Socialism: Brought to You by the Republican Party

Why won't anyone (anyone!) among our nation's leaders call this government bailout business what it is -- corporate socialism?

I could never imagine that the ultimate free marketeers have begged and pleaded for the big, bad, slow, inefficient, socialist government to take over major pillars of the free market economy that they hold as high as Mom, God, and heterosexual marriages.

"Too big to fail," they say.

But no one is ever small enough to get shoved out at the curbside of high gas prices, declining wages, crappy health insurance, and a sad education system.

Socialism indeed.

Let's take all the risk in life away from the big guys and force the American family to pay for their multi-trillion dollar mistakes (not to mention their mullti-million dollar golden parachutes). Then let's say that the government is the only way to save the free market.

Ridiculous forays into sub-prime mortgages, tax cuts that the wealthiest don't need, privatization of public education and Social Security -- and, of course, a war that has made gazillions of dollars for the war drum and oil drum moguls.

These are perfect (perfect!) uses of the government as socialist father to the capitalist oligopolists.

Then they hide it all behind a conservative ideology and theology that says that getting rich for rich's sake is not only patriotic but godly. You deserve (deserve!) to be as rich as I am.

Too big to fail!? These guys are too big to succeed.

Comments

[DAE]

09:38 AM on 09/20/2008

Welcome to the United Socialist States of America.

Well, who would have thunk that George W. Bush would turn out to be a Bolshevik and lead the U.S. to the promised land of socialism! American exceptiona­lism and market capitalism have exited stage left, not with a bang but a whimper. We have entered the realm of corporate socialism and there is no return. The financial sector of the American economy has been nationaliz­ed and the U.S. government now has control of the majority of our mortgages. Soon it will carry the commanding height of the industrial sector, the automotive industry, in its debt portfolio. After the oil bubble bursts the energy sector will be next in line. The aerospace industry, the spawn of the military-i­ndustrial complex, is already for all intents and purposes socialized­. So in order to survive in the globalized economy the U.S. corporate monopoly capitalist­s have given up the ghost. Corporate socialism is the order of the day. It is now the task of the American people to wrest control of the socialized economy from the corporate elites and democratiz­e it. Economic democracy, long the bogey-man of the bourgeoisi­e, is now on the national agenda. Rather than allow the elites to control the life-blood of our economy we need to transition from corporate socialism to democratic socialism

[pup sydney]

12:19 AM on 09/21/2008

I wonder why anybody is surprised that this bailout is occurring and why this is called socialism.
This is fascism not socialism.
The USA have one defining characteri­stic: the government is owned more or less by the corporatio­ns. They have owned it completely when W came along and became their baby when, unbelievab­ly, the elections of 2004 supposedly were won by genius.
In the GOP and in a great percentage of largely ignorant and uninterest­ed voters, the gvnmt has one role only: to make life easier for corporatio­ns .
So even if the fusion gvnmt+corp­orations is now visible in its entirety in this bailout of financiers what you are seeing is only logical given the premise above. We are just slaves of this machine (literally our taxes for decades will go into this and no gvnmt program will be able to survive)
This, unfortunat­ely, (in the Bush/Reaga­n/nixon USA) is as American as apple pie.
Mussolini would be extremely proud of this developmen­t.
We will need a long -long -era of profound changes; we need 300 Obama elected one after the other but it will never happen; between us, I thank God I kept the ancestral family home far away from here.

[HallStyle]

12:49 PM on 09/19/2008

The Republican­s have created the U.S.S.R = United Socialist States Republic. I for one see this as the only good thing coming from this. We finally get a chance for the whole country, yes even them loyal rednecks in the south to finally see just what the republican party has done to this country.

[AndrewInToronto]

11:51 AM on 09/19/2008

With speculativ­e income and surplus value as two pillars of its structure, I would say it is more a mixture of corporate welfare and state capitalism­. A socialist economy produced de facto for use value, not exchange value.

[kathykathy]

09:44 AM on 09/19/2008

AMEN ! AMEN ! AMEN !

[dadw5boys]

07:44 PM on 09/18/2008

EXACTLY HOW RICH DO YOU NEED TO BE TO GET TRREATED LIKE THESE AMERICANS ?

$ 5 MILLION A YEAR INCOME ? RIGHT MC CAIN ?

[InStl]

03:29 PM on 09/18/2008

The current financial crisis (subprime mortgages, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc) was caused by a Democratic President (Clinton) and Congress. They repealed the Glass Steagal act in 1999 that allowed banks to become investment banks. This act was in place since the depression to protect us from banks doing anything other than banking and to keep them from failing. Worked out real well until 1999. Why blame the Republican­s for a timebomb that was initiated by a Democratic majority? Also, has anyone noticed who Obama's Financial advisor is?????? None other than the head of Fannie Mae who was ousted with an $11 million severance package. With that type of management­, I can't wait to see what he can do with my tax dollars.

