[lit-ideas] Re: From today's paper
- From: Andy <mimi.erva@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2008 18:18:03 -0800 (PST)
Exactly. People don't even know what socialism is. For most it equates to
Invasion of the Body Snatchers, actually quite literally since one of the
interpretations of the original movie was of communism, which of course has
nothing to do with socialism, coming to take over capitalism. It seems more
appropriate that Invasion of the Body Snatchers would be about consumerism,
creating a society of zombies.
Socialism is from social, society. It's free health care and free education,
it's Social Security for older people. How does giving 700 billion dollars to
banks benefit the people, especially since no credit for the people has been
created?
I've heard an argument that all this dumbing down has been deliberate. If
people are ignorant, then those who have the gold can rule without
interference, and in fact mission accomplished, they basically do rule without
interference. Congress does the bidding of industry. Wall Street is
considered a financial 'industry' since we produce virtually nothing. It's
only when things are really really overt, like campaigning to remove Social
Security, do people get interested. Then even the word socialism doesn't make
them scatter. Any other time it works like a charm to keep the masses in
line. In large part all this wealth transfer is to undo the social contracts
of the New Deal, Greenspan campaigning for Glass Steagall, etc. etc. Seems to
me the least socialist countries are invariably the third world countries or
those that most resemble Dickens' England, the direction we're heading on both
counts.
--- On Mon, 11/3/08, Ursula Stange <Ursula@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: Ursula Stange <Ursula@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: From today's paper
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Monday, November 3, 2008, 12:29 AM
Again....by their fruits ye shall know them....
You wouldn't rather have big, bad socialized medicine?
http://www.pixcetera.com/pixcetera/health-care-in-crisis/39971
Eric Yost wrote:
> Ursula asks: Why else would 'socialist' be such an inflammatory
term?
>
>
> Because there are enough authoritarian aspects to US society as it
> exists right now, without adding the notion of socializing. Socialism
> is inflammatory because it suggests yet another ueber-entity that
> brings even more monitoring and control. Forget the
> "socialism-is-bad-for-business" argument. That's not it.
It's that
> things are difficult enough without surrendering yet more power to
> incompetent officials.
>
> Socialism really boils down to some anonymous doofus in an office
> having more power over your life than you do. It's Kafka without the
> fine prose style.
>
> In a more homogeneous society, "socialism" wouldn't strike
so many
> gongs. People would get along more easily, they'd understand each
> other's motives better, and they'd feel more prone to cooperate
for
> the common good. If some popinjay at the Central Committee (or
> whatever) went power mad, went paperwork mad, or was just spoiling
> everything by forcing people to attend tuba quartet recitals in public
> parks, people would be better able to take cooperative action against
> said popinjay.
>
> But in a fragmented society, socialism is just an extra set of cleets
> added to Orwell's jackboot crushing a human face forever.
>
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