Tapsearch Com EditorWho's a Socialist these days
July 23rd 2010 19:28
Ray Tapajna Chronicles
Globalism comes through the back door while we get caught name calling
My friend Tom Palaima, Professor of Classics at U.Texas, tells us how name calling is used by labeling someone as a socialist or some other term that has a negative connotation.
Following his article below, I respond to him in a different way. ( If we get caught up in the connotations of terms that no longer cover the problems, we open the door to a new ism that has come through the backdoor without any announcement. It is Globalism. Strange things are happening in our times and we do not need any conspiracy theories to know that Globalization and Free Trade have not evolved in any natural fashion and are being driven by elite powers in government, big business, international banking and even the academic community
.
The elder President Bush was the first in modern times to announce The New World Order. He initiated the programs that would make Free Trade and Globalization a formal process of our government. President Clinton followed and pushed these programs through Congress. Evidently, the tools for this New World Order were to be Free Trade and Globalization. So we had a Conservative Republican President set the stage and a Liberal Democrat and a Democrat controlled Congress pass the programs formulated by the elder President Bush. Then President Bush, the second, came and hid our economic crisis by his pre-emptive wars. Our eyes were taken off the Global Economy and Free Trade to watch the "shock and awe" war on TV. Then President Obama took over and apparently was passed the baton for the so called New World Order. He immediately bailed out the money changers who directed our global economy.
We now have people like Glen Beck telling us how the Progressives since President Wilson, have tried to take over the U.S. but, he does not talk about the most essential problem of our times. Free Trade and Globalization is the cause of our economic crisis with our economies based on making money on money instead of making things are burning out. This is happening while both sides call each other bad names like from the far right to the ultra radical left.
I say as long as we get caught up in debates like this .... in another "shock and awe" way, the bad guys are ransacking the free enterprise system which is the core of our society and the common good..... ane people like Glen Beck explode the real connotation of Social Justice.....see more of my reply below following Tom's article. )
Here is Tom's article first followed by my reply.
Palaima: Capitalizing on socialism's bad name
Among techniques to prevent informed discussions from taking place on critical issues that are facing our country is the timeworn strategy of demonizing the opposition through personal attacks or by linking them and their views to some notion, practice or philosophy that a good many people view as bad or evil.
As terms of opprobrium in American society, very few words have had over time the staying power to damn thoughts, ideas and thinkers that the words "socialism" and "socialist" continue to have. Foxbusiness.com on July 13 reports: "Obama's a socialist. That's the view of 55 percent of American voters." Nationalreview.com four days earlier followed "socialist" with a cascade of related and more violent adjectives: "Marxist, fascist, Nazi, communist."
It is clear that being described as a "card-carrying socialist" (cnn.com) is not a compliment. The iconography of images for "Obama socialist" on Google drives the point home.
One image has a smiling Obama in front of an American flag. Instead of 50 stars on a blue field, it has a Soviet hammer and sickle on a sickly purple (reddened blue) background. Another image shows Obama orating in front of larger scale busts of the unholy triad Marx, Lenin and Mao. Yet another shows that the label of socialism is not innocuous. The word SOCIALISM appears in red at the bottom. Above, a red cartoon drawing of a man points a gun, execution-style, at the head of a like figure in blue. The blue man holds a round black bag with a dollar sign on it.
The nebulous term "socialism" is effective because it provides entry into a pool of stronger terms like "Nazi" and "communist." It can also be juxtaposed with violent images like the gun to the head. And it has a long history.
Back in 1942 three young economics instructors at the University of Texas had the courage to present themselves at the kind of orchestrated mass meeting we now call a "Tea Party." The meeting in Dallas was organized to denounce the 40-hour workweek, the New Deal and organized labor. The instructors wanted to offer explanations.
They were denied the right to speak. But a Dallas federal judge wrote the UT regents requesting "changes in the economics faculty" because "our university (is) swinging away from true economics and routing our children into the camp of state socialism." UT President Homer Rainey, who resisted regental requests to fire tenured and untenured economics faculty who taught New Deal economics, was eventually himself fired for "recommending ‘homosexuals' for teaching positions, countenancing the teaching of communism, and supporting socialist economic philosophies."
