What is the bottom line why Socialism is really being pushed around the globe?

I appreciate your perspective, I just don't think I get on board with the level of disproportionate opportunity you suggest.

 

Well, given that what I've stated has been equal opportunity, your post indicates a rather startling misunderstanding by you.

 

Can u go more in depth

 

Huh?
What I'm saying, is that everybody wants to claim minorities and the impoverished don't have equal opportunity due to systematic injustice.

I don't buy it.

 

so you would rather trade off having the rich be in control to government be in control
a little history lesson the rich never mass murdered millions governments have

 

name one country under communism that wasn't totalitarian
for communism to work you have to have a police state to force people to comply to communism

 

The author of "Guns, Germs and Steel" wrote another book called "Collapse" which documents various collapses that have occurred.

One can also read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by Perkins. He documents his work for the USA in getting small struggling nations of South and Central America indebted enough that the US can force them to do stuff that is far outside their own interests. Fascinating read. Not that many pages. All true autobiography.

The form of government is only one factor. Any form of government can end up being controlled by a dictator, being subverted by outside or inside forces, being hit with trade and production realities, etc. We see the slow recovery of islands devastated by hurricanes - even one where the citizens are Americans!

 

I know you don't.

You ARE wrong, though. Opportunity in the US is most definitely NOT equal.

If you were arguing that it would be hard to make opportunity equal, I would agree. But, that's not what you're saying.

 

Well let's discuss these presumed injustices related to opportunity.

Give me an example.

 

Educational opportunity is not equal.

 

Ill agree with you there.

Government failed us, especially the poor areas.

 

Government IS US!

There isn't someone else who is government.

And, what government does in the future is still us, not someone else.

In fact, it's probably more us than it is many others, since representation is not equal. too.

 

Just to yank out a cornerstone of the OP screed:

https://jacobinmag.com/2018/06/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-election-crowley-democratic-socialists
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/02/politics/alexandria-ocasio-cortez/index.html

I'll forgo the usual laundry list of "Soros the boogeyman" propaganda by right wing parrots and pundits...let's see if the OP supposition and conjecture stands up to facts.

 

i'm very definitely not Republican and I'm from a deep blue state. I, too, feel like my vote makes little difference. When national issues come up, my congressmen make the correct choices. It's not as if I can lobby my congressmen or whatever in order to make a difference.

Back to equal opportunity, I'm not sure what you're proposing here. I mentioned education before. I do thing government can make a significant difference in education.

 

This is where the disconnect exists.

The government is the agent for change, but has done nothing in the Department of Education's history to actually fix the in opportunity that exists. They have established a funding method that puts poorer communities at a disadvantage.

I don't understand, considering historical data, how anybody can believe that the government is the appropriate or capable entity to change this issue. THey have been the perpetrators of inequality of opportunity.

 

The government is doing what WE THE PEOPLE want it to do concerning education.

You can't claim that the government is failing based only on what YOU want the government to do.

In fact, the federal government is not preventing YOUR school district from becoming excellent in terms of academic goals. There are plenty of examples of excellent schools. Your state could notice that and implement one or more of those solutions.


I picked education, because I see this as an incredibly important aspect of America that needs some serious work. We are NOT a very smart nation. And, our economic competitiveness is depending more and more on industries that require post secondary education - information, automation, high tech, etc., etc. In that arena, brains are the natural resource. And, we have only 2% of the world's brains. Yet, we're willing to make college a rich boy's game while being satisfied with secondary education that allows too few to be prepared for college.

But, we the people want DeVos as the federal leadership for education!!! You can't blame that on "government". They are only doing what we told them to do.

 

Why are you playing this dishonest game? @WillReadmore said equal opportunity will result in MORE EQUAL outcomes. But you go on pretending he said EQUAL OUTCOMES. I can't imagine anyone disagreeing with this logical and obvious cause-effect idea, although I can imagine someone disliking the notion of equal opportunity so much that their agenda forces them to spin it into "equal opportunity / equal outcomes".

 

What's very strange is that when you look at the numbers, Capitalism has helped bring hundreds of millions of people out of poverty into a better life and any example of actual Socialism has a terrible outcome.

If you say the Scandinavian countries "Are Socialist" they themselves get upset and scream to high heaven "We are not Socialists!"

So why people try to use that argument for Socialism is beyond me, but what pisses me off even more is how the media just blindly and absolutely goes along with it.

The people they claim to idolize absolutely refute their own ideas, yet they keep on pushing the lie.

If people want more social programs, perfect, let's talk about it and see where we land.

But flat out asking for Socialism is the most absurd thing I have ever heard.

 

I am not sure how you can make this claim.

The legislature has a 19% approval rating and 76% disapproval. The president is in the 30's somewhere. Additionally, 52% of American's are dissatisfied with the Department of Education in 2017.

