Americans have a wrong view on "socialism" - Where to Invade Next (2016) Discussion

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

I guess you didn't see the movie and didn't read the Rolling Stone article either, right? And if you think all the third-world conditions are in Chicago and California, think again. Or think in the first place. You really should see movies like this before commenting on them. If you did see it, you obviously missed the entire point.

---
"How was the war, sir?" "As any war, ma'am, a waste of good men." (Poldark)

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[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] wendycscott9 8 years ago

In your VERY humble opinion.

---"How was the war, sir?" "As any war, ma'am, a waste of good men." (Poldark)

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[–] GarryMMM 8 years ago

Liberal states? I presume that same applies to western Europe but your liberal is equivalent to our (New Zealand) right wing. One thing I have never understood about some America views on socialism, public schools are fine, police force fine, fire fighters fine, army fine, postal service (government?) fine, health care not fine. What am I missing?

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[–] wendycscott9 8 years ago

Unfortunately, too many Americans have lost the ability to think things through. You ask great questions. Americans have had so much anti-socialist propaganda fed to them, the mere mention of the word has many freaking out even though we have some socialistic programs, as you mentioned. And the fact is, every country has some of those same programs, but it doesn't make the country a socialist country. Socialized medicine, for example, or single-payer health care as it's called here (Medicare for all) would not make this country a socialist country. We'd still have private enterprise in other areas of life, just not in how people are treated when they're infirm, which seems like a very good idea to me. Friends of mine living in countries that do have this are very happy with their systems. They get a lot more for their tax money than we do since we squander so much of ours on our military. One of these days, we might just elect people who think our tax money should be spent on making the country work better for the citizens in it. Well, a girl can dream, can't she?

—
"How was the war, sir?"
"As any war, ma'am, a waste of good men." (Poldark)

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[–] [email protected] 8 years ago

One thing I have never understood about some America views on socialism, public schools are fine, police force fine, fire fighters fine, army fine, postal service (government?) fine, health care not fine.

What you're missing is that we see how well the schools, police force, and postal service work and we don't want our medical system to go the same way.

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[–] fbarok5 7 years ago

Because the profit oriented medical care in the US works very well, right?
Another documentary Sicko, nails this topic.

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[–] brux (14666) 7 years ago

All of those things you said were fine are under attack by f-ing Republican fascists.

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[–] QuentinHackatino 8 years ago

US may champion capitalism but it's not like we don't have socialist programs.

Prepared to be shocked....but the US does have government provided healthcare. ...just not for everyone. There is also government provided housing, government provided food, government provided college education, social security etc...etc. These are all socialism.

Now what about all these great socialist countries over in Europe? It's not like you guys don't draw a line with your socialism as how much you should spend helping other people. Your politicians argue how far socialism should go the same as in the US.

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[–] peterquennell 8 years ago

Agreed. True socialism (ownership of the means of production and housing) is really not found now in the world, except in North Korea. Europe has many strong globalized firms and no more public housing than the US. Smart Europeans etc INVEST in their people's health and education because in fact it leads to good growth and benefits that are spread around.

Contrast with the US. Every year via federal revenue rich (mostly blue) states transfer hundreds of billions toward poor (mostly red) states. But its not done in a way that is smart. The worst poverty in the US can be found in hundreds of dying towns and rotting trailer parks, predominantly in the red states, particularly in the south.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/08/americas-fiscal-union

There will always be some taking the side of the American plutocrats who have creamed off ALL the gains in worker productivity in the past 20 years, but right now the gap between the 1% and everyone else is wider than for 100 years. This is key to much of the appeal of Trump. His answers are odd but millions feel left out while we have a Congress dominated by the poorer red states which for 7 years has done barely a stroke of work.

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[–] Lunda2222 7 years ago

You are talking about communism. Socialism is an umbrella term that encompasses communism and quite a few other political views.

