Re: [blind-democracy] Putin invokes czars, Stalin to justify,Moscow’s intervention in ‘near abroad’

Putin invokes Joseph Stalin, and the American Empire invokes God Almighty.
Meanwhile, out in the wilds of the Olympic Mountains, dozens of Big
Foot are quietly gathering at the place they claim is the beginning of
the Universe. One by one they climb up on the rocky ridge and step
into the glowing hole where they disappear without a sound. My guide,
a fellow of about eight feet in height, covered with silken fur and
weighing in at about 500 pounds, whispers that they have been
witnessing Man's progress for about 100 years, this time around. They
will return in another 100 years and if Man has continued to be
violent and destructive of the Earth, they will bring what he called,
"The Exterminator".
I seldom discuss my encounter with Big Foot, because folks are quick
to laugh and proclaim me balmy. So I keep my piece. Still, to this
very small, very intelligent group of blind people, I feel I can at
least tell a quick version of what I have been witnessing.
It began back about 25 years ago. That was before we had replaced our
cabin with this lovely three bedroom, three bath house, with it wall
of glass doors opening onto a deck that was 100 feet long and 12 feet
wide. Back then we just had the cozy 12 foot by 15 foot cabin. Cathy
and I would rush away from the City on Friday evenings, make the two
and a half hour drive to this totally quiet, remote piece of pure
Heaven. We had purchased the ten acres back in 1987, and after a year
or two I began to build a trail up the steep hill behind us. The plan
was to find a level spot to set a large water tank. We would have a
well drilled and pump the water up to the tank, using gravity flow to
bring it to our house, once it had been built. So I toiled, often on
my hands and knees, chopping through the dense, tough under brush.
After finding a perfect spot for our tank, I decided to continue on to
the far back of our property. There was a great number of downed
trees, and I decided I could drag them in sections to a place near our
cabin. There I could buck up the logs and split them into fire place
size. By the end of the second year I must have had over twenty cords
of wood, drying under tarps.
We had hauled a small TV to use for playing movies. Cathy was into
something or other, too much action for a totally blind man to make
any sense out of, so I grabbed my brush axe and headed up to the back
of our ten acres, to work at widening the trail. It was a gloomy day.
Heavy, leaden clouds dragging their fat bellies on the tops of the
towering Cedars, Hemlocks, Spruce and Douglas Fir. Suddenly in the
shadows of a dense cluster of Salmon Berry bushes, I heard a whimper.
Quickly I dropped to my stomach and froze right where I was, gripping
the brush axe by my side. There it was again. A soft, mournful
whimper.
I belly crawled along the trail until I was almost in the cluster of
thorny stalks. There I saw it. A small child dressed in what looked
like a full furry snow suit. Although small, the boy weighed at least
one hundred pounds. Still, I was much younger back then, and I lifted
him over my shoulder and headed back to the house, thankful that it
was downhill all the way.
When I opened the cabin door, Cathy gasped and leaped to her feet.
"What sort of animal do you have there?" she demanded. "I think it's
a young boy", I panted, placing the quiet form on the Murphy Bed. "He
looks human" Cathy said, "But he's covered with fur from head to toe,
and he has no clothes on, or shoes either."
At that moment the "boy" came to his senses and sat up, looking wildly
around. Cathy took his hands in hers and spoke to him in her calm,
soothing voice. The one she uses on frightened horses. The boy
settled down, but began pointing toward the door, and then at himself.
"First we need to see if you're hurt, and then whether you're hungry",
Cathy murmured.
We sat out a gallon jug of water and turned to dish up some of the
Chili Cathy had just cooked. Turning back with a big bowl, we saw the
boy tossing off the entire gallon of water. He did the same with the
Chili, preferring to gulp it down from the bowl rather than to try
using the soup spoon. After downing my stash of candy bars for his
dessert, he actually gave us a huge grin.
Just then the cabin shook. Heavy footsteps sounded on the cabin deck.
A huge shadow passed by our side window and the back door whipped
open. There stood as huge a creature as I've ever seen. He looked in
at me, lowering his hairy head so as to look into the cabin. The boy
leaped to his feet, squealing and grabbing at the massive monster.
The boy jabbered and chattered in a language unknown to us.
Finally the large creature spoke in a deep rumbling voice. "My boy
said you saved his life. Thank you. I will take him home now, but I
must hear you promise that you will not say a single word of this day
to anyone, until we have gone home through our Channel hidden in these
mountains."
And so we kept that promise. Even when, ten years later there was a
knock at our door, and upon opening it I was confronted by a tall,
very furry Big Foot. He told us that he was the same child we had
saved back ten years previous. He told us many things, assuring
himself that we would keep quiet until the, "Passing". He said he
would come for us if we wanted to watch from a distance, but that
would not be for another ten years.
And so we have just returned from seeing a most unbelievable sight.
One by one these massive Beings stepped into that soft violet light,
fading away as they went deeper. Finally our guide said it was his
turn. He gave each of us a huge bear hug and then marched behind the
others. As he faded, so did the light. In only seconds we could not
tell where the opening had been. We looked at one another and
wondered if anyone would believe us. And even more important, would
the People of Earth do anything to keep Big Foot from carrying out
their promise.

Carl Jarvis

On 2/11/16, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@freelists.org> wrote:
> http://themilitant.com/2016/8006/800604.html
> The Militant (logo)
>
> Vol. 80/No. 6 February 15, 2016
>
> (front page)
>
> Putin invokes czars, Stalin to justify
> Moscow's intervention in 'near abroad'
>
>
> BY NAOMI CRAINE
> In recent remarks, Russian President Vladimir Putin staked his claim to
> the legacy of both the czarist empire — the most reactionary in Europe
> until it was overthrown in 1917 — and the counterrevolutionary regime of
> Joseph Stalin. He denounced the revolutionary course led by communist
> leader V.I. Lenin of supporting the rights of oppressed nations to
> self-determination. Putin's statements are not a historical question.
> They aim to promote national chauvinism and justify Moscow's territorial
> and political claims to its "near abroad" today.
> Lenin "planted an atomic bomb under the building that is called Russia,
> which later exploded," Putin declared at a Jan. 21 meeting of the
> Presidential Council for Science and Education. He expanded on this
> point at a Jan. 25 conference in southern Russia, saying he was
> referring to the debate "between Stalin and Lenin regarding the creation
> of the new state, the Soviet Union."
>
> Putin blamed Lenin's insistence on a voluntary federation formed "on the
> basis of full equality with the possibility of seceding" for the 1991
> coming apart of the USSR. He said the borders of the Soviet republics
> were "established arbitrarily, without much reason," leading to
> "nonsense" such as including the industrial, proletarian Donbass region
> in Ukraine, not Russia. This is the region where Moscow's forces have
> backed a separatist war against the government in Kiev for nearly two
> years now.
>
> These remarks were given to a Russian Popular Front forum of pro-regime
> "civil society activists" in Stavropol. According to a transcript
> released by the Kremlin, Putin complimented the "efficient work" of
> officials in nearby Chechnya putting down nationalist struggles by the
> majority Muslim population there.
>
> Ukrainian officials complained to the United Nations Security Council
> Jan. 27, saying that Putin's statements "publicly questioning the
> territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence of
> Ukraine" were "unacceptable."
>
> When the workers and farmers came to power in Russia in the October 1917
> Bolshevik revolution, the old czarist empire was what Lenin aptly called
> a "prison house of nations." In September 1922, Stalin proposed
> absorbing the independent republics of Ukraine, Belorussia, Azerbaijan,
> Georgia and Armenia into the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic.
>
> Lenin's final fight
> "We consider ourselves, the Ukrainian SSR, and others equal," Lenin
> argued, and must "enter with them on an equal basis into a new union, a
> new federation, the Union of the Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia."
> The record of this debate, in which Stalin derided the "national
> liberalism of Comrade Lenin," can be found in Lenin's Final Fight,
> published by Pathfinder Press. The Socialist Workers Party traces its
> political continuity to Lenin and the early years of the Russian
> Revolution and stands on Lenin's legacy in this fight. It is the only
> road to unite working people in struggle.
>
> Writing a couple months later about the necessity of combating Great
> Russian chauvinism inherited from the czars, Lenin said,
> "Internationalism on the part of oppressors or 'great' nations, as they
> are called (though they are great only in their violence …), must
> consist not only in the observance of the formal equality of nations but
> even in an inequality, through which the oppressor nation, the great
> nation, would compensate for the inequality which obtains in real life."
>
> The political course led by Lenin was crushed as part of the
> counterrevolution against the working class carried out in 1920s and
> '30s by the bureaucratic caste that consolidated under Stalin. The USSR
> became not a voluntary union, but an oppressive "Soviet" superstate in
> which patriotism was used to justify the resurgence of Great Russian
> chauvinism. Whole peoples — like the Crimean Tatars in 1944 — were
> deported from their homelands at gunpoint. It was this course that made
> it inevitable the re-imposed prison house of nations would break apart.
>
> Speaking in Stavropol, Putin also sought to smear Lenin and the
> revolution as brutal, unpatriotic and a disaster for "Mother Russia."
> Bemoaning the fall of the czarist empire, he complains that the
> Bolsheviks "lost" World War I "to a losing nation," saying it caused
> "colossal losses" for Moscow in territories surrendered. This refers to
> the Bolsheviks' decision to sign the onerous 1918 Brest-Litovsk peace
> treaty with Berlin to defend the revolution from being overthrown.
>
> Among other contributions to the working class worldwide, the Bolshevik
> leadership exposed the secret treaties that had been drawn up between
> the imperialist rulers in London and Paris — and the czarist regime in
> Moscow — to carve up the world among themselves, the real aim of the war.
>
> "Everyone accused the tsarist regime of repressions," Putin added.
> "However what did Soviet power begin with? With mass repressions." As
> evidence he cited the killing in 1918 of the former czar and his family.
> He accused the Bolsheviks of murdering Russian Orthodox priests, as he
> seeks today to bolster the church's hierarchy as a cornerstone of his
> regime's rule.
>
> Putin praised the "concentration of national resources" under Stalin, a
> euphemism for the forced collectivization, murder of political opponents
> and consolidation of a massive police apparatus in the 1930s. Without
> this, he said, Moscow would have risked "catastrophic consequences for
> our statehood" in World War II.
>
> Putin's goal is to justify his course today as he seeks to stabilize
> Russian capitalism, win working-class subservience and sacrifice in the
> name of greater Russia, and extend its grip over the "near abroad."
>
>
> Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home
>
>
>
>

