You see, the populist message will resonate to the ear of the proletariat so long as the bourgeoisie don't understand how to silence the noise. Bill Clinton understands. He has seen life from both sides now, but his political days are mostly bedroom whispers now, and he is considered the problem and not the cure given the fact that his days in office created many of the policies that are being examined under the political microscope. Bill called for the blitz on welfare benefits and signed the NATFA agreement jamming North America into the free trade corner that ruined Mexico, and wounded American politics with millions of new immigrants but no congressional agreement about how to deal with them.
Bill admits to doing all of that to America, and now Hillary is asking US for an opportunity to fix it, assuming we can trust her to get it done. Her asset is an American public widely convinced about the necessity for the kinds of changes Hillary is parroting from Senator Sanders of Vermont, but don't want someone who looks like a mad scientist in the White House . Her liability is Bill.
I'm still pulling for the world to meet the real Jeb Bush, whose bilingual ability and immigrant friendly policies could bridge many of the gaps in the system and save Hillary from 8 precious years of being a grandmother, but Jeb needs to start sounding more like Bernie too, not just Hillary.
Although he only survived one term, Jeb's daddy George, did not chase into Iraq and kill Sadaam Hussein like Jeb's brother chose to do when America was still pissed off about 9-11. One day in the future, America might admit to itself that WE asked for that mistake and WE own it, not just little George and his cohorts. Quietly, recent polls about big and little George reveal that the shift towards each Bush has already happened, even though it hasn't appeared to help Jeb with his poll numbers yet.
Or has it?
Any real analysis of Jeb's running style or poll numbers begins now that he's finally in, not while he was trying on running shoes. The same must be said for Chris Christie, who has yet to put his hand up for a full blown dose of a Washington media blitz on his family and worthiness to be president, even though Christie seems destined to leave his fingerprint before the story is told. The ravenous media keeps distorting the process by forcing the hand of so many stupid candidates who think that early launching and lots of interview questions could offer beneficial media coverage and a chance to get in that upcoming FOX debate.
Jeb has finally declared, and might also be the greatest example of what happens when you expose yourself to an industry paid to make you screw up if they can. Over the years, the ravenous American media has only grown more hungry to feed the beast, and make the newest news cycle fresh and interesting. In fact, the very word "news" has become a pejorative for the sketchy details that drive opinion pieces. Where once there were editorialized news articles, now there are only editorials about the news of the day- and Benghazi.
I quickly abandoned my elementary dreams of the presidency when I stared wide eyed at crafty news reporters with a microphone in hand and realized who tugs at the strings of the politicians. At the time, the word lobbyist was foggy to me as were capitalism and democracy, since socialized unions were then and are still now, the only one's fighting for the common American- not politicians and certainly not Donald Trump.
Who Runs The World? Sorry Girls, It's the Press.
Hidden inside of every opinion based news report is a grandiose view of said opinions. Those who regularly make historical records of their opinions are declaring something that is universally meant to matter, maybe even change something. Opinion sharers are not much different than policy makers, just less willing or able to expose our views to the unequivocal test of a voting booth. The natural contempt that will always exist between politicians and the press that covers them, should be viewed like the friend who would date your hot spouse if things just don't work out between the two of you.
If you recognize this reality going in, then you keep yourself and your gorgeous husband far away from this "friend", and force all of your interactions to be on a governed and controlled basis, much like Hillary has tried to do with her white house press friends, whom she is VERY familiar with. To nurture the friendship, Hillary is actually taking some questions lately, possibly feeling as though the constant negative news needed a coordinated counter measure. Way too many candidate's, including Hillary, are falling prey to pressure from a contempt filled friendship, when speaking through surrogates has always been a better way to limit questions and control the messaging.
In the end, the early entrants and media blabber mouths will be chewed up and spit out by a White House press crew that is more experienced at this than the candidates who don't control the process or track the results like the press does anyway. In the end, the ravenous penchant for a 'WHO'S NEXT' mentality will always play into the hand of the person most willing, and able, to hold out and be that person. Elizabeth Warren was working this angle to perfection by creating the clamor for her to run that would have become a forest fire had she not put it out early. Even with the bridge scandal, Chris Christie seems to be the only republican politician who understands how to play this game and the media, and not let the media or the game play him. If big timer LeBron is a timely example, Christie has the kind of game to shock the world like only big timer's know how to do (that was not a weight pun).
In the end, Christie's timed delay and dazzling debate skills could crush Jeb, Rubio and the field, and bully his way through the republican primary (that was not a weight pun either). Assuming Christie is not slowed by his weight, he will be slowed by the fact that America needs a centrist in the White House, so much so that America is actually listening to the message of Bernie's Sanders at the same time that republicans are searching for a charismatic voice to do to Hillary what Obama did to her the last time. What republicans don't realize is that democrats can have a party coronation, but America will not do the same for the presidency. Hillary is not the first woman to run and Obama was not the first black person to run for president either. Obama was the first black to win the democratic nomination, and the first to receive widespread backing from blacks for good reason, not blind race love. Americans of every color, don't accidentally or frivolously choose presidents, even if hanging chads suggests otherwise.
