Socialist America

by Dick Mac

In the early-1980s, the American Congress, at the beck of the President, began implementing change that the fringe right-wing, newly installed in power, insisted was the will of the American people.

What had to be done, it was explained, and what has been done for the ensuing thirty years, is that the federal government (the government by, for, and of the People of the United States) needed to be down-sized, if not outright eliminated. That taxes on the wealthiest Americans had to be slashed, to stimulate economic growth, and that regulations (including drug, food, and safety regulations) that had been developed over the previous half-century years had to be rescinded.

The fringe-right, which today is the mainstream of the Republican Party, convinced Americans that their own government was the problem, and if only more money was given to the rich, then everything would be better for everybody.

Pundits of all stripes went crazy for this, the most contested issue since the Vietnam War. Two writers at the vanguard of American journalism, whose opinions were revered and sought-after, each put forth their analyses.

Often in the past, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Gore Vidal had appeared together to "debate"' issues of the day. By the 1980s, they no longer appeared together and there appeared to be quite a bit of animosity between them.

Buckley saw Reagan's American vision as the only hope for a limping nation. Vidal felt otherwise.

Buckley believed that "Reaganomics" was the epitome of free-market policy. Vidal explained, one night on television: "It is clear that in America we have socialism for the rich, and free-enterprise for everybody else."

Now, thirty years into the fiasco that is implementation of supply-side economic theory, Vidal is shown to have been correct.

The richest Americans have been relieved of their tax burden (and the fringe-right wants to relieve them even further), the wealth of the rich is protected by law, corporate governance allows those sitting on the boards to take as much money as they choose while denying profits not only to their workers, but at this point, even to their shareholders.

We all know that economic safety nets have been, and continue to be, eliminated for working people (poor people, the middle class). Add to that the ever-increasing elimination of jobs by those who can earn more by moving jobs off-shore, and you have Vidal's nightmare reality:

A political and economic system that protects the income of some (socialism) while forcing others to fight for what little is left over (free-enterprise).

Tea party supporters and other radicals on the fringe-right will tell you all kinds of tales about this situation reflecting the intention of the founding fathers and the Constitution and the Bible.

All the while, these radicals tell us to be wary of socialists who want to destroy our nation; yet, the people who fund the Tea Party, the GOP, and the social-conservative movements in the United States, are all living in a socialist dream where their income, profits, and lifestyle is protected with the tax dollars of working people, and working people pay a greater portion of their salaries to maintain the American standard of living.

This is socialism for the rich.

Everybody who votes Republican because they are afraid of homosexuals, feminists, foreigners, and medical advancement, but who still have to work for a living, are shooting themselves in the foot by supporting the party of socialism!

Welcome to Socialist America: where the richer you are, the more we give you!

Welcome to Socialist America!