Re: [blind-democracy] Flint: A Tale of Two Cities

Bruce Lesnick wrote, in part: "it is no exaggeration to say the
Democratic and Republican parties, along with the system they uphold,
represent a deathtrap for working people."
One would not think that it is so difficult to understand that this
System we exist in is not our System. It belongs to the Corporations
and their elite. But apparently enough smoke and mirrors really can
cloud the minds of honest, trusting workers. Smoke and Mirrors, and a
little Greed tossed into the mix. "Work hard and you shall reap the
benefits". That is the tune played by the Empire's Pipers. With hard
work and a little luck, any of us might claw our way into the Upper
Class, and live the life of Riley.
So we invent the Middle Class, a level between the Working Class and
"Riches beyond belief". Beyond the Middle Class, we imagine an Upper
Class. These are the folks who have almost made it. These Middle
Class and Upper Class folks mostly support the views of the Ruling
Class. They turn against the blue collar and working class folks, as
well as the unemployed and disabled and persons of color. But the
truth is that these Middle and Upper folks are being fooled, and are
opposing their own best interests.
Fact: there is only one political party. It may have any name it
wishes to have, but it is the property of the Ruling Class.
The only sure way of forcing it to serve all Americans, is to destroy
it and replace it with a government that represents the broader
interest and needs of the majority of the People. But of course if
this were to come about without great efforts to educate and mobilize
the Working Class, the new government would be seized by those people
close to the top of the current pyramid. The upper class. Naturally
they would pattern their government after the Capitalistic one from
which they had been profiting, to a degree. They could not believe
that it was the Systems fault. It had to be the fault of those in
control. So they would build a new system just like the old one,
believing that they could make it work.
Until we understand that it is the System that keeps so many good
people under the heel of the Master, we will repeat the same mistakes
over and over.

Carl Jarvis


On 2/10/16, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@freelists.org> wrote:
> http://socialistaction.org/flint-a-tale-of-two-cities/
>
>
> Flint: A Tale of Two Cities
>
> Published February 9, 2016. | By Socialist Action.
> Feb. 2016 Flint
>
> By BRUCE LESNICK
>
> It [is] too much the way of [mainstream politicians] to talk of this
> terrible [crisis] as if it were the only harvest ever known under the
> skies that had not been sown—as if nothing had ever been done, or
> omitted to be done, that had led to it—as if observers of the wretched
> millions … and of the misused and perverted resources that should have
> made them prosperous, had not seen it inevitably coming, years before
> and had not in plain words recorded what they saw. — Charles Dickens, "A
> Tale of Two Cities"
>
> Working people in Flint, Mich., are suffering mightily from the
> poisoning of the city's water supply that resulted from callous
> decisions by government officials—from the unelected emergency city
> manager, on up to the governor and the federal Environmental Protection
> Agency. All of these officials acted in the name of austerity and
> cutting costs. But as is so often the case, the tragedy in Flint is not
> merely the result of individual bad actors but flows from an economic
> system that pits the wealthy few at the top against the vast majority
> who work for a living.
>
> Despite the fact that global wealth and U.S. labor productivity per
> capita have both been increasing exponentially for more than a
> generation, the small unelected handful of financiers and industrialists
> that own and control our economic and political systems—the so-called
> one percent—have been promoting the narrative that times are hard and we
> must all tighten our belts. By "all" they mean everyone except those
> "indispensible" titans of capital who are currently calling the shots.
>
> But in reality, the wealth created for each man, woman and child in the
> U.S. (as measured by GDP per capita) increased from $13,933 in 1981 to
> $54,629 in 2014 (in constant 2015 dollars.) That's an increase of 292
> percent! For Tunisia, the increase in the same period was 244 percent;
> for Greece it was 300 percent. Similar gains can be cited for other
> countries (source: World Bank). Collectively, the planet is awash in
> wealth.
>
> Nevertheless, the false narrative of scarcity has been used to justify
> austerity in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, France, elsewhere across
> Europe, and all throughout the U.S. And now we have Flint.
>
> Between 2006 and 2013, overall revenue to the state of Michigan
> decreased by 25%. Since 2006, Democratic and Republican officials have
> appropriated $6.2 billion in local sales tax and other revenue to cover
> state budget shortfalls. This has been done despite a law requiring
> those funds to be shared with municipalities. The result was
> predictable: city after city across the state—from Pontiac, to Lansing,
> to Detroit and Flint—has had to cope with calamitous budget deficits.
>
> What caused the decline in revenue? In part, it was due to corporate tax
> giveaways approved by the previous Democratic governor. But the biggest
> factor in the budget squeeze has been the decline of the auto industry.
> From a peak of 1.5 million United Auto Workers union members in Detroit
> in 1978, the number crashed to 400,000 in 2013 as corporate execs moved
> production south or overseas in search of cheaper, nonunion labor.
>
> Then there was the auto industry bailout. In 2009, the federal
> government loaned $29.4 billion to GM and Chrysler on the condition that
> the UAW agreed to allow delays in payments to the union health fund for
> retirees, reduce payments to laid-off workers and deepen the two-tier
> wage program enabling new hires to be paid less for the same work.
> Later, GM would receive another $36 billion as it entered bankruptcy. At
> its peak in 2003, the U.S. auto industry employed 1.1 million workers.
> By 2006, 43% of those jobs had been eliminated.
>
> Flint, with long ties to the auto industry, has felt the squeeze. Of the
> 80,000 Flint autoworkers in the 1970s, only 5,000 remain.
>
> A Michigan state law passed in 2011 allowed for the appointment of
> "emergency managers" to preside over cities deemed insolvent. Once
> appointed, the emergency manager rules supreme. Elected
> officials—including the mayor, city council and school board—can do
> nothing without the manager's approval. In April 2014, the bureaucrat
> that was imposed on the city of Flint switched the city's water supply
> from the Detroit system to the Flint River, hoping to save a few bucks.
> What resulted was a massive epidemic of lead poisoning, due to the
> different chemistry in the Flint River and a long history of using the
> waterway as an industrial waste dump.
>
> A September study by the Hurley Medical Center in Flint confirmed that
> the proportion of Flint children with elevated lead levels has nearly
> doubled since the water source was switched. The tap water drawn from
> the river also contains illegal levels of cancer-causing trihalomethanes
> and other toxins, and is implicated in the spread of Legionnaires Disease.
>
> A massive effort will now be needed to restore clean running water to
> Flint residents and to deal with the long-term health effects from the
> poison brew people have been forced to use for drinking, cooking, and
> bathing for over a year.
>
> No auto executives or members of the ruling rich were harmed in the
> making of this story. The Michigan localities that have suffered the
> most are majority working class and Black. The population of Flint is
> over 56% African American. Forty-one percent of city residents live in
> poverty, and the real unemployment rate for Michigan is over 11 percent.
> In this conflict so far, it is working people who have taken all the
> blows. But it wasn't always that way.
>
> Given Flint's iconic history, it's more than a little ironic that the
> current crisis has its roots in the greed of the auto industry giants
> and their political plenipotentiaries. A generation ago, another battle
> was fought in Flint between the auto barons and the working-class
> majority. In that fight, which began in December of 1936, the balance of
> power was decidedly different.
>
> The United Auto Workers union (UAW) was founded in 1935 in the wake of a
> militant labor upsurge that began sweeping the country the year before.
> Key battles in Minneapolis (truck drivers), Toledo (Electric Auto-Lite),
> San Francisco (general strike), Akron (rubber workers), and Huntsville,
> Birmingham, and throughout the South (textile workers) set the tone. But
> the big automakers had yet to be breached.
>
> In the 1930s, as now, there were competing ideologies for how the
> working people could best fight for their rights. The most conscious,
> radical workers saw the bosses, their government, and the major
> political parties as members of the same team, against which the 99% had
> to wage an uncompromising fight. But the leaders of the newly formed
> Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) saw things differently. As
> Art Preis described in "Labor's Giant Step":
>
> The CIO leaders were class collaborationist to the bone. They sought
> "peaceful coexistence" between predatory capital and exploited
> labor—between robber and robbed. They believed they could persuade the
> employers that unions are a "benefit" to the capitalists themselves and
> thereby secure gains for the workers by the simple means of "reasonable
> discussion" across the conference table. …
> Fortunately for the success of the CIO, the concepts of the top CIO
> leaders did not always prevail. The strident notes of the class struggle
> broke through the "class harmony" chorus and set the dominant tone
> during the decisive days of the rise of the CIO. The bridge to victory
> proved to be not the conference board, nor the inside track to Roosevelt
> in the White House, but the picket line—above all, that "inside picket
> line," the sit-down.
>
> An ongoing organizing drive in the Flint auto plants was met with
> stonehearted resistance by General Motors. The straw that broke the
> camel's back came on Dec. 30, 1936, when management provocatively
> transferred some union supporters. Workers at Flint Fisher Body Plant 2
> responded by sitting down and refusing to leave the factory. Later that
> night, workers saw managers attempting to remove critical machinery from
> Fisher Body Plant 1. The workers at Plant 1 put a stop to that by
> sitting down as well. The shutting down of these two plants brought GM's
> auto production to a screeching halt.
>
> The strike spread to 15 other GM plants, from Detroit to Kansas City.
> Finally, the crucial motor assembly operation at Chevrolet Plant number
> 4 in Flint was occupied. Ultimately, 93% of GM's production workers
> joined the fight. Preis explains:
>
> Victory or defeat for the GM workers depended on a simple strategy:
> keeping their buttocks firmly planked on $50 million worth of GM
> property until they got a signed contract. GM's strategy was to get the
> workers out of the plants by hook or crook so that the police, deputies
> and National Guard could disperse them by force and violence.
>
> The bosses hit the strikers with injunctions, but the sheriff charged
> with delivering the first of these was laughed out of the plant. The
> company attempted to recruit scabs to retake the plants, but soon gave
> that up. Management cut the heat to Fisher Body Plant 2, and police
> attempted to prevent deliveries of food and supplies to the strikers.
> Outside, picketers stormed the police blockade. A battle ensued; police
> guns were answered by bolts and bottles hurled by the workers.
> Eventually, the strikers aimed a freezing stream from a fire hose at the
> cops, successfully turning them back. When the dust settled, 24 strikers
> were injured; 14 had been shot.
>
> Politicians, from the Democratic governor to President Roosevelt, sided
> with GM. The governor positioned 1500 National Guard troops to be ready
> to retake the plants by force. Meanwhile, fellow unionists poured into
> Flint from Toledo, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Lansing, and elsewhere, and
> formed a cordon of solidarity around Fisher Body Plant 1.
>
> GM threatened to turn the heat off again, but the strikers threatened to
> expose the plants firefighting equipment to the cold, freezing the gear
> and thus invalidating GM's insurance coverage. Management was livid and
> demanded that the governor give the order to retake the plants. Governor
> Murphy passed the buck and tried to pressure CIO President John L Lewis
> to reign in the strikers. Lewis explained, truthfully, that he hadn't
> started the strike and he couldn't stop it.
>
> In the end, GM surrendered. The strikers had demonstrated sufficient
> determination and ingenuity for GM to realize its plants would be
> destroyed if they tried to remove the workers by force. The first UAW
> contract with GM was signed on Feb. 11, 1937.
>
> The working people of Flint won that monumental battle in 1937, but the
> corporate titans have never given up on the overall war. This is the
> critical context for the Flint crisis of today. The forces seeking to
> victimize working people in Flint now are the same ones that confronted
> autoworkers in Flint three quarters of a century ago. Those seeking to
> fight against austerity and mount an effective response to the current
> water crisis can learn much from that pivotal chapter in history.
>
> Today, as in the 1930s, it's crucial to understand who is on our side
> and whom we're up against. At the second convention of the UAW in 1936,
> the body unanimously called for the formation of a labor party. It's no
> coincidence that the workers who successfully fought back the GM
> colossus understood that the Democratic and Republican parties were both
> in the boss's hip pocket. This realization was essential for navigating
> the rough terrain as the struggle unfolded.
>
> But by the late 1940s, those who preached class collaboration and
> relying on the Democrats as "friends of labor" had gained the upper
> hand. Socialists and other radicals who, like the Flint sit-down
> strikers, recognized the major political parties for the big business
> appendages they truly are were driven out of the labor movement and
> isolated. Unions like the UAW turned their back on the lessons of the
> Flint sit-down strike. As a consequence, the UAW is a mere shadow of its
> former self, reduced in numbers and diminished in power. Throughout its
> steady decline, UAW leaders have held fast to their
> class-collaborationist outlook. The results of this approach can be seen
> in scattered, broken pieces all around us, including in Flint.
>
> Today, Democratic and Republican party politicians shed crocodile tears,
> expressing the utmost regret for the calamity that has befallen Flint.
> But their concern rings hollow. These are the heirs of the politicians
> who mobilized the press, the police, and the National Guard to side with
> GM and the other corporate behemoths in the labor upsurge of the 1930s.
> These are the political parties that have been running our country for
> generations, with the result being what we see in Flint and all around us.
>
> Witnessing the suffering of the residents of Flint, it is no
> exaggeration to say the Democratic and Republican parties, along with
> the system they uphold, represent a deathtrap for working people.
>
> But there is a way out. There are steps we can take to avoid future
> disasters like the one now unfolding in Flint. This path serendipitously
> addresses many of the other problems we face—from endless war,
> inequality and exploitation, to racism, unemployment, and environmental
> destruction. This road has just one rule: human needs must come before
> profits.
>
> And there is but one way to get there: by recognizing that only working
> people—the vast majority of the population and the producers of all of
> society's wealth—have the power to build a just and rational world. For
> that power to be realized, we must organize collectively and
> independently of our foes at the top of the economic pyramid, refusing
> to be taken in by their lieutenants in the Democratic and Republican
> parties.
>
> While no fight is ever an exact blueprint for another, the guiding
> principles of solidarity and independent political action, demonstrated
> in abundance by the heroic Flint sit-down strikers, remain essential
> tools for the struggles of today.
>
> Bruce Lesnick is a long-time political activist who lives and writes in
> Washington State. He blogs at blogspot.com. He can be reached at
> blesnick@bugbusters.net.
>
> Photo: Flint residents display jar of brown tap water. CNN.
>
>
>
>
>
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>
> On the UAW Picket Line in Flint: 'This is a War with General Motors for
> Job Security'
>
> July 5, 1998
>
> In "Labor"
>
>
> Houston Janitors Walk Out
>
> August 13, 2012
>
> In "Labor"
>
>
> Flint UAW Strikers Remember Their History and are Armed!
>
> July 5, 1998
>
> In "Labor"
>
>
>
> Posted in Black Liberation, Economy, Environment, Labor, Marxist Theory
> & History. | Tagged Flint, UAW.
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[blind-democracy] The Might of the American Empire Was on Full Display at Super Bowl 50: A Bizarre War Spectacle Extraordinaire

