It is amazing when I listen and read all the rhetoric about “socialism” and all the fear of it when it is characterized as something President Obama wants to do to us. It is as if Socialism is new and if we let the President does this or that then this country will dive headlong into the point of no return and be “Socialist”. I can’t help but laugh, the “boogie man”, the fear mongering, and the wild delusions BUT let’s look at the REALITY of how socialism is ALREADY at work in America and has been at work BEFORE 2008.
Socialism
• Compare capitalism an economic theory or system in which the means of production, distribution, and exchange are owned by the community collectively, usually through the state. It is characterized by production for use rather than
• profit, by equality of individual wealth, by the absence of competitive economic activity, and, usually, by government
• determination of investment, prices, and production levels
• profit, by equality of individual wealth, by the absence of competitive economic activity, and, usually, by government
• determination of investment, prices, and production levels
Now let’s look at the FACTS about Huntsville, Alabama
Redstone Arsenal gets $120 Billion in funds annually (you do realize that it is the government providing jobs and resources, the state right, the absence of competitive economic activity). NASA gets another $3 Billion of Annual federal funds from the STATE, PLUS an additional 20 Billion comes in annually from other federal investment and wages each year. Yet we will start a civil war if welfare to the poor is increased in this country. There are firms like Logicore who got awarded another $100 million dollar contract from the government/state. The Mayor of Huntsville says the city would be in dire straits if the federal support dried up because the city does not have any other industry outside of defense and aerospace. Huntsville, Alabama a city I grew up in and went to college in is a classic example of socialism at work. Ironically Huntsville is republican territory like the state of Alabama and shuns anything “liberal” like socialist policies YET if the defense industry dried up and took all the STATE funds out of the city, Huntsville would look like Detroit or Cleveland. Just like welfare for the poor these cities who get awarded these federal funds can create a guaranteed standard of living outside of the “eat what you can kill” arena of pure capitalism. There is no competitor to NASA or Red Stone Arsenal, what you have us a fully subsidized government economy no different than the housing projects accept at a FAR LESS standard of living. No doubt the population of Huntsville is highly skilled and educated with 16% of the workforce working in either technological or scientific fields BUT the government was responsible for bringing 4700 jobs to the city. This was not capitalism but the STATE giving Huntsville 4700 jobs, YET when President Obama tries to create a jobs Act or brings in a stimulus package to states political pundits and hypocrites decry it as SOCIALSIM and tell its citizens we shun it. REALLY? Am I endorsing socialism as the answer? No of course not, I am merely exposing the deeply conflicted culture and political climate we live in today. When President Obama passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 the citizens hated it because it was the STATE funding the private sector and we can’t have that because it is SOCIALISM. REALLY? We do realize most of the private contractors in Huntsville like Lockheed- Martin, Boeing etc these private companies are fully subsidized by government contracts. If these companies don’t get federal funding they would go out of business. Huntsville Alabama is not an anomaly but more the norm; it takes the private sector partnered with government in order the economy to turn around. When Standard Oil and the Railroad companies help build this country during the Industrial age was done with government assistance and intervention. Has President Obama done everything right, of course not his obsession with taxes is counterproductive and baffling to me but his attempts to inject federal dollars into the private sector is nothing new or a new kind of “socialism”, it is just people are now paying attention to it, like when a black family moves into an all-white neighborhood for the first time. Everything that black family does is under scrutiny and analyzed out fear and social bias warranted or unwarranted.
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