OPINION & EDITORIAL
America needs socialist values
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by Ben Daniels
Thursday, September 6, 2007
I grew up believing that I lived in a land of opportunity where everyone could improve their life if they worked hard. I was taught that America was a democracy which always stood against injustice and stood for the interests of the common person, and that I could even become president someday. I learned that wars were fought to protect the weak. I learned that we had stopped environmental problems by banning CFCs and DDT and that recycling paper would help save the rainforests. Unfortunately, as I grew older, I realized that these conceptions were completely contradicted by the real world.
I look at the world now, and it fits an entirely different description. Instead of protecting the planet from environmental destruction, we seem to be swiftly approaching the edge of disaster. Global warming is continuing unabated, and its effects on weather are already noticeable. Extreme weather events like Hurricane Katrina and the recent bombardment of the Midwest by thunderstorms are exactly in line with the projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Instead of acting in the interests of American citizens and the people of Iraq, the U.S. government sanctioned the invasion and occupation of Iraq in the interest of a corporate class on behalf of the owners of the Halliburtons and the Exxons, who now grow fat off the daily expense of human life. Instead of justice, our government "indefinitely detains" countless thousands of suspects in black site dungeons where they are tortured and driven insane, like the torture performed on José Padilla. Instead of receiving justice, Kenneth Foster is being delivered to death by a racist system for a crime even the state of Texas admits he did not commit. Instead of protecting immigrants who risk their lives for better ones, our government is helping corporations find a better way to exploit them with a designation as a "guest worker," a second-class person with limited rights.
Instead of acting on behalf of the U.S. population, our government neglects our needs. It denies millions access to the civil right of health care in order to first protect the rights of corporations to extract monstrous profits. Instead of sponsoring education, our government subsidizes corporations that grant enormous returns to a minority and college students dig themselves into incredible debt. Instead of performing maintenance on infrastructure, our government is building permanent military bases in Iraq. Instead of people working hard and getting ahead, many are struggling to stay afloat. According to a Center for Responsible Lending study, 2.2 million American households are at risk of losing their homes this year due to foreclosures caused by profitable predatory lending, and real wages are falling. So what can we do about all this?
I think it starts with correctly understanding the world. Why do so many people go hungry when the United Nations says resources exist to feed everyone? It is because a small minority determines the production and distribution of food in the interest of making profit. Why does our government refuse to do what we want? It is because political power is determined by economic power.
Socialists think a system where a minority own and control the world's production and distribution and run it in their best interests is the root of the problem. We think a better world is possible and we have to struggle to achieve it, just as those who came before us had to in their time.
Just as mass strikes and radical protest marches demanding change in the 1930s forced a corrupt government to grant us the New Deal reforms, we will have to build a movement to achieve healthcare today. Just as antiwar soldiers organizing and refusing in mass to fight imperial campaigns and mass protests ended the Vietnam War, we too need to build a movement that does that same thing. Just as a civil rights movement was needed to achieve real equality for groups that face discrimination, we need to build a new movement today to fight oppression. We want to fight to win these things and to win a world where they do not exist, a socialist world, where democratic control of production is key. We invite you to join us Wednesday, Sept. 12 TITU (today in the union) to help us achieve it.
Ben Daniels (bgdaniels@wisc.edu) is a member of the International Socialist Organization.
Anonymous (September 6, 2007 @ 3:17am):
You goddamn socialists, destroying my dreams of no health care or vacation time for my 80 hours/week for-my-profit firefighters. Fucking socialists!
- Germain Q. Stemme
Anonymous (September 6, 2007 @ 7:08am):
If the USA is so horrible then why is it that there's such a long line to get in, and people even keep sneaking in illegally?
Does this problem exist for the people's paradise of Cuba, or North Korea?
Anonymous (September 6, 2007 @ 7:50am):
Health care is NOT a right. It is just one of many goods/services offered by the economy, along with food, clothes, and education.
Those who claim that health care is a "right" are merely proclaiming their intention to stick their hands in someone else's pocket and steal whatever they think they want.
Human beings' lives are short, in the grand scheme of things. No matter how much money the socialists steal from productive members of society, every human life will come to an end, one day. And that end can come at any time. Rather than validating people's fear of death, ALL political leaders, including socialists, ought to encourage people to enjoy what they have, each day (assuming, of course, that "what they have" wasn't stolen from somebody else).
People decide, all the time, what to buy with their limited resources. Today, it might be food. Tomorrow, it might be heat. Next week, it might be a visit to the dentist or doctor. In every case, each individual decides which product or service is highest on the priority list. Once that decision is reached, the person goes after that top-priority item.
Socialists, of course, wish to free people from the need to make hard economic choices. And the means that they have chosen, as they attempt to deliver that freedom, is the enslavement of productive members of society. They put productive people to work, knowing that productive people receive joy from working, and then, like vampires, suck the economic benefits related to that work from the pockets of those who earned those benefits, and place it into the pockets of "the people" (having already skimmed off substantial "administrative expenses", in the process).
