TPM is promoting … what?
Your prerogative. I don’t see a problem.
Have a great evening.
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Some states implemented extensions to Medicaid (e.g. CA, KY), others did not. Currently there are apparently 36 states with expanded coverage.
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Show me.
He’s gotten under your skin, anyway.
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Meh, we’ve always had socialism, and that’s a good thing. It’s never been scary. It’s just seemed scary, because conservative scolds wanted it to appear that way. But they’re stupid, cheap and mean, so fuck them.
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Socialism as a word is a BoogeyMan to scare childish minds. It papers over the many flaws of capitalism, such as in agriculture and healthcare. Also it basically creates group-financed benefits: including but not limited to Public schools/parks, roads, sewers, public health, libraries, science, national industrial policy {really just US’ Mil/Ind Complex}, >60% of the health care budget, pension programs for govt workers and the corporate elite, etc.
What today’s Republicans* hate about socialism is when 100% of it doesn’t go to the 10% of them who are currently a white-power elite. (They want it all; none for you.) Of course they don’t use the bad word when benefits come to them in the form of tax breaks, carried interest, privatization schemes with public assets, specialized personal benefits, etc. ••• FOR EX.: Compare and contrast the differences between perks for white-collar and blue-collar types within society, such as the criminal justice system. Who gets longest sentences? Who never gets executed by the state? Double Note the specialized benefits the Sackler Family just got relative to any other drug dealer who has not yet made Billion$.
*as opposed to Cold Warriors (both D&R) who used socialism as a stand-in for the society-unifying Red Socialist Menaces of USSR & Mainland China post-WW2.
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And yet a friend of mine used to say, of certain dreams, that …
You’ll see it when you believe it.
Obama carried NE-2 in 2008, so it’s possible but still a long shot. Lincoln also has a good blue contingency because of UNL but it has no effect because the rest of NE-1 is very red.
The fix does not have to be any more complex than to let people buy into Medicare with an appropriate premium.
I’d be surprised if any did, but it would never be enough to overcome the 60 vote requirement for cloture.
One of those death bed visions?
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We have a mixed economy. No one word captures it. “mixist”?
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Mixist would be OK, if it acknowledges the underlying complexity.
The article alludes to those who refuse to acknowledge that complexity – and dishonestly demonize people who have sacrificed a great deal to give us aspects of it.
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If you really want to kick over a hornets nest tell one of those scrappy old tRump supporting vets that the VA is not a variation on socialism it IS socialism.
Medicare is a variation of socialism because it contracts with private entities (Medicare Advantage programs) to take care of the medical needs of Medicare beneficiaries. It’s a public/private partnership and for the most part works very well. Seniors love their Medicare.
The VA does not have that public/private partnership. It’s all government run, so fits the definition of socialism better.
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He was very much alive at the time – but is no longer.
Theodore Roosevelt was the end of the progressive Republicans. His Osawatomie speech was in part decrying the direction the party was going. When he threw his hat back in the ring, he ran as a Progressive after the Republican party rejected him. He ended up splitting the vote with Taft, leading to Democrat Woodrow Wilson’s win in an electoral landslide (though only a 42% plurality).
TR is hardly an argument to suggest the GOP were pro-socialist at any point when knowledge of socialism existed in the political zeitgeist of the US.
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I don’t think Medicare contracts with private insurers, the private sector simply offers coverage for items that are outside Medicare parameters. The two seniors in this house are quite satisfied with Medicare and their AARP Supplemental.
Because every time you use the same boogeyman, and he doesn’t make your kids get gay married, give all your money to minorities and force everyone in the country onto a granola-only diet, the apocalyptic predictions become less and less believable to those who aren’t total wingnuts
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TR’s ego might have gotten the best of him.
I am very proud of my Socialist past. My grandfather was a part of the cooperative group that helped develop the co-op that became Land O’ Lakes. He trained as a buttermaker in Denmark in his teens, and came to Minneapolis MN in the 1850’s. He won many international awards for his butter. He was a dedicated family man, new citizen in his new country, and community leader. After his career managing his creamery (he ate a pound of butter every day, as part of his work), he became the mayor of his city for 20 years. Then he retired to develop the city golf course and did that for another 20 years. In his 80s he created a burial monument company, to ensure that all his friends’ (then old and dying) families would be able to afford a decent gravestone in the Cemetery that he had founded as Mayor. It is still a beautifully maintained place. (I just buried the ashes of his oldest daughter (my mother), and his youngest daughter (my aunt), along with my father, in the family plot.)
He was a wonderful man, a wonderful, compassionate community leader, who loved this country, and served it well. He was 88 years, 8 months, and 8 days when he died. He led a wonderful life. I treasure his memory!
I’ll save my Hollywood Communist Blacklist connection story for another time. It actually involves the Wizard of Oz!)
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Why?
Because capitalism is in one of its cyclical moments where it tends towards ever increasing monopoly capital and the system threatens to collapse.
When that happens socialism doesn’t look so bad.
Whether capitalism retrenches and recovers by making adjustments (as it has in the past) remains to be seen.
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Not to mention, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, etc.
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“”“If today’s American socialists have any model at all, it is not Russia, Cuba, or Venezuela, but the social democracies of Scandinavia, like Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway —”"""
There’s just one problem with that statement…NONE of those countries are socialist. NOT A FUCKING ONE and if you want what they have stop FUCKING using the term socialism. Just fucking stop it!!!.
Socialism was drug out of Bernie Sanders use of the phrase Democratic Socialist as a pejorative by the GOP and 1%. Sanders has admitted his use of the phrase is unfortunate and I don’t think he uses it anymore. Socialism is an economic system in which the government ( hence in theory the people ) own the means of production and service provision and is almost always administered by communist type structures. People are right when they say the USA will never be a socialist state. It just will not happen.
I grew up in the Netherlands which is usually ranked right up there with the Scandinavian countries in happiness, equality and quality of life. NL is not a socialist country nor is Sweden. They are parliamentary democracies with a different aiming point than we have here. The USA’s government is aimed at the creation of billionaires and sells itself out to them. How many political ads just today have you read that harped on about “fund raising” and “war chests” and “money in the bank”.? Most of that money we’ve been conditioned to believe is essential to out political processes is 1% pocket change. It’s seed money. Investment. It maintains the inequality and servitude we live with here in the USA. The Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries, New Zealand and others aim right at the middle class. ( They would never condone a Citizen’s United and be furious at the structure of its name ) They have a 1% for sure but it is not propped up by government at the expense of the middle and working classes like we do here. They are “social” or “societal” in their thrust but they are not socialistic. They employ a regulated capitalism that is not allowed to own their countries or create misery for large swaths of their populations. They ensure that healthcare, education and housing are available for all productive members of their societies and are not stripped away by private interest profit lust. And a shit boat load more but that’s too much to talk about.
Like Josh Marshall said when talking about expanding SCOTUS to bring its orientation more in line with the American people…DON’T use opposition pejoratives to defend your cause. Socialism is a pejorative for a more economically equal and socially oriented government. For Social Democracy or Citizens Republic.
Edit: You may have read that the Dutch King, a relic of the Middle Ages, decided he was above the people and hauled his ass off to Greece for a vaycay while the rest of Holland was locked down. That shit didn’t fly like Chris Christie’s beach stunt. The King was made to get his ass back to NL in a most humbling way. Can you imagine that happening here to a President?
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FFS, because IT IS NOT SOCIALISM THE POLITICAL CONSTRUCT. It is socialism small ‘s’. Humans have always had collective… er socialist endeavors. This article is trying to argue the wrong thing IMO.