The Bush GOP's Latest Threat Aimed At Americans Is "Socialism"? No, Much Worse.

MS SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON

BuzzFlash,

"Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.
-- Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village, 1770

We Americans must know by now that the Republican Party today is not only a Party of few ideas, but also a Party of few words. Socialism, terrorism, voodoo economics, and tax cuts are a few words we hear over and over again in their limited political lingo. Tax cuts are a Republican's idea of a frugal government, frugal only for them. The only spending a Republican is against is spending money on the American people. What we should cut out of US government are the salaries, unlimited benefits, and perks for those who think they represent main street America, or want us to think that they do.  

Why should we Americans expect multimillionaires to have any idea of what most Americans are facing today? They can't, and what's worse, many don't care. If they cared, we wouldn't be in this financial mess we find ourselves in today, and we wouldn't be owned by China. If we Americans thought their (GOP) idea for a budget was a big laugh, we should hold our sides in, whenever we hear the word "socialism," coming from any member of the Bush GOP.  

To listen to the Republicans today and to their supporters on TV, radio and in MSM, when they carelessly throw out the word "socialism," they are counting on the fact that few Americans really understand what that word means, and if they hear it often enough, as they did with the "war on terror," they will fear it, even if they don't understand it. A short version of the word:  

According to the "Oxford World Encyclopedia," "A system of social and economic organization in which the means of production are owned not by private individuals but by the community, in order that all may share more fairly in the wealth produced."  

There are several versions of what socialism means and they eventually drain into the ideas of Marxism and communism, a word used for years by the Bush GOP to abuse citizens of this country and also to instill fear of it, as a threat to this country during the Cold war. However, a Robert Owen (1771-1858) is given credit for the word, too, but usually the details of what he did are few when looking up that word.  

According to the "Outline of History" by H. G. Wells, (1920), what Mr. Owen did for the working people doesn't sound at all like today's GOP version of socialism. (paraphrasing) He was a successful business man and "acquired a fair fortune at an early age."  

"Between 1800 and 1828, he achieved very considerable things; he reduced the hours of labor, made his factory sanitary and agreeable, abolished the employment of very young children, improved the training of his workers, provided unemployment pay during a period of trade depression, established a system of schools. (snip) " . . . in 1819, largely under his urgency, the first Factory Act was passed, the first attempt to restrain employers from taking the most stupid and intolerable advantages of their workers' poverty. Some of the restrictions of that Act amaze us today." (snip) . . . "to protect little children of nine from work in factories or to limit the nominal working day of such employees to twelve hours."  

Imagine that, how terrible, this socialism. Another word thrown around. and, one that we really should fear is anything with the word "free" in it. Because nytime someone offers something for "free," there's always a big price for someone to pay, such as in "free trade," otherwise known as NAFTA. Where all of our jobs went.  

This last week we saw the firing of the CEO of General Motors. What we haven't seen is the firing of the officers of Wall Street and AIG. They all deserve to be fired. Just as those Republicans and Democrats who spent years supporting the criminal and treasonous actions by the Bush/Cheney/Rove administration should also be held accountable.  

Aside from the type of socialism that these Republicans love to spew about, what we really have today are the billions of profit and perks held onto by the elite in this country, while the masses, the citizens of the US, are stuck with the debt they are responsible for. That's not socialism, but there is a name for it . . .  

In a book called "Schott's Original Miscellany" by Ben Schott (2003), out of a possible 64 systems of government, he lists 23 of them, and one of those systems of government is a system ruled by the wealthy. It is called a "plutocracy."  

I used to think that was what was wrong with US government, because, as of today, we still do not have US law in US government, instead, we have those who are responsible for the highest debt ever in US history, along with the deaths and destruction of millions of lives, all of them millionaires, with the best benefits this country can offer. Yet, this same Republican Party has spent the last 30 years in government, deregulating and privatizing our corporations and our government to the point that we Americans can be held hostage by our jobs and the cost of living.  

. . . Yet, they refuse to step up and try to cooperate with the Democratic Congress to jump-start US economy again. These were not "mistakes" made . . . no, they were crimes against humanity committed by the Bush administration and supported 100% by these same Republicans and many, I'm sorry to say, those who call themselves Democrats. Americans must understand that there's been no one at the helm of this ship for years.      I was wrong thinking that we had a plutocracy system of government, when there is another far worse system of government that Schott lists "as the worst possible," called a "kakistocracy."  Thinking back over the last eight years of the Bush regin of terror, this system will look and feel very familiar to many Americans.  

kakistocracy (plural kakistocracies) 
Government under the control of a nation's worst or least-qualified citizens.   kakistocracy - Wiktionary  

This system fits what we have had for years under Bush GOP rule, and we have a broken system of government to prove it . . . a system that included all three branches of government, starting with our Supreme Court and a "ask no questions, but tell all lies" Bush GOP Executive Branch, plue their supporters in Congress, and many of these people are still hanging around trying to see tht the Obama administration will fail to correct their failings.  

Imagine what this country would be without any laws. Well, that is what we have had in US government, when we allowed our government to deregulate, privatize, and promote free trade (NAFTA) . . . government activities without any regulations or restrictions . . . that should explain why we have a government run amuck today. Corporations and government have to have regulations, restrictions in the same way we, the people, have to have laws . . . to protect us from ourselves . . . because we have been without that, we have had a government of complete chaos that includes murder, pilfering, torture, imprisoning people without counsel . . . complete lack of morality and lawlessness, and we Americans are being preached to by the very people who supported the Bush/Cheney/Rove administration?  

Remember, these same people wanted to put all of our fellow Americans, who lost their homes, due to being conned by ruthless loan sharks, out on the street, and wanted to blame those people, when we have been programed in this country to "own your own home." It's common knowledge that every working couple, every family, would eventually want to own their own home.  

These same people supported and sent our military and our National Guard into an illegal and treasonous invasion/occupation without proper equipment, benefits, healthcare, and are quite comfortable knowing that many of our military (those not killed or wounded) end up homeless on the streets of this country, and many without proper care are committing suicide after they come home.  

To this day, due to the way they use and misuse numbers, we have no idea how many of our military are dead or wounded. How irresponsible is that? How responsible has it been these past years, to have the largest sum of the US budget for US military? And, who would believe such a country when they talked of peace after what this country has done to Iraq and Afghanistan. Eight hundred bases around the world. We are paying for those, while we have people here at home sick or dying from disease and hunger.  

Socialism, if only that were the least we Americans had to fear. The real truth? That is the fear of the Bush GOP. A healthy, money clad citizenry. We have job loss, businesses closing, salaries cut, food costs up, gas up, no decent health care, a country with a decaying infrastructure . . . frankly, I don't want to hear anything coming from the mouths of the Republicans in Congress today, or from any of their supporters . . . they have lost their right to tell any of us Americans how we should feel or what we should be afraid of.  

We should be afraid of any of them being reelected.  

"The wealth of a country is its working people." -- Theodor Herzl, Altneuland, 1902  

Thanks BuzzFlash,  

Shirley Smith 

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