just another word for communism. Never got the unwillingness to understand definitions.

[SHRED]

7. Yeah I'll remove the quotes

Thanks

[guillaumeb]

8. The VA is just one example of how socialism works.

The US Postal Service is another,
as are police and fire departments.
And publicly owned utilities.
The problem is not with socialism as a concept, it is that the 1% have framed socialism as equal to communism as it was practiced in the USSR.

The only US system with heavy negative connotations is capitalism.

[ZoomBubba]

9. Problem isn't the concept ...

... we should just avoid using it. There's no point in trying to win people over with intellectual arguments as to why it's not a bad thing.

[guillaumeb]

11. The GOP wins in part because it successfully frames the issues.

We must fight both their message and their framing.

[ZoomBubba]

12. Intellectual arguments just cause regular people's ...

... eyes to glaze over. Best to stick to what is simple. The average IQ in the US is in the mid-90s, so we should frame our argument somewhere within the 7-9th grade range.

[guillaumeb]

16. But at the same time that we appeal to the average, we must

also convince the above average because voter participation generally rises as does intelligence and income.

[ZoomBubba]

20. The average will always outnumber the above average ...

... that's just a fact of life. Trying to persuade people with intellectual discussions is just simply a loser proposition. People simply do not care about politics and do not want to devote too much time to critical thinking ... that's why they elect people in the first place. We will never be a world of smart people ... just those that have visions, those that implement them, those that maintain them, those that build them and those that benefit from them.

[moda253]

22. Do you have ANY ideas?

Man you poo on everything.

What are your ideas and solutions?

[ZoomBubba]

23. What did I poo on?

I just pretty much stated what sort of environment we're in. I don't think there's a solution except getting to the cream of the crop first.

[LanternWaste]

17. Acquiescing to the lowest common denominator

Acquiescing to the lowest common denominator allows visceral satisfaction in the short run, yet rarely results in positive change.

[ZoomBubba]

18. It's not acquiescing to the lowest common denominator ...

... it's adapting to the situation we have before us. People don't vote for intellectuals, they vote for people they like and people who they "get."

Winning is more important than being right at the moment.

[BainsBane]

3. That's already accomplished

Everything is about to be delivered to them thanks to Trump's election and his pro-privatization appointments.

[world wide wally]

6. Not to mention our highways (get ready to pay tolls to use all highways), National Parks (Camping

in a strip mine), …etc.

[brooklynite]

10. Capitalism

Should I point out that "our veteran health benefits and retirements, our Social Security and Medicare, our public employee retirements, our social safety nets" were developed under a capitalist economic system?

[SHRED]

13. In spite of...

[brooklynite]

14. You're entitled to believe that...doesn't change the fact that FDR and LBJ were capitalists.

[HughBeaumont]

15. It also doesn't change the fact . . .

. . . that we now have a "capitalist"-loaded government that sees no useful value in that social safety net and promises to cut/severely dismantle it.

Want to yell "TIMBERRRRRRRR!!!" or should I?

[deaniac21]

21. Bears make money

Bulls make money
Pigs get slaughtered