All communists are socialists, but very few socialists are communists. The same way everybody in Northern Mariana Islands (the least populated place of the US according to Wikipedia) are Americans, but very few Americans are from the Northern Mariana Islands.

It`s far easier to start a war than to end one.

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[–] MisterMovieGuy 8 years ago

In all honesty, I think very few Americans actually understand the concept of "socialism", or how there are many aspects of socialism which already exist within the United States (which everybody loves, of course).

Socialism has long been akin to a bad word, a taboo, a spooky evil that nobody wants to talk about. As we've seen in the current presidential race, socialism is often directly compared to communism, which conjures up the constant creeping fear people felt back during the Cold War, or summons images of countries like China and North Korea. This scares people, and as a result they denounce socialism without actually knowing what they're talking about, and how it would benefit them.

It all pretty much comes down to ignorance and misinformation, which is unfortunate.

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[–] wendycscott9 8 years ago

Agreed. And what's really weird is how so many of these people consider themselves Christians yet have no clue as to what the Bible says about how we are to behave towards each other and how the early Christians behaved. They were the original socialists. They owned nothing and shared everything, it's all in there if anyone cares to read it. They claim to believe in the divinity of Jesus because he was able to heal the sick and comfort the poor yet they feel perfectly fine making sure millions of our working poor, most likely many of them Christians, too, are denied access to health care where Republican governors refuse the Medicare expansion under the ACA. It's all very strange to me.

But what it does show is how effective right-wing propaganda is against anything remotely considered "leftist" as if that were the essence of evil even though the left is about helping everyone do better while the right is about helping no one do better—you're on your own. And then people like Michael Moore come up with an entertaining and enlightening documentary showing how some of our originally American ideas have been adopted in other countries while being abandoned in our own, and he points out that since these ideas seem to be working so well elsewhere, maybe we could try them again here. And for this he's called every name in the book. Go figure. I don't get any of it.

---
"How was the war, sir?"
"As any war, ma'am, a waste of good men." (Poldark)

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[–] QuentinHackatino 8 years ago

These Christians prefer to voluntarily donate through their church rather than be forced to donate through the government. Considering the biggest charity the US donates to is bombing other countries I'd hardly call it good giving the government money.

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[–] wendycscott9 8 years ago

And yet Jesus said to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's. We also have a representative democracy now, so if you don't like what the government of the people is doing, you're one of the people and can have a say in the matter by how you vote and who and what you promote. Churches don't always make the best use of the money their congregants give to them either. Just look at all the televangelists who spend donations on frippery. The Constitution talks about "We the People" right at the beginning. If we don't do as it says, "promote the general welfare" of the people, then we're not doing what either Jesus or the Founding Fathers had in mind, imho.

---
"How was the war, sir?"
"As any war, ma'am, a waste of good men." (Poldark)

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[–] roell29 8 years ago

From the start, the US has been both a Christian (exoteric) and an occult (esoteric) country with a hidden agenda - to conquer the world (hence we see Michael Moore facetiously planting the American flag in Where To Invade Next). Occult symbols are splashed all across our currency and government buildings. This secret agenda is known masonically as "the Great Plan" (Aka "New World Order" - right on the dollar bill is written "novus ordo seclorum" meaning "new order of the ages"). This is a fantastic documentary on the subject - Eye of the Phoenix: Secrets of the Dollar Bill (http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/eye-of-the-phoenix-secrets-of-the-dollar-bill/). According to the Pentagon, the US currently has "military deployments" in at least 153 countries (almost 80% of them). None of those countries can defy American policies in any significant way. They are effectively vassal states. The most powerful among the few left unoccupied are the ones we are presently engaged in threatening, demonizing and destabilizing (Iran, Russia, China, Syria, North Korea, etc.). We spend more on "defense" (actually wars of aggression - the ultimate crime of state as declared by the Nuremberg tribunal) than the next 10 countries combined, even as our supposed nemesis - Russia - the enemy that is required to justify all that spending - is decreasing defense spending (already a tiny fraction US spending), we are increasing ours. If you look very closely down at the bottom of the pyramid on the dollar bill, you can see a barren wasteland of tumbleweeds and scrub brush. That represents the enforced mental and spiritual poverty of the common people who reside at the bottom of the pyramid of wealth, power, and knowledge and who are treated like mushrooms - kept in the dark and fed nothing but bs. Even within Masonry, the first three degrees are regarded as "profane" by the higher-ups, just like the rest of us. Virtually all the Founding Fathers were Masons. You really can't understand all this craziness without recognizing the occult aspect of the American project.

