Tag: socialism

From Socialism to Fascism

Democratic socialism might seem all fun and games . . . right up until one is forced to choose between democracy and socialism. Those countries that choose the latter, like Venezuela, lose both prosperity and democracy, and then things get really bad.

But what happens when such a society’s dictator wises up?

“Bankrupted by Socialism, Venezuela Cedes Control of Companies,” Fabiola Zerba reports for Bloomberg. “Saddled with hundreds of failed state companies in an economy barreling over a cliff, the Venezuelan government is abandoning socialist doctrine by offloading key enterprises to private investors, offering profit in exchange for a share of revenue or products.”

If that last sounds like less than full privatization, and unnecessarily cumbersome, it is. “Dozens of chemical plants, coffee processors, grain silos and hotels confiscated over the past two decades have been transferred — but not sold — to private operators in so-called strategic alliances. . . .”

“Strategic alliances” sounds ominously . . . fascistic.

This is not gratuitous, for, as Peter Drucker explained, “Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion.” And it is definitely not directly towards “free markets” that Venezuela now moves. Dictators and ruling juntas don’t like free markets. It makes them less integral to the wealth extraction process.

And wealth, in their view, needs to be extracted!

It gives meaning to their lives.

Jon Miltimore, in an article at FEE, also uses the f-word, and quotes my friend Sheldon Richman’s definition: fascism, noun : “socialism with a capitalist veneer.”

Really moving beyond 20th century mistakes would entail reviving actual free markets. Not “so-called strategic alliances.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Tags fascism, socialism, Venezuela

national politics & policies too much government

A Modest Anti-Capitalism?

Post author By Editor
Post date July 10, 2020
No Comments on A Modest Anti-Capitalism?

Socialists are so “modest”!

But how modest?

Ask Rep. Ilhan Omar, who recently proclaimed to be “fighting to tear down systems of oppression that exist in housing, in education, in health care, in employment, in the air we breathe.”

Gasp?

Well, maybe that isn’t so clear. So listen to Seattle City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant.

“I have a message for Jeff Bezos and his class,” Sawant warned. “If you attempt again to overturn the Amazon Tax, working people will go all out in the thousands to beat you. And we will not stop there.”

Does that sound like a threat? Or is it really just a harmless expression of politics-as-usual?

“You see, we are fighting for far more than this tax,” the self-proclaimed socialist elaborated. “We are preparing the ground for a different kind of society, and if you, Jeff Bezos, want to drive that process forward by lashing out against us in our modest demands, then so be it. Because we are coming for you and your rotten system. We are coming to dismantle this deeply oppressive, racist, sexist, violent, utterly bankrupt system of capitalism. This police state. We cannot and will not stop until we overthrow it, and replace it with a world based, instead, on solidarity, genuine democracy, and equality: a socialist world. Thank you.”

And thank you, Ms. Sawant, for making yourself ultra-understandable.

You want to destroy private property and free markets and robust political debate and replace them with . . . well, let’s just say that if you complain about a police state now, wait’ll you get a load of what follows from your “modest” demands.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Tags Communism, Democrats, Sawant, Seattle, socialism, the left

ideological culture media and media people

News, Bias & Winning

To Tell The Truth, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, socialism,

In late February, ABC News suspended a veteran correspondent, David Wright, after Project Veritas released video in which the reporter acknowledged he was a socialist and criticized his network’s political coverage.

“Oh yeah,” Wright responded, when asked if he were a democratic socialist. “More than that I would consider myself a socialist.”

He also critiqued his network: “We don’t hold [Trump] to account. We also don’t give him credit for what things he does do.”

“David Wright has been suspended,” ABC said in a statement, “and to avoid any possible appearance of bias, he will be reassigned away from political coverage when he returns.”

But what if ABC’s removal of the reporter were more about hiding bias than combating it?

That story came to mind while considering Sen. Bernie Sanders’ suspension of his presidential campaign. I was amazed at how — just when it seemed the Vermont senator might have an actual shot at capturing the Democratic nomination — a whirlwind of harsh media coverage was unleashed. Simultaneously, other candidates rushed to end their campaigns in a coordinated coronation of former Vice-President Joe Biden.

