Even When Times Are Tough Keep Socialism as Your North Star, Though Building fully socialist society takes long time, we should never lose sight of it

[francoHFW]

See, that's pretty well what Trump promised, and coincidentally, that's what Biden has promised.

But watch out for the white cats comeing after the black cats, and then the half black and half white cats, etc.

I will go with Democrats who are actually trying to pass that good socialist stuff and I will stop as much as possible the GOP Murdoch Internet conspiracy nut misinformation campaign of the last 20-30 years. So tell me all about how trump was for health care for all a living wage daycare paid parental leave et cetera etcetera. Trump is a total lying scumbag con man and never did anything to help Americans and anyone who believes he did is brainwashed with baloney and totally baffled. Republicans always obstruct progress for as long as possible and then try and take credit for it lol.... They have a total alternative universe....

 

[justoffal]

What the hell does that have to do with health care daycare paid parental leave cheap college and training great infrastructure and vacations, ID card to end illegal work, and mainly taxing the bloated rich again and investing in America again so we can lead the free world again and stop losing out to better educated foreigners with better infrastructure....

hahaha.....you have bought into the bullshit lock, stock and barrel....figures
there is a reason why any nation out there that themes socialism is bankrupt and nearly ready to fail......you just named a few of them...but there are more.

JO

 

[Doug1943]

Doug wants to refer to socialist countries, but none exist.

I'm pushing the concept of socially responsible capitalism which exists and has proven successful throughout the world. And they don't and haven't fallen to dictatorships.

We musn't allow the topic to be hijacked.

Trump rose to popularitity because he promised to change the system for the benefit of the working class American. And there was even an attempt to take down the government cats by force!

See Tommy Douglas's Mouseland.

Hmm... the Original Poster said we must aim for 'fully socialist societies'. Of course we can call capitalist societies with a developed welfare state 'fully socialist', just as we can call ribeye steaks green salads, but then we lose ourselves in confusion.

Of course, there have never been 'fully' socialist societies. Even in the old Soviet Union, there was, in every town, a 'reenok', where people sold things grown on the little private plots they were allowed to have on the collective farms. If you had somone over for dinner, you did you shopping at the 'reenok'.

But there was a huge difference between the economies of the Soviet Union, and those of Europe, the US, and most of the world.

Finally, the leaders of the Soviet Union, as the leaders of China had done a decade earlier, figured out that their economic system was not working. Everyone was fed, everyone had basic necessities, many admirable social goals were fulfilled -- but the economy moved in slow motion.

When I lived in Kharkov in the mid-80's, you could not get cheese. People who visited other cities would come back with bags full of cheese. No one I asked knew why. I assumed it was because the page of the National Plan which directed how much cheese was going to go to Kharkov had gotten lost ... or the bureaucrat responsible had been bribed to send it somewhere else.

When I visited Cuba about 20 years ago, you could not get bars of soap in Santiago. Why? I don't know.

Under a capitalist system, someone -- probably a dozen people -- would have instantly started making soap. (It's not difficult.) But do that under Communism and .... watch out!

This insane system -- where you go to prison for meeting human needs -- is best represented by a Russian joke:
...

During the Brezhnev reign in the USSR, a group of leftist British school teachers visits Moscow on a 'cultural exchange'.
They go to one of the special language schools, where the children are taught in English.
The headmistress there is very proud of her school, and says to them, "Go ahead. Walk into any classroom and question the children in English."
They head down the corridor, and pass a mathematics class... and ask if they can observe it.
The teacher welcomes them in, and says, "Go ahead ...ask the children a math problem in English."
So one of the British teachers says, "Now boys and girls ... if I bought twenty apples for three kopecks each, and then sold twelve of them for six kopecks each ... what would I get?"
A young boy's hand shoots up, and she calls on him.
He says, "Comrade teacher ... five years, minimum!"

