From a good 2008 article: 'Socialized medicine has become the flagship program of socialist parties throughout the Western world. The success of socialized medicine means that no significant party, no matter how conservative, proposes to go back to the old system.
An important distinction: anybody who wants to nationalize the entire economy is not a socialist. That person is a communist. And there are not many of them left.
In recent American discourse, as I say, "socialist" has been thrown at Obama as if it were an insult. The strange thing about that is that the United States government is already socialist. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are each, in the fullest, richest sense of the term, socialist programs. They are very inefficient, unjustifiably expensive socialist programs, but socialist nonetheless. When George Bush expanded Medicare (in the American sense, this time), he was acting as a socialist. '
4 comments :
Shuv ur socialism up yur ars...
Tell that to the American farmer who benefits from socialism.
or the American soldier who benefits from socialism.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/is-the-us-military-a-soci_b_252526.html
From a good 2008 article: 'Socialized medicine has become the flagship program of socialist parties throughout the Western world. The success of socialized medicine means that no significant party, no matter how conservative, proposes to go back to the old system.
An important distinction: anybody who wants to nationalize the entire economy is not a socialist. That person is a communist. And there are not many of them left.
In recent American discourse, as I say, "socialist" has been thrown at Obama as if it were an insult. The strange thing about that is that the United States government is already socialist. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are each, in the fullest, richest sense of the term, socialist programs. They are very inefficient, unjustifiably expensive socialist programs, but socialist nonetheless. When George Bush expanded Medicare (in the American sense, this time), he was acting as a socialist. '
http://open.salon.com/blog/matthew_decoursey/2008/10/23/what_do_americans_mean_when_they_say_socialist
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