Socialism In America

The Conservative ^ | 09/21/2008 | truthluva

[truthluva]

We must understand that there are large and growing groups in America that believe more government and government with geater control over the masses is the only acceptable future for America. Although this is more aptly called Fabianism (socialism brought on by reforms within the law), it is still Socialism. Socialism is not just the government owning industry. It is the philosophy behind it and the authoritarian dictates it puts on the people that are warning signs of its encroachment into society.

[truthluva]

This is a very intersting site that looks at the creeping socialism in America. Some of the information is starting to look very familiar.

[oblomov]

The cake has already been baked.

[truthluva]

That is terrifying. How do we stop it?

[Ken522]

Anybody who has been through the public school system in America knows all about socialism ....

[Shermy]

The article is old-fashioned.

The “socialism” arising is onesided, the socialization of risk — gazillionaire’s debt. Profits will remain privatized. The government is only buying what doesn’t work in the economy.

It’s a philosophy that is not discordant with, but a product of, “compassionate conservatism” aka “corporate conservatism.” The American labels fit better than the European ones, though if you have to use one, fascism is closer to what is happening than socialism.

[Desdemona]

Creeping? It’s been spreading like a bad rash since 1913.

[FightThePower!]

Socialism is unstoppable. We elected a Rebublican Congress and President that billed themselves as the party of small government. They have grown the government to unprecedented size.

[djsherin]

That’s the date I’d put it at too. Horrible things have happened to this country in the last 100 years.

[djsherin]

Sucks doesn’t it?

[SandRat]

From Communes to the Clintons Why does Hillary Clinton crusade for government-provided health care for every American, for the redistribution of wealth, and for child rearing to become a collective obligation? Why does Al Gore say that it’s okay to “over-represent” the dangers of global warming in order to sell Americans on his draconian solutions? Why does Michael Moore call religion a device to manipulate “gullible” Americans?

Where did these radical ideas come from? And how did they enter the mainstream discourse?

In this groundbreaking and compelling new book, Daniel J. Flynn uncovers the surprising origins of today’s Left. The first work of its kind, A Conservative History of the American Left tells the story of this remarkably resilient extreme movement–one that came to America’s shores with the earliest settlers.

Flynn reveals a history that leftists themselves ignore, whitewash, or obscure. Partly the Left’s amnesia is convenient: Who wouldn’t want to forget an ugly history that includes eugenics, racism, violence, and sheer quackery? Partly it is self-aggrandizing: Bold schemes sound much more innovative when you refuse to acknowledge that they have been tried–and have failed–many times before. And partly it is unavoidable: The Left is so preoccupied with its triumphal future that it doesn’t pause to learn from its past mistakes. So it goes that would-be revolutionaries have repeatedly failed to recognize the one troubling obstacle to their grandiose visions: reality.

In unfolding this history, Flynn presents a page-turning narrative filled with colorful, fascinating characters–progressives and populists, radicals and reformers, socialists and SDSers, and leftists of every other stripe. There is the rags-to-riches Welsh industrialist who brought his utopian vision to America–one in which private property, religion, and marriage represented “the most monstrous evils”–and gained audiences with the likes of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Madison. There is the wife-swapping Bible thumper who nominated Jesus Christ for president. There is the playboy adventurer whose worshipful accounts of Soviet Russia lured many American liberals to Communism. There is the daughter of privilege turned violent antiwar activist who lost her life to a bomb she had intended to use against American soldiers. There are fanatics and free spirits, perverts and puritans, entrepreneurs and altruists, and many more beyond.

A Conservative History of the American Left is a gripping chronicle of the radical visionaries who have relentlessly pursued their lofty ambitions to remake society. Ultimately, Flynn shows the destructiveness that comes from this undying pursuit of dreams that are utterly unattainable.

“Fascists,” “Brownshirts,” “jackbooted stormtroopers” — such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?

Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism.

Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term “National socialism”). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities—where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.

Do these striking parallels mean that today’s liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? Not at all. Yet it is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal.

Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a “friendlier,” more liberal form. The modern heirs of this “friendly fascist” tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.

These assertions may sound strange to modern ears, but that is because we have forgotten what fascism is. In this angry, funny, smart, contentious book, Jonah Goldberg turns our preconceptions inside out and shows us the true meaning of Liberal Fascism.

[oblomov]

We can’t stop it. We can only slow it with Republican presidents. The US will become socialist, and then it will collapse, and perhaps liberty will be regained in the ashes. Jeffers’ poem “Shiva” is a kind of solace to me:

There is a hawk that is picking the birds out of our sky,
She killed the pigeons of peace and security,
She has taken honesty and confidence from nations and men,
She is hunting the lonely heron of liberty.
She loads the arts with nonsense, she is very cunning
Science with dreams and the state with powers to catch them at last.
Nothing will escape her at last, flying nor running.
This is the hawk that picks out the star’s eyes.
This is the only hunter that will ever catch the wild swan;
The prey she will take last is the wild white swan of the beauty of things.
Then she will be alone, pure destruction, achieved and supreme,
Empty darkness under the death-tent wings.
She will build a nest of the swan’s bones and hatch a new brood,
Hang new heavens with new birds, all be renewed.

[Desdemona]

Yeah, well, when the Constitution had to be amended to allow the central bank (Federal Reserve) and an income tax - which incidentally was never ratified - that’s two of the 10 planks in the Communist Manifesto sitting in constitutional law.

[knarf]

Unstoppable?

Almost 300 years ago men had a will to kill in order achieve and keep freedom.

No one wants to talk about it, but the fact was .... men shot other men for attempting to stop the acquisition of, or the preservation of personal liberty and freedom.

For the most part, Judeao-Christian morality guided the thinking of the hands that held the gun.

America bought into the lie .. "Never talk about politics, religion and sex" ... so where are our problems?

Politics, religion and sex.

[truthluva]

America chose the Eagle as a symbol, not a hawk. So soesn’t that stand for something? Are we not stronger and wiser than the hawk?

[oblomov]

To Jeffers, the hawk was an important symbol that he used in many poems. It is a symbol of the ferocity and strength of nature. Civilizations rise and perish but nature abides. We can choose symbols to represent us, but eventually we fall short of our chosen representations, and invent lies. Jeffers’ poem “Faith” speaks to this:

Faith

Ants or wise bees, or a gang of wolves,
Work together by instinct, but man needs lies,
Man his admired and more complex mind
Needs lies to bind the body of his people together,
Make peace in the state and maintain power.
These lies are called a faith and their formulation
We call a creed, and the faithful flourish,
They conquer nature and their enemies, they win security.
Then proud and secure they will go awhoring
With that impractical luxury the love of truth,
That tries all things: alas the poor lies,
The faith like a morning mist burnt by the sun:
Thus the great wave of a civilization
Lose its forming soul, falls apart and founders.
Yet I believe that truth is more beautiful
Than all the lies, and God than all the false Gods.
Then we must leave it to the humble and the ignorant
To invent the frame of faith that will form the future.
It was not for the Romans to produce Christ.
It was not for Lucretius to prophesy him, nor Pilate
To follow him …. Or could we change at last and choose truth?

[Wolfie]

We must understand that there are large and growing groups in America that believe more government and government with geater control over the masses is the only acceptable future for America.

The Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the Federal Government, to name a few.

[djsherin]

The federal reserve wasn’t created by amendment but to be Constitutional it should have been. But yeah, 2 planks of the Manifesto right there. Here’s a good article about it:

http://mises.org/story/177