 

[francoHFW]

Communism is when there is lo govt…it’s the step after socialism, but one that’s never come to exist because people aren’t angels and refuse to give up their socialist dictatorships

there is no step beyond socialism, it is the best answer man has come up with period certainly not communism.... But thanks for the totally irrelevant distracting garbage propaganda... it has nothing to do with the real world.... Communism is as good as dead, only supported by the poor Schnucks in China Vietnam and Cuba with a gun to their heads.

 

[Nuthin' Fancy]

BS, a dictatorship that owns all business and industry is communism.

There isn't much difference.

Socialism has always been democratic fair capitalism with a good safety net.

Can't argue.

The USA is now the only modern country that is not socialist, IE a democracy with healthcare daycare cheap college and training great infrastructure and vacations, ID card to end illegal immigration, and mainly they tax the rich and invest in their countries and people. Not in the USA though, after 40 years of GOP giveaway to the rich.... Now with the worst inequality, upward mobility, and homelessness. Glad you finally noticed, it's funny how everything is great under scumbag GOP governments lol

My parents had it better, they were in the depression, then dad went to war, then started a family.

 

[Donald H]

Americans had had enough of being shit on verbally and ethically by an elitist minority administration that still thinks its royal excreta doesn't stink.
Trump had very little to do with his own election...Obama had everything to do with it.

JO

I get what you're saying and it doesn't contradict anything I said about Trump. Obama demonstrate success, or at least the road to success with his HC plan.

Then Trump needed to somehow defuse that by offering more of it and better. Which he did offer!

And then it went away somewhere?

It ain't rocket science and so the Mouseland story isn't rocket science either.

 

[francoHFW]

hahaha.....you have bought into the bullshit lock, stock and barrel....figures
there is a reason why any nation out there that themes socialism is bankrupt and nearly ready to fail......you just named a few of them...but there are more.

JO

socialism is what every modern country but the United states is running. The socialist parties won in every non-english speaking modern country and the UK and Canada Australia and New Zealand followed their lead, although they have to call it labour or Christian Democrats or God knows what ...... And they all do just fine thank you very much until the GOP has another deregulation bubble and bust depression. They don't have the natural resources we have, just well educated people and great infrastructure.

 

[struth]

there is no step beyond socialism, it is the best answer man has come up with period certainly not communism.... But thanks for the totally irrelevant distracting garbage propaganda... it has nothing to do with the real world.... Communism is as good as dead, only supported by the poor Schnucks in China Vietnam and Cuba with a gun to their heads.

sorry individuals not being allowed to own the means of production and the product of their labor is a horrible practice snd the absolute worst. It leads to poverty, snd death

 

[francoHFW]

There isn't much difference.

Can't argue.

My parents had it better, they were in the depression, then dad went to war, then started a family.

Your parents had socialism, it was called the GI bill and they became well educated and got better loans etcetera etc. But that ran out. In the UK, After World War Two they got socialism although they called it something different- Healthcare et cetera but on the cheap because they have the second worst political party in the modern world. I call myself a French socialist because I like Francois Mitterrand who had another whole wife and family show up at his funeral lol. And they don't take a lot of crap from the rich like the United states people do or the English....

 

[Donald H]

there is no step beyond socialism, it is the best answer man has come up with period certainly not communism.... But thanks for the totally irrelevant distracting garbage propaganda... it has nothing to do with the real world.... Communism is as good as dead, only supported by the poor Schnucks in China Vietnam and Cuba with a gun to their heads.

You were doing quite well until you let 'socialism back into your head, and that frightened everybody. It's called socially responsible capitalism.

OH, and you're wrong about China being communist, but that's in the details and should be a different conversation. One that includes Vietnam and Cuba too.

 

[Donald H]

sorry individuals not being allowed to own the means of production and the product of their labor is a horrible practice snd the absolute worst. It leads to poverty, snd death

franco isn't promoting socialism. He's getting everything right except that. He's really promoting socially responsible capitalism.

If that wasn't true then he would be a crazy communist, and he's already condemned communism.

