Republicans have no Clue what Socialism and Communism means

Here's the edumacated left teaching the dumbed down right how to stay stupid. For some reason, nobody in America is supposed to know anything about "the composite system" yet. Is it really possible Democrats STILL have no clue what communitarianism means? Well, it sure is convienent that the "feebleminded right" keeps using terms the Democrats can understand.

Republicans have no Clue what Socialism and Communism means
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Republicans-have-no-Clue-w-by-Steven-Leser-090308-590.html
by Steven Leser, Oped News

"The latest lexical victims are "Socialism" and "Communism". The Republican and Conservative right in America now liberally apply these words to anyone who is center and center left, including all Democrats and President Barack Obama. You can see/hear this happen with regularity on Rush Limbaugh's radio show, and on the website Free Republic www.freerepublic.com . In fact, the owner of Free Republic recently issued a missive warning the site's members to stop writing posts threatening President Obama and said missive was laced with proclamations that Obama is a Communist or Communist sympathizer. See http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2200093/posts ."

{Here he quotes from the freerepublic forum, Niki}

Here is a generous hint to my feebleminded right wing friends. It is impossible to be a Socialist or a Communist if one is not calling for the nationalization of entire industries. Now, I used a lot of big words there that right wingers reading this may not understand, so I will make my hint even easier to comprehend (note: comprehend means "understand"). If a government or a leader of a government is not taking over complete ownership and control of every business that has a certain function (i.e. does similar things), then you do not have a government or government leader that is Socialist or Communist. There is a similar relationship with property rights. If a government or leader is not advocating or actively taking private property rights away from people, you don’t have a Socialist or Communist government or leader.

The closest we are coming to doing anything remotely like this right now is with banking. There are people out there who are advocating temporary Nationalization of the banking industry, including some Republicans. Obama is an opponent of this idea. (Note to right wingers, "opponent" means, he doesn't like the idea of doing this).

In fact, no Democrats are Socialists or Communists (at least none that understand what it means to be a Democrat). If any of us were, we would leave the Democratic Party and join one of the many Socialist or Communist parties that exist in the US. The fact that we are Democrats means that we believe in Capitalism albeit with appropriate oversight and rules.

An amusing discussion of this entire topic, "Who you calling Socialist" was penned by Harold Meyerson who is a self-proclaimed Socialist http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/03/AR2009030303207.html the entire article is a masterpiece, but I particularly like:

Take it from a democratic socialist: Laissez-faire American capitalism is about to be supplanted not by socialism but by a more regulated, viable capitalism. And the reason isn't that the woods are full of secret socialists who are only now outing themselves.

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For more distinctions between what a Democrat like Obama is and a Socialist or Communist, I offer the writings of one of my fellow members of OpEdNews, Richard Mynick. His last article can be seen here http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_richard__080128_capitalism_as_the_en.htm . Richard is an avowed Socialist. The difference between what Richard advocates and what a Democrat advocates is stark.

I realize that most of this is going to be ignored by many of those at whom this is directed, but they should consider this. The irony of what the conservative right is doing with regard to terms like appeasement and Socialism and Communism is that they are using the words so often and so inappropriately that they are going to take any kind of stigma away from them. Obama is probably going to improve relations with Russia, China and Iran. People are probably going to like the effects of this. If Right wingers call this "appeasement" then calling anything in the future "appeasement" is going to stop having a negative connotation. Similarly, if Obama's economic policies work, and I think they are, if they are termed "Socialism" or "Communism" then the next time people call someone's policies Socialism or Communism, it wont cause such a stir. THAT could be extremely destructive if it turns out that someone is really appeasing another country or taking us down the road to collectivism.

Moreover, if Republicans ever again hope to become more than a marginalized and regional party, using this kind of rhetoric is exactly the opposite way to do it. Anyone who has had any college level political science class knows well the real definition of these terms and is going to be turned off by people misusing them so badly.

Here is one more freebee to JimRob and the other folk at Free Republic who entertain me so. After eight years of trying to tell me and every other Democrat that any attitude other than getting 100% behind the US President, no matter who he may be, means you are a traitor, your frenzied antipathy toward Obama makes you all seem like the most ridiculous of hypocrites on the American political scene. You might want to think about that some.

An OEN Editor, Steven Leser specializes in Politics, Science & Health, and Entertainment topics. He has held positions within the Democratic Party including District Chair and Public Relations Chair within county organizations. Steven Leser (more...)

Maybe the superior writers at Oped News don't read everything posted at their site, but if they did they might see the flaws in their position. Etzioni's co founder of socioeconomics explains:

Gorbachev on the worldwide economic meltdown:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Gorbachev-and-the-Buddha--by-Grant-Lawrence-090307-23.html

Gorbachev seemed to view the global meltdown as partly the result of years of Western hubris and excess. "The American media trumpeted ... about the victory in the Cold War, that socialism is down. This disease of extreme self-confidence led to it -- the [belief] that things would always go on this way. ... I think that now everyone is learning a hard lesson. ... It is necessary to overcome these mistakes of super-consumerism, of super-profits." The answer? A composite system that incorporates "the past experience of all that the capitalist system brings, like competitiveness, and what socialism gives -- especially a social safety net."

And I know Etzioni began promoting himself as a "guru" in the 90s. but I never knew Gorbachev thinks like the Buddha. That Gorbachev quote above comes from an article called "Gorbachev and the Buddha--A Middle Way for Humanity" by Grant Lawrence! (Thanks Pete!)