Making a Socialist on the cheap

[packman]

[TwilightZone]

1. That's not socialism.

I'll let Andrew Yang explain:

"YANG: I'm a CEO and businessperson, and I'll tell you, putting money into peoples' hands is good for business, it is good for the economy, it is good for markets. This is not socialism, this is capitalism where income doesn't start at zero. If you think about where Americans are going to spend this money, they're going to spend it at their local businesses, their main street economy. And this is a great way to help supercharge those businesses for the next number of years. "

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/03/13/andrew_yang_universal_basic_income_is_not_socialism_is_good_for_markets.html

[packman]

2. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck----

[TwilightZone]

5. Nope.

Therein lies the problem. Many on the left don't even get what socialism is and insist that anything that involves government funds is socialism. It's not.

Bernie Sanders doesn't even understand it and routinely claims that countries are socialist that simply aren't. Denmark, for example.

[ck4829]

6. Yep

Socialism is apparently everything and nothing at the same time in the 21st century.

Do everyone a favor, throw that "dictionary" out a window.

[TwilightZone]

8. No, you're simply wrong.

The only people who believe it's socialism are the right-wing and Sanders supporters desperate to label everything socialism to support their candidate's inaccurate understanding of what it is.

[ck4829]

11. Well, I also say it's not socialism.

"Socialism is apparently everything and nothing at the same time in the 21st century."

It's simultaneously socialism and not-socialism.

That's pretty much everything in our society today.

The line has been blurred so much now because everyone overused the word.

[jorgevlorgan]

12. I think he calls them "Democratic Socialist"

Which is exactly what they are.

[ck4829]

4. Whoa, whoa, whoa... Stop! Did someone just say something is NOT socialism?

For the past several years; we've heard that NOT acting like Gordon Gekko or Patrick Bateman in the business world, buying stuff before a blizzard, not wanting to get shot in school, having consensual sex for non-reproductive purposes, wanting statehood for Puerto Rico, and having a Muslim as a neighbor and being OK with it are all examples of "socialism" today.

Now you're telling us that something isn't socialism?

[TwilightZone]

7. Blame Bernie Sanders.

He's been misrepresenting what socialism is about as long as he's been self-identifying as one. Regulated capitalism is not socialism and neither is a universal basic income.

Normally, the only people who would label UBI socialism are on the right while they're busy denigrating it. Obviously, any port in a storm applies to some of the left, as well.

[ck4829]

9. This has been going on long before Bernie Sanders

[jorgevlorgan]

13. democratic socialism is not socialism

[ck4829]

3. K&R

[gratuitous]

10. I suppose the question could be re-framed

"What does it take to turn a Trump supporter into what that Trump supporter would call a socialist?" But that's kind of cumbersome, and the folks who get the line in the first place don't need it spelled out like that.

From what I've been able to tell, any government program that benefits poor people in excess of the money they put into the system is derided as socialism in Trumpworld. Government money that benefits large corporations and wealthy people in excess of what they put into the system is good old all American capitalism, and the wealthy really should get more.

Isn't it odd, though, how hard a hit the nation's economy has taken because working stiffs can't go to their jobs. I don't see the wealthy captains of industry uniformly pitching in to help the country that's made them so wealthy. There's some piecemeal support going on, but nothing organized or consistent that people can actually count on and plan for.