Naturally a nation puts its "best foot" forward when the entire world
is watching.
So as our football warriors take to the field of battle, the planet is
treated to a show of power by the Earth's Mightiest War Machine ever.
Did anyone even suggest that we might have featured the bright,
hopeful faces of our nation's children, the hope of our future?
We certainly can no longer feature the hard working men and women of
our once great Working Class. Featuring them would expose the growing
slums and street people begging for some crumbs to survive. We cannot
feature our once mighty labor unions. They now are in tatters.
Showing off our once mighty infrastructure, our super highways and
gleaming bridges and fast running railroad trains can't happen,
either. They are all in shambles. Even an attempt to feature our
nation as in the song, America the Beautiful:
Oh beautiful for spacious skies,
for amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

That land is fast disappearing under heavy layers of human pollution.
So all we have left to show the world is the military might that is
murdering millions around the dying globe.

Carl Jarvis
On 2/9/16, S. Kashdan <skashdan@scn.org> wrote:
> The Might of the American Empire Was on Full Display at Super Bowl 50: A
> Bizarre War Spectacle Extraordinaire
>
>
>
> By Sarah Lazare [1]
>
>
>
> AlterNet [2], February 8, 2016
>
>
>
> http://www.alternet.org/print/civil-liberties/might-american-empire-was-full-display-super-bowl-50-bizarre-war-spectacle
>
>
>
> From the fighter jets soaring overhead to the armed troops patrolling Levi
> Stadium, Super Bowl 50 was a highly militarized event, its 70,000 spectators
>
> and millions of television viewers subject to a showcase of war propaganda
> and heavy security crackdown.
>
>
>
> To much fanfare, the Armed Forces Chorus, comprised of 50 men and women from
>
> the Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, and Air Force, kicked off the massive
>
> sports event by singing "America the Beautiful" from the field. CBS'
> broadcast of the song cut away to footage of uniformed troops standing at
> attention, with text on the screen reading, "United States Forces
> Afghanistan." The clip was a nod to a brutal war and occupation, now
> stretching into its 15th year, as top generals press [3] for an even slower
>
> withdrawal.
>
>
>
> Following the national anthem, the U.S. Navy flew its signature Blue Angels
>
> Delta formation over the cheering stadium, located in Santa Clara, Calif.
> The Navy is open about the propaganda purposes of such flights, stating in a
>
> press release they are intended to demonstrate "pride" in the military. In a
>
> country that dropped [4] 23,144 bombs on Muslim-majority countries in 2015
> alone, the war planes are not just symbolic.
>
>
>
> The heavy-handed display follows revelations [5] that some NFL teams have
> long been accepting payment from the Department of Defense to honor and
> celebrate the military and its service members.
>
>
>
> Some were open about their profiteering aims. Military weaponry was also
> displayed off the field on Sunday, when the arms giant Northrop Grumman
> released [6] a 30-second television advertisement for a terrifying and
> futuristic fighter jet complete with lasers.
>
>
>
> Meanwhile, at the stadium and in surrounding communities, a real crackdown
> took place. The Super Bowl was determined by Homeland Security to be a
> "level one" security event, prompting a massive deployment of police and
> troops. Service members in uniform carried automatic rifles as they
> patrolled the stadium, and camouflaged Humvee vehicles with roof gun mounts
>
> were seen throughout the area.
>
>
>
> According to [7] SF Gate writer Al Saracevic, "At one point, near the media
>
> entrance to the event, a column of military personnel could be seen marching
>
> into the interior of the stadium security zone, boots clomping, weapons in
> hand."
>
>
>
> The crackdown extended far beyond the event itself. In the leadup to the
> Super Bowl, authorities in nearby San Francisco began clearing homeless
> encampments in anticipation of a large influx of tourists, prompting
> protests [8]. In a city already beset with dramatic inequality and
> displacement, the sweeps prompted the campaign Not So Super SF, demanding a
>
> moratorium on the criminalization of homeless people.
>
>
>
> The buildup to the event saw a heavy surveillance and law enforcement
> crackdown, in a city with powerful movements demanding an end to police
> killings and recognition that Black Lives Matter.
>
>
>
> "In the leadup to the Super Bowl, we've seen high-tech surveillance cameras
>
> go up with zero public input or protections [9], a black protestor arrested
>
> just for taking photos [10], and homeless people harassed, displaced, and
> saddled with unpayable citations [11]," Abdi Soltani, the executive director
>
> of the ACLU of Northern California, warned [12] days ahead of the Super
> Bowl.
>
>
>
> Amid the militarized spectacle of the Super Bowl, there was some recognition
>
> from the field of the issues nearby communities are struggling with. In a
> powerful homage to the ongoing legacies of women in the Black Panthers
> movement, dancers accompanying Beyonce's halftime performance of "Formation
>
> [13]" held a sign [14] demanding "Justice for Mario Woods." African-American
>
> man Woods, 26, was killed [15] by San Francisco police on December 2.
>
>
>
> Sarah Lazare is a staff writer for AlterNet. A former staff writer for
> Common Dreams, Sarah co-edited the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn
>
> Against War. Follow her on Twitter at @sarahlazare [16].
>
>
>
> Share on Facebook Share
>
>
>
> Share on Twitter Tweet
>
>
>
> mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on The Might of the American
> Empire Was on Full Display at Super Bowl 50: A Bizarre War Spectacle
> Extraordinaire [17]
>
>
>
> [18]
>
>
>
> Source URL:
> http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/might-american-empire-was-full-display-super-bowl-50-bizarre-war-spectacle
>
>
>
> Links:
>
>
>
> [1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/sarah-lazare-0
>
>
>
> [2] http://alternet.org
>
>
>
> [3]
> http://www.defense.gov/News-Article-View/Article/650370/campbell-to-sasc-afghanistan-not-a-short-term-problem
>
>
>
> [4]
> http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/us-dropped-23144-bombs-muslim-majority-countries-2015
>
>
>
> [5]
> http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/05/taxpayers_pony_up_for_jets_salutes_to_nj_national.html
>
>
>
> [6]
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/02/06/this-futuristic-fighter-jet-will-likely-be-unveiled-to-america-during-the-super-bowl/
>
>
>
> [7]
> http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Huge-military-presence-at-Super-Bowl-50-6813940.php
>
>
>
> [8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSgY3CKC3n4&amp;feature=youtu.be
>
>
>
> [9]
> http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/ACLU-Critical-of-New-Muni-Cameras-Along-the-Embarcadero-366163331.html
>
>
>
> [10] http://sfist.com/2016/02/04/black_protester_detained_and_cited.php
>
>
>
> [11]
> http://abc7news.com/sports/i-team-super-bowl-puts-strain-on-homeless-in-san-francisco/1184577/
>
>
>
> [12]
> https://www.aclunc.org/blog/super-bowl-city-and-beyond-sf-must-affirm-blacklivesmatter
>
>
>
> [13] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrCHz1gwzTo
>
>
>
> [14]
> https://twitter.com/BLMBAYAREA/status/696519908050362368?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
>
>
>
> [15]
> http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Family-of-man-shot-by-SF-police-to-file-federal-6691945.php
>
>
>
> [16] https://twitter.com/sarahlazare
>
>
>
> [17] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on The Might of the
> American Empire Was on Full Display at Super Bowl 50: A Bizarre War
> Spectacle Extraordinaire
>
>
>
> [18] http://www.alternet.org/
>
>
>
> [19] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

[blind-democracy] Flint's Crisis Is About More Than Water

The Ruling Class has so corrupted our nation's history, that in
effect, we have none. Without a history, a People cannot exist. We
are a hollow shell.
Carl Jarvis

Chris Hedges says it best:

"...we lack the capacity to measure our actions against the ideas,
outrages and injustices of the past. We have ceased to be moral beings. The
devil in Goethe's "Faust" grasps that the element most essential to the
perpetration of evil is the obliteration of memory."



