Mediaboss Marketing

In times of crisis, people typically look for strong, pragmatic leaders who will allay their fears while being straight with them and work around the clock to solve the problem at hand. Usuallynot in all cases but in most of thempeople arent interested in seeing elected officials go on TV or the internet and blame others for the situation theyre in, but rather use what precious time they have to figure out how to fix things. Like, say your state was in the midst of a massive power outage, and millions of people didnt have heat while frigid weather refused to let up. Youd probably want your local leaders to work on restoring power before you froze to death, rather than going on Fox News to blame socialist policies that dont exist for the situation, right? Unfortunately for the people of Texas, theyre stuck with politicians like Greg Abbott, Ted Cruz, and Dan Crenshaw, who think a visit to Sean Hannity, or some tweets about the perils of socialism, are just what the doctor ordered.

On Tuesday, for example, as millions of his constituents continued to go without power amidst freezing temperatures, Governor Abbot stopped by Hannitys show to warn viewers that what his state was going through shows why America cant trust people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her pinko-liberal energy policies. This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America, Abbott said. It just shows that fossil fuel is necessary for the state of Texas as well as other states to make sure well be able to heat our homes in the winter time and cool our homes in the summer time.

Of course, what Abbott necessarily left out of his attack was that (1) the Green New Deal is a proposal that has not yet been implemented and may never be, and (2) the majority of Texass power grid is fueled by natural gas, coal, and some nuclear power. Just 7% of the forecasted winter capacity of Texass main electricity provider comes from wind energy. While all of the states energy sources share in the blame of the power crisis, proportionally, its basically all natural gass fault. Texas is a gas state, Michael Webber, an energy-resources professor at the University of Texas at Austin, told The Texas Tribune. Gas is failing in the most spectacular fashion right now. (As an aside, even if Texas did use a higher proportion of wind to run its state, it wouldnt necessarily be winds fault for the outages. As many have noted, wind turbines operate just fine in Antarctica; Texas was warned to winterize its infrastructure a decade ago in order to be able to churn out electricity in freezing conditions and apparently chose not to.)

Of course, those facts havent stopped other Texas Republicans from weighing in with their very wrong opinions. This is what happens when you force the grid to rely in part on wind as a power source, RepresentativeDan Crenshawtweeted on Tuesday. When weather conditions get bad as they did this week, intermittent renewable energy like wind isnt there when you need it. In another long thread, he wrote, This raises the obvious question: can we ever rely on renewables to power the grid during extreme weather? No, you need gas or nuclear. Then he blamed everything onCalifornia:

And speaking of California, confronted by old tweets he sent when the Golden State was in the midst of its own energy crisis last yearone of which read, California is now unable to perform even basic functions of civilization, like having reliable electricity. Biden/Harris/AOC want to make CAs failed energy policy the standard nationwideTed Cruz responded with a shrug emoji:

To be fair, anyone expecting him to tweet Damn, turns out I am the smug, shameless asshole everyone says I am and will now do the right thing and resign was probably expecting too much.

Read the original:
Rick Perry Suggests Texans Voluntarily Go Without Heat to Fend Off Scourge of Socialism - Vanity Fair

Provided by Washington Examiner

Why have socialist ideas again developed such a strong appeal? Why, that is, when every single socialist experiment over the past 100 years has failed? British economist Kristian Niemietz provides an answer in his book Socialism. The Failed Idea That Never Dies.

He cites over two dozen socialist experiments, all of which, without exception, ended in failure.

This bears noting because whenever socialists are confronted with specific examples from history, they always counter that these examples prove nothing. They say that not one of the examples were representations of truly socialist models. But let's consider the most recent failed experiment: Venezuela.

In 1970, Venezuela was the richest country in Latin America and one of the 20 richest countries in the world. Many people hoped that the charismatic socialist Hugo Chavez, who came to power in 1999, would solve the countrys problems. Chavez also inspired the utopian yearnings of leftists in Europe and North America with his aim of creating a "Socialism of the 21st Century." After the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc in the late 1980s, coupled with China taking its first steps along the path from socialism to capitalism, the Left was left without a utopia of which it could dream. But his experiment also failed. Today, under Chavez's successor Nicolas Maduro, the masses are left starving. Inflation is soaring, and one-in-10 people have fled the country.

