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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (288132)	5/15/2006 12:59:48 PM
From: American Spirit	Respond to of 1571927

We are already 30-40% socialist in this country, and were more so after WWII and the Great Depression. So slamming socialism is silly. The fair debate is over how much socialism we need, what kind of socialism and how well programs are run. Social Security is a huge socialist program and has been very successful, though Bushies are trying their best to ruin it. After the Bush-Cheney disasterous privatization period, the vast majority nof Americans will want to go back to more socialism, particularly in terms of nationalized health care and energy, to keep the gougers out of our pockets. Also, to re-fund Social Security and we can't have Halliburton running our army and gouging us during war-time. That's just criminal. Oh yeah, and FEMA is socialism we desperately need, but we need is run well. Bush runs social programs so poorly that government fails every time we need it. So it's really a matter of efficient government vs. Bushie gutted government.

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (288132)	5/15/2006 1:10:28 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1571927

"Modern-day socialism was born in the early 1900's with the birth of industrialism, unionization, and the New Deal." That's true. I don't know if you've ever read "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn, but if you haven't, as an ordinary person, you should. Zinn is a socialist himself, but if you throw in that grain of salt, the actual history he presents from the point of view of the ordinary people at the various times, is very accurate. It's a fascinating contrast to conventional histories that take the POV of the national leaders. It covers how the New Deal was basically a sop to working people here in America to head off socialism here, or even more feared, communism. It's hard to picture it now, but after the crash of 1929, the depression and the dust bowl, ordinary Americans were fed up, a vast number were jobless and starving, and socialists and communists were an actual force in this country, picking up more followers every day. FDR responded with the "New Deal", basically temporary socialism lite with some permanent features, like Social Security. He HAD to do it, to prevent a more permanent social revolution, to co-opt the growing numbers of socialists and communists.