On 2/8/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> Flint's Crisis Is About More Than Water
> http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/flints_crisis_is_about_more_than_water_2
> 0160207/
>
> Posted on Feb 7, 2016
> By Chris Hedges
>
> The Flint Water Plant tower in Michigan. (ehrlif / Shutterstock)
> What is in the mind of someone who knowingly poisons children and impairs
> their lives? Why did the politicians, regulators and bureaucrats who knew
> the water in Flint, Mich., was toxic lie about the danger for months? What
> does it say about a society that is ruled by, and refuses to punish, those
> who willfully destroy the lives of children?
> The crisis in Flint is far more ominous than lead-contaminated water. It is
> symptomatic of the collapse of our democracy. Corporate power is not held
> accountable for its crimes. Everything is up for sale, including children.
> Our regulatory agencies—including the federal Environmental Protection
> Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Michigan's
> Department of Environmental Quality—have been defunded, emasculated and
> handed over to corporate-friendly stooges. Our corrupt courts are part of a
> mirage of justice. The role of these government agencies and courts, and of
> the legislatures, is to sanction abuse rather than halt it.
> The primacy of profit throughout the society takes precedence over life
> itself, including the life of the most vulnerable. This corporate system of
> power knows no limits. It has no internal restraints. It will sacrifice all
> of us, including our children, on the altar of corporate greed. In a
> functioning judicial system, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Flint's former
> emergency manager, Darnell Earley, along with all the regulatory officials
> who lied as a city was being sickened, would be in jail facing trial.
> Hannah Arendt in "The Origins of Totalitarianism," Gitta Sereny in "Into
> That Darkness," Omer Bartov in "Murder in Our Midst," Alexander
> Solzhenitsyn
> in "The Gulag Archipelago," Primo Levi in "The Drowned and the Saved" and
> Ella Lingens-Reiner in "Prisoners of Fear" argue that the modern instrument
> of evil is the technocrat, the man or woman whose sole concern is
> technological and financial efficiency, whose primary measurement of
> success
> is self-advancement, even if it means piling up corpses or destroying the
> lives of children.
> "Monsters exist," Levi noted, "but they are too few in number to be truly
> dangerous. More dangerous are the common men." These technocrats have no
> real ideology, other than the ideology that is in vogue. They want to get
> ahead, to rise in the structures of power. They know how to make the
> collective, or the bureaucracy, work on behalf of power. Nothing else is of
> importance. "The new state did not require holy apostles, fanatic, inspired
> builders, faithful devout disciples," Vasily Grossman, in his book "Forever
> Flowing, wrote of Stalin's Soviet Union. "The new state did not even
> require
> servants—just clerks."
> We churn out millions of these technocrats or clerks in elite universities
> and business schools. They are trained to serve the system. They do not
> question its assumptions and structures any more than Nazi bureaucrats
> questioned the assumptions and structures of the "Final Solution." They
> manage the huge financial houses and banks such as Goldman Sachs. They
> profit from endless war. They orchestrate the fraud on Wall Street. They
> destroy the ecosystem on behalf of the fossil fuel industry. They are
> elected to office. They are empty shells of human beings who stripped of
> their power and wealth are banal and pathetic. They are not sadists. They
> do
> not delight in cruelty. They are cogs in the machinery of corporate power.
> These technocrats are numb to the most basic of human emotions and devoid
> of
> empathy beyond their own tiny inner circle. Michigan state officials, for
> example, provided bottled water to their employees in Flint for nearly a
> year while city residents drank the contaminated water, and authorities
> spent $440,000 to pipe clean water to the local GM plant after factory
> officials complained that the Flint water was corroding their car parts.
> That mediocre human beings make such systems function is what makes them
> dangerous.
> The long refusal to make public the poisoning of the children of Flint, who
> face the prospect of stunted growth, neurological, speech and hearing
> impairment, reproductive problems and kidney damage, mirrors the
> slow-motion
> poisoning and exploitation of the planet by other corporate technocrats.
> These are not people we want to entrust with our future.
> Theodor Adorno warned in his essay "Education After Auschwitz" that if we
> did not create an educational system that taught us to think morally and
> trained us how to make moral choices, another Auschwitz would appear on the
> horizon. Schools must teach more than vocational skills; they must teach
> values. They must, as Adorno wrote, teach citizens about "the societal play
> of forces that operates beneath the surface of political forms." And they
> must do this "without fear of offending any authorities."
> We live in an age that has eradicated social and cultural consciousness and
> left us in a rootless, ahistorical, emotionally driven void. Whole
> populations in our poorest communities are poisoned or, in countries such
> as
> Iraq, murdered en masse. But we have no context for measuring human actions
> and human evil. We find our collective identity in childish nationalist
> cant
> and patriotic propaganda that bombards the airwaves, not in the cold
> reality
> of our callousness and ruthlessness. We do not know who we are.
> "People who blindly slot themselves into the collective already make
> themselves into something like inert material, extinguish themselves as
> self-determined beings,"Adorno writes about the technocrat. "With this
> comes
> the willingness to treat others as an amorphous mass."
> "The manipulative character—as anyone can confirm in the sources available
> about those Nazi leaders—is distinguished by a rage for organization, by
> the
> inability to have any immediate human experiences at all, by a certain lack
> of emotion, by an overvalued realism," Adorno goes on to say in his 1966
> essay. "At any cost he wants to conduct supposed, even if delusional,
> Realpolitik. He does not for one second think or wish that the world were
> any different than it is, he is obsessed by the desire of doing things
> [Dinge zut un], indifferent to the content of such action. He makes a cult
> of action, activity, of so-called efficiency as such which reappears in the
> advertising image of the active person. If my observations do not deceive
> me
> and if several sociological investigations permit generalization, then this
> type has become much more prevalent today than one would think."
> Humanity as an idea, as the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut has pointed out,
> is itself mortal. It can be extinguished along with millions of human
> beings. "Barbarism is not the inheritance of our prehistory," Finkielkraut
> reminds us. "It is the companion that dogs our every step."
> "Indeed, one of the most frightening consequences of the Holocaust may well
> be that rather than serving as a warning to preserve humanity at all cost,
> it has provided a license to privilege physical survival over moral
> existence," writes Omer Bartov in "Mirrors of Destruction." "This may be
> one
> reason, along with the realization that mass murder has continued unabated
> since 1945, that such men as [Tadeusz] Borowski, [Jean] Améry, Paul Celan,
> and [Primo] Levi finally decided to put an end to their own lives."
> We have turned our universities into temples dedicated to corporate
> vocational training. Most graduates of Princeton or Harvard have no more
> ability to question the operating systems of the corporate state than an
> inner-city boy or girl who is taught basic functional literacy only so he
> or
> she can stock shelves or sell fast food. We all have our place in the great
> machine of corporate self-immolation. We all are drones. The technical
> skills vary from intricate and complex to rudimentary. But the commonality
> is that we lack the capacity to measure our actions against the ideas,
> outrages and injustices of the past. We have ceased to be moral beings. The
> devil in Goethe's "Faust" grasps that the element most essential to the
> perpetration of evil is the obliteration of memory.
> Now it is over. What meaning can one see?
> It is as if it had not come to be.
> And yet it circulates as if it were.
> I should prefer—Eternal Emptiness.
> We do not possess the intellectual skills—and this is by design—that permit
> us to question power, to see ourselves as part of a long human continuum.
> We
> have forgotten, or never been taught, that each individual must be seen as
> an ultimate end if we are to retain any human decency and hope. Once we
> depersonalize others, once we forget who we are and where we came from, we
> make evil possible. "Act so that humanity, both in your own person and that
> of others, be used as an end in itself, and never as a mere means,"
> Immanuel
> Kant wrote. If we cannot think morally, if we live devoid of empathy, if
> our
> advancement comes at the expense of the other, if we lose touch with the
> wisdom of the past, we cannot rebel. And if we do not rebel we will sustain
> a system that will ultimately slay us.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> http://www.truthdig.com/ http://www.truthdig.com/
> Flint's Crisis Is About More Than Water
> http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/flints_crisis_is_about_more_than_water_2
> 0160207/
> Posted on Feb 7, 2016
> By Chris Hedges
>
> The Flint Water Plant tower in Michigan. (ehrlif / Shutterstock)
> What is in the mind of someone who knowingly poisons children and impairs
> their lives? Why did the politicians, regulators and bureaucrats who knew