Socialism is a swindle built on a lie, and that lie is that ANYBODY has the right to the fruit of another's labor.
Larry Powers, Maryland
Anonymous (September 6, 2007 @ 9:01am):
Did Ben wrote this bedwetting whine-athon while sitting in his Mr. Spock underoos?
Socialism: I saw it work on StarTrek!
Marxism only killed a few hundred million over the last century-- let's give it another chance.
Anonymous (September 6, 2007 @ 10:03am):
The socialists will take any political issue and use it to their advantage. Hurricane Katrina could have been prevented if we were communists? You're really grasping at straws. The commies ignore the simple lessons of history: Communism doesn't work. It didn't work in Russia, it's not working in Cuba, and now the Venezueleans are losing their rights.
Here is a wake up call, and I will try to explain it in the simplest terms so that you can understand. Socialists claim to believe that "the people" have the right to dictate their futures yadda yadda. Problem is, you need a government of some kind to actually do the paper work and manage everything. Result: that government gains total control. Hugo Chavez shut down all private TV news. His logic was that "the people" ran the government, and the government runs the media, therefore "the people" run the media. The result: a private citizen does not have the right to voice his opinion. The commies claim that big media and government are puppets to corporations. So what's the alternative? Everyone becomes puppets of the socialist government. Socialism does the opposite of what it claims. It takes power away from people and gives it all to one authority. Just look at history. Russian leaders were living in luxury while peasents were starving.
Socialsm leads to stagnation. There is a reason why the US was technologically 40 years ahead of Russia. Without a free market, you won't have your iPods or you PlayStations. Why would anyone be motivated to invent anything when the government won't allow them the fruits of their labor? Why am I busting my ass in college when the bum flipping burgers is going to get as much as I do.
We can change the world and make it a better place. We can end hunger and poverty and war. But the answer is not to take away our freedoms and force everyone to work on a collective farm. I know a lot of you liberals hate the government now. Honestly, who is worse? Bush or Stalin? Oh yeah, I know you're knee-jerk reaction is to say Bush is more evil than anyone in history. But be thankful that in a free democracy, we have the power to elect our leaders. Bush will be gone, someone else will come. We'll have good times and bad times. But no matter what happens, we will always be better off than any communist country has ever been even in it's best times.
Anonymous (September 6, 2007 @ 10:14am):
Ben, everywhere socialism has been tried, it has failed. Miserably. Give it up, grow up and leave the rest of us alone. We do not want to hear another peep out of liberals for a long time, kiddo.
Anonymous (September 6, 2007 @ 12:39pm):
Read "Animal Farm"
Anonymous (September 6, 2007 @ 12:58pm):
Anyone who thinks that North Korea or the USSR were anything other than Stalinist systems (as opposed to legitimate socialist experiments) is terribly misinformed. I think that defenders of capitalism should, perhaps, not divert the issue and respond directly to Ben's criticisms of the system.
Exellent article.
-Kyle Szarzynski
Anonymous (September 6, 2007 @ 1:01pm):
Yeah, socialism killed Europe. The skies are never blue, they drink brown feces-filled water, and there is never any sex. Seriously, Europe should give a damn about their economy and their jobs instead of wasting time with dead-end persuits like "family" and "quality of life."
Back to work, robots.
Anonymous (September 6, 2007 @ 1:15pm):
Except Europe.
Ryan Stibbe (September 6, 2007 @ 1:43pm):
All you people attacking Ben make me sick. First off, Ben, it was a very good column. Now, for the rest of you bozos, I, probably correctly, presume that you are invested in the Christian Faith. Now, I am an atheist, so I don't have things like the Bible and religious dogmatism holding me back. However, although I am an atheist, I probably know more about the Bible than any of you. For instance, in the four Gospels, it is written over two thousand times that you should basically go out of your way to assist the poor, weak, etc. even if it means lowering yourself on the economic ladder. Do you know how many references to supporting a capitalistic society there are? One only. And, as you are probably deeply invested in the Christian Faith, you believe that the Bible should be followed as much as possible. Therefore, shouldn't you be following the 2000+ versus that say to help the poor?
Now, I agree that Socialism is a failed system and that it will never come into fruition in a pure form. But that is not because Socialism itself is flawed. Socialism, like all political theories, is perfect on paper. It's just that humankind corrupts the system with its need for power, which is fueled mainly through greed. This greed causes the CEOs and other corporate execs to refute the idea of helping others, because it would dig into their million plus dollar annual pockets. Now, does that sound morally right to you?