There's nothing wrong with granting you that pure socialism is communism. And franco won't be able to tell you the difference.

 

[francoHFW]

sorry individuals not being allowed to own the means of production and the product of their labor is a horrible practice snd the absolute worst. It leads to poverty, snd death

that only exists in communist countries, which is always a dictatorship that owns all business and industry and that doesn't work. Socialism is what they have in the UK Canada Australia New Zealand Japan France Germany Italy Sweden you name it, although they have to call it something else in English speaking savage capitalist brainwashed countries. Socialism is always democratic, and they have in the UK Canada Australia New Zealand Japan France Germany Italy Sweden you name it, although they have to call it something else in English speaking savage capitalist brainwashed countries. Socialism is always democratic, and communism is always a dictatorship with all the differences that means. If you can't tell the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship, you have been brainwashed so much by Rupert and trump that you are a brainwashed functional moron anti American cretin.

 

[francoHFW]

You were doing quite well until you let 'socialism back into your head, and that frightened everybody. It's called socially responsible capitalism.

OH, and you're wrong about China being communist, but that's in the details and should be a different conversation. One that includes Vietnam and Cuba too.

Socialism is socially responsible capitalism and always democratic. Every socialist in the world knows it. You can't keep the two terms apart you're so brainwashed

 

[22lcidw]

there is no step beyond socialism, it is the best answer man has come up with period certainly not communism.... But thanks for the totally irrelevant distracting garbage propaganda... it has nothing to do with the real world.... Communism is as good as dead, only supported by the poor Schnucks in China Vietnam and Cuba with a gun to their heads.

Communism and Socialism are two systems that the globalists have tried with not great results. The Chinese system of a strong authoritarian government and capitalism that is closer to 1920 America than 2020 seems to be what they are liking.

 

[Doug1943]

It seems that almost everyone commenting on this thread understands that we need a capitalist economy, but one which has some government intervention. The argument is about how much.

My fellow right-wingers need to read this book, by another right-winger, FH Buckley, a pretty smart fellow.

The Republican Workers Party: How the Trump Victory Drove Everyone Crazy, and Why It Was Just What We Needed
by F. H. Buckley | Sep 4, 2018

ach tee tee pee ess://.amazon.xxx/Republican-Workers-Party-Victory-Everyone/dp/1641770066/

Repair my link - which I had to do that way to prevent the system from destroying it -- and go to Amazon and you can pick up a used copy for almost nothing (good ole capitalism again!). At the moment, the cheapest copy is $1.65 --

Buckley proposes a way forward for patriots who want to make the pro-American party the permanent majority party.

 

[francoHFW]

franco isn't promoting socialism. He's getting everything right except that. He's really promoting socially responsible capitalism.

If that wasn't true then he would be a crazy communist, and he's already condemned communism.

There's nothing wrong with granting you that pure socialism is communism. And franco won't be able to tell you the difference.

It is just the most successful savage capitalist propaganda. In the United states, if you say you are a socialist, the Super dupers say oh you're for stalinism! Absolute idiocy. A country without a living wage health care for all cheap college and training daycare paid parental leave and taxing the rich their fair share is not socially responsible, so they have to make the word socialism evil. They do a great job with the dupes...

 

[struth]

that only exists in communist countries, which is always a dictatorship that owns all business and industry and that doesn't work. Socialism is what they have in the UK Canada Australia New Zealand Japan France Germany Italy Sweden you name it, although they have to call it something else in English speaking savage capitalist brainwashed countries. Socialism is always democratic, and they have in the UK Canada Australia New Zealand Japan France Germany Italy Sweden you name it, although they have to call it something else in English speaking savage capitalist brainwashed countries. Socialism is always democratic, and communism is always a dictatorship with all the differences that means. If you can't tell the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship, you have been brainwashed so much by Rupert and trump that you are a brainwashed functional moron anti American cretin.