> the water in Flint, Mich., was toxic lie about the danger for months? What
> does it say about a society that is ruled by, and refuses to punish, those
> who willfully destroy the lives of children?
> The crisis in Flint is far more ominous than lead-contaminated water. It is
> symptomatic of the collapse of our democracy. Corporate power is not held
> accountable for its crimes. Everything is up for sale, including children.
> Our regulatory agencies—including the federal Environmental Protection
> Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Michigan's
> Department of Environmental Quality—have been defunded, emasculated and
> handed over to corporate-friendly stooges. Our corrupt courts are part of a
> mirage of justice. The role of these government agencies and courts, and of
> the legislatures, is to sanction abuse rather than halt it.
> The primacy of profit throughout the society takes precedence over life
> itself, including the life of the most vulnerable. This corporate system of
> power knows no limits. It has no internal restraints. It will sacrifice all
> of us, including our children, on the altar of corporate greed. In a
> functioning judicial system, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Flint's former
> emergency manager, Darnell Earley, along with all the regulatory officials
> who lied as a city was being sickened, would be in jail facing trial.
> Hannah Arendt in "The Origins of Totalitarianism," Gitta Sereny in "Into
> That Darkness," Omer Bartov in "Murder in Our Midst," Alexander
> Solzhenitsyn
> in "The Gulag Archipelago," Primo Levi in "The Drowned and the Saved" and
> Ella Lingens-Reiner in "Prisoners of Fear" argue that the modern instrument
> of evil is the technocrat, the man or woman whose sole concern is
> technological and financial efficiency, whose primary measurement of
> success
> is self-advancement, even if it means piling up corpses or destroying the
> lives of children.
> "Monsters exist," Levi noted, "but they are too few in number to be truly
> dangerous. More dangerous are the common men." These technocrats have no
> real ideology, other than the ideology that is in vogue. They want to get
> ahead, to rise in the structures of power. They know how to make the
> collective, or the bureaucracy, work on behalf of power. Nothing else is of
> importance. "The new state did not require holy apostles, fanatic, inspired
> builders, faithful devout disciples," Vasily Grossman, in his book "Forever
> Flowing, wrote of Stalin's Soviet Union. "The new state did not even
> require
> servants—just clerks."
> We churn out millions of these technocrats or clerks in elite universities
> and business schools. They are trained to serve the system. They do not
> question its assumptions and structures any more than Nazi bureaucrats
> questioned the assumptions and structures of the "Final Solution." They
> manage the huge financial houses and banks such as Goldman Sachs. They
> profit from endless war. They orchestrate the fraud on Wall Street. They
> destroy the ecosystem on behalf of the fossil fuel industry. They are
> elected to office. They are empty shells of human beings who stripped of
> their power and wealth are banal and pathetic. They are not sadists. They
> do
> not delight in cruelty. They are cogs in the machinery of corporate power.
> These technocrats are numb to the most basic of human emotions and devoid
> of
> empathy beyond their own tiny inner circle. Michigan state officials, for
> example, provided bottled water to their employees in Flint for nearly a
> year while city residents drank the contaminated water, and authorities
> spent $440,000 to pipe clean water to the local GM plant after factory
> officials complained that the Flint water was corroding their car parts.
> That mediocre human beings make such systems function is what makes them
> dangerous.
> The long refusal to make public the poisoning of the children of Flint, who
> face the prospect of stunted growth, neurological, speech and hearing
> impairment, reproductive problems and kidney damage, mirrors the
> slow-motion
> poisoning and exploitation of the planet by other corporate technocrats.
> These are not people we want to entrust with our future.
> Theodor Adorno warned in his essay "Education After Auschwitz" that if we
> did not create an educational system that taught us to think morally and
> trained us how to make moral choices, another Auschwitz would appear on the
> horizon. Schools must teach more than vocational skills; they must teach
> values. They must, as Adorno wrote, teach citizens about "the societal play
> of forces that operates beneath the surface of political forms." And they
> must do this "without fear of offending any authorities."
> We live in an age that has eradicated social and cultural consciousness and
> left us in a rootless, ahistorical, emotionally driven void. Whole
> populations in our poorest communities are poisoned or, in countries such
> as
> Iraq, murdered en masse. But we have no context for measuring human actions
> and human evil. We find our collective identity in childish nationalist
> cant
> and patriotic propaganda that bombards the airwaves, not in the cold
> reality
> of our callousness and ruthlessness. We do not know who we are.
> "People who blindly slot themselves into the collective already make
> themselves into something like inert material, extinguish themselves as
> self-determined beings,"Adorno writes about the technocrat. "With this
> comes
> the willingness to treat others as an amorphous mass."
> "The manipulative character—as anyone can confirm in the sources available
> about those Nazi leaders—is distinguished by a rage for organization, by
> the
> inability to have any immediate human experiences at all, by a certain lack
> of emotion, by an overvalued realism," Adorno goes on to say in his 1966
> essay. "At any cost he wants to conduct supposed, even if delusional,
> Realpolitik. He does not for one second think or wish that the world were
> any different than it is, he is obsessed by the desire of doing things
> [Dinge zut un], indifferent to the content of such action. He makes a cult
> of action, activity, of so-called efficiency as such which reappears in the
> advertising image of the active person. If my observations do not deceive
> me
> and if several sociological investigations permit generalization, then this
> type has become much more prevalent today than one would think."
> Humanity as an idea, as the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut has pointed out,
> is itself mortal. It can be extinguished along with millions of human
> beings. "Barbarism is not the inheritance of our prehistory," Finkielkraut
> reminds us. "It is the companion that dogs our every step."
> "Indeed, one of the most frightening consequences of the Holocaust may well
> be that rather than serving as a warning to preserve humanity at all cost,
> it has provided a license to privilege physical survival over moral
> existence," writes Omer Bartov in "Mirrors of Destruction." "This may be
> one
> reason, along with the realization that mass murder has continued unabated
> since 1945, that such men as [Tadeusz] Borowski, [Jean] Améry, Paul Celan,
> and [Primo] Levi finally decided to put an end to their own lives."
> We have turned our universities into temples dedicated to corporate
> vocational training. Most graduates of Princeton or Harvard have no more
> ability to question the operating systems of the corporate state than an
> inner-city boy or girl who is taught basic functional literacy only so he
> or
> she can stock shelves or sell fast food. We all have our place in the great
> machine of corporate self-immolation. We all are drones. The technical
> skills vary from intricate and complex to rudimentary. But the commonality
> is that we lack the capacity to measure our actions against the ideas,
> outrages and injustices of the past. We have ceased to be moral beings. The
> devil in Goethe's "Faust" grasps that the element most essential to the
> perpetration of evil is the obliteration of memory.
> Now it is over. What meaning can one see?
> It is as if it had not come to be.
> And yet it circulates as if it were.
> I should prefer—Eternal Emptiness.
> We do not possess the intellectual skills—and this is by design—that permit
> us to question power, to see ourselves as part of a long human continuum.
> We
> have forgotten, or never been taught, that each individual must be seen as
> an ultimate end if we are to retain any human decency and hope. Once we
> depersonalize others, once we forget who we are and where we came from, we
> make evil possible. "Act so that humanity, both in your own person and that
> of others, be used as an end in itself, and never as a mere means,"
> Immanuel
> Kant wrote. If we cannot think morally, if we live devoid of empathy, if
> our
> advancement comes at the expense of the other, if we lose touch with the
> wisdom of the past, we cannot rebel. And if we do not rebel we will sustain
> a system that will ultimately slay us.
> http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/hillary_clinton_accepts_praise_f
> rom_a_man_with_a_lot_of_blood_20160207/
> http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/hillary_clinton_accepts_praise_f
> rom_a_man_with_a_lot_of_blood_20160207/
> http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/hillary_clinton_accepts_praise_f
> rom_a_man_with_a_lot_of_blood_20160207/
> http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/bernie_sanders_foreign_policy_ju
> dgment_is_more_valuable_20160207/
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> ademy_20160207/
> http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/exile_as_a_space_of_disruption_in_the_ac
> ademy_20160207/
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> ationalist_follow_clintons_20160207/
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> ationalist_follow_clintons_20160207/
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socialism and the role it plays in America.