In addition, Universal Health Care is not a Socialist or Communist ideal. It is a moral ideal. It is about caring for your fellow man and making sure that they have the capabilities to receive proper care. If a family's salary is only enough for one meal a day for the week, they are not going to choose to pay an insanely high doctors bill to get the children checked when they have the common cold. This would be fine, if the family's living conditions weren't so horrible as to foment pneumonia. Then, when little Johny contracts pneumonia, the family doesn't have the insurance to afford good medical care at a private hospital with doctors that actually care, so he is jumped to a shitty county hospital with doctors who couldn't give a shit. That or the family just doesn't go to seek medical care at all.
Also, for those of you who oppose universal health care because it deals with taxing the people and you oppose taxes because, as President Bush said, "It's your money", you're wrong. It's not your money. When you deface a dollar bill, it is considered a federal crime, correct? It is called destruction of government property. And, since defacing a dollar bill is destruction of government property, the dollar bill, and, through connection, all money, is the government's money. It is the government's property. Ergo, the government has every right to do with its property as it chooses. This includes taking away your borrowing rights for a small sum of that money so that it can be allocated to those who actually need the money to stay alive, as opposed to those who just want the money so that they can continue to live their lavishly extravagant lifestyles.
And, one final point. Really, instituting universal health care would not require the government to raise taxes. Currently, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany, all of which are countries with universal health care, spend less money per capita on health care than the United States. Canada and Germany spend about half as much per capita as we do, and Britain spends fully one fourth as much money per capita on health care than we do.
There is no logical debate against universal health care. Stop making yourself look like an idiot by trying to create one.
Anonymous (September 6, 2007 @ 2:22pm):
Power to the People Right on!
Anonymous (September 6, 2007 @ 2:51pm):
"little Johny contracts pneumonia, the family doesn't have the insurance to afford good medical care at a private hospital with doctors that actually care, so he is jumped to a shitty county hospital with doctors who couldn't give a shit."
Isn't this one of the MANY flaws in universal health care? Instead of being able to go to a private hospital there will only be the shitty county hospitals for all of us to go to. Why would doctors "give a shit" about being the best they can be if they will never be rewarded for their labors? I think the first step in providing health care for all should be to take a hard look at the people who can't afford it. A lot of people who "can't afford" health care in this country some how can afford cell phones, digital cable including HBO, cinemax and the starz package, high speed internet, dining out, big screen TV's and the list goes on. The biggest problem lies within ourselves. Maybe having 3 kids by the time you were 23 wasn't the best idea? People need to plan and take responsibility for their own actions and stop whining for those of us that have made better decisions to take care of them. Helping the needy is one thing, bailing out the unwilling is another. Unfortunately just like most government run aid programs that are made to take care of the needy, it's the lazy and unwilling to work hard people that are reaping the most benefits. That sir will also be true with Universal Health Care.
Anonymous (September 6, 2007 @ 4:13pm):
Thanks for the good laugh Ben. I always love a good pile of complete nonsense to get me through my day.
Anonymous (September 7, 2007 @ 12:11am):
Ryan Stibbe, think about the humongous bureaucracies inherent in a socialist government. Now think about the length of your post. They're both proportionate. Class dismissed.
Anonymous (September 7, 2007 @ 10:41am):
great article ben. it is sad to see so many people with a complete misunderstanding of what msrxism and socialism are. glad to see my state is not the only one full of loud mouth knee-jerk reactionaries...
- a texas comrade.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 12:02am):
workers of the world unite!
Anonymous (October 3, 2007 @ 9:28pm):
Thanks Ben for your courage and insightful article. Im glad that the debate is being had. I think we need to mature as a society and out grow our dependence on propaganda charged media. Has anyone heard of the Trilateral Commission, or the Bilderberg Group thats just to name a few of the rogue powers that exsist. So for all you people that are so quick to react and defend the facist and imperialist ways of capitilism. Please broaden your reading material and give the future a fair chance by having a real debate, don't hide behind the same old clich'es used by mass media to scare people from believing things could really be better than they are. Until the power is in the hands of the majority we can't have a democracy. In fact if i read between the lines of you oh so cleaver skeptic's, you find comfort in dictatorship where your life is planned and thought out from day of birth by a power elite. We didnt all come over on same the boat, yet now the majority find ourselves in same boat. Socialism hasent been given a real change because it is just as vulnerable as any form of government to human instict to be hierarchical and when given the power over others become subjects to greed . Power does corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Instead of heralding a the spirit patriotism from a fellow citizen, you react in fear of the unknown and from limited knowledge of history try and to snub the efforts of starting the conversation. Lets encourage and embrace a meeting of the minds, by asking the hard questions and being willing to believe that we dont have to exploit someone's else's life inorder to survive. Lets think about using our power has a leading nation in the world to end poverty, give everyone a chance at an education, and set the standard in sustainable use of natural resources. Wake up people, we can have a true majority with a real influence in what really matters. Please give up the staged debates that are so quick to derail us from a having a debate that could lead us forward in resolving long standing problems that have been ignored all to long. Seriously "Whats the worst that could happen"
Emeil Marks
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