“Many of Sanders’ allies believe he was inundated with unfair attacks after his Nevada win,” The Boston Globe reported, with “some Democrats and pundits warning he would lose to Trump because he’s too far to the left.”

Meanwhile: “The Biden campaign is expected,” noted The New York Times, “to highlight a series of policy positions that show how he has moved closer to Mr. Sanders on health care and other issues.”

For Democrats and uber-progressive major media outlets, was Bernie’s problem that he’s a socialist? Or his openness and honesty about it?

Seems winning trumps everything. Pun intended.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Tags Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, socialism, To Tell The Truth

insider corruption national politics & policies

Rage Against the Machine

Tulsi Gabbard, Democrats, socialism, moderates,

The Democratic Insider Machine’s pushing of sorta senile Biden against socialist Sanders is quite breathtaking.

But that isn’t even the entirety of the Machine’s anti-democratic agenda.

“The establishment narrative warfare against [Representative Tulsi] Gabbard’s campaign dwarfs anything we’ve seen against Sanders,” writes Caitlin Johnstone on her popular blog, “and the loathing and dismissal they’ve been able to generate have severely hamstrung her run.”

No kidding. But why would the Machine prefer Sanders over Gabbard?

“It turns out that a presidential candidate can get away with talking about economic justice and plutocracy when it comes to domestic policy,” Ms. Johnstone goes on, “and some light dissent on matters of foreign policy will be tolerated, but aggressively attacking the heart of the actual bipartisan foreign policy consensus will get you shut down, smeared and shunned like nothing else.”

This pro-war, anti-Tulsi agenda was seen right after SuperTuesday.

You see, Representative Gabbard got a delegate, from American Samoa (where Michael Bloomberg’s vast fortune also nabbed a delegate). And, by the rules that have been followed so far, a delegate gets you onto the big debate stage.

But almost immediately, word from the Democratic National Committee hit the Twittersphere: “We have two more debates — of course the threshold will go up. By the time we have the March debate, almost 2,000 delegates will be allocated. The threshold will reflect where we are in the race, as it always has.”

The DNC — the Machine — is rewriting the rules.

Tulsi must not speak.

Even if her competence and ecumenical appeal might actually save the Democratic Party, were her name to replace Biden and Sanders in the second or third voting round of a contested convention.

Such a fierce opponent of regime-change wars is obviously unacceptable to the Machine.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Tags Democrats, moderates, socialism, Tulsi Gabbard

ideological culture political challengers too much government

The C-Word Emerges

“We’re not going to throw out capitalism,” declared Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York City mayor now seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for president.

“Other countries tried that. It was called communism and it just didn’t work.”

Bloomberg was responding to a question by MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson at Wednesday night’s Las Vegas debate regarding his thoughts on Sen. Bernie Sanders’ proposal to “require all large companies to turn over up to 20 percent of their ownership to employees over time.”

“Let’s talk about democratic socialism, Mr. Bloomberg,” countered Sanders. “Not communism — that’s a cheap shot!”

But is it?

The Vermont Senator has a long history of offering effusive praise for repressive socialist and communist regimes, including the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Nicaragua. After lauding the late Fidel Castro for providing healthcare and education and “totally transform[ing] the society” — while ignoring Castro’s complete disregard for human rights — Bernie judiciously added, “Not to say that Fidel Castro or Cuba are perfect, they are certainly not.”

Sanders has also called for “public ownership of the major means of production.” Unlike Karl Marx, I guess Bernie doesn’t sweat the small stuff.

“What a wonderful country we have. The best-known socialist in the country,” offered Bloomberg, referring to Sanders, “happens to be a millionaire with three houses!

“What did I miss?”

Asserting a need for a second residence, the Vermont senator replied, “Well, you missed that I work in Washington.”

“That’s the first problem,” Bloomberg interjected.

The first of many.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Photo by Gage Skidmore

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Tags Bernie Sanders, Communism, socialism

ideological culture political challengers

Madame Guillotine

A Maine woman running for the U.S. Senate has chosen for her campaign logo the guillotine.

Yes, she calls herself a ‘democratic socialist.’ Well, on Twitter it is ‘DemSoc.’

Her name . . .

