Yesterday I wrote a diary about Michael Moore's excellent documentry SICKO.
One of the responses got me thinking and lead to this posting.
The poster commenting wrote the following:
"The problem is that Americans aren't socialist nor do they hate Capitalism, as Moore's movie seems to indirectly attack. Although Moore probably has the support of most of the audience throughout the film, when he starts glorifying Cuban society and Fidel Castro, he loses people.
Americans want healthcare reform, but they don't want socialism either. The type of reform that they would probably support is where where doctors remain private, but receive reimbursements from the government. They don't want massive bureaucracies or the government to choose their doctor.
"
In this post I want to address several fallacies in this response and seeming misunderstandings lead from mainstream propaganda of the corporate media that this poster seems to be espousing. More below... please read on...
Firstly I would like to address the definition of Socialism. Socialism has on one simple definition. Wikipedia describes it as:
Socialism refers to a broad array of ideologies and movements which aim to improve society through collective action and to a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community.[1]......
The modern socialist movement had its origin largely in the working class movement of the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution had brought many economic and social changes. Factory owners became very wealthy, while long hours and impoverishment faced the factory workers.[2] Socialists criticised the suffering and injustices resulting from the concentration of property in the hands of the capitalist class.
Despite what this poster says there is a long a varied history of "Socialist" style activism in America and its activist where crucial in attaining rights of workers. Things we value today such as the 8 hour day etc. Again from Wikipedia
The Great Depression began in the United States on Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929. Unemployment rates passed 25%, prices and incomes fell 20–50%, but the debts remained at the same dollar amount. 9,000 banks failed during the decade of the 30s. By 1933, depositors saw $140 billion of their deposits disappear due to uninsured bank failures. [3]
The Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934 led by the Trotskyist Communist League of America, the 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike led by the Communist Party USA, and the 1934 Toledo Auto-Lite Strike led by the American Workers Party, played an important role in the formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the USA, (becoming the AFL-CIO in 1955).
In Minnesota, in 1934, the General Drivers Local 574 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters struck, despite an attempt to block the vote by AFL officials, demanding union recognition, increased wages, shorter hours, overtime rates, improved working conditions and job protection through seniority. In the battles that followed, which captured country-wide media attention, three strikes took place, martial law was declared and the National Guard was sent in. Two strikers were killed. Protest rallies of 40,000 were held. Farrell Dobbs, who became the leader of the local, had at the outset joined the "small and poverty-stricken" Communist League of America, founded by James P. Cannon and others in 1928 after their expulsion from the Communist Party USA for Trotskyism.[57]
The success of the CIO quickly followed its formation. In 1937, one of the founding unions of the CIO, the United Auto Workers, won union recognition at General Motors Corporation after a tumultuous forty-four day sit-down strike, while the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, which was formed by the CIO, won a collective bargaining agreement with U.S. Steel.
By assuming that Socialism has no history and that in order to accept the word it has to be all or nothing is blatantly incorrect!
Quite clearly we have quite a few institutions in our society that are "socialist" by this writers definition - The Police department and fire Department are not capitalist - we do expect them to turn a profit and our tax dollars go to pay for their services.
Besides what we are currently living in is pretty far from a free market capitalist society - we live in a corporate ocricy which Adam Smith and the founding fathers would be disgusted by the level of influence and control over peoples lives corporations hold. This form where corporations hold undue influence is a close cousin of Facism - Hilter certainly had very mutually beneficial relationships with Germany's corporations at great expense to many who suffered for their profit.
As to Cuba, we may not like Castro we may not like the way they live but its there life and their choice. Americans were so brainwashed by the radical right wing in cohoots with the Mainstream media to fear everything
even related to Communism and the USSR. McCarthyism and red scare seem to remain alive and well in the hearts and minds of many Americans, leaving us unable to approach the world and start dialogs with others of different ways of living or thinking in an adult mature way.
We do not need to condemn the Cubans all the time - they are not villians cartoon figures of evil people like Bush and Reagan would like us to see them as.
Socialized medicine as you can see in the movie is exactly what the poster says in the bottom paragraph where he/she shows their ignorance. If you actaully watched the movie you see that people get to find the doctor they want and that the government pays the doctor. The doctor does not need to approach a mid level cronie to get permission to treat their patient.
Israel is a vibrant and healthy capitalist society - however as they have stepped away from many "socialist" principles the state started with, the gap between the wealthy and very poor has arisen dramatically. It used to be nobody was that rich but nobody was so poor they could not meet their basic needs. Bread and other staples where subsidized and so was mass transit. There were not people in extreme poverty which there is now that Israel looked to us a model.
One thing they have gotten right is to keep their socialized medicine system. I think of my sisters mother in law. As I walked out the theater after seeing SICKO, I thought about my sisters mother in law who is fighting bone cancer. I thought sadly how fortunate it was that she does not live in the United States. She lives in Israel, a country with socialized medicine - single payer. She is getting the treatments she needs, she has gotten experimental treatment. I am sure her doctor at no point had to ask a pencil pushing corporate crony for approval of here treatment. The doctor there got to focus and his/her patient and not if the procedure was okay or if approval given would the insurance company try to weasal out of payment in the future.
If she were here, her illness which has gone on for several years, starting as breast cancer and spreading to her bones - probably would have bankrupted or killed her.
The irony of the comment by the writer:
They don't want massive bureaucracies or the government to choose their doctor.
is that in industrialized countries with socialized medicine - there is less bureaucracy than here, and the bureaucracy that does exist is not there to make a profit and deny their claim but to get them well. In Great Britain doctors are rewarded for keeping their patients healthy - here people who have no insurance often await treatment for fear of debt and bankruptcy often till its too late.
The response I got was a knee jerk posting of an individual who is simply speaking the talking points of corporate America and playing on historic fears foisted on American by people like Joe McCarthy.
When will we grow up as a nation and stop fearing words ! When will we realize that we both have we can learn from other nations and perhaps even make better in addition to what we can teach. When will we realize that US needs to be a WE not a ME for us to survive and thrive long term. We are a young country, its dues time our adolescence ends and we begin to live in world as a grown up nation, that understands that great power needs to be tempered with humility and a sense of responsibility. Democracies with extreme distribution imbalances are not healthy democracies nor are the true free market systems.
I will end this with some great quotes:
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
Abraham Lincoln
Only Americans can hurt America.
Dwight David Eisenhower
The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth.
Dwight David Eisenhower
PEACE
Would love to hear your thoughts !!