Socialism is not a bad thing. It benefits each and every one of us in
one way or another.

Below the fold is 75 ways socialism has improved, shaped, and built America.

Socialism.

There is nothing more feared and hated in America.

The word alone sends shivers down the spine of the American people.

Those three syllables conger up images of Big Brother Government
ruling over us all, telling us what to eat, wear, buy, and think. Our
children in national
uniform being indoctrinated with propaganda in government education
camps that use to be schools, turning them into little slaves. While
their parents
work twelve hour shifts in the concentration camp that slaughters rich
successful billionaires, as the poor and needy get a million dollars a
month in
welfare. A murderous government waging a war against freedom and
liberty to gain complete control over everyone and everything.

You know, the way things were under that socialist Bill Clinton. And
the way things are now under that socialist Barack Obama.

They imagine the USSR and how Democrats are turning America into it
because our government will give money to poor people so they don't
starve to death.
(Giving money to billion dollar corporations is NOT socialism somehow.
You would be a communist and a hippie to think otherwise.)

This is scary stuff!

And it's about to get scarier, because I have some terrifying news for you....

Socialism is alive and well in America and it has been here for a very
long time!

Oh, that's not all. it gets much worse! I hope your sitting down...

As it turns out, You love socialism and you use it everyday, and you
may not even know it! It may have even saved your life. I know, this
is bad...

Now relax and breath. It's going to be okay! We are going to get through this.

You see, we are still a capitalist nation. In America, you can still
make a billion dollars, get a giant tax cut, and pay your employees
barely enough
to survive while you sail in your yacht to escape any guilt that might
inconvenience you. So don't freak out just yet!

The thing is, socialism is all over America and people actually like
it. Even you... Yes you!

I know, I know. You're a conservative that believes in freedom and the
constitution. You hate handouts and believe in hard work and the
individual. You
think government should get out of the way and let you live your lives
and allow you to prosper on your own. You know that all rich people
must have worked
hard and all poor people are lazy. There is no other reason why they
could be poor considering life is completely fair and all people are
born into situations
and environments that allow them to have all the opportunities and
blessings that you had. There is no fathomable way they could have 2
or 3 jobs they
work very hard at but still can't make ends meet. You got it all figured out.

But still, even you get your kicks from a little socialism every now and then.

Don't think of this as an intervention, think of it as a coming out of
the closet party. We know you are a closet socialist. It's okay, you
are amongst
friends and we support you. Besides, we always knew...

Socialism is taxpayer funds being used collectively to benefit society
as a whole, despite income, contribution, or ability.

Sounds horrible, huh?

Well I hate to be the one to tell you, but Socialism, which you have
been told to fear all your life, is responsible for all this...

1.
The Military/Defense
- The United States military is the largest and most funded socialist
program in the world.  It operates thanks to our taxpayer dollars and
protects the
country as a whole. From the richest citizens to the homeless who
sleep under the bridge. We are all protected by our military whether
we pay taxes or
not. This is complete socialism.

2.
Highways/Roads
- Those roads and highways you drive on every single day are
completely taxpayer funded. Your tax dollars are used to maintain,
expand, and preserve our
highways and roads for every one's use. President Eisenhower was
inspired by Germany's autobahn and implemented the idea right here in
America. That's
right, a republican president created our taxpayer funded, national
highway system. This was a different time, before the republican party
came down with
a vicious case of rabies that never went away.

3.
Public Libraries
- Yes. That place where you go to check out books from conservative
authors telling you how horrible socialism is, is in fact socialism.
Libraries are
taxpayer funded. You pay a few bucks to get a library card and you can
read books for free for the rest of your life.

4.
Police
- Ever had a situation where you had to call the police? Then you
have used a taxpayer funded socialist program. Anyone can call the
police whether they
pay taxes or not. They are there to protect and serve the community,
not individuals. This is complete socialism on a state level, but
still socialism
all the same. Would you rather have to swipe your credit card before
the police will help you?

5.
Fire Dept.
- Hopefully you have never had a fire in your home. But if you have,
you probably called your local taxpayer-funded fire department to put
the fire out.
Like police, this is state socialism. You tax dollars are used to
rescue your entire community in case of a fire. It use to be set up
where you would pay
a fee every month to the fire dept. for their service. If you didn't
pay, they let your house burn down. Sadly, a man from Tennessee had
this exact situation
happen to him in 2011 because he didn't pay his $75.00 fee. I guess
that small town in Tennessee would rather let people's houses burn
down that resort
to evil socialism. So don't take for granted the fact that you have a
24/7 fire dept. to put out your burning home thanks to socialism.

6.
Postal Service
- Like having mail delivered directly to your front door and paying
next to nothing to send mail anywhere you want? Well it's all made
possible by socialism.

7.
Student Loans and Grants
- Did you go to College? If you did, you family might not have been
rich enough to pay your way through. So you got your education anyway
through student
loans and grants from the federal government at taxpayer expense. Of
course you have to pay back the loans, but if not the government, did
you know anyone
else who was going to lend you tens of thousands of dollars? Probably
not. So the taxpayers lent you the money and you paid it back with
slight interest.
The government grants you accepted were gifts from the taxpayer and
the federal government that you did not have to pay back. Socialism
got you through
school.

8.
Bridges
- Along with our highways, our government used your taxpayer dollars
to build bridges. This allows the public to travel across rivers
without having to
sail or swim.

9.
Garbage Collection
- Like having your garbage collected once a week instead of having to
drive it to the landfill yourself? Thank socialism.

10.
Public Landfills
- Taxpayer dollars are used to have places to dump all of our garbage
that is collected by taxpayer funded garbage men.

11.
War
- That's right! War would not be possible without socialism. Your tax
dollars are used to fight wars for your country. This is Big
Government at it's
biggest. Private companies don't attack other countries, at least not
yet. Government is the only entity in America that can defend us from
foreign enemies
and our tax dollars are used for every second of it. Socialism has
brought down Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, and Bin Laden. War may very
well be the most
socialist thing on this list.

12.
Farm Subsidies
- Our government uses taxpayer funds to pay farmers and businesses to
provide their income and keep them growing food for the public.

13.
CIA
- The Central Intelligence Agency is vital to America's security. The
CIA is completely taxpayer funded to protect the public from enemies.

14.
FBI
- The Federal bureau of investigations is a taxpayer funded government agency.

15.
Congressional Health Care
- As Republicans in congress warn us of the evils of government-run
health care, most of them are covered by taxpayer-funded
government-run health care.
You literally pay for their health care while they tell you that
paying for your neighbors health care through a public option or
single-payer system is
socialism. They are 100% correct, it is socialism. They're just not
telling you that they like their socialist health care, they just
don't think you should
have it. They are afraid you might like it better than the private
insurance you have now that funds their campaigns and gives them money
to push what
is best for them and not for you. Members of congress are free to opt
out of their evil government health care, but most of them don't
because deep down,
they like socialism too.