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[–] wendycscott9 8 years ago

Well, let's hope it's just some folks' idle fancies and vain imaginings that they thought they can conquer the world like you're suggesting. We might be able to make a mess of it, but it's a big planet, and I don't see how one country can just take over the rest of the world, especially when the rest of it is rather remote from it in location. It just doesn't seem possible even if that were the intention of the founders.

—
"How was the war, sir?"
"As any war, ma'am, a waste of good men." (Poldark)

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[–] roell29 8 years ago

But there are only 20% of all existing countries left unoccupied. The two biggest remaining nuts to crack are Russia and China, of course. It's almost completed. See map - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Combatant_Command#/media/File:Unified_Combatant_Commands_map.png

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[–] [email protected] 8 years ago

roell, you need more tinfoil in your hat.

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[–] bruce-129 8 years ago

The US system just does not work. The basing a society on selfishness means that
sooner or later the country gets hollowed out and we have stupid, obtuse uneducated
people basically virtually slaves. And for what ... the elite, the oligarchs do not give
a damn about the country, the land, the air, the people, they do not benefit from being
jerks.

Look at the whole rest of the Western world has gone the way of socialism, and you
are right ... actually socialism is not really the word, particularly when it is tied in with
or associated with China, Russia, Nazi Germany, etc.

It is more of a nation oriented regulated capitalism ... and we should have more
worker ownership as well. if we do not move in that direction, we will keep moving
in the other direction and building up deficits that no one will want to pay and thus
a country that is a miserable wretched dump sooner or later.

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[–] lineagemedia 8 years ago

tell a system thats better. capitalism and democracy doubled the life expectancy of people, put all te food u can eat on ur table, gave u a car , internet, a computer, things that make life worth living.

*beep* communism. and *beep* socialism. i lived in communism and after socialism, those don t work.

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[–] bruce-129 8 years ago

> capitalism and democracy doubled the life expectancy of people

Actually science did that.

Capitalism has also brought us empire, oligarchy, almost total ruination of democracy,
You say you lived in communism and socialism ... I say BS to that, that is what half
the liars on the Internet say.

But you did fail to get an education, I'll give you that, free enterprise and the rule of
law gave you stable regulated markets that capitalism is now destroying by letting the
elite and oligarchs monopolize everything.

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[–] ObscureAuteur 8 years ago

"But in reality it only brought benefits to the people."

That is exactly what is wrong with European type socialism in the world view of the AynRandroids who fund the GOP now looking, in vain, for a new electable apparatchik comparable to Ronald Reagan to smooth talk, or scare talk, the rest of America out of what is left of a decent share of the "richest country in the world".

As to democracy Gore Vidal pretty well nailed it:

"There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt – until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties."
Gore Vidal - "The State of the Union" (1975)

Socialism or not, Americans are confused about what has been happening since the 1970's, considering themselves temporarily embarrassed millionaires, not a middle and working class whose economic base is being dug out from under them to buy a plutocrat another mega-mansion and fatten his offshore tax evading shell companies and bank accounts.

CB

"Keep your socialist government hands off my Medicare!"

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[–] [email protected] 8 years ago

Socialism or not, Americans are confused about what has been happening since the 1970's, considering themselves temporarily embarrassed millionaires, not a middle and working class whose economic base is being dug out from under them to buy a plutocrat another mega-mansion and fatten his offshore tax evading shell companies and bank accounts.

