I have entitled this blog post And No One Listened because it is so very true. Warnings have been made over and over through times from the founders of this nation to this man and by many who have followed and no one listened. No one listened and now it is upon us in full bloom and yet too many will not listen or will say, oh well, what can we do, the government has to do something or we will all just go under. That is the same lie told by the socialist from earliest history but no one listened. I will publish this blog post and some will read it and fail to believe it and go along believing what is being told them by the LSM and by those in power today. When they wake up and realize that it has happened they will wonder why no one told them. Ah, but yes, we have all been warned , and no one listened.
A PROPHETIC 1944 SPEECH
Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 - December
19, 1968), and some of us may be old enough to remember him
Running for President (but I'm not), was a leading American
Socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for
The Socialist Party of America.
Norman Thomas said this in a 1944 speech:
"The American people will never knowingly adopt
Socialism. But, under the name of "liberalism," they will
Adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day
America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it
Happened." He went on to say: "I no longer need to run as a
Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The
Democratic Party has adopted our platform."
Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 - December
19, 1968), and some of us may be old enough to remember him
Running for President (but I'm not), was a leading American
Socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for
The Socialist Party of America.
Norman Thomas said this in a 1944 speech:
"The American people will never knowingly adopt
Socialism. But, under the name of "liberalism," they will
Adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day
America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it
Happened." He went on to say: "I no longer need to run as a
Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The
Democratic Party has adopted our platform."
19 comments:
I was around when he said it but too young to remember but I sure as hell read it in college (57-62).
Watch this !!
Printing $$$$
Oh ..that was me above
Fred G.
If you listen to the Liberals, they'll tell you that they are the "Progressives" of the American political machine. Maybe, but they want to progress with my money!!!!
Old Rose
Old Rose, there is nothing progressive about Progressives. They want a system that has failed in every country it has been tried. They have just enough hubris to make them think that they know how to make socialism work. They They don't, can't and won't but the rest of us will suffer in the meantime.
Ticker,
This quiet (but ultimately disastrous) embrace of socialistic principles is occurring because or political and business leaders "forgot" how to practice capitalism with the necessary degree of equity extended toward consumers.
I suppose that I have been "off the reservation" lately because my populist pooch seems to have slipped its leash, but when a set of socioeconomic problems remain unaddressed for far too long, this is the result. It is not so different than the climate in pre-Reichstag Germany which led to Hitler's rise.
When faced with two undesirable choices, it is human nature to choose that one which promises something "new" . . . so it is not really "the people's fault". Had the Republicans offered capitalism with equity rather than some bastardized brand of pseudo-socialism which served only to further enrich the wealthy, conservatives (REAL ones) would still be in power.
Sorry, but there it is in all its ugliness -- the truth.
Jeff Dreibus
Jeff I do agree with you. Conservatives or what use to be conservatives became more interested in trying to appease all the people all the time and wound up satisfying none of their base and becoming nothing more than Democrat Lite and in many case tried to out Democrat the Democrats.
America is becoming socilaist and rightly to. Look what capitalism has done to you
"Had the Republicans offered capitalism with equity rather than some bastardized brand of pseudo-socialism which served only to further enrich the wealthy"
Ah, hum, there are a lot of liberals that have become rich over the past several years. Actually, there may be more filthy rich Democrats than Republicans. Democrats consist of two groups for the most part now; very rich and poor, with no middle class. Republicans are now the working middle class and small business people. Look at the political stripes of those power brokers on Wall Street.
I agree that the Republicans abandoned their conservative principles, and they paid. You can't out-liberal the Democrats. they perfected the game.ormy
"America is becoming socilaist and rightly to. Look what capitalism has done to you"
And capitalism has done just what to me?
"America is becoming socilaist and rightly to. Look what capitalism has done to you"
Given the time of your post and the time on my tracker I will dare say you are from GB and
I would suppose that would make you an expert in capitalism vs socialism. However I would sincerely doubt that to be the case since you evidently have grown up in a country where socialism , like cancer, kept creeping into the everyday life and you probably didn't even notice such. Your previous PM, Mr. Blair managed to grease the slide into the pit of socialism and multiculturalism so well that you nor many of your countrymen even noticed. I suggest you do some comparison of how well you have done under a socialist type system and then compare it to capitalism. No comparison, I can assure you since I have lived in socialistic countries and have seen the difference. Now tell me what an expert you are on capitalism
Stormy,
Actually, I agree with you: the Democrats (Socialists) are the original talk-out-of-both-sides-of-their-mouths bunch. They line the pockets of the rich while trying to convince their base that they are champions of the "little man" -- not too different than the Republicans.