16.
Polio Vaccine
- In the 1950's polio ravaged the United States. Until Dr. Jonas Salk
invented a cure, finally ridding America of this terrible disease. Dr.
Salk could
have sold his vaccine in the free market and made millions and
millions of dollars. Instead he gave it to the federal government to
begin eradicating polio.
He said that he made plenty of money as a scientist and felt it was
too important to try and profit from or create a business around.

17.
EPA
- Republicans hate this taxpayer-funded government program because
they have the nerve to tell corporations that they may have to follow
environmental
rules ad regulations for the greater good of the earth and the people
who live on it. But if you don't like breathing mercury, drinking
dirty water, and
breathing in chemicals, you should like this example of socialism
working for the people.

18.
Social Security
- You pay a tax to help ensure that our grandparents and senior
citizens of America have money to live off of when they are retired or
too elderly to
work. I love hearing rich people bitch about this one because the
truth is that they do not pay a social security tax, like most payroll
taxes. This little
piece of socialism helps prevent our senior citizens from sinking into
poverty and starving to death.

19.
Museums
- Many museums are privately owned by organizations and groups, but
many are also taxpayer-funded state, national, and federal museums.

20.
Public Schools
- Can't afford to send your children to an expensive private school?
Thanks to socialism and government, you child can still get an
education. Public
education has been under attack for decades in this country by the
radical right because public schools don't teach Christianity to your
children and it
enables people like Barack Obama to work hard, gain scholarships, and
eventually become President of the United States.

21.
Jail/Prison System
- Many murders and criminals are behind bars right now and not out on
the streets because of our taxpayer-funded, federal and state run
jails and prisons.
Taxpayer money is collected and used to help protect all of society
from murders, molesters, rapist, etc. I know there's a lot of
disagreement and controversy
about how to handle our prison system, but I think we can all agree
that serial killers should not be freed into society. There are also
many private prisons
in the United States. However, they have a higher escape rate than
their socialist counterpart. Besides, don't you see the bad incentives
in having a private
prison system that profits from having people in prison? Since a
business's  top goal is to make more money than the year before, the
only feasible agenda
would be to get everyone in prison.

22.
Corporate/Business Subsidies
- This is the type of socialism that is acceptable in the Republican
party. You tax dollars are given to big corporations to do things they
should be
doing anyway out of morals and ethics. Like not sending jobs overseas
and hiring people. Wouldn't you like a nice big check just for not
breaking the law?
To be fair though, many businesses do earn their subsidies by
advancing green technology and practice, donating to charity, helping
communities, etc. They
aren't all bad. People just get mad when big billionaire oil companies
get billions of their taxpayer dollars while they're paying $4 at the
pump. For
the corporations that don't earn their subsidies other than donating
to their very own political party, it's merely welfare. Though however
you look at
it, it is socialism.

23.
Veteran's (VA) Health Care
- Our soldiers bravely go to foreign countries and risk their lives
at the request of their government and the American people. For those
who survive,
we as a country feel committed and obligated to ensure that they have
everything they need for the rest of their lives for their service to
us in which
we could never fully repay. So we the taxpayers fund their health care
in a government-run single-payer system for veterans. Many soldiers
return with
mental and/or physical health issues that would cost them thousands in
a private health care plan. Socialism funds the military, the overall
war, and also
takes care of our troops when they return home.

24.
Public Parks
- Like going to the park on a sunny day? Just being able to walk
right in, or at the worse pay a small fee? This is once again the work
of socialism.
If it were private, it wouldn't be a park, it would be someones back
yard. That small or non-existent fee will turn into a $15 fee faster
than you can
say "No Trespassing".

25.
All Elected Government Officials
- From the Supreme Court, to the President of the United States and
all the way down to the County Dog Catcher, taxpayers pay their salary
and provide
the funding for them to do their job. We pay for every aspect of their
job. So in a sense, I guess you could say our whole country is run on
socialism.

26.
Food Stamps
- Republicans fill with bitter contempt knowing that our government
at the expense of the taxpayer is giving poor people money to buy food
they couldn't
otherwise afford. This, like welfare, is what the right thinks
socialism is all about, along with mass murder. However, just like
corporate welfare, welfare
is socialism. I'll just end this one with a quick story. I have been
down and out in periods of my life and sought assistance via food
stamps. Even though
I was what anyone would consider poor, I was not poor enough to get
food stamps. Which means people who do get them, must really, really
need them. As
far as my personal experience, they weren't thrown around like candy
the way the right would have you believe.

27.
Sewer System
- Do you like having a sewer system to remove waste and prevent
pollution and disease from seeping into our environment? Thank the
taxpayers of America
and the socialist system it operates in.

28.
Medicare
- Medicare is one of the most liked socialist programs in America.
Most of us don't mind paying taxes to provide our senior citizens with
health care
and hope the next generation will do the same for us. If you don't
believe me, just look at almost any poll. Most seniors would not be
able to afford private
health care. So this form of socialism is a life saver for this
nation's grandparents and senior citizens.

29.
Court System
- Whether it's the murder trial of the century or a case in a small
claims court, the taxpayers of America fully fund our courts and legal
process. You
may pay for your own lawyer, but the courtroom, judge, and jury is
paid for through socialist means.

30.
Bird Flu Vaccine
- You don't have bird flu right now and probably aren't worried about
it because our federal government used taxpayer funds to pump vaccines
all over
America.

31.
G.I. Bill
- The G.I. bill allows veterans to pursue an education by using
taxpayer dollars to help them pay for most of their schooling. It also
helps them with
loans, savings, and unemployment benefits.

32.
Hoover Dam
- Remember when our country use to build things? Our government built
the Hoover Dam using taxpayer funds. It is now a vital source of power
for the west
coast.

33.
State/City Zoos
- American families have been going to the zoo for generations. A
place where kids and adults can have fun seeing creatures and animals
from all over
the world and learn at the same time. Many zoos are ran by the state
and/or city, using taxpayer funds to operate and even bring the
animals to the zoo.

34.
IRS
- I know, the IRS is about as popular and well liked in America as a
hemorrhoid, but think about it. The IRS is the reason that we have
anything. The
IRS collects taxpayer funds for the federal government. The government
then dispenses these funds to our military, states, and social
programs. If there
is no one collecting taxes, no one will pay them. If no one pays
taxes, our country shuts down. Without money to operate, nothing
operates. This may sound
like a good thing to some radical republicans, but for those of us
with sense, we know this means anarchy in the USA. The IRS gets a bad
rap because if
you don't pay your taxes or owe them money, they can be ruthless. Like
everything else, the IRS is not perfect, but without them we literally
have no country
or no means to run it.

35.
Free Lunch Program
- Some children are living in poverty by no fault of their own. I'm
not saying it is even their parents fault, but you surely cannot blame
a child for
the situation they are born into. In most if not all states, there are
programs where children who live in poor households can receive school
lunch for
free. The taxpayers of the state pay for this. Sounds like socialism
to me, and also the moral and Christian thing to do.

36.
The Pentagon
- Our defense system in America is a socialist system from top to
bottom. We as taxpayers fund the pentagon completely.

37.
Medicaid
- Our government uses taxpayer funds to provide health care for
low-income people. Republicans, the compassionate Christians that they
are, absolutely
hate this program. What they fail to understand is that when people
can't afford to pay their outrageous medical bills, they don't. This
bill does not
disappear. The loss that the insurance company, doctor's office, or
hospital takes gets passed down to everyone else. So covering people
and giving them
a low-income option reduces costs for them and everyone else. This is
the main argument behind a health care mandate. It's not to force you
to buy health
care out of cruelty. If everyone is covered, costs drop for everyone.
If you have no compassion for the uninsured, you can at least
understand the rational
in a selfish sense.

38.
FDA
- The Food and Drug Administration is far from perfect. It is
infested with corporate corruption and they have been wrong many, many
times. Countless
times they have approved things that they later have to apologize for
and have banned things that would have helped people. However, they
have also stopped
many harmful foods and products from being sold to the public and
protect us everyday from poisons being disguised as products. While
not perfect, they
are needed to prevent harmful food and drugs from being sold to you
and you family. Without them, corporations can send whatever they want
to your supermarkets
and drug stores without any testing or evaluation. I don't mind my
taxes going towards a middle man to inspect the safety of the products
we are being
sold everyday.

39.
Health Care for 9/11 Rescue Workers
- After beating back GOP obstruction, Democrats finally passed a bill
last year to allow government to help 9/11 rescue worker's with their
health care
after many came down with horrible lung diseases from the toxins they
breathed in rescuing people from smoldering buildings. These brave
citizens risked
their lives and health to help complete strangers. They deserve more,
but covering their health care is a good start.

40.
Swine Flu Vaccine
-  Do you have swine flu right now? Then thank government and the
socialist structure.

41.
Disability Insurance (SSDI)
- For those who are disabled and cannot work, our government provides
an income for them via taxpayer dollars as opposed to the other option
of letting
them starve to death.

42.
Town/State Run Beaches
- Like going to the beach? Like it when the beach is clean and safe?
Like having lifeguards on staff in case of an emergency? Then once
again, thank the
taxpayers and the socialist structure that makes it all possible.

43.
Corporate Bailouts/Welfare
- The whole point of this post is to prove that we ALL use, benefit
from, and like socialism. This example is a form of socialism that the
republicans
not only like, but fight tooth and nail for. They don't like it when
socialism is used for working/poor people, but when it's for
millionaires and their
corporate donors, socialism becomes as American as apple pie. The
middle/working class who are the majority of taxpayers pay for welfare
for corporations
and people who have more money than all of us combined. When our
government bails out a bank or gives a subsidy to a billion dollar
corporation, you are
paying for it.