The overdue adoration for Chavez isn't new in terms of socialist leaders. Even mass murderers such as Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong were initially celebrated by leading intellectuals of their time. They turned a blind eye to the concentration camps in the Soviet Union. In the 1970s, many Western intellectuals were enthusiastic about Mao Zedong and his Cultural Revolution, despite the fact that 45 million lives were lost during his "Great Leap Forward" socialist experiment in the late 1950s. After Maos death, hundreds of millions of Chinese were freed from abject poverty as a result of Deng Xiaopings reform policies. China today testifies not to the success of modern socialism but to the extraordinary benefits born of capitalism. In 1980, 88% of the Chinese population was living in extreme poverty. Today, it's less than 1%.

Niemietz shows that every socialist experiment has gone through three distinct phases. During the first phase, intellectuals around the world are enthusiastic and praise the system to the heavens. This honeymoon phase is always followed by a second phase of disillusionment: intellectuals still endorse the system and its "achievements," but their tone becomes angrier and more defensive. They grudgingly admit that the system has shortcomings but try to blame these on capitalist saboteurs, foreign forces, or boycotts by U.S. imperialists. Finally, in the third phase, intellectuals seek to deny that the system was ever truly a form of socialism at all.

The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel once opined: "But what experience and history teach is this that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it." Perhaps this judgment is too severe. Nevertheless, socialists have succeeded in denouncing the system that has done more to fight hunger and poverty than any other economic system in history. But somehow, socialism, for all its endemic and repeating ills, retains positive associations around the world.

Rainer Zitelmann is a German historian and author of the book "The Power of Capitalism"

Tags: Opinion, Beltway Confidential, Blog Contributors, Socialism, Capitalism

Original Author: Rainer Zitelmann

Original Location: Socialism: the bad idea that won't die

View post:
Socialism: the bad idea that won't die - msnNOW

Socialism is not a dirty word. We in America live quite well with it every day as the rest of the world looks on with envy.

Mr. Puffer (Daily Chronicle 02/06/21) perhaps needs to stay safely tucked in Ennis where apparently no socialism exists. What a dismal prospect. At least, the rest of Montana can go on enjoying the many benefits of American style socialism like snow removal, garbage pickup, fire protection, the Postal Service, libraries, COVID-19 vaccinations and the many dozens of other services and amenities along with some necessary rules and regulations we as citizens all benefit from every day.

The United States of America is not headed toward Soviet-like socialism as Mr. Puffer seems to imply. The USA will not have total State ownership and imposed production quotas on everything from potato farms to automobile production under President Joe Biden's leadership.

Fear not Mr. Puffer, please come out from where ever you are and enjoy our conscientious freedoms. It may be too soon to suggest NPR and PBS, but you might eventually give a listen or a look and find something of value somewhere out here.

To see what else is happening in Gallatin County subscribe to the online paper.

Excerpt from:
Letter to the editor: Letter writer's fears of socialism are unfounded - The Bozeman Daily Chronicle

CARL FOWLER| Amarillo Globe-News

Prior to the riot in the nations capitol, I listened to a speech from the great unifier, Joe Biden, in which he regurgitated the Democrats (Socialists) mantra of the past four years concerning Donald Trump, even, once more,accusing Trump of Russian collusion.

His speech continued on that theme as if the election were still ongoing and he had not been certified the winner. Eventually, he got around to stating that he wanted to unify the country.Such blatant hypocrisy is evident to everyone except Washington D.C. Socialists.

The Washington Socialists cannot get over their obsession with Trump.The Capitol riot played right into their playbook:destroy Donald Trump so that he can no longer pose a threat to the Socialists agenda.Thus, the second impeachment.

I have seldom in my lifetime (which is now a considerable number of years) seen such absolute hatred as in the faces of the Washington Socialists, especially in the face of Nancy Pelosi when Donald Trump is mentioned.Hatred literally drips from her face when she mentions Trump as evident in the distortion of her facial features when she speaks of him.Her unprecedented action during the last State of the Union speech by Trump, that of ripping a copy of his speech into shreds before a national audience, graphically reveals her hatred.In my view, Pelosi is the deranged one and should herself be subject to impeachment.

During the arguments in the House of Representatives leading up to the second impeachment (kangaroo trial), the House Socialists repeatedly stated that Donald Trump is a now and continuing threat to democracy and to the Constitution.Thus, the impeachment was necessary in order to preserve democracy and the Constitution. What rich irony and hypocrisy!The Socialists are the ones attempting to rip the Constitution into shreds, the ones who are attempting to squelch free speech by getting rid of the First Amendment.Their war is against religion, as evidenced by Socialists governors and mayors banning attendance to churches but allowing dens of iniquity to thrive. (Im being sarcastic here, but you get my meaning.)