Your perspective is that simply because people engage in the election process, that their perspectives and desires are represented. They are not.

Absolutely it is. Funding for schools is mandated to be tied to the property taxes available in any given district. They have created monopolistic "districts" that do a disadvantage to the underserved areas, yet mandate that they must attend these underfunded institutions. These are all requirements by the Dept. of Ed. A government agency.

How about this. Let's take a good hard look at the education system and see if there is a better way of educating our youth in a fashion that provides equal opportunity to all.

Sweden's model seems logical, but it moves away from government control. Are you willing to accept that?

We also need trades. College isn't for everybody, but I do agree with you here that our education system is not preparing people to learn...

Disagree per my statistics above.

 

You don't understand the lifecycle of economies. Capitalism provided huge growth and abundance of commodities because its function and strength is production of goods. So it was powerful, capable, and great. But when that job is done, it starts to "eat itself".... It creates more problems than it can solve. Feudalism did the same thing at the end of its lifecycle. So there is no one economic system that is good for all times and all conditions. Times change. Conditions change. Economies evolve and mutate.

We can't say socialism has had terrible outcomes because all you and I and all of us know about "socialism" is that various strategies attempted to establish socialism, which is worker ownership and control of industry. There has never been a country where that actually happened. State ownership and control is not worker ownership and control. So the world has never seen socialism..... -just attempts to establish it.

They're not. They are capitalist countries with heavy "socialization of services". The workers don't own and control production.

It's called "capitalist propaganda" and we have been flooded with it for about 70 years, and believe me, it has been very, very intense. And it continues. The question for each of us is "will we break through the brainwashing and find the truth?"

 

Sure sure, keep on pushing that ideology.

To say that we no longer need "...abundance of commodities because its function and strength is production of goods." is your own version of economic propaganda.

 

You would do well to inquire and gain understanding of an idea before you vent scorn on it. Capitalism is good at developing the capacity for abundant production because that is what it is designed for: growth, growth, growth. Now that the capacity has been developed through methods and technology, there is much less need for development of capacity. Our current capacity utilization stands at about 78%. So there is more capacity than can be utilized and sold.

Now, rather than just throwing stones at it, why don't you try to actually refute what you disagree with?

 

No, they absolutely ARE represented.

It's just that with this many millions of people there is a lot of disagreement. Remember that people don't like OTHER PEOPLE'S congressmen. Each district is happy with it's representative and each state is happy with its senators. And, the USA voted for Trump!!!

You are not talking about federal law now - you are talking about what's going on in your state.

And, your state wants to do what you are upset about.

It isn't surprising that you disagree with the majority opinion in your state. That happens to us all.

I don't know how Sweden does it. I'm slightly more aware of how Finland does it.

In Finland, the experts in education (those with advanced degrees and experience in education) make far more of the decisions concerning education than do those here in the USA. I see that as a very good thing. Here, we see teaching at the k-12 level as a totally dead end profession - there is essentially no opportunity in leadership or in making the important decisions in education. And, it is not surprising that those we in the US elect tend to come from those who have the resources to get elected, not necessarily those who have risen through the ranks as would be the case in the private sector.

One of the dominant themes in US education is that people like DeVos do the leadership, even though they do not know SQUAT about education. The same kind of thing affects our state systems.

imho, some of this comes from the total disrespect that our nation has for educated thought. It seems like anyone who has spent their LIFE studying a topic, who has had their ideas checked and rechecked on a continuing bases - that person's advice and council is ignored for the very reason that they study the topic!!!

I respected Clinton's direction on this topic to some degree at least. Her education plank included vocational training to a serious extent. She pointed out that because of the rapid change that is happening in our workplace, people who have taken a vocational direction need just as much continuing education as those of us who are working in high tech industries.

We left manufacturing workers, coal workers and others behind without even providing a way for them to catch up and stay caught up. That's a big deal and it isn't going to go away.

 

It's a means for a small group to control everything, and when they do, between what they steal and the costs of running the state, they bankrupt whatever society they control. Then as inflation sets in, we learn that the only thing socialists never run out of is zeros.

IS THERE ANYTHING SOCIALISTS CAN’T SCREW UP? Crab meat from Venezuela not safe, FDA and CDC warn.

As of July 12, there have been 12 cases in multiple states of Vibrio parahaemolyticus, which is a bacteria that can cause gastrointestinal illness in humans. It’s also being linked to the imported crabmeat.

Symptoms of Vibrio parahaemolyticus include diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, nausea, fever, and stomach pain.

It is only crab meat imported from Venezuela that is being implicated, so the FDA is advising restaurants and retailers to not serve crustaceans tracing back to the country.​

Another reason sanctions on Venezuela are redundant: What little the socialists can bring to market, few people should be willing to buy.