No, start again. On the campaign Twitter page the candidate’s “preferred pronouns” are listed as “they/them.” So, their name is Bre, and they proudly promoted the new logo on February 5th: “I was gonna wait until tomorrow to show off these beauties, but Trump got acquitted and I feel like folks could use something to look forward to.”

But . . . why?

For my part, the blood running in the streets was my least favorite part of the French Revolution, and I would, uh, downplay it, no matter how murderous I might ever feel.

You know, were I a DemSoc.

Upon being challenged with its most famous historical use, she had a . . . politic . . . response: “I’m aware of the French Revolution, and how the story ends. A guillotine t-shirt reminds others about it in hopes that we’ll all be motivated to address the very serious problems with our government before a similarly violent uprising becomes inevitable.”

When asked who it was for, she replied, “More of a ‘what.’ The guillotine is for the plutocratic & kleptocratic norms that have undermined our democratic process. We have to develop ways to subvert the stranglehold of wealth on our government. There will not be a more convenient revolution. The symbol is a reminder.”

I wonder what she would say if her rivals chose as campaign logos the hangman’s noose and the electric chair.

But hey, her, er, their guillotine is attractive, and, because it lacks a drop of red, emphasizes the ‘democratic’ part of ‘democratic socialism’ . . . by hiding the blood.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Tags Democratic Socialism, guillotine, Kidman, Senate, socialism

general freedom

The Most Deadly Disease

Anyone knowledgeable about medicine — or history, for that matter — is taking very, very seriously the coronavirus outbreak in China, and its subsequent spread across the globe, including to the U.S.

More than 70,000 Chinese have been diagnosed and over 1,700 have died, along with one death in each of France, Japan, Hong Kong and the Philippines.

Over the weekend, Taiwan — the independent island nation a hundred miles off the coast of a hostile, threatening People’s Republic of China (PRC) — announced its first fatality. The deceased Taiwanese taxi driver, whose health was already compromised by diabetes and hepatitis B, likely caught the virus from customers traveling from China.

Last week, China finally allowed the World Health Organization to allow Taiwanese experts to participate in discussions about containing the virus. Unlike China, Taiwan boasts one of the best medical systems in the world.

Also over the weekend, news broke that Chinese President Xi Jinping had mentioned the coronavirus in a speech given many weeks before officials first alerted the public.

That’s how the totalitarian PRC rolls. At all levels. One victim of the virus is Dr. Li Wenliang, who warned back in December that the disease was spreading. First, he was reprimanded and then “apprehended by Wuhan police for spreading ‘rumours,’” reported Aljazeera.

“As more information leaks out from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak,” a recent Taipei Times editorial argues, “it is clear that Beijing was unable to prevent the virus from spreading out of control precisely because it lacks the accountability, freedom of speech and free flow of information that form the bedrock of democracies.”

Yet another way that freedom affirms life and totalitarian tyranny kills.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Tags centralized control, China, Communism, Corona, covid, socialism, virus

ideological culture national politics & policies

The Blue Plate Special

Blue Plate Special, Democrats, socialism,

The biggest stories don’t always come in threes, but they sure did this week.

The Iowa Democratic Caucus debacle, President Trump’s State of the Union Address, and the Senate’s acquittal of the president after the House’s impeachment — big stories of big losses for Democrats.

As I write this, we still lack a “winner” on the Democratic side in Iowa. Blame is publicly given to the goofy “app” the Iowa Democratic Party bought to make the caucusing and counting oh-so-much easier. But I wouldn’t blame Bernie supporters for engaging in a little conspiracy conjecturing — the maker of the app has close ties to the Clinton machine.

And if you cannot sniff a concerted anti-Bernie agenda on the part of establishment Democrats, your sniffer is broken.

Indeed, The Young Turks ably showed how major-media news sources skew stories away from the socialist from Vermont — by emphasizing the candidacies of Biden and Buttigieg.*

One can see why centrist Democrats would want to scuttle a serious socialist movement within their party, but it may be too little too late. After decades of courting the Gimme-Gimme vote with Loot the Rich demagoguery, socialistic attitudes have long been on the menu. So getting a hot, steaming socialism served back at them as a Blue Plate Special?

Priceless.

Literally.

But not costless.

For the cost is reasonability and decorum. After Trump ceased speaking before Congress yesterday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi ripped up copies of the president’s address just to show her disdain for the president.

