By Henry McRandall
WRISEUP.COM
While it is obvious that the vast majority of Americans would be much better off if they were to turn their backs on criminal corporate capitalism and opt instead for democratic socialism, it is important — before examining the benefits of such a switch — to dispel some of the myths that the corporate mainstream media puts out.
Firstly, it is important to note that true socialism has never been attempted anywhere in the world. Nor has true communism, which is very different from socialism and much less desirable.
Secondly, it is important to note that neither the Democratic Party nor President Barack Obama are socialist or even mildly “leftist.” Absolutely nothing that either Obama or the Democratic Party has ever proposed could really be considered socialist.
And, thirdly, it is important to note that implementing socialism in America would certainly not mean the end of private enterprise. In fact, it would open the door to a lot more Americans being able to be self-employed, being able to control their own economic destinies, and being able to share more fully in the fruits of their own labours.
Consider now some of the obvious benefits for Americans of abolishing criminal corporate capitalism and replacing it with democratic socialism:
1) There has almost never been a time — throughout the 236-year history of the U.S. — when Amerikkka has not been at war with or attempting to invade and occupy some defenceless foreign country. These wars are not fought — as the public education system, the corporate mainstream media, the “Christian” conservative jack-in-the-pulpit preachers, and the puppet political prostitutes of the Top One Percent all aggressively proclaim — to protect “our way of life.” They are fought to protect the way of life of Amerikkkan mega-millionaires and billionaires, and to protect them against punishment for the crimes they routinely commit day-in and day-out. And it has now reached the point where it is costing every man, woman and child in Amerikkka $3,000 a year — not including interest on the money borrowed to fight these wars — to keep the super-rich safe in the enjoyment of their almost-entirely ill-gotten gains. Every man, woman and child in America would have $3,000 more a year to live on if they weren’t paying such exorbitant taxes to protect the way of life of Amerikkka’s super-rich.
2) The sons and daughters of poor, working-class and middle-class Americans would no longer have to risk life and limb to protect the way of life of the super-rich, desperately hoping that they may be among the minority of soldiers who return with both their bodies and their minds sufficiently intact to be able to benefit from the promise of a free post-secondary education. In a socialist society, all could attend college or university for free if they were capable of academic success.
3) There would be no more bailouts of gangster banksters. The supposedly “too-big-to-fail” banks would be allowed to go bankrupt and be taken over by government for just pennies on the dollar. The profits of these banks would then be shared by all Americans. The only losers would be the mega-millionaire and billionaire bank executives whose rampant unpunished criminality caused the entire global economic meltdown of the past five years.
4) Millionaires and billionaires would no longer be immune from prosecution and imprisonment, as they are now, when no other millionaires or billionaires are among the victims of their fraudulent and felonious activities.
5) America’s for-profit health-care system — which denies 50 million Americans access to health care — would be replaced with a universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health-care system that could provide quality health care for all Americans for less than the current total cost of rationed, for-profit health care.
6) Psychopathic right-wing thugs like Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly would no longer be getting paid tens of millions of dollars a year to preach hatred against women, minorities and foreigners and to promote criminal corporate capitalism.
7) The Top One Percent could no longer purchase armies of puppet political prostitutes to do their bidding and to work against the interests of the masses — the Other 99 Percent — the poor, the working class and the middle class. All political parties — including a genuine socialist party — would be fully and equally financed out of general tax revenues.
8) Everyone — including, for the first time ever, the banks and corporations and their wealthy controllers — would finally have to pay their fair share of taxes.
9) There would no longer be two standards of justice — one for the rich and another for everyone else.
10) There would be no more “outsourcing” or “offshoring” of jobs that would immorally reduce worker wages in order to constantly increase already-immorally-high corporate profits.
11) Ownership of the means of production would become much more democratic as filthy capitalist pigs would no longer have complete control of everything. A much wider variety of business ownership would emerge, including, among others: worker co-ops; employee-owned businesses; community-owned business; government-owned businesses; community-government-worker co-ops; etc. Workers would have much more control over wages, benefits and working conditions.
12) Governments would become “employers of last resort,” ensuring that unconscionably high unemployment could no longer be used to keep wages artificially low, to keep massive numbers of idle workers ever available whenever any particular corporation needs extra workers on a short-term basis, and to keep workers competing viciously for what few jobs exist.
13) Banks and other financial institutions could no longer practice criminal usury in the interest rates they charge on credit cards and consumer loans.
14) The gap between the rich and the rest would grow much smaller as economic democracy gives workers much more power in the workplace, as corporations and the wealthy are finally forced to pay their fair share of taxes, and as more workers have the power to demand and to receive much fairer wages and benefits, and much safer working conditions.
15) There would be no more multi-million-dollar annual bonuses for failed gangster banksters and criminal corporate executives as a socialist government would severely limit the sordid gap that exists today between what do-nothing criminal executives are paid and what rank-and-file frontline workers are paid.
There would be many other benefits for the Other 99 Percent, far too numerous to list here. But would the Top One Percent and their puppet political prostitutes ever allow the kind of “real democracy” in Amerikkka that would allow the Other 99 Percent of Americans to finally elect a government that would put the legitimate needs of the masses ahead of the illegitimate greed and unpunished criminality of the Top One Percent? Not until pigs fly!
Only a massive and sustained global revolution against corporate capitalism could ever produce real “democracy” and give humanity government that is truly “of the people, by the people, for the people.”