I Am Tired of Socialism Getting A Bad Rap

Image by Erik K Veland via Flickr

By Grant Lawrence

Bodhi Thunder

Socialism is getting a bum rap and I get tired of hearing it.

First off, we know that Nordic Socialism has given those countries the highest living standards in the world. The United States on the other hand is not even near the top 10.

Here is an example of the standard of living in Norway which presently has the highest living standard in the world:

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…Bring on the 12-month paid maternity leaves, the all-access-pass to nationalized health care. Because while capitalism was showing America who’s your daddy (in our country, he who has the least morals and the most hunger, laughs all the way to his weekend house in the Hamptons), Norway’s socialist finance minister was smugly buying our companies’ depressed stock. The country has a cushy 11% budget surplus, zero national debt, and an economy that grew 3% last year while Uncle Sam was dancing a jig into a 12.9% deficit, $11 trillion in debt, and the Recession we now all know and love…..(source: daily finance)

Incidentally, the United States is ranked at 15 using data from 2008.

But Sweden has been doing quite well while the United States borders on economic collapse.
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…Unemployment is low and the economy strong. Public-private partnership is at the core of “the Swedish model”, which was developed by the Social Democrats, who governed for most of the last 70 years until 2006.

This mixed economy traditionally featured centralised wage negotiations and a heavily tax-subsidised social security network. The Swedes still enjoy an advanced welfare system, and their standard of living and life expectancy are almost second to none….(source: bbc)

Even the disaster capitalism of the US makes a former citizen of a European Communist country nostalgic for the socialism of Romania.

…Free education and free healthcare are the first two advantages that come to my mind. I have often envied my Romanian relatives, including my mother who attended an excellent medical school in Bucharest, not having to pay tuition at Romanian universities. While I treasure the Ivy League education I received in this country, it came at a high financial cost, and I continue to pay for my education years after graduation. After I finished graduate school, I went back to Romania to teach English at a university for a year. While I was there, I unexpectedly had to see an orthopedist for an injury. Since I didn’t have medical insurance, I asked my supervisor how much it would cost me. She was surprised at my question and reminded me that in Romania medical care is free for everyone, including tourists. At my last visit, I brought the doctor a small gift to thank her for her excellent care.

I remember growing up in public housing in Romania. My mother, my grandmother and I shared a one bedroom apartment in a well-managed seven-story high-rise, where professionals and blue collar workers lived side by side and the neighbors helped one another. Doctors gave medical advice, women babysat the neighbors’ children and professors helped students get into universities. Typically, both men and women worked, while older relatives watched the children. There was very little crime because people kept an eye out for each other and were afraid of the police. This experience led me to believe that public housing can be a good place to live, especially if the residents come from different socioeconomic backgrounds….(source: triangle.org)

Now I am not advocating Romania as the model for the US economy. But I am advocating a better understanding of Socialism and the benefits it offers to all of its citizens. We obviously don’t want communism. But we can learn a great deal from Nordic Socialist countries so that we can develop a more humane and prosperous economy using the socialist economic principles.

So while much of America is joining the ranks of poverty and the top 1% of Americans enjoy great gains in wealth, we can see that our present system is not working.

Our past economic choices of deregulation and disaster capitalism have nearly destroyed the American economy. The solution is not to return to what caused the collapse in the first place. Both political parties are corporatist and have no interest in helping the American people. They serve to make sure that there is socialism for the rich but none of it for the people.

We need to move past emotionally charged buzz words, like Socialism, and examine what works. It is pretty simple really. Socialism works for everybody, and we can see how well it has done in the Nordic countries.

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Recovery in the News: Taxpayers To Bail Out Credit Unions and More Bank Closings

Grant Lawrence

Bodhi Thunder

From our economic recovery department more recovery news.

It’s the weekend and that usually means bank closings. This weekend is no different with 2 banks being taken over by the FDIC.

.…Regulators on Friday shut down small banks in Florida and Washington state, bringing to 127 the number of U.S. bank failures this year on a wave of loan defaults and economic distress.…(source: my way news)

But the really big recovery News is that the taxpayers are now on the hook to bail out credit unions. Recently the government seized 3 Wholesale Credit Unions.

….Regulators announced Friday a rescue and revamping of the nation’s wholesale credit union system, underpinned by a federal guarantee valued at $30 billion or more. Wholesale credit unions don’t deal with the general public but provide essential back-office services to thousands of other credit unions across the U.S. The majority of retail credit unions are sound, but they will have to shoulder the losses through special assessments over the next decade…(source: wall street journal)

Yep, things just keep looking up in the economic news.

Let’s not forget the spike in those Americans filing for unemployment. This spike doesn’t include those recently unemployed but cannot get unemployment benefits due to restrictions.

You know, they don’t make recoveries as good as this.

UN Panel Finds “Summary Execution” Carried out by Israel on Aid Flotilla to Gaza

By Grant Lawrence

Bodhi Thunder

The massacre by Israel of peace activists aboard the peace flotilla trying to bring aid to Gaza was “”consistent with summary execution,” according to a special UN panel.

On May 31st of this year, Israel murdered 8 Turkish Activists and one American when they boarded ships sailing toward Gaza with humanitarian supplies.

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…UN experts have determined that the Israeli raid on a so-called peace flotilla was overly violent and totally illegal.