Read these accusations out loud and you may want to wash your mouth out with soap. A better way to clear your mind and spirit is to read the following words of a true, committed socialist, the artist, craftsperson, poet, translator and thinker William Morris, recommended to me by long-time Austinite and craftsperson James E. Gardner. They capture the true high aspirations of some socialist thinkers.
In a lecture with the title "The Beauty of Life" (1880) Morris declared: "I had thought that civilization meant the attainment of peace and order and freedom, of goodwill between man and man, of the love of truth and the hatred of injustice ... not more stuffed chairs and more cushions ... and more dainty meat and drink — and therewithal more and sharper differences between class and class ... If (civilization) does not aim at ... giving some share in the happiness and dignity of life to all the people that it has created ... it is simply an organized injustice, a mere instrument for oppression."
Idealistic? Yes. Simple-minded? Perhaps. But noble, gentle and consistent with the message of Jesus Christ — and impossible to confuse with the actions of a mob hit man.
Palaima is a classics professor at the University of Texas; tpalaima@sbcglobal.net
...... here is my reply continued from above..........
Tom's connotations related the use of socialism or for that matter any ism are outdated. A new ism has come through the back door and it is called Globalism. Globalism accomodates Socialism, Communinism and Totalitarianism. Its tool is Free Trade where production is moved from place to place anywhere in the world for the sake of cheaper labor. Currently a large majority of products sold in places like Walmart come from hundreds of Chinese factories in a Communist land. The money changers of our times are not bothered by what ism is operating in any of the wage slave countries. They just care about growing money values.
The only time Jesus is noted as being angry is when He confronted the money changers in the temple. So I would imagine He is very upset about the current global economy. Now economies based on making money on money instead of making are burning out. A new working poor class has replaced the middle class in the USA and an impoverished working class has been put in place in around the world. And if it is only human nature to shop for the cheapest items no matter how they evolved, then it does not matter who is what.
Once President Obama bailed out big money and the investement community, he established a strange variation of Socialism and Capitalism. It can easily be called Socialist Capitalism where Federalism rules the game with governments become brokers and dealers in a worldwide monopoly game. President Obama married the two systems.
So the term Socialist is actually something now without any real connotation that can be applied. The same goes for Capitalists where even Communists now Capitalists too.
Peter Maurin the co-founder of the Catholic Workers did not care what he was called and was for anyone or anything that strove for human dignity in the workday.
Much of the same can be said about Les Walesa who led the Solidarity movement in Poland and perhaps had more to do with the fall of the Soviet Communist empire than anyone else. He now says that the U.S. has lost its moral compass. He also said that he knows every little about business or economics but he does know that when 10 percent of any population that controls 100 percent of the wealth, something is very wrong.
I consider myself primarily a Al Smith Democrat meaning that I am a post Franklin Roosevelt Democrat who was a radical liberal who was not in tune with the Free Enterprise system. He did more to destroy small businesses than any other president. When he imposed ceiling prices and other federalist regulations on business during the war, he in essence knocked out the Free Enterprise system. President Roosevelt created what I call the lost leader economy. During the war, small businesses had to resort to the black market or lose everything they had. In my many years in several business endeavors of my own, the worst problem was government. The next largest problem for me in my own businesses was unfair competition where Capitalist used every means to knock out small business.
The mess multiplied when the elder President Bush announced the new world order and established the order of Free Trade. Then President Clinton came and consummated all of Bush's programs. So we have a Democrat so called Liberal President and a Democrat Congress that passed both NAFTA and GATT betraying the common man and workers everywhere. Now we are in a global economic crisis - in a back to the future mode, it is 1938 all over again when the New Deal was failing and only way out was World War 2!
You can call me anything you like but I am an ardent advocate for human dignity in the workday and fair trade with both the ultra Liberals and Conservatives acting as one in the biggest scam of the century - Free Trade - and behind that is Globalism that has merged all isms together for the money changers of the world. President Obama is one of them and had the baton passed to him by President Bush. As long as we go at each other about who is a Socialist and who is a Capitalist - they will win. Whoever would have expected President Obama to bail out big money and the financial communities while ignoring the suffering of workers and the common good.
