LONG LIVE SOCIALISM, DOWN WITH LIBERALISM


One of the most frustrating things about living in America is seeing perfectly well intentioned people choosing the path of liberalism rather than socialism. America is perhaps the only country in the world that does not have a major socialist party. Our Democratic party is closer in ideology to the British, Canadian or Australian Conservative Party than their (New) Labor or Liberal Party equivalents.

But the question is why socialism? The answer is simple. Only it can solve the things that we all care about - the environment, race relations, poverty, urban sprawl and slums, health care, education, housing, transportation, arts and culture, crime, equality of opportunity, peace, justice and morality. This is because a free market exacerbates the worsening of all these things. Every token gain we have gotten in these areas is because we restricted the so-called "freedom" of the privileged - think school busing, environmental regulations, zoning laws, gas taxes, housing subsidies, etc. Socialists do not hide from this fact.

Does anyone really think the Democrats can do any of this or that we won't be in the same boat as today in 50 years if we keep going the way we were. Democrats are discredited because they have no vision and go half-ass on everything. On the issues above, they propose a few more million dollars, usually in Tax Credits (that give our Tax Money as profits to big money investors). They have no housing platform, nothing to turn around the youth of today, nothing to solve the urban crisis, nothing to make Iraq work - nada, nada. Yeah Clinton presided under the best economy in a long while but what really changed? What is his legacy - a ballooned stock market, welfare reform (leading to a direct rise in homeless and hungry women and children) signing the order that made regime change in Iraq official policy, dropping bombs on pharmaceutical plants in Sudan (that was a larger catastrophe than 9/11 for the Sudanese people), lying about Kosovo, etc. etc. Kerry has nothing to offer either.

Even NPR is Right Wing
The media watchdog group, FAIR (Fairness and Accurance in Reporting) as released the results of its in-depth look at the sources NPR uses in its stories. The results were quite suprising, even for someone like me, who suspects the right has too much control over everything. I am a die-hard NPR listener, because of its excellent world reporting and in-depth coverage of the issues. But according to FAIR, Republicans outnumbered Democrats 3 to 2 in terms of the amount of sources and non-governent, corporate or establishment media voices are almost non-existent. Still I prefer NPR to things like Pacifica Radio, which need to be more rigorous in their reporting.