Drives you nuts that Americans refuse to see themselves as victims, doesn't it.

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[–] Xavior_Penguin 8 years ago

Drives you nuts that Americans refuse to see themselves as victims, doesn't it.

No, it makes me pity those pathetic, pseudo-macho wannabe-cowboys even more.

You don't save any dignity by celebrating getting pissed on by your masters. You demonstrate a laughable level of dicklessness.

~Lance

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[–] [email protected] 8 years ago

No, it makes me pity those pathetic, pseudo-macho wannabe-cowboys even more.

You don't save any dignity by celebrating getting pissed on by your masters. You demonstrate a laughable level of dicklessness.

Jealous much?

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[–] Xavior_Penguin 8 years ago

Jealous much?

Of your needledick? Yeah, totally. I always wanted to sodomize a flea.

~Lance

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[–] [email protected] 8 years ago

Of your needledick? Yeah, totally. I always wanted to sodomize a flea.

Sorry, I thought I was dealing with an adult. When you're ready for an adult conversation get back to me.

<plonk>

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[–] Xavior_Penguin 8 years ago

I didn't realize being a sycophantic loser was a sign of maturity. Fücked up world you live in.

~Lance

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[–] lincolnbirch 8 years ago

Personally I've lived in the US and Europe besides other parts of the world.

Where there seems to be a sensation of conflict is when values portrayed within the constitution of the United States are understood by individuals literally and not in a much broader context for the general and common well-being of society.

The USA essentially is a strong believer in that an individual can do whatever they please and it be within their own right and choice for themselves.

This is all well and good until the implications of the suggested single-mindedness become potentials of disregard for anything outside of ones own life-bubble and a resululting disconnection with the greater community.

The term 'social' or 'socialism' is often misused and I feel misunderstood.

There is a clear difference of creating a fair playing field of opportunity within a society and effective socialism, which could be called a modern-day communism looking at similarities.

In feel the disconnect between the american people has probably not been greater than now and this film makes it quite clear how people's interests, literally everybody, can find a healthy support and that everyone has a benefit from that.

What I find a bit strange are the comparitive remarks of wealth further in the thread. The USA is not wealthy. It has a record debt growing daily that may never ever be balanced and probably is not supposed to be either.

On the whole Americans need to get over themselves, calm down, stop over-reacting with aggression and start looking out for one another just like countries in Europe have chosen to do in their own ways. At the end of the day, if you stay in touch with humanity, are looking out for yourself and family and friends and are a part of a supportive and empowering infrastructure where people get along, then call it what you like, that's what should be happening. ...why would you want anything else?

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[–] wendycscott9 8 years ago

We could gradually bring down the debt, which really doesn't matter that much, but all it would take is putting everyone back to work so they have money to spend on goods and services, which puts more people to work supplying those things, and then taxing people progressively so the rich pay a lot more than they're paying these days. They're getting so phenomenally wealthy, they could never in a thousand years spend what they have. People should pay what they can afford. This country made them rich providing the infrastructure and opportunities that put them on that path. They have an obligation to pay back some of what they have made so the country can keep doing that for everyone.

We need to fix our ailing infrastructure, which would put people back to work and stimulate the economy. The more people working, the more taxes they pay, and the debt can be gradually paid off. Austerity doesn't help since it does nothing for jobs or the economy, as we have seen in other countries that went that route during the economic downturn. Government spending can be a very good thing in many ways since it accomplishes at least three things necessary to fix the economy: it puts people to work doing useful things the country needs done, people who work have money, which generates more spending in the private sector thus increasing jobs there as well, and it generates more revenue for the government. It also makes for happier, healthier, wealthier people in general, which brings down the crime rate and decreases costs in maintaining prisons and taking care of medical problems including mental health issues. Our economy is better than a lot of those around the world, but it could have been so much better if Republicans in Congress hadn't refused to spend anything on anything ever since President Obama took office at the time of economic disaster. They were apparently trying to make the economy even worse so he couldn't succeed and the hell with the people who suffered from this obstructionism. The really sad thing is, a lot of people still think it's all his fault that things aren't better. I guess Republicans know their people. They'll believe anything they hear on Fox "news" and blame it all on the Democrats.