44.
State Construction
- Ever see those construction workers in your town fixing potholes,
erecting buildings, repaving highways and roads, and fixing things all
over town?
They themselves and the work they do is taxpayer-funded state socialism.

45.
Unemployment Insurance
- All your working life, you pay payroll taxes. Some of these taxes
go toward a program that temporarily provides for people who lost
their jobs until
they can find another one.   You pay for others, others pay for you.
Especially these days, you never know when you might lose your job.
You may need temporary
assistance until you get back on your feet. The government recognizes
this. UI also keeps the economy moving in times of recession because
people still
have some money in their pockets to buy goods and promote demand.

46.
City/Metro Buses
- If you lack transportation, you can catch a city bus. Taxpayer
funds and the fee you pay to take the bus make it possible for
millions of people to
go to work.

47.
WIC
- WIC is a federally funded program to assist women, infants, and
children. WIC helps low-income families by providing funding for
nutrition, education,
and health care for children.

48.
State Snow Removal
- Even though sometimes it may take them longer than you like to get
to your street, do you like having snow plow service to clear our
roads and highways
in the winter? This is a state socialist taxpayer-funded service.

49.
PBS (Public Broadcasting Service)
- PBS operates on donations and government funding. The provide
non-partisan news and information to the public. They are the home of
Sesame Street, Masterpiece
Theater, and The Antiques Roadshow. Surveys show that they are
literally the most trusted name in news. I wonder how Fox feels about
that?

50.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
- The CDC helps promote and enact the health and safety of the public
along with helping to prevent and control illness and disease. The CDC
is a government
program that operates on taxpayer funding.

51.
Welfare
- Is there anything the republicans hate more? Of course I'm talking
about the welfare that goes to poor people. Corporate welfare is not
only accepted
in the republican Kabul, but it's mandatory that we give our tax
dollars to billionaires and not question the logic of it. Though if
you look at it realistically
and not through the red scare glasses in which the right sees the
world, welfare helps the economy. As I've said many times, when poor
people have money
in their pocket, they buy things made and sold by companies. This
creates a demand. To keep up with demand, businesses must hire to keep
up. If you yanked
everyone who is on welfare off of it tomorrow, the economy would take
a blow and lose jobs due to the down tick in consumer demand because
we just took
what little money they had away.

52.
Public Street Lighting
- Like being able to see at night when you walk or drive? Thank Socialism.

53.
FEMA
- If Disaster strikes, FEMA is there to help pick up the pieces. As a
part of homeland security and an agency of the federal government,
they use taxpayer
dollars to help cities, states, and towns recover and rebuild. I don't
know to many private companies that could assist in disaster relief
and ask nothing
in return. Thank God for socialism.

54.
Public Defenders
- Ever been in trouble and couldn't afford a lawyer? Well the
taxpayers and the government make sure you still get representation.

55.
S-CHIP
(State Children's Health Insurance Program) - S-CHIP is a program
that matches funds to states for health insurance for children in
families that cannot
afford insurance but make too much to qualify for Medicaid. Your tax
dollars go towards covering uninsured children, is that so wrong?

56.
Amtrak
- Amtrak transports tens of millions of passengers a year in 46
states and three Canadian Providences. It is owned by the federal
government and your
tax dollars are used to fund it. All aboard!!

57.
NPR
- National Public Radio operates on private and federal funding along
with public donations. NPR has been one of the most trusted news
sources in America
for over 40 years.

58.
The Department of Homeland Security
- Created after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, this heavily federally
funded department of the U.S. government helps protect us from future
terrorist
attacks. This is the third largest department within the United States
government.

59.
OSHA
- Do you have a safe and healthy workplace that provides training,
outreach, education, and assistance? Thank OSHA! Brought to you by the
taxpayers of
America and socialism.

60.
State and National Monuments
- The Lincoln Memorial. Mount Rushmore. The D.C. National Mall. All
brought to you and maintained with your tax dollars. Socialism is
patriotic?

61.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
- The USDA enforces regulations on the farming, agriculture, and food
industries to ensure food safety, natural resources, and hunger
worldwide and in
the United States. Your tax dollars are used to help keep what you are
eating safe and even feed those who are not eating.

62.
Government Scholarships
- if you work hard in school and show true potential, our government
will give you a scholarship towards college so you can advance your
education. Your
tax dollars have been used to send future doctors, lawyers,
scientists, and even presidents of the United States to college.

63.
Department of Health and Human Service
- The overall goal of HHS is to promote, implement, and ensure the
health of the American people. Your tax dollars are used to do this.
Government looking
out for the well being of it's people, imagine that!

64.
Census Bureau
 - Every ten years, our government collects data about our people and
economy, to better serve and represent us. From the forms that are
sent to your
home for you to fill out and send back in and to the census worker who
shows up and kindly asks you to fill out the form if you don't send it
in, all taxpayer
funded socialism. The information collected is used to better
understand the economic situation and population in your area. Not to
enslave you in a FEMA
camp.

65.
Department of Energy
- This taxpayer funded cabinet of the federal government oversees
nuclear weapons, nuclear reactors, energy conservation, radioactive
waste disposal,
and energy production. To those of you who care about our environment
and would rather not witness a nuclear holocaust might consider this
money well spent.

66.
Customs and Border Protection
 - the CBP is the largest law enforcement agency in America. This is
big government that republicans actually do like because they don't
like Mexicans
immigrating to our country like our ancestors did. However, this
taxpayer funded, socialist agency of the federal government regulates
trade, imports,
and immigration.

67.
Department of Education
- This cabinet of the federal government is actually the smallest.
They administer and oversee federal assistance to education. They also
collect data
and enforce federal laws and regulations involving education. Even
though the right thinks that this department is indoctrinating your
children, they actually
have no control over curriculum or standards.

68.
Secret Service
- Your tax dollars are used to provide highly-trained, skilled
professional bodyguards to protect the President of the United States.

69.
Peace Corps
- The Peace Corps is a volunteer program run by the government that
helps people outside of the US to understand our culture as well as
helping us learn
about other cultures. However they are more well known for their work
with economic and social development in less-fortunate countries.
Sounds very Christian
for being a socialist program, huh?

70.
Department of Justice
- The DOJ is responsible for enforcing the law. Socialism keeps our
civilization intact.

71.
National Weather Service
- Like knowing when a storm, tornado, earthquake, or snow is coming?
Socialism makes this possible and available to everyone.

72.
The White House
- Our taxpayer dollars through a socialist means pays for the house
that the president and his family live in during a presidents time in
office.

73.
Government
- Like it or not, our country would not be a country without a
government. Every single day, government on state and local levels
serve us in ways we
simply take for granted. Government as an entity operates and
functions on our tax dollars through a socialist structured funding
system. From the military
down to the county dog catcher, socialism turns the wheels that make
our society function.

74.
Law
- Laws and rules make our democracy possible. Remove these laws and
you have sheer anarchy. Laws do not appear out of thin air. To have
law, you need
a government. You need elected lawmakers to make the laws and a
government to implement and enforce them. Socialism is responsible for
every law in this
country. Without our government and lawmakers which exist thanks to
socialism, there would be no laws. So the laws themselves, are
enforced and implemented
thanks to socialism.

75.
Civilization
- As an American citizen, you enjoy freedoms that many in other
countries do not. Like anything else in this world, our government is
not perfect, but
you should be thankful everyday that your country has a government
that feels an obligation to serve the people and protect their rights
and freedoms.
This is completely possible because of government, taxes, and
socialism. Do you think the private sector would do a better job of
governing our country?
Do you think corporations would enact laws to help protect and serve
you and your family or them and their profits? The reason you can read
this blog and
the reason I can write it whether you agree with it or not is because
of the freedoms we have here in America enforced and protected through
socialist
means. Our entire civilization depends on us being a people united.
Socialism is a glue that binds us together and makes possible the
things that we could
not accomplish as individuals working against each other.

I don't care who you are.

Rich or poor. Teaparty Republican or Liberal Socialist.

You benefit from at least one or more of these 75 American
Government-Run, Taxpayer funded Socialist programs, agencies, and
laws.

My overall argument is not for a completely socialist nation. This
would not work. A completely capitalist nation would not work either.

I'm just simply saying that I, as a Democratic Socialist, feel that
the two can co-exist. I know this because they always have. Socialism
and capitalism
have always co-existed in America.

I also believe in freedom. I believe options are a form of freedom.

Right now in the United States of America, I can send mail through the
public postal service or I can choose a private option like FedEx. I
can send my
kids to public school or private school.

As liberals, we don't want a government takeover, we want options. We
think we should have the freedom to be able to choose to have
government health care
if we don't like our private plan.

If we are 18-64, we have no options or freedom over our own health
care. I don't understand why this isn't viewed as a corporate takeover
of health care.

Socialism is not a bad thing. It is a foundation in this country of
ours. Claiming socialism is bad because of radical and non-factual
comparisons to Hitler
and Stalin is like saying all guns are bad because of the Columbine
killers and Jared Loughner.

National socialism and communism are very, very different from
Democratic Socialism here in America. I'd explain further but this
topic is for another
post, this one is long enough. Besides, socialism defeated Hitler.

So let's just stop the madness and have a serious discussion about
socialism and the role it plays in America.

block quote
"Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien
power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a
president and senators
and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country" - FDR