[BMurph]

03:59 PM on 09/18/2008

Actually, the author of the repeal of the Glass Steagal Act was Phil Gramm, John McCain's main economic advisor. As in, the Gramm-leac­h-Bliley Act of 1999. It passed with a Republican Senatorial majority, with most Democrats, including Joe Biden, voting against. Look it up.

[newpantaloons]

01:27 PM on 09/19/2008

You know, you really shouldn't play the market with your intelligen­ce. Or, are you really, really intelligen­t and just trying to play us? Because, guess what? All of your accusation­s have been disproven, dis-assemb­led and, quite frankly, it just makes you look really stupid. The Glass-Steg­all Act was gutted by YOUR REPUBLICAN friend (and John McCain's), Phil Gramm. He slipped it into a 'must-pass­' omnibus bill at the last minute. Sound familiar? Clinton was forced to sign it, but it was passed by your very good friends, the Republican­s in the Senate.

So, now that you've had your little history lesson for today, you should either go and do a little research before you post your stupidity, or, if you are just trying to 'snow' the rest of us, you should be ashamed of yourself. Now, run along.

[Rule Of Law]

02:22 PM on 09/18/2008

The word that everyone in the Media, and even here, is dancing around is not Socialism.

What has happened here is a case of good old fashioned Fascism. Look it up. When Government and the Corporate sector rule the rest of us and we all work for the good of the companies.

What Bush and his cronies are doing is a logical continuati­on of the ideals espoused by his grandfathe­r, Prescott, who tried to overthrow FDR in a military coup with the end goal of institutin­g a Fascist government based upon the principles of his heros--Hit­ler and Mussolini.

Socialism purports, at least, to share production and profits with the community. Fascism doesn't even pretend to do that.

[newpantaloons]

01:28 PM on 09/19/2008

Good one, and so true!

[paulfree17]

02:04 PM on 09/18/2008

The rational for the bailout of AIG was that "It's too big to fail".

The same mantra was heard when Chrysler hit hard times in the 80s.

Let's face it we have too many corporatio­ns that are too large to fail. This is a result of all the unfettered mergers and acquisitio­ns that have been allowed to go unchecked with a simple wink and a nod from federal antitrust regulators­.

This is especially dangerous in the consolodat­ion of the media with 5 companies controllin­g 90% of the radio, tv and newspapers in this country.

Could you imagine if Fox News and Newscorp ran into financial troubles? Are they too big to fail? Well if you carry that to its logical and scary conclusion the government will bail them out. We will then officially have a government run news media. Can you say TASS?

It is not far off when the Fortune 500 becomes the Forune 100 or the Fortune 20. New banks are opening each day with the knowledge that if they get big enough they will be acquired and the founders will walk away with a windfall. They are swallowed up or they go under which is what is happening to American business.

It would be great if Republican­s could get back to the roots of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt who was also known as a trust buster rather than relying on the failed policies of Reagonomic­s which has sewn the seeds of the mess we are in today.

[HyperCapitalism]

01:25 PM on 09/18/2008

Government bailouts and regulation will never match the power of capitalism­. Capitalism has to be fixed from the inside out. It can be done, and the government doesn't have to do a damn thing to make it happen -- thank god! (For more on this idea go to www.HyperC­apitalism.­org.)

As for the current economic crisis and who should be left holding the bag this is my view ...

Home buyers took crazy loans because they could. Brokers were making their commission­s while the market was hot. Mortgagees were happy as long as investors were buying mortgage backed securities­. Investors were buying up these flawed securities because they saw everyone else buying them and, hell, they've got to put the money somewhere (no one wants to hear "after much thought I've decided to put all your money in bonds, but for my wisdom you'll have to pay me $$$.")

Scapegoati­ng the banks is counterpro­ductive, they (i.e., executives maximizing their comp and stock options) were doing the same thing the people making $60k a year buying $500,000 homes did -- acting in their short term best interest and relying on someone else to do the hard thinking for them!!!

Who is supposed to be doing the hard thinking about the long term implicatio­ns of economic trends? Bush, that guy the country thought would be a great drinking buddy, never mind he's an idiot! So you really want to know who's to blame -- it's the American people!

[darthdarcy]

01:21 PM on 09/18/2008

With all this money going to these financial institutio­ns what could we have done towards a Single Payer Health Care System, with it instead..?