The biggest way in which the two parties differ is to be found in which corporations and which special interests they choose to make wealthy at the expense of those whom they purport to represent. Both parties are wholly committed, of course, to ensuring that the Federal government remains the wealthiest and largest American employer.
Perhaps the Republican Party MEMBERSHIP is most typically represented by working middle class and small business people, but if you think the Republican Party leadership is working for those of us who fit that demographic then you had better think again.
That is why I advocate a strong third political party (perhaps fourth or fifth parties as well?) to offer an alternative to "business as usual" and offer "a voice and a choice" to those who have been abandoned by both current parties.
As I said before, either devil is a bad choice. Voltaire said "If we can't find something pleasant, we will at least find something new". That seems to be the essential motivator of those who voted Obama into office -- a great attitude if you want to go "antiquing", but a hell of a poor reason to choose a president.
The great irony? What Obma is selling is not even anything new . . .
Jeff Dreibus
I was the anonymous Liberal who likes Socialistic Democracy. Couldn't get my account to work. I don't normally post anonymously.
My point is simple and as follows:
In a capitalist society the government should be much smaller and associated with purely the defense of the nation in some form and upholding laws which allow society to function - basically the laws of redress.
This means that there should be none of the following:
Any form of state funding for Education
Any form of state funding for health
Any form of state intervention in the approval of drugs - if you use ones which damage you sue them
No protection of the environment
My point is that in the US this does not happen and in fact you have state funded education and support for certain parts of your population in healthcare.
By allowing this it means that the US accepts the need for state intervention and therefore has some socialistic elements to its government. Therefore its only a matter of the placement of the government on a spectrum from complete nightwatchman to owning the means of production.
Interestingly the debt levels as % of GDP in the US will reach higher levels than any of the main European countries. Most of this debt is not the Obama stimulus its the Republican bank bail out. The liabilities are now 8.5 trillion USD. The Stimulus package is only 10% of that.
Oh and if you think Europe isn't largely capitalist speak to the millions who are losing their jobs in privately owned industry. The Goevernments do not own the means of production.
gnomestrath
Very interesting that you, a self proclaimed liberal would hold such Libertarian views.
I am going to have to assume that when you say state you are referring more directly to Federal government spending rather than state(s) spending. The founders of this nation through the Constitution of the US, a Republic form of government, gave the states all powers not given to the Federal Government, those accordingly were very limited.
There was nothing in the Constitution that called for monies for the items you listed such as education and health. The federal interference in such did not begin until the 1930's under FDR who rammed through many unconstitutional spending bills which eventually became law. He did so by packing the Supreme Court and other courts who would of course rule in favor of his illegal programs. We know now of course that the majority of his programs supposedly to pull this country out of a depression were failures. Education spending also began at this time all under the guise of helping poor southern states fund education. Of course with such came strings attached. This( FDR"s programs) was the beginning of the steep slippery slope toward socialism. Today we have another POTUS who is calling for many of the failed programs again which will lead us deeper into socialism.
Yes, the US wandered away from it's roots but if you have been reading of late many states are beginning to see that Federal interference has only increased the burden upon the states through Federal mandated programs without funding after the first couple of years.( See blog post Shot Heard round New Hampshire) Lyndon Johnson added more of this federal government interference spending to this slippery slope and increased the speed.
As the original post on this blog stated, "The American people will never knowingly adopt
Socialism. But, under the name of "liberalism," they will
Adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day
America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it
Happened."
So thus we are here and no one listened.
The so called Stimulus Bill under Bush was a total failure and I dang well agree with that and was not in favor of such . I refused my unearned refund and will do so again this year if I should receive such.It however was not the beginning of our problems just one of the splinters in the board that sticks us in the butt as we slide deeper into socialism.