Communism as defined by Marc who came to with idea, is no state…socialism is the dictosrshio where Govt owns the means of production. We have never gotten beyond that stage…cuba, china, ussr etc…it doesn’t work well that’s why some socialists came up with the third way…fascism

 

[Donald H]

Hmm... the Original Poster said we must aim for 'fully socialist societies'. Of course we can call capitalist societies with a developed welfare state 'fully socialist', just as we can call ribeye steaks green salads, but then we lose ourselves in confusion.

The OP got his terms wrong.

Of course, there have never been 'fully' socialist societies. Even in the old Soviet Union, there was, in every town, a 'reenok', where people sold things grown on the little private plots they were allowed to have on the collective farms. If you had somone over for dinner, you did you shopping at the 'reenok'.

It's interesting but nobody is pushing for pure socialism.

But there was a huge difference between the economies of the Soviet Union, and those of Europe, the US, and most of the world.

Finally, the leaders of the Soviet Union, as the leaders of China had done a decade earlier, figured out that their economic system was not working. Everyone was fed, everyone had basic necessities, many admirable social goals were fulfilled -- but the economy moved in slow motion.

I think you're actually saying that communism was and is a stepping stone on the way to socially responsible capitalism. But let's try to get communism out of the picture.

When I lived in Kharkov in the mid-80's, you could not get cheese. People who visited other cities would come back with bags full of cheese. No one I asked knew why. I assumed it was because the page of the National Plan which directed how much cheese was going to go to Kharkov had gotten lost ... or the bureaucrat responsible had been bribed to send it somewhere else.

When I visited Cuba about 20 years ago, you could not get bars of soap in Santiago. Why? I don't know.

I do. US sanctions and trade embargoes.

Under a capitalist system, someone -- probably a dozen people -- would have instantly started making soap. (It's not difficult.) But do that under Communism and .... watch out!

This insane system -- where you go to prison for meeting human needs -- is best represented by a Russian joke:
...

The US embargoes on Cuba effected more than just soap.
But I was in Cuba 3 years ago and it was easy to see that China was getting the goods in to make a difference. Then we got Covid and that was hard on Cuba.

Still, they're likely #1, 2, or 3 in banana republics of the world.

And really fwiw, their resorts are dripping with success and capitalist money.

 

[francoHFW]

It seems that almost everyone commenting on this thread understands that we need a capitalist economy, but one which has some government intervention. The argument is about how much.

My fellow right-wingers need to read this book, by another right-winger, FH Buckley, a pretty smart fellow.

The Republican Workers Party: How the Trump Victory Drove Everyone Crazy, and Why It Was Just What We Needed
by F. H. Buckley | Sep 4, 2018

ach tee tee pee ess://.amazon.xxx/Republican-Workers-Party-Victory-Everyone/dp/1641770066/

Repair my link - which I had to do that way to prevent the system from destroying it -- and go to Amazon and you can pick up a used copy for almost nothing (good ole capitalism again!). At the moment, the cheapest copy is $1.65 --

Buckley proposes a way forward for patriots who want to make the pro-American party the permanent majority party.

Patriots first of all have to believe in the constitution and democracy and if they don't they are barking up the wrong tree and they're going to hell end of story... Swallowing total crap anti American propaganda ain't it....

 

[Doug1943]

Well I have a masters in history with a concentration on the 20th century and I have lived in England France and Spain and I know what socialist means everywhere in the world but brainwashed UK and USA Canada Australia and New Zealand. But we are the only modern country without socialism. That is fair capitalism with a good safety net. Ever heard of Eugene debs?

Actually, Eugene Debs was a genuine Socialist. And also a little-d democrat. This was before the Russians got a chance to show what genuine socialism was like in practice.

And for his stance against America entering WWI, he was given a ten year prison sentence in 1918, by the liberal Democrat Woodrow Wilson, who refused to pardon him after the war.

But fortunately for Debs, the Republicans won the election in 1920, and the new Republican President, Warren G Harding, pardoned Debs, and even invited him to the White House for a chat. Those horrible conservative Republicans!