Do you know what Socialism is?

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2008
Do you know what Socialism is?
77
Tue, 10-28-2008 - 10:15pm
Can you describe Socialism?

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2007
Tue, 10-28-2008 - 10:55pm
Socialism is when government (the collective public) owns the means of production (industry, financial sector, service sector, food production, energy, etc).

Sopal

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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-17-2003
Tue, 10-28-2008 - 11:17pm

Gee, yeah. What's so bad about Health Care for all, free college, and a system where we stand people with a ladder to get where they need to be.

To me socialism is trusting the government to run functions the private sector cannot or will not do. I do not advocate complete government control over all of our good and services, but would also not tolerate a privatized police,fire dept, health care, education etc...

And here we have many McCain supporters who want ALL of it turned private, I have yet to see anyone advocating socialism or communism.

As for what Rush Limbaugh thinks, who gives a rat's hairy beanbag

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Reward Republicans for 8 years of failure? No way, No how, No McCain!

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2007
Wed, 10-29-2008 - 12:27am

I read a good article (well worth reading the entire article) with some interesting quotes:


http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/11/03/081103taco_talk_hertzberg


Like, Socialism


by Hendrik Hertzberg

(snip)
On October 12th, in conversation with a voter forever to be known as Joe the Plumber, Obama gave one of his fullest summaries of his tax plan. After explaining how Joe could benefit from it, whether or not he achieves his dream of owning his own plumbing business, Obama added casually, “I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” McCain and Palin have been quoting this remark ever since, offering it as prima-facie evidence of Obama’s unsuitability for office. Of course, all taxes are redistributive, in that they redistribute private resources for public purposes. But the federal income tax is (downwardly) redistributive as a matter of principle: however slightly, it softens the inequalities that are inevitable in a market economy, and it reflects the belief that the wealthy have a proportionately greater stake in the material aspects of the social order and, therefore, should give that order proportionately more material support. McCain himself probably shares this belief, and there was a time when he was willing to say so. During the 2000 campaign, on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” a young woman asked him why her father, a doctor, should be “penalized” by being “in a huge tax bracket.” McCain replied that “wealthy people can afford more” and that “the very wealthy, because they can afford tax lawyers and all kinds of loopholes, really don’t pay nearly as much as you think they do.” The exchange continued:


YOUNG WOMAN: Are we getting closer and closer to, like, socialism and stuff?. . .

MCCAIN: Here’s what I really believe: That when you reach a certain level of comfort, there’s nothing wrong with paying somewhat more.

For her part, Sarah Palin, who has lately taken to calling Obama “Barack the Wealth Spreader,” seems to be something of a suspect character herself. She is, at the very least, a fellow-traveller of what might be called socialism with an Alaskan face. The state that she governs has no income or sales tax. Instead, it imposes huge levies on the oil companies that lease its oil fields. The proceeds finance the government’s activities and enable it to issue a four-figure annual check to every man, woman, and child in the state. One of the reasons Palin has been a popular governor is that she added an extra twelve hundred dollars to this year’s check, bringing the per-person total to $3,269. A few weeks before she was nominated for Vice-President, she told a visiting journalist—Philip Gourevitch, of this magazine—that “we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.” Perhaps there is some meaningful distinction between spreading the wealth and sharing it (“collectively,” no less), but finding it would require the analytic skills of Karl the Marxist.>>>

Sopal

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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2008
Wed, 10-29-2008 - 12:32am
Socialism is what we just did with the banks, AIG and looks like we're going to do for GM....
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-20-2008
Wed, 10-29-2008 - 12:57am

>>> Gee, yeah. What's so bad about Health Care for all, free college,

Nothing is free...where do you think the money will come from?

>>> and a system where we stand people with a ladder to get where they need to be.

Except that you're not "standing people with a ladder"...you're cutting other people's ladders to make everyone closer to the ground.

>>> To me socialism is trusting the government to run functions the private sector cannot or will not do. I do not advocate complete government control over all of our good and services, but would also not tolerate a privatized police,fire dept, health care, education etc...

I take it you're a Stalin fan?

>>> And here we have many McCain supporters who want ALL of it turned private, I have yet to see anyone advocating socialism or communism.

Look! There's Obama advocating socialism!

>>> As for what Rush Limbaugh thinks, who gives a rat's hairy beanbag

Probably Rush...and the Dems who are afraid of him.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-25-2006
Wed, 10-29-2008 - 1:07am
Socialism is the result of capitalists' greed. The greedier they get, the more the masses call for redistribution of the wealth.

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http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/october/meet_the_new_health_.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQTBYQlQ7yM

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2008
Wed, 10-29-2008 - 1:44am

1) What John McCain cashes EVERY month and carries in his pocket...a SSI/MEDICARE CHECK and CARD, respectively. lol. The guy is ridiculous.


2) What Sarah Palin practices when she gives an oil windfall check to every person in Alaska. lol She's a fraud.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 10-29-2008 - 2:51am
McCain's 5K tax credit disproportionally advantages those on the bottom. It is an extreme case of redistribution, so obviously he has no problem with it.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2008
Wed, 10-29-2008 - 2:51am

'Also, too', Socialism is:


3) What Bush43 did with the "Financial Rescue" - Which McCAIN suspended his campaign to do whatever he said he was doing...having dinner at a fancy restaurant in order to "fix" it.


4) What McCain voted for...the bailout, and then pretended that only Obama voted. lol. McCain is senile.


5) McCain's "healthcare credit"...$5000 of taxable income...under McCain's tax plan, that 's not much wealth to spread is it? NOT.


iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2008
Wed, 10-29-2008 - 10:26am
Thank you Sopall and Mile, only you two seem to have any grasp on the fundamentals of Socialism.

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