Socialism In a Caring/Uncaring Society

In spite of the incessant commercial breaks that used to drive me to distraction, I used to listen, years ago, to Thom Hartmann on the radio, while beavering away at my chosen pastime.

Well here he is again, On The News. As you can see from the blurb below, the news items are, as you would expect, all very topical in this six minute round-up.

In today's On the News segment, Thom Hartmann discusses President Obama trying to get GOP to agree to $4 trillion deficit reduction package over the next ten years, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker takes away union jobs and replaces with contractors, National Bureau of Economic Research report shows Medicaid recipients stay healthier, former National Security Adviser Brzezinski warns that wealth imbalance could lead to civil unrest, FDIC regulators can take back fat CEO paychecks if their bank collapses, Murdoch's British tabloid in danger of crash, and more. Scroll down to watch the newscast. (first)

It was Zbigniew Brzezinski's comments on social and economic inequality in the US that spurred me on to say a few words. (Full Brzezinski interview here.)

I don't know whether I should make this part of my argument now, or leave it until the very end. That part being, that America is just too large a country, (or filled with too many individual or corporate interests) for any coherent and just social policy, to ever have a chance of working.

In spite of all the flag waving, of all the (faux) patriotism, and in spite of America being one nation, under God of course, there just doesn't seem to be any glue, any cohesion, that binds the nation together in the slightest way.

Shallow politics, self interest and avarice, of which the country has no shortage, are hardly the building blocks of a fair and just society, but it is down to more than that, much more in fact.

It is down to something else that America has no shortage of, the fuck you attitude, and more specifically, the fuck you attitude of the politicos who are feverishly stripping away any kind of safety net, not just of the underprivileged, but of the working Joe, the middle classes. (Look no further than Hartman's news piece, Obama trying to placate the Repubs with his social spending cuts so he can pay for his wars.)

When I read day after day, of cuts in welfare, Medicare, the expectancy, I won't say right, of a fair days pay for a fair days work, and not have that expectancy become the reality of a minimum wage McJob. Assuming of course you can find one, and if you do find one that it still pays the subsistence wage that is ''enjoyed'' by tens of millions of present day Americans.

The point I'm trying to make is, just what kind of jungle do the Pols and policy makers is going to result out of this deliberate attempt to return America to a Dickensian society? Isn't the writing on the wall writ large enough already to what a breakdown in society looks like?

What is happening in America today, could quite easily be adopted to compose the first half, if not the first three quarters of a post-apocalyptic movie script. All that is waiting to be scripted is the is the ''Underprivileged Spring'' when the have nots, raise up en mass and take it all away from the haves. And let's be realistic here, it won't be a sticks and stones uprising, every motherfucker will already be armed, if not, they soon will be.

Why do you think the constant militarising of the police is going on? As we already know, the serve and protect (corporate interests, read US history of the last two hundred years) the serve and protect brigade love to dress up as the Neo-Nazi storm-troopers that they are and chuck their weight about with impunity.

The constant militarising of the police is going on for one reason, it's in readiness for when the plebs rise up against the whole unjust and corrupt system, and America can declare martial law become in name what it already is, a totalitarian police state. And don't think it can't happen, history will attest that it can.

Oh and by the way, those troops that have your unequivocal support, you know the ones I'm talking about, those rednecks in uniform, who under normal circumstances, your average American wouldn't piss on if they were on fire, yes those lads, an army of Jeremy Morlocks, they are going to shoot you when called upon to do so. And no doubt do it with a smile on their faces and a take a photograph of the event as a souvenir. Perhaps not a bad thing really, then you might have an understanding how the rest of the world has felt for the last, I don't know how many decades.

The main part of my argument seems almost insignificant now, particularly in light of what I have just written, but more significantly is the fact that it is too late for America to adopt, even if it had the desire to do so, the British or European model of a just and caring society, or as near as to one as you are likely to get.

I can only speak for the UK here, but apart from a tiny minority that are beyond help, there is no reason for anyone to be homeless here, no reason to starve for the lack of a few shillings, and no reason to die for want of medical attention; the state will provide these basics. As abhorrent as this might seem to the right wing of America, it is done for a reason, the state doesn't want society to fall apart at the seams, far cheaper in the long term to provide these basics of life, than to have a breakdown in society and have every motherfucker out on the rob.

I'm not saying that we have the balance right, probably not, but it sure beats the alternative.

Peace.

Update