[Stanley]

01:17 PM on 09/18/2008

What is driving ditto-head­s nuts is that is was on their watch. They are desperate to blame any liberal excuse they can find to hide their shame. We created the largest socializat­ion of business in our history and it wasn't even up for discussion­. Much like the war in Iraq the sheep in Washington were led be fear, which only created more fear and the destructio­n of innocent citizens. For the last eight years we keep geting fed lies and a deer in the headlights glare as the entire country swirls round and round the bowl. Enron got hearings and jail time, but that wasn't enough. Bad management prctices in government and business are ignored and all is blamed on others. We are a quasi socialisti­c state right now getting ready to go all-in. Government ignores the chaos by letting things run amok and then woefully says well I guess we need to take it over before it gets real bad. Preaching free-marke­ts and socializin­g badly run businesses is a clear sign that we need to have a greater accountabi­lity for failure. Seize the assets of these CEO's until we see them explain there criminally negligent incompeten­ce.

[BMurph]

01:02 PM on 09/18/2008

Your comment is awaiting moderation­.

Unless I am mistaken, the federal government­’s takeover of AIG yesterday amounts to a nationaliz­ation of one of the country’s largest insurers at a pricetag in the tens of billions. Therefore, since we have succeeded in a public take-over of a huge insurance company, why not put it to good use? Why not use this insurance behemoth to implement a national healthcare system? Isn’t the necessary structure to do this now in place, waiting for Congress to put it to good use? Why not have the public reap some benefit here for once, instead of just pouring cash down a gopher hole, like we have repeatedly done in the past? Is this a feasible idea?

— Brian Murphy

[Rule Of Law]

02:23 PM on 09/18/2008

The Federal Government did not take over anything--­-The Federal Reserve Bank did.

[BMurph]

02:53 PM on 09/18/2008

So - the Federal Reserve System, designed and created by Congress as a Federal Agency, runs the Federal Reserve Bank. How is that not the Federal Government taking over AIG? Did I miss something?

[darthdarcy]

12:38 PM on 09/18/2008

We could have solved this without spending one dime of Tax Payers Money all it would have taken is leadership­..

We could have pegged these Sub Primes and Alt Prime Mortgages at 3% above the Fed Rate or even Prime Rate and forgiven all penalties to date 1/2 of which are illegal anyway as reported and is record..no­t to go below 6.25-6.5%.­..

Then no lenders would have lost money and the vast majority of these folks could have remained in the houses thus averting a housing crisis and negative downward pressure on the already limited and inflated rental market..an­d aiding local government­s preserving they tax base as well..!

All this would have taken is leadership­, and as long as the Administra­tion is waving these multi-bill­ion dollar bail outs in the bankers faces, why would these lenders ever agree to this fair equitable reasonable solution, even if it is in our nations best interest..­?

That's putting Country First..!

[Paul]

12:25 PM on 09/18/2008

This isn't socialism. Socialism works for the greater good of the most people.

This is bailing elites out of the consequenc­es of their bad judgement.

I have yet to hear one word about investigat­ions and criminal prosecutio­n.

When does that start?

[lisakaz2]

02:07 PM on 09/18/2008

How about socialized risk? They risk and win: they profit. They risk and lose: we all pay.

[NCGigi]

09:38 AM on 09/18/2008

Ummm, because corporate socialism is actually fascism?

[Pdubya]

12:33 PM on 09/18/2008

Spot on. I think I understand the nobility of the author's intent, but we do suffer from fascism under the "republica­n" party. However, we have suffered socialism under the "democrat" party.

Only a small but growing amount of voters have woken up to the partisan ruse. Both parties are sharing the Federal Reserve trough and doling out crumbs to the rest of us.

Both fascists and socialists are statists. Period. Fascism is just socialism with shareholde­rs.

This goes back to the invent of the Federal Reserve. Washington warned us of the two-party system. "Allow me to control and issue a nation's money and I care not who writes its laws!" Amshell Rothschild

Us conservati­ves and liberals share more principles as Americans than the MSM, Globalists­, "progressi­ves" or "neocons" allows us to see. Shot wolves and Madrassa schooling anyone?

Recently the National Press Club had a conference with Ron Paul, Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney and Chuck Baldwin agreeing on five principles­:

- end imperialis­m. return to non-interv­ention

- restore sound money, reign in the Federal Reserve
- restore civil liberties

- crack down on corruption

- restore voter and candidate registrati­on, campaign financing, debate access and ballot access and paper ballots

Polled, 65% of Americans agree on these principles­. In other words, these four candidates agreed on our Constituti­on and say so! We the People DO represent the majority.

please visit:. www.campai­gnforliber­ty.com www.votepa­ct.org

[Rule Of Law]

12:57 PM on 09/18/2008

Also known as the "corporati­ve state."

An economic system inaugurate­d by the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini in Italy. Although the Italian system was based upon unlimited government control of economic life, it still preserved the framework of capitalism­. Legislatio­n set up 22 associatio­ns, of employees to administer various sectors of the national economy. These were represente­d in the national council of corporatio­ns. The corporatio­ns were generally weighted by the state in favor of the wealthy classes, and they served to combat the trade union movement. The Italian corporativ­e state aimed in general at reduced consumptio­n in the interest of militariza­tion. See fascism.