Concerning freedom of speech, the Socialists have no problem with Facebook, Twitter, etc., barring conservative viewpoints from their websites.After all,such actions benefit the Socialists.The Socialists constantly attack conservative media and conservative personalities, such as Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, in an attempt to silence their seditious comments.I subscribed to Facebook when it first began, but I use it only to respond when my e-mail tells me that I have a Facebook message from a friend or relative. My view is that my business is my business.Besides, Im not interested in what someone ate for dinner.As for Twitter, so far as I know, thats bird talk.

I do not defend the rioting in the Capitol.The folks who breached the doors and windows of that symbol of democracy demonstrated everything that conservatism is not. I regret that a relative few, in light of a crowd of forty-five thousand, took it upon themselves to invade, deface, and give ammunition to our enemies who gloat upon the resulting chaos.

At the same time, a point that has been made over and over by conservatives and Republicans, the chaos caused by the rioting and destruction by the anarchists during the past several months and ignored by the Socialists, has contributed to the frustration of law- abiding citizens who see their cities and communities wrecked by those who proclaim themselves to be peaceful protestors.What did the Washington Socialists do about the destruction in our cities? Nancy Pelosi said she was not interested in statues.

Jerry Nadler said that the burning of buildings, the looting, the rioting taking place in cities were all a myth even as videos showed the opposite.The principal message from the Socialists is that the half of Americans who oppose Washington socialism are too stupid to see the truth.The truth is that truth is not a part of the Socialists agenda.

Donald Trump, through frustration and anger at the constant attacks by the Socialists during his term in office and who is convinced that the Socialists skewed the election in their favor, has gone beyond the pale with his rhetoric.But, who among you reading this could have withstood the constant barrage of hatred demonstrated toward him by the Socialists during the last four years? So far as fraud is concerned, if I were a judge, I would not want to be the one who contributed to reversing an election.The best way to avoid this is to refuse to hear the evidence.

The Socialists are deathly afraid of Donald Trump.He is the one who thwarted their plans to transform America by defeating Hillary.They do not want the same result in 2024.

Their answer: Hate Trump! Destroy Trump!DestroyAmerica!

Carl Fowler is a retired professor of English at Amarillo College and lives in Amarillo.

Read this article:
Fowler: This is what the faces of hatred look like - Amarillo.com

Watch the CBSN Originals documentary, "Speaking Frankly | Socialism," in the video player above.

Socialism: It's a buzzword in the 2020 election season, having sprung up dozens of times during campaign, particularly during the Republication National Convention. Conservative leaders depict the idea as a democracy-killing bogeyman. Some Democrats including Senator Bernie Sanders and Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib have embraced the label with gusto.

The political philosophy has history going back centuries. Directly or otherwise, it has influenced government policies around the world, including in America.

But what exactly does socialism mean? What do socialists want right now? And is the Republican warning that socialism is threatening to destroy the American way of life a real concern? There are some facts about socialism that are beyond dispute.

At its simplest, socialism calls for a nation's citizens to control at least some of its means of production the major ingredients needed for a healthy economy. Think infrastructure, energy, natural resources. Under socialism, any surplus or profit from those sectors must benefit those same citizens. Capitalism, meanwhile, calls for private owners to control the means of production and to keep any profit they make for themselves.

Many Americans see these two systems as opposites and Republicans, in particular, tend to view it as an either-or situation. In a recent Pew Research Centersurvey, the majority of Republicans (68%) expressed a positive view of capitalism and a negative view of socialism.

But a substantial minority of voters hold a positive view of both systems 25% of the overall group of Americans surveyed by Pew felt favorably about socialism as well as capitalism.

The fact is, the two systems can, and do, coexist in many countries. Some governments blend socialist policies with capitalism and democratically elected leadership, a system usually called social democracy.

No socialists are running for president on a major-party ticket in 2020. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party's nominees for president and vice president, are not socialists. They are not members of the current socialist party, called Socialist Party USA, or of the nation's biggest socialist organization, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which has about 70,000 members nationwide.

Asked what he'd say to people who were worried about socialism, Biden told Wisconsin stationWLUK-TV: "I beat the socialists. That's how I got elected. That's how I got the nomination. Do I look like a socialist? Look at my career, my whole career. I am not a socialist."

