When the government does stuff, it’s socialism. And if the government does more stuff, its more socialism. And if the government does a whole lot of stuff? Its communism.
Years ago, when I started getting over my conservative upbringing, I was telling a friend–in an awkward incoherent manner–how I thought we needed to radically reform healthcare in the US.
She detected my mental struggle and said, “Socialism is not a dirty word”.
That simple phrase cut through my conflicted brain. It’s embarrassing how indoctrinated I was, and how I needed permission from a smart person to just accept the obvious.
I wonder how many other doofuses out there are like I was. They just need the right phrase at the right time from someone they respect.
This always gets me… some Americans will bitch about gas prices till the fucking cows come home. Yet they have some of the most heavily subsidized fuel in the world.
Because it’s never cheap enough to traverse enough of the land to live in one of our beautiful, cookie-cutter sprawling suburbs and work in the city like many do.
The average American drives so much I think they have forgotten that other ways to live are even possible.
We’re around £1.50 at the bottom end around me. I love close enough to the largest refinery on Europe for it to be an option which has a station connected directly to it. Its the most expensive pump for miles
America is also a car centric nation. Oil and gas companies have spent decades preventing any sort of alternative travel options to traverse the country. Ever wonder why the US has some of the worst passenger rail lines in the world or why every major US city doesn’t have some sort of functioning mass transit system?
But to your point, yeah some of my neighbors won’t shut the fuck up about the goddamned gas prices.
Socialism is when the government provides all the jobs, healthcare, benefits, and basically owns the important industries glances over at the defense budget
And then you have the capitalism sycophants that come and intentionally muddy the waters in bad faith by being pedants and demanding the term only apply to the oldest, largely outdated definition of socialism, in order to derail the conversation in exactly the same way the gun nuts intentionally derail gun control conversations in bad faith by being pedents about the term “assault rifle.”
Because language, definitions, and terms don’t evolve constantly. A living language is static.
Yond’s wherefore we continueth to talketh to one anoth’r liketh this.
(That’s why we still talk to each other like this.)
There’s being pedantic and then there’s insisting people use terms precisely. “Socialism” has multiple established meanings which can conflict with each other and sabotage communication when there’s ambiguity about which you’re trying to use. I personally try to avoid terms like that entirely for that reason, it’s a waste of time to sit around clarifying misunderstandings like that.
Rightists: "Socialism is when the poors get any manner of social benefit."
Never mind that the poors are the primary source of the funds for said benefit. We live in a system where the rich control a system that allows them to plunder from the poor and funnel those funds to themselves.
Capitalism is theft, and theft is capitalism. Capitalism is good.
But pooling our collective resources for the general benefit of all us... that's bad. That's socialism.
How DARE the plebes be allowed to spend their money on themselves when some multimillionaires that destroyed their billion dollar businesses need a bigger yacht and a fourth European vacation home!?
But the workers literally control the means of production. We could decide not to turn on the machines until those with the capital give us more of it. That’s called a strike. There’s a couple in the U.S. that appear to be going well. I’m hopeful that other executives will figure out that they must help the workers or that more strikes occur to help them learn that lesson.
How exactly do you force people to work? I mean you could make striking Illegal and force me into work but I’m not going to. I’ll just fuck everything up…
The same way Texas did its abortion bounty scheme or Florida made it ok to run protestors over. Empower the chuds to enact violence, maybe lock one or two up for going too far and call it a day, while nothing is actually done to stop the violence.
Lets see how long we the peasants are permitted to use that privilege, now that the people are emboldened to utilize it again. If history is any guide, the government step in to kneecap them if they come to meaningfully effect shareholder profit.
Oh this is so unfair. We have had an expansion of labor rights this year, after the rail strike was blocked. Also the rail strike did have some wins despote being blocked.
I mean you can make it illegal, but the more people realize they have no incentive to work themselves ragged for next to nothing, the angrier they get and fight back. That’s what we’re seeing now with the highest level of union support in decades.
It’s just my opinion, but I think the damn is officially broken in the US now that we’ve had so many major strikes. I don’t think you can really turn things back to how they were. Not immediately.
Unfortunately things will only escalate if there isn’t some compromise here. The greedy will continue to fight it. However I’m sure many realize that if workers’ don’t see some improvements in our current environment, it will require a much more openly violent state than we currently have to keep workers in line.
I’m not sure the majority of those in government are willing move towards that yet as it’s inherently unstable. Hopefully they’ll be smart about it.
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