And btw, I'm not one myself. I'm an independent. But I would have to be nuts not to have noticed what the Republicans were up to trying to destroy the presidency of the first African-American to hold the office. At the time he was elected, I foolishly thought they would be too embarrassed to slam him like they had President Clinton, that they would not want to appear to be prejudiced and might actually be more respectful towards Obama. How wrong I was. Meanwhile, a new record has been set with 63 months, over 5 years, of consecutive job growth in the private sector if not the public. But does he get the credit? I just love how Cruz loves to talk about "Obama's failed policies." Really? ::rolling my eyes::

Sorry about how long this is. I hope it has some value to someone.

—
"How was the war, sir?"
"As any war, ma'am, a waste of good men." (Poldark)

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[–] TheQuagmire 8 years ago

19 trillion... is quite the debt to "gradually" bring down.

"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but I can't get my head that far up my ass."

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[–] wendycscott9 8 years ago

True, and it certainly won't be brought down by not spending any money. It takes money to make money, remember? Government spending in order to fix infrastructure and hire people has a beneficial effect on the country. Once people are working, they pay taxes and buy things that generate more taxes through more hiring and more profits, so the debt can be brought down. Government spending is the easiest way to take the debt down gradually without hurting millions of people in the process. It may seem counterintuitive given the decades of propaganda against the government waged by the right, starting with Reagan, who vastly increased government spending himself, raising taxes 11 times, in an effort to stimulate the economy, while all the time telling us how bad the government was. Try to ignore all that propaganda and understand our government of the people is supposed to be for the people, not against them. The debt doesn't hurt anything except it gives us less to spend on projects that would benefit the people. Proportionately, our debt is not that large compared to the entire economy, not as large as it was at the end of the Revolutionary War, for example, and we managed to pay all that debt down eventually.

—
"How was the war, sir?"
"As any war, ma'am, a waste of good men." (Poldark)

reply

[–] lincolnbirch 8 years ago

Personally I've lived in the US and Europe besides other parts of the world.

Where there seems to be a sensation of conflict is when values portrayed within the constitution of the United States are understood by individuals literally and not in a much broader context for the general and common well-being of society.

The USA essentially is a strong believer in that an individual can do whatever they please and it be within their own right and choice for themselves.

This is all well and good until the implications of the suggested single-mindedness become potentials of disregard for anything outside of ones own life-bubble and a resululting disconnection with the greater community.

The term 'social' or 'socialism' is often misused and I feel misunderstood. Often most voices pertaining an assumed political direction are merely reactive to the individuals orientation. I just wonder how difficult it can be so see the bigger picture after a system has been so extensively corrupted and manipulated to generate the sort of divide in the USA populace.

There is a clear difference of creating a fair playing field of opportunity within a society and actual socialism. (I wonder sometimes if people are actually referring to communism?)

I feel the disconnect between the american people is huge and this film makes it quite clear how people's interests, literally everybody, can find a healthy support and that everyone has a benefit from that and the reassurance that it is a reality not just wishful thinking.

People are supported, people are looked after, just not in so many fundamental and accessable ways in the USA.

On the whole Americans need to get over themselves, calm down, stop over-reacting with aggression and start looking out for one another just like countries in Europe have chosen to do in their own ways. At the end of the day, if you stay in touch with humanity, are looking out for yourself and family and friends and are a part of a supportive and empowering infrastructure where people get along, then call it what you like, that's what should be happening. ...why would you want anything else?

-

What I find a bit strange are the comparitive remarks of wealth further in the thread. The USA is not actually wealthy. It has a record debt growing daily that may never ever be balanced and probably is not supposed to be either. I guess it depends how you want to look at it.

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