American citizens keep getting bombarded with smear attacks on socialism. Yet, we live in a country of warped socialism for the wealthy. The very oligarchs who smear real socialism for the people as something that doesn’t work are the ones who receive all the benefits of a socialism for the rich. They are the ones who get enormous freebies from the government and can count on being bailed out by the government if things don’t go well for them.
The very definition of socialism is a socially responsible system of an economy and politics made possible through law and government, the latter often having to come in and help out people at times of need. The goal: everybody receives based on their needs rather than on how much they can pay for in a highly unequal wealth distribution. Instead of this we currently have socialism for the rich, a government and set of laws which almost exclusively helps them at extreme expense for the rest of us.
The rich get huge gifts from our government (like cheap lands and subsidies for their corporations even as they move U.S. jobs abroad or replace working people with machines). They get those even though they are the least needy for financial help (being rich already, after all). These gifts are financed by cutting services to working class Americans who often desperately need them. The gifts to the rich also include tax loopholes and tax breaks. The rich and their corporations get tax havens abroad while working U.S.-citizens get taxed or even hit with ruinous fees by the IRS, treasury, and state tax agencies when they work and live abroad (except when the foreign taxes exceed their U.S. taxes in which case double-taxation protection treaties can come into effect; but costly tax filings are still demanded). And when banks or businesses of the rich fail, they get bail-outs.
These are examples of the unequal treatment of the rich (boost, safeguard, help them in any way, and turn their policy suggestions into law) and the rest of us (tax us, fine us, hold us back, harass us, deny us aid, make false promises, cut our wages and benefits, and ignore our wishes).
So… a gouging capitalism for “ordinary” Americans is combined with a warped parody of socialism for the rich giving them subsidies, gifts, bail-outs, monopoly protections, and tax loopholes while more and more of the rest of us drown in poverty.
| And if this article was too short for you, there is a great read that came out this Tuesday on The Revolution Continues, reminding me of why I have so long loathed Halloween, telling us how to check up on the toxic tap water we may have flowing at home… |
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