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I know a lot of you don't care for Sullivan, but he has written a really excellent essay that summarizes exactly what I think about inequality in the US:
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/10/extreme-inequality-threatens-americas-portfolio.html
The Rauch link is also very worth reading in full. I realize that I'm not nearly as lefty as many of you reading this, and less right wing than a few, but his middle of the road approach strikes me as being pretty much on the mark.
There has been a whole lot of tongue flapping about "socialism", and the Republicans have defined it down to the point of meaningless. But there is such a thing as real socialism, and it involves the state appropriating private property - such as corporations - and directly controlling the means of production. And this would be a real disaster. Ironically, the chronic abuse of the term leaves us with no way to actually discuss this scenario, which is a shame, because it's not outside the realm of possibility.
I'm not much of a history student, but it seems to me that actual socialism is rarely (never?) the product of creeping liberalism. It has been, instead, a perfectly understandable reaction to runaway capitalism and the injustices it generates. At a certain point, the rich assume complete dominance over everyone else, the lives of the poor become completely intolerable, and the only reasonable response is to destroy the system that allowed that to happen. At such times, revolution becomes the only escape from an untenable and unsustainable situation. As a number of people have pointed out, "Marx was wrong about communism, but he was right about capitalism."
The candidate that would bring us closer this unhappy occasion is not Obama, it's Romney. If you care about the future of freedom in the US, the issue of inequality MUST be addressed. Because if its not resolved gracefully, it will be resolved violently, and it will be ugly.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/10/extreme-inequality-threatens-americas-portfolio.html
The Rauch link is also very worth reading in full. I realize that I'm not nearly as lefty as many of you reading this, and less right wing than a few, but his middle of the road approach strikes me as being pretty much on the mark.
There has been a whole lot of tongue flapping about "socialism", and the Republicans have defined it down to the point of meaningless. But there is such a thing as real socialism, and it involves the state appropriating private property - such as corporations - and directly controlling the means of production. And this would be a real disaster. Ironically, the chronic abuse of the term leaves us with no way to actually discuss this scenario, which is a shame, because it's not outside the realm of possibility.
I'm not much of a history student, but it seems to me that actual socialism is rarely (never?) the product of creeping liberalism. It has been, instead, a perfectly understandable reaction to runaway capitalism and the injustices it generates. At a certain point, the rich assume complete dominance over everyone else, the lives of the poor become completely intolerable, and the only reasonable response is to destroy the system that allowed that to happen. At such times, revolution becomes the only escape from an untenable and unsustainable situation. As a number of people have pointed out, "Marx was wrong about communism, but he was right about capitalism."
The candidate that would bring us closer this unhappy occasion is not Obama, it's Romney. If you care about the future of freedom in the US, the issue of inequality MUST be addressed. Because if its not resolved gracefully, it will be resolved violently, and it will be ugly.