Ray Tapajna Chronicles
Tapsearcher exposes real world issues - links
Globalism comes through the back door while we get caught name calling
My friend Tom Palaima, Professor of Classics at U.Texas, tells us how name calling is used by labeling someone as a socialist or some other term that has a negative connotation.
Following his article below, I respond to him in a different way. ( If we get caught up in the connotations of terms that no longer cover the problems, we open the door to a new ism that has come through the backdoor without any announcement. It is Globalism. Strange things are happening in our times and we do not need any conspiracy theories to know that Globalization and Free Trade have not evolved in any natural fashion and are being driven by elite powers in government, big business, international banking and even the academic community
.
The elder President Bush was the first in modern times to announce The New World Order. He initiated the programs that would make Free Trade and Globalization a formal process of our government. President Clinton followed and pushed these programs through Congress. Evidently, the tools for this New World Order were to be Free Trade and Globalization. So we had a Conservative Republican President set the stage and a Liberal Democrat and a Democrat controlled Congress pass the programs formulated by the elder President Bush. Then President Bush, the second, came and hid our economic crisis by his pre-emptive wars. Our eyes were taken off the Global Economy and Free Trade to watch the "shock and awe" war on TV. Then President Obama took over and apparently was passed the baton for the so called New World Order. He immediately bailed out the money changers who directed our global economy.
We now have people like Glen Beck telling us how the Progressives since President Wilson, have tried to take over the U.S. but, he does not talk about the most essential problem of our times. Free Trade and Globalization is the cause of our economic crisis with our economies based on making money on money instead of making things are burning out. This is happening while both sides call each other bad names like from the far right to the ultra radical left.
I say as long as we get caught up in debates like this .... in another "shock and awe" way, the bad guys are ransacking the free enterprise system which is the core of our society and the common good..... ane people like Glen Beck explode the real connotation of Social Justice.....see more of my reply below following Tom's article. )
Here is Tom's article first followed by my reply.
Palaima: Capitalizing on socialism's bad name
Among techniques to prevent informed discussions from taking place on critical issues that are facing our country is the timeworn strategy of demonizing the opposition through personal attacks or by linking them and their views to some notion, practice or philosophy that a good many people view as bad or evil.
As terms of opprobrium in American society, very few words have had over time the staying power to damn thoughts, ideas and thinkers that the words "socialism" and "socialist" continue to have. Foxbusiness.com on July 13 reports: "Obama's a socialist. That's the view of 55 percent of American voters." Nationalreview.com four days earlier followed "socialist" with a cascade of related and more violent adjectives: "Marxist, fascist, Nazi, communist."
It is clear that being described as a "card-carrying socialist" (cnn.com) is not a compliment. The iconography of images for "Obama socialist" on Google drives the point home.
One image has a smiling Obama in front of an American flag. Instead of 50 stars on a blue field, it has a Soviet hammer and sickle on a sickly purple (reddened blue) background. Another image shows Obama orating in front of larger scale busts of the unholy triad Marx, Lenin and Mao. Yet another shows that the label of socialism is not innocuous. The word SOCIALISM appears in red at the bottom. Above, a red cartoon drawing of a man points a gun, execution-style, at the head of a like figure in blue. The blue man holds a round black bag with a dollar sign on it.
The nebulous term "socialism" is effective because it provides entry into a pool of stronger terms like "Nazi" and "communist." It can also be juxtaposed with violent images like the gun to the head. And it has a long history.
Back in 1942 three young economics instructors at the University of Texas had the courage to present themselves at the kind of orchestrated mass meeting we now call a "Tea Party." The meeting in Dallas was organized to denounce the 40-hour workweek, the New Deal and organized labor. The instructors wanted to offer explanations.
They were denied the right to speak. But a Dallas federal judge wrote the UT regents requesting "changes in the economics faculty" because "our university (is) swinging away from true economics and routing our children into the camp of state socialism." UT President Homer Rainey, who resisted regental requests to fire tenured and untenured economics faculty who taught New Deal economics, was eventually himself fired for "recommending ‘homosexuals' for teaching positions, countenancing the teaching of communism, and supporting socialist economic philosophies."