Overall, socialism accounts for a small percentage of America's political makeup. Socialist Party USA had no members in any national or state office in 2020. Only about half a dozen DSA members have held federal office over the years, all in the U.S. House of Representatives, including the current Congresswomen Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib. Senator Sanders calls himself a democratic socialist and has been supported by the DSA, but he is not a known member and does not run under the Socialist Party.

Republicans have frequently used the terms "socialism" and "socialist" as a threat or insult when referring to progressive candidates who are not actually socialists.

There have always been different types of socialists not to mention wildly varying ideas of what the "means of production" are, what role government should have, and where free enterprise might still fit in. Some socialists see "means of production" as all major industries, such as finance or energy.

For Jabari Brisport, a New York teacher and state senate candidate, "What [socialism] means is that energy, housing, health care, education, finance, and transportation ... shall be controlled publicly and not run by, for profit motive."

Other socialists have pushed for a total ban on private enterprise. Karl Marx, the Prussian intellectual who championed socialism in the 19th century, predicted that capitalism was doomed to fail, and a government-controlled economy would rise. Vladimir Lenin, whose Bolshevik revolution gave rise to the Soviet Union's communist regime, preferred armed struggle to help push capitalism into history's trash bin.

Today, the most prominent of America's socialists are very different from the Marxists of the past. They largely push for progressive reforms within capitalism a philosophy generally defined as social democracy.

The Democratic Socialists of America aims to blend socialism-inspired reforms with America's current free-enterprise system. The DSA does not believe private enterprise should be immediately overthrown in favor of a government-run economy. Instead, Ocasio-Cortez, for example, has pushed for a "revolution of working people at the ballot box" new laws and stronger unions to make private businesses more accountable to what DSA members see as public interests.

Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, has advocated for universal free health care, canceling all student debt, and expanding Social Security benefits within America's free-market economy.

The Republican Party has made socialism or more specifically, warnings about socialism a part of its 2020 campaign messaging. During the Republican National Convention in August, one of the speakers, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, cast socialism as antithetical to the American Dream.

"If we let them, [Democrats] will turn our country into a socialist utopia, and history has taught us that path only leads to pain and misery, especially for hard-working people hoping to rise," Scott said.

During his nomination acceptance speech, Mr. Trump echoed that warning, calling Joe Biden a "Trojan horse for socialism."

Some of Biden's policy proposals do call for big spending; he has proposed a$2 trillion clean energy plan. But Biden has also rejected ideas that are darlings of the DSA, such as the Green New Deal. (President Trump, for his part, has also pushed for mega-spending on areas that could be seen as means of production including a $12 billionaid package for farmers.)

Opponents of socialism often point to Venezuela as a cautionary tale. Once ranked as the richest South American country thanks to its oil reserves, in 1998 Venezuela elected a socialist leader, Hugo Chvez. Chvez centralized power in his increasingly authoritarian grip and spent billions on social programs from profits on oil. Under Chvez's successor, Nicols Maduro, global oil prices plummeted and Venezuela's petroleum-dependent economy collapsed.

"It's just empty, empty shelves, all over," says Venezuela-born Maria Fernanda Bello, a coalition director for Young Americans Against Socialism. "Socialists are always going to promise you free tuition, free health care, free everything, but they will never promise you freedom."

But American socialists like Bernie Sanders reject the comparison.

"Let me be very clear: Anybody who does what Maduro does is a vicious tyrant," Sanders said at a 2019 Democratic primary debate. "To equate what goes on in Venezuela to what I believe is extremely unfair."

Some of America's most popular policies have been linked with socialism since their inception, whether the label was earned or not. When Social Security was first proposed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the midst of the Great Depression, a suspicious senator asked the secretary of labor whether it counted as socialism. When told it did not, the senator responded, "Isn't this a teeny-weeny bit of socialism?"

American entrepreneurs have also taken advantage of programs that could be interpreted as socialism-lite.

Donald Trump's father, Fred, got his start building Depression-era homes for New York families with the help of the Federal Housing Administration. The FHA insures home mortgages made by private lenders essentially bringing some control over America's finances under the power of its people, via the federal government. Later, Fred Trump turned to the FHA again, building agency-backed housing for military families. Donald Trump later inherited his father's fortune, built in part by these projects.

Link:
What is socialism? And what do socialists really want in ...