But it also shows frustration. The speech is over. Impeachment is over. Iowa is, incredibly, not yet over. And Pelosi’s party — under her guidance — is in complete and utter disarray.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Ana Kasparian makes a pretty convincing case that Senator Bernie Sanders is the most popular of the three, and could even bring in independent voters.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Tags Blue Plate Special, Democrats, socialism

free trade & free markets too much government

The Anti-Worker Ism

California, socialism, labor, progressivism, Democrats

Progressives who lean socialist used to hide their worst intentions. Now they are letting it all hang out.

There have always been overt socialists in the U.S., of course. They would sometimes protest the reluctance of fellow travelers to fully embrace socialism’s moniker. But the sentiment “Ah, screw it, let’s just admit we want to destroy everything currently in existence” seems on the ascendance. Even a few major Democratic candidates for president are on board.

Exhibit 112 is the new nationwide push to stomp the gig economy.

Especially freelancing.

This follows Exhibit 111, the recent and so far successful push to stop independent contractors from engaging in voluntary transactions in California. (Many lawsuits are underway.)

After scanning the coiled legalese of 111 — I mean AB5, California’s law — many companies decided that ending relationships with California-based freelancers was prudence with a capital P. And that rhymes with G, and that stands for Golden. Which the Golden State used to, uh, B.

Not every self-employed person has been thrown out onto the street. There are carve-outs. Actually, the only known victims are taxi drivers, cleaners, nurses, comedians, writers, editors, musicians, transcriptionists, citizen initiative petitioners, etc., etc.

The crackdown on non-9-to-5 work arrangements has also resulted in much gnashing of teeth by gig-seekers of all ideological stripes.

Obviously, then, such massive destruction of economic freedom must be inflicted on the federal level too. So House Democrats put AB5’s gig-killing provisions into Exhibit 112, that is, into HR2474, pending legislation.

Democratic candidates for president Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders have endorsed the California statute, a national version, or both.

Ludwig von Mises had a word for this. He called socialism “destructionist.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Tags California, labor, progressivism, socialism

ideological culture

Revolutionaries for Bernie

Post author By Redactor
Post date January 16, 2020
2 Comments on Revolutionaries for Bernie

Jurek, Bernie Sanders, gulags, USSR, Soviet Union, socialism,

It seems like just last week we were arguing about how it is not OK to go around “punching Nazis.”

Now we have a Bernie Sanders campaign employee fuming about putting people he disagrees with into “re-education camps.”

“The only thing that fascists understand is violence,” said a Field Manager in the campaign’s Iowa office, as caught on all-too-candid camera by Project Veritas. “So, the only way you can confront them is with violence.”

It is one thing to get called a “fascist!” or “Nazi!” by a leftist for disagreeing with a leftist, it is another thing to be sucker-punched by a leftist for disagreeing with a leftist — and something far, far worse to be put into a concentration camp for expressing non-leftist-approved views.

His name is Kyle Jurek. Project Veritas has certainly not dubbed him a typical Bernie voter. His views are described as “extreme left-wing fringe,” and the utility of the clandestine recordings, taken over months, said to lie in the insight they provide “into the mentality of many Sanders staffers and what they truly believe.”

Jurek’s beliefs include extra-legal violence and Soviet Gulag revisionism, expressed with f-bombs and mf-barrages. “You want to fight against the revolution, you’re going to die for it, mother—” Jurek lashes out at “fellow” Democrats . . . and MSNBC . . . and Trump voters. He talks about setting Milwaukee afire. And not rhetorically.

We’ve long worried about the Vermont senator, who has defended horrific Soviet and Cuban rule throughout his long history of communist apologia.

I guess the real test is how Jurek’s comrades — er, fellow Sanders supporters — react to the revelations.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

N.B. As this commentary posts, the only official response has come from the Iowa state director for the Sanders campaign, Misty Rebik, who dismissed the video, saying, “The hundreds of thousands of Iowans we’ve talked to this caucus season don’t care about political gossip . . .” Jurek has not been dismissed. A search of the Washington Post and New York Times websites show neither paper has reported on the story.

The Babylon Bee made the obvious “democratic gulag” joke.

PDF for printing