The Human Rights Council has said Israel’s military response to the Gaza aid sail was “disproportionate and brutal,” violating international law. The special UN panel said there was now clear evidence to support prosecutions against Israel for willful killing and torture.

In its scathing report, the panel rejected an argument by Israel that activists on the aid ship had turned violent, thereby justifying the actions of Israeli soldiers when they opened fire….(source: big news)

The report also found that the Israeli blockade on Gaza was illegal because of the humanitarian crisis that existed there.

Israel has been involved in numerous war crimes and international violations of UN mandates. But as long as the United States supports Israel when they commit atrocities, don’t look for any change.

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Reporter Threatened by Feds at Public Florida Beach–Not Allowed to Dig in Sand to Find BP Oil

By Grant Lawrence

Bodhi Thunder

A reporter set out to a Florida Beach to dig below 6 inches to see the oil that is all over just underneath the sand. Instead he was not allowed to dig at all at the beach. The Feds told the reporter that he had to have papers showing he was with the press to film at a National Park.

The Feds told the reporter that he couldn’t dig.

Yep, no sand castles.

Many have wondered where all of the oil is that the BP Oil Gusher Gushed out. Well, you don’t have to dig far to find that answer.

Unfortunately, you are not allowed to dig into the truth.

SEE VIDEO HERE

“Movin on Up” Squatters Can Choose from a Large Selection of Expensive Homes

Image by anselm23 via Flickr

By Grant Lawrence

Bodhi Thunder

Squatters are now targeting pricier homes to stay in. The economic disaster has actually been good for sqautters. Squatters are growing in number and they have a lot of foreclosed empty homes to choose from.

Recently it was revealed that Actor Randy Quaid and his wife were arrested and jailed for reportedly squatting in a guest house in an expensive property they once owned. Quaid says his name is still on the deed, but he had to post bond to get out of jail.

Unfortunately, Quaid isn’t the only one that may be involved in upscale squatting. Here are a few others:

• In Sugar Grove, Ill., a suburb west of Chicago, cops arrested 42-year-old Steven Hawthorne in April 2009 after he moved his furniture and big-screen TV into a vacant, $700,000 foreclosed home. He introduced himself to neighbors as the new owner and stayed for about eight months. Hawthorne, who also managed to have the power, gas and water turned on at the dwelling, was eventually charged by authorities with two felonies, including theft of government property (the utilities).
• In Malibu, Calif., Wells Fargo executive Cheronda Guyton occasionally occupied a $14.9 million beach house to host swanky social gatherings, according to newspaper reports. One catch: the property’s former owners had lost the home to foreclosure after they were victimized by Bernie Madoff – and the estate was claimed by their bank – that’s right, Wells Fargo. When residents within the gated community glimpsed the parties, they got Guyton’s name from security guards and turned her in. Wells Fargo fired Guyton in September 2009.
• In the Seattle suburbs, a small group – nicknamed the “Mansion Squatters” – has taken a more creative approach. In June, one of its members, Jill E. Lane, 30, moved into a foreclosed and vacant 8,000-square-foot-home in Kirkland, Wash. valued at $3.3 million. She posted a note on the front door that read: “Privately owned property. Not for sale.”(source: msnbc)

I guess the lesson here is that if you have to be a squatter than you should do it in style because their is a lot of foreclosed stylish homes sitting empty.

Or is there another lesson in all of this ‘well to do’ squatting?

It could be that the economy has been a disaster and it is still a disaster evolving into a greater disaster. People are resorting to lifestyles that they wouldn’t have considered before. The rise of tent cities throughout the US along with dumpster diving and other troubling aspects of our recent so called “recovery” is turning America into a third world nation with a tiny technological veneer.

Squatters are a symptom of a changing America. They tell the story of the recovery better than any lying government statistic.

Peaceful Protest Considered Domestic Terrorism by the FBI

Image via Wikipedia

By Grant Lawrence

Bodhi Thunder

After 9/11, if you were a part of a peace group and against war crimes then you were a target for surveillance by the FBI. The FBI has a long history of spying on peace groups and civil rights groups going back to the days of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

However, the difference is that now if you support peace or are against the wholesale destruction of the environment then you are now capable of being labeled as a domestic terrorist. In Dr. King’s era, if you were against war crimes and injustice you were likely labeled as communist sympathizer.

Recently it was revealed the FBI spied on peace activists at an anti war rally in Philadelphia claiming falsely that they were terror threat.

…The FBI gave false information to Congress and the public to justify surveillance of an anti-war rally in Pittsburgh in 2002, US media quoted a report by the Justice Department on Monday.

Inspector General Glenn Fine said the FBI had no reason to expect that anyone of interest in a terrorism investigation would be present at event sponsored a nonviolent anti-war and anti-discrimination group.

The surveillance was “an ill-conceived project on a slow work day,” AP quoted Fine as saying. “We determined this version of events was not true,” added the official….(source: press tv)

The FBI had broad discretion in labeling American free speech and peaceful activities as domestic terrorism, according to the AP.

Many civil rights members and anti war protesters were falsely labeled as domestic terrorists and placed on watch lists and tracked.

Over the last decade since the passage of the Patriot Act, the government has given itself broad powers to imprison without trial and to even torture without repercussions suspected terrorists, whether foreign or domestic.

So being labeled a domestic terrorist is not just done for fun on a “slow workday” as the FBI claims. It is a serious accusation that could mean prison without trial or civil protections.