Really, I am. I'm tired of everyone pretending that poor people get most of the welfare in this country. I'm tired of people pretending that somehow we have a "free market" system, when what we really have is a system of certain industries getting subsidized and others not. I'm tired of people talking like civilization, i.e. providing a basic level of security and care for all our citizens, is the same thing as totalitarianism (I won't call it socialism, because that's not what they really mean when they say socialism).
Paul Krugman has a piece today that hopes to prod people into calling our elected leaders to bring some accountability to the world of high-flying banking. But until we start calling them on the lies, nothing much is going to change.
2 comments:
Basic needs allotment for human beings, rather than lobbied-for subsidies for influential corporations, seems rational to me. "Free market" is doublespeak that I am equally tired of hearing. We should challenge their fraudulent terms at every turn. As Frank Lutz, Republican operative, said long ago: “When you use the words of your opposition, you are basically accepting their definition and therefore their conclusion.”
I hadn't thought of the socialism-totalitarianism connection, but I think you're right; they're trying to make it sound as if people will somehow become state-controlled automatons, rather than better cared for, which is what they would actually become.
I had always assumed they didn't know what they meant. Joe the Plumbers don't know what it means; but they know if they repeat it during the course of incoherent ranting, their demagogues will approve.
I think the other encoded message when they use the word "socialism" is the sub-text "Godless Communists!" meaning they won't let you pray anymore and they'll try to make you have a gay/woman minister if you do.
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