You're not allowed to say "Nationalization"

ID:55198
 
Mar 11 2009, 9:32 am (Edited on Mar 11 2009, 9:37 am)
I was feeling a bit masochistic this morning, so I clicked over to Digg.com. Sure enough, it only took me a couple moments to find a crappy left-wing editorial to rant about. Mike Madden from Salon thinks that "nationalization" is a propaganda word:
"any nationalization is likely to be brief, narrow and aimed at saving any assets worth saving from banks that would otherwise go under. (Which isn't that different from what the U.S. already does with failed banks.) But to Republicans, the details seem beside the point."Nationalization" is just another way to make voters fear Obama's stewardship of the economy."
It's not nationalization if we just do it temporarily! How dare you fear mongers use that term!? Heck, even Alan Greenspan - the KING OF CAPITALISM - is advocating this!
"Even Alan Greenspan is part of the conversation. The Ayn Rand disciple whose every public utterance for most of his life has been devoted to extolling the virtues of the free market is suddenly pushing nationalization"
What a surprise; it's the Alan Greenspan Defense of socialism. You mean the same Alan Greenspan who completely abandoned any free market principles he may have once had by working for 20 years as the head of the Federal Reserve? That Alan Greenspan?

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The rest of this rant is available on my new blog, TheWarrantAndTheSanction.com.

Per your feedback, I've tweaked the CSS a bit on the new site. It could probably still use some fine tuning, but I'd definitely appreciate comments on the changes. Thanks :)
Mar 11 2009, 9:57 am
Silk, you're hitting on a core reason why the modern Republican Party is in a world of hurt. The meme "socialism" was an effective term used from the late 70s to the end of the cold war; however, the seeds of that meme started back in the days of Hoover. The meme's lack of traction for those 35 or so years was due in most part to the lack of any publicly evident negative effect of the New Deal. This started to crack in the 70s...

Fast forward to the 90s. The party that embraced that meme escalated to power in 1994 in the legislative branch, and unified it in 2000. The perception is that the era of 2000-2006 was one of deregulation. We can sift through legislation and see how this isn't true (or at least to the degree The New Deal was), however, the perception still exists.

Now lets look at today. The old meme "socialism" has lost a lot of its resonance. Why? Because the alternative has been _perceived_ to be a failure. GWB did the ULTIMATE disservice to the platform by perverting it into a neoconservative one under the guise of a Goldwater/1980 Reagan style.

I hope your blog starts exploring the intellectual conservative side of politics that have been missing since Buckley's death. It's from the wellspring of proper conservative discourse that well defined and defensible convictions become the modern "memes" of the GOP.

At this time, "nationalization" is a forced meme. Only with good intellectual backing and public discourse will the meme become more salient.
Mar 11 2009, 11:09 am
Obvious troll is....well you know.
Mar 11 2009, 12:16 pm
I thought you sent yourself off to the internet equivalent of a distant island where nobody could disturb you with those so-called "correct opinions."
Mar 11 2009, 12:58 pm
It doesn't take long to find some crazy right-wing stuff on digg.com either. It's almost like the far right-wing users on digg.com all digg the same things and far left-wing users all digg the same things.

Digg.com is all about jumping on the bandwagon. There are so many users bashing Obama because of the bailout right now, because it's the cool thing to do. I don't have a problem with people opposing the bailout, but the reasoning behind everything is important (at least to me).
Mar 11 2009, 6:13 pm
Bootyboy wrote:
The meme "socialism" was an effective term used from the late 70s to the end of the cold war; however, the seeds of that meme started back in the days of Hoover.


I understand what you're trying to say... but the fact is that "Socialism" isn't a meme. It refers to a very specific system of beliefs and ethics; a system that completely negates individual success and well being.

The scary reality is that both political parties are full of people with Socialist ethics - just to varying degrees.
Mar 12 2009, 1:17 am
SilkWizard wrote:
Bootyboy wrote:
The meme "socialism" was an effective term used from the late 70s to the end of the cold war; however, the seeds of that meme started back in the days of Hoover.


I understand what you're trying to say... but the fact is that "Socialism" isn't a meme. It refers to a very specific system of beliefs and ethics; a system that completely negates individual success and well being.

The scary reality is that both political parties are full of people with Socialist ethics - just to varying degrees.

That would be because 'socialism' is an incredibly broad political philosophy. Particularly if it's interpreted by people of the far-right persuasion.