Read these accusations out loud and you may want to wash your mouth out with soap. A better way to clear your mind and spirit is to read the following words of a true, committed socialist, the artist, craftsperson, poet, translator and thinker William Morris, recommended to me by long-time Austinite and craftsperson James E. Gardner. They capture the true high aspirations of some socialist thinkers.
In a lecture with the title "The Beauty of Life" (1880) Morris declared: "I had thought that civilization meant the attainment of peace and order and freedom, of goodwill between man and man, of the love of truth and the hatred of injustice ... not more stuffed chairs and more cushions ... and more dainty meat and drink — and therewithal more and sharper differences between class and class ... If (civilization) does not aim at ... giving some share in the happiness and dignity of life to all the people that it has created ... it is simply an organized injustice, a mere instrument for oppression."
Idealistic? Yes. Simple-minded? Perhaps. But noble, gentle and consistent with the message of Jesus Christ — and impossible to confuse with the actions of a mob hit man.
Palaima is a classics professor at the University of Texas; tpalaima@sbcglobal.net
...... here is my reply continued from above..........
Tom's connotations related the use of socialism or for that matter any ism are outdated. A new ism has come through the back door and it is called Globalism. Globalism accomodates Socialism, Communinism and Totalitarianism. Its tool is Free Trade where production is moved from place to place anywhere in the world for the sake of cheaper labor. Currently a large majority of products sold in places like Walmart come from hundreds of Chinese factories in a Communist land. The money changers of our times are not bothered by what ism is operating in any of the wage slave countries. They just care about growing money values.
The only time Jesus is noted as being angry is when He confronted the money changers in the temple. So I would imagine He is very upset about the current global economy. Now economies based on making money on money instead of making are burning out. A new working poor class has replaced the middle class in the USA and an impoverished working class has been put in place in around the world. And if it is only human nature to shop for the cheapest items no matter how they evolved, then it does not matter who is what.
Once President Obama bailed out big money and the investement community, he established a strange variation of Socialism and Capitalism. It can easily be called Socialist Capitalism where Federalism rules the game with governments become brokers and dealers in a worldwide monopoly game. President Obama married the two systems.
So the term Socialist is actually something now without any real connotation that can be applied. The same goes for Capitalists where even Communists now Capitalists too.
Peter Maurin the co-founder of the Catholic Workers did not care what he was called and was for anyone or anything that strove for human dignity in the workday.
Much of the same can be said about Les Walesa who led the Solidarity movement in Poland and perhaps had more to do with the fall of the Soviet Communist empire than anyone else. He now says that the U.S. has lost its moral compass. He also said that he knows every little about business or economics but he does know that when 10 percent of any population that controls 100 percent of the wealth, something is very wrong.
I consider myself primarily a Al Smith Democrat meaning that I am a post Franklin Roosevelt Democrat who was a radical liberal who was not in tune with the Free Enterprise system. He did more to destroy small businesses than any other president. When he imposed ceiling prices and other federalist regulations on business during the war, he in essence knocked out the Free Enterprise system. President Roosevelt created what I call the lost leader economy. During the war, small businesses had to resort to the black market or lose everything they had. In my many years in several business endeavors of my own, the worst problem was government. The next largest problem for me in my own businesses was unfair competition where Capitalist used every means to knock out small business.
The mess multiplied when the elder President Bush announced the new world order and established the order of Free Trade. Then President Clinton came and consummated all of Bush's programs. So we have a Democrat so called Liberal President and a Democrat Congress that passed both NAFTA and GATT betraying the common man and workers everywhere. Now we are in a global economic crisis - in a back to the future mode, it is 1938 all over again when the New Deal was failing and only way out was World War 2!
You can call me anything you like but I am an ardent advocate for human dignity in the workday and fair trade with both the ultra Liberals and Conservatives acting as one in the biggest scam of the century - Free Trade - and behind that is Globalism that has merged all isms together for the money changers of the world. President Obama is one of them and had the baton passed to him by President Bush. As long as we go at each other about who is a Socialist and who is a Capitalist - they will win. Whoever would have expected President Obama to bail out big money and the financial communities while ignoring the suffering of workers and the common good.
Ray Tapajna Chronicles
Tapsearcher exposes real world issues - links
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