It's horrific, but also amusing in its own way: So many people in the USA think socialism and communism are the same thing and use them interchangeably. It's also amusing that the administration and party that's "fighting" so hard to drum up another communism scare because of the DSA and a push for single-payer healthcare is also promising everyone a $5,000 check ... just because -- free money!

Don't most communists claim they want to eliminate class though? Capitalists enbrace it while communists pretend that their government gets rid of class, so this framing is misleading.

We are a deeply unserious joke of a nation.

Change my mind.

Its so obvious when progressive candidates are starting to get momentum. We immediately get back to the red scare except this time with a nice helping of Islamophobia sprinkled on. The playbook is exhausting...

Helen Cox Richardson notes that accusation of socialism have been levied by the owner class as far back is the antebellum plantations, arguing the working class are not stakeholders and even basic infrastructure such as roads, schools and libraries were blasphemous.

The red scare started as early as Wilson, as soon as the Red Army beat the White. Wilson petitioned the league of nations to embargo the USSR simply because the ideology was a threat to capital driven industry.

I think the US public needs to deliberate if our intention is to be a public-serving government that holds everyone equal under law and values human rights over property rights. Or, if our intentions are for something else.

Right now the federal government is captured by a movement that does the opposite, with a propaganda machine propping up pro-business (anti-person) ideology, using socialism and communism as scare words.

We're seeing the end result of this as corporations have captured regulatory bodies, they are left to govern themselves as top-down feifdoms, and the working class is left choking on data center fumes, monitored by mass surveillance and unable to afford fuel and food at the same time.

(We're also seeing the US state, representing the US public to the international community, getting played by its national rivals, and our military misused and abused.)

Even when it benefits businesses to support the working class (and increase productivity, therefore profitability) businesses fall down, driven by the owner class' pure resentment of their own workforce. (This is what drives the AI dream of full automation.) To business, the economy is for them, and if they can shut out the workforce to languish on their own and starve, no sleep will be lost over the tragedy.

So the people of the US, if they don't want this outcome, need to consciously and deliberately choose to create a society that serves the people unconditionally in favor of the businesses. The public-serving infrastructure, the social safety nets, the investment into education and liberal arts, the clear establishment and enforcement of civil rights, the regulatory institutions that protect workers and consumers from the neglect and antagonism of the owner class, all follow naturally.

And that said, it means we are going to have to take business influence on government and excess hoarding of wealth extremely seriously.

And the end result may look a lot like socialism or communism, whether or not we're working towards adopting either specific ideology.

Seems like that is the end state of any kind of system. Has to be torn down every once in awhile.

Communism promised abolishing classes, but failed.

Capitalism promised protecting the elite class above all else, and succeeded.

The Republicans seem to be stumbling around helplessly trying to explain why they should get votes, but they keep using descriptions that could be turned around on them.

I'm thinking of Vance's comment at President Pedo's, circle-jerk-a-thon:

"The contrast in this election, ladies and gentlemen, it's not about this or that policy. It's about the party of common sense vs the party of the crazies."

He's 100% correct there.

And then you wonder why Trump won...