As to the failure of British business, industry and others I would suggest the following that has lead to the demise of those and it is not capitalism but very much the opposite.
1. Government controlled banking which of course leads to even more governmental control of business.
2. Unions
3. British involvement with the European Union, a failed project from the beginning and some are now beginning to understand such.
You will see a greater failure of American business should the socialist in charge today have their way in Nationalizing Banks all in the name of saving them. Totally wrong, let them go under period.
That is a brief outline in response to your post. I could write you a book on the history of how socialism has crept into the US and why as in other countries it will fail.
Actually I don't mean just Federal activity I also meant State as this is just another layer of government. I do not differentiate between the two.
In reality the right has to decide what it is offerring because it is not clear to anyone.
In my view America should continue with the experiment and withdraw all state and federal activities and see what happens.
gnomestrath
In this country our States were the ones with the powers, all those not specifically given to the Federal Government by the Constitution.
States, by virtue of their existance provide certain services which are paid for by the citizens of such state rather than the citizens paying a private entity to provide say education. As our country grew the states saw that the church, which provided the bulk of education, could no longer keep up. By permission the states undertook the education of the citizens of it's territories.
". . . whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that, whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them right." (as cited in Padover, 1939, p. 88)
This was one of the cornerstones of Jefferson's interest in education and the franchise. He placed education as the foundation of democracy and a prerequisite to vote.
Jefferson did not trust the Federal government to do much of anything other than provide for the common defense this the granting the states the power, and the states being the people the power to oversee education. Unfortunately in the late 20's and 30's the Feds began their encrochment into the states rights and powers of the common man.
States were also given the authority to establish laws for the good of the citizens such as laws controlling the actions of lawbreakers. Without the states and the laws any country, nation, would become a lawless mass of humanity given over to "survival of the fittest. Our founding fathers understood this thus the rights of states to establish such laws. That is one piece of civilization that one can not just ignore. Without laws, which in my opinion are to be established by the States with the agreement of the citizens thereof, chaos would prevail. I don't believe for a second that you would even consider such. The move back to states right as outlined under the Constitution and as expressed in the blog post I pointed out earlier should be the goal of the citizens of this country which would end Federal interference.
I agree that all non defense of the Nation issues should revert to the state level. Small is beutiful and the US is to large to govern from the centre.
What in practice will happen then is that some states will have very Rightwing laws and others very Leftwing. Example Abortion wher it will be banned in some states and legalised in others. This will cause 'termination tourism' as we have in Europe. Some states will economically prosper some will go bankrupt.
I would support this idea. Whilst you are correct that I would not support lawlessness. I do think that some Socialistic programmes will exist in all states like free education will be necessary everywhere.
gnomestrath
Yes, some states will apply the morals of the teachings of what is right and what is wrong in regard to abortion and some will ignore the moral consequences as they are doing today. Yes there are consequences to abortion that such groups as Planned Parenthood do not explain to young women who come into their clinics and I, as a psychologist, have seen the results from such sometimes days, weeks, months and oftentimes years later. Yes there would be this "tourism of infanticide" as I refer to it but states would not go broke nor prosper in any fashion from such. I basically did not see economic prosperity in Europe from this industry when I was there nor do I hear of such from friends who are there now.
Yes, education will be among those programs that will continue to be done in what you refer to as a socialist manner. If it were accomplished by the Church as was done in the early days of this country and in Europe as well then we would have a Theocratic system of education. My point was that with Federal money comes intervention that carry's much more than just answerability for monies spent. It comes with a much higher cost as we are seeing in this country and as you have already experienced in Europe and the UK.
I thank you for you very civil discourse on this subject. Feel welcome to join in the conversation again at any time.
Thank you for your politeness. I hope you will visit my blog sometime. Although I fear you will conclude that I am a raving Liberal.
http://gnomestrath.wordpress.com/
gnome
After visiting your blog I am rather amused that you would consider yourself a raving liberal. I found your blog opinions to be rather moderate compared to the raving liberals in this country. In fact I find you leanings to be no only moderate in that degree but leaning more toward the Libertarian viewpoints.
I have indeed enjoyed your blog and shall make it a point to vist often. I have added you to "my favorites" as well.
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