DO YOUR JOB!
However ravenous it might appear, the chewing and spitting process of our media does help to yield transparency from people trained to fight it, and to eventually hand the keys of the White House to the best of two flawed party reps, since two party politics is the best America has been able to offer its people. Going in, WE know all too well that every president is nothing more than a governor of the unforeseen, and the captain of a ship that can't fully turn until after they have fully left office. As a result, each president has to convince us that they can redirect a ship if WE are to grant them one or two terms and not impeach them along the way. Ultimately, the judgement of presidential performance lies in the hands of historians, not the voters who offer them up to history. Because of two-party politics, we shall always sway back and forth from the two-party tug-o-war we call democracy, or representative republic, or whatever they call that two-party song and dance going on in Washington.
Forget The People, Trust The Process.
As for winning the vote, is it about the people or the process? Bill Clinton educated interviewer Jake Tapper (CNN interview 6/14/15) that voters only need to feel that things are moving in the right direction for things to be moving in the right direction. Clinton was primarily addressing the Ferguson style protests all over the land, but his comment has many applications. In American politics, its not about what is real, but how you spin the message. Bill rightfully recognizes that, when following the prevailing winds, you never lose much altitude. This ideology makes it easy for Bill Clinton to recuse his own failed policies as a means of helping Hillary do the same.
Populism is nothing more than a pseudonym for proactive socialism, something every nation needs desperately. Proactive socialism removes excuses and breeds the kind of healthy and educated people who rarely see excuses as children, so they rarely use them as adults. Socialism is way too damaging to use it on anything other than social necessities. Capitalism like ours breeds disparity like ours. Together, the capitalism and the socialism we use now are creating more excuses, not taking them away.
I, for one, am tired of them all.
Proactive, preventative socialism, like ObamaCare and Pell Grants for college, are an investment in our own children and families, and promotes the mental and physical health of every individual in America. Bernie and I declare socialist (or populist if that's more palatable) ideas of this sort because we have seen something consistent in every healthy and educated person that we've met on this planet. They seldom make excuses for their status in life.
NO EXCUSES!?!
Imagine an America without excuses.
(necessary dramatic pause so you can digest that thought)
American's seem to universally relate to feeling frustrated with excuses and the disconnect between those who make excuses for their plight in America, and those who excuse America as not being duty bound to repair societal fissures that trap so many. I imagine an excuse free America where all political ideologies join together around a unifying acceptance that WE are only as strong as our weakest link. This must be the message of the populist movement, and the message of excuse free America as well.
Excuse free America will be one that eliminates wasteful social welfare spending and transforms it into total healthcare and life long access to education for every human seeking to be American. In excuse free America, no undeserving person will ever gain wasted benefits because education or mental/physical health are not benefits, but life necessities. Chain repair, if you will. Excuse free America won't have welfare anymore because that seems like an odd word for repairing the links in America's broken chain. If you are hungry or short of other societal needs, excuse free America will provide them through the only institutions that will continue to offer such services- healthcare and education, since food and shelter are essential components to health and learning.
What about the impaired and the elderly? A smarter, healthier, excuse free nation won't quibble over care for the truly needy of society. I'm fairly confident about that.
Whether an excuse filled nation comes from a nation full of excuse makers, or from a nation that excuses its failures, has been the kind of finger pointing that's frozen our progress. As the greatest nation on earth, the excuses for why WE continue to fail ourselves should exist no more.
Excuse free American's will tell the hungry or the addicted homeless to "go to school and eat, or go to the hospital to get some help". In excuse free America, both of these institutions would be duty bound around the goal of repairing these damaged chain links, pointing them towards answers and moving them away from an excuse filled life.
WE the people are responsible for our own strength as individuals and as a nation, which demands the proper balance between capitalism and socialism. I haven't interviewed every socialist, but I will go out on a socialist limb and say that 45% is way too much socialism, even for those of us who proclaim socialism.
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| Even Russia is less socialist than America Russia 20.9 .vs. USA 44.9 (2009 figures). Unlike China (also 20% socialism), Russia has a population half the size of the U.S. |
You might be struggling with your textbook definition of the word socialism, so let me help you with that. Avoid your textbook when defining what socialism means just as you should avoid your textbook when searching for a definitive view on democracy or capitalism.
In reality, the textbook will put the positive picture of America next to capitalism and democracy, and the negative face of communist Russia or N. Korea to help define socialism, as if America has done a perfect job representing the value and virtue of capitalism and democracy without blemish. Not only are WE more socialist than Russia, WE have yet to realize our own democracy dreams since our representative republic keeps resisting the call to count the vote, something that could eliminate an outdated electoral college system, and a do nothing congress at the same time.
Yes, the do nothing congress is a miserable representation of the ''so-called" democracy that we keep portraying on television, hoping to turn Iraq and Afghanistan into carbon copies of US. Can you imagine an American style congressional debate in our fixed up version of Iraq- complete with newly elected officials from the Sunni, Shiite and Christian Kurd party's?
Gentlemen, please check your weapons at the door. Please?
One day soon, we won't demonize the word socialism just because of its bad examples just as we don't denounce every aspect of our representative republic each time there's another U.S. government shutdown pending. Nations who pattern themselves after US might someday have less than 30% of their population as participating voters just like WE do too. Every social system can chronicle success and failure, and every nation needs some level of socialism. Socialism, aka.,Taxation and redistribution, can hurt an economy when you collect and redistribute too much, or devastate it when you collect and redistribute too little. For certain, every nation is a balance of capitalism and socialism with the freedom to describe their own ideology, regardless of what the scales truly say.
HOW MUCH SOCIALISM IS ENOUGH?
As a matter of socialized spending, several self proclaimed socialist nations spend less money (per capita) on socialism than WE do, China and Russia the most noteworthy. Be it welfare, ACA, Pell Grants, Food Stamps, Section 8 or big bank bailouts during recessions caused by the same big banks. America is much more socialized than nations who wear this label proudly. But how much is too much? And is American socialism reactionary and much more costly as a result?
| Chris Bowers :: Just How Socialist? A Survey of Major Countries |
| With the exception of the United States and the United Kingdom, where better data is available (see here for the US and here for the UK), the following data comes from the CIA World Factbook. It measures the percentage of socialism in major world economies by dividing real government spending by nominal GDP for selected countries (numbers for all countries except the UK and USA are from 2008): Levels of socialism in G-20 nations, plus selected other economies Cuba: 81.4%* France: 61.1% Sweden: 58.1%* Italy: 55.3% Netherlands: 54.7% Libya: 53.0%* Germany: 48.8% Canada: 48.2% Spain: 47.3% Angola: 44.8%* United States: 44.7% (2009) United Kingdom: 42.1% (2009) Australia: 43.6% Venezuela: 41.1%* Saudi Arabia: 40.4% Turkey: 39.1% United States: 35.5% (2007) South Africa: 33.9%* Indonesia: 33.2% Japan: 30.9% South Korea: 29.3% Mexico: 26.7% China: 22.0%* Russia: 20.9% India: 20.4% Argentina: 19.1% Brazil: 17.3% * = officially, or at least famed for being, communist or socialist |
If China- the most famed socialist nation- can spend 22% on socialism, what makes the US more democratic, or capitalist, or better at 45%? With the 55% remaining portions of American capitalism hijacked by the wealthy and the crafty, "how free are we really"? Most American's recognize the fundamental flaw in the design of the building, yet struggle to figure out how to dismantle and rebuild a structure that is currently in use. Our challenge is not finding good ideas- its the sacrifice of change when the status quo is yielding so much for some (1%), and leaving so little for the rest (99%) to fight over, or fight back with.
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| "Mexico is not our friend" and "I'm really rich". |
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| " I can beat China. I do it all time" |
Obama's TPP might appear to be doing more of the same, assuming you didn't notice that the Asian trade is a ship that has already sailed, or is already sailing each day with goods earmarked for US shores emblazoned with the words "Made In Asia Somewhere". Fat cats who make millions in the Asian markets don't really need America's penchant for thwarting cost cutters and wage slashers, to muck up their revenue streams anyway. The abject failure of NAFTA to deliver on its promise has rendered the words "trade agreement" very taboo in America in the same way that the failed Iraq and Afghanistan wars are making us gun-shy towards ISIS, an actual worthy reason to have troops in the middle east.
When ISIS Disrupts Capitalism Like Bin Laden Did, We'll Finally Get Serious With ISIS.If we haven't learned a thing from 9-11, we should know by now that capitalism is bigger than America, and too complex to look inward in a highly competitive global economy. International trade will always be necessary, but should never come at the sacrifice of the American collective. Since the American farm is now the farm to the world, socialism is necessary to maintain the stability of American farms for the sake of worldwide human consumption of bland green vegetables and overall human health.
Call it populism, socialism, collectivism or whatever trick helps you to digest bland green vegetables and this aspect of our Cold War defeat. The SquareBiz is that there is almost nothing that proactive socialism and kale or wheatgrass won't fix. But we must first develop a taste for the word socialism.
Better yet, learn to eat your green vegetables first. Socialism will exist whether we like the taste or not.
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