Commies & Socialists Are Coming! Can Rep. Scott Peters Save Us?
Buckle up folks; I’ve got some righteous ranting to do.
The terms Antifa and Black Lives Matter are falling out of favor with right wingers these days; they’ve been overused, and people keep coming up with evidence that the horrible things they are supposed to have done didn’t happen.
The “Antifa organized the January 6 insurrection” thing hasn’t held up, mostly because the 590+ people who’ve been arrested just don’t lean that way. It’s known that the Proud Boys told their folks to dress in black to throw law enforcement off the trail, but too many of those arrested were too stupid to realize that their social media contained incriminating evidence.
https://twitter.com/Scout_Finch/status/1420372571250376705?s=20
The extravagant claims about Black Lives Matter made in the wake of a summer of protests over the murder of George Floyd, also fell apart for anybody interested enough to see who was leading protests, who was being arrested, and what they were being arrested for.
FYI-- More than 14,000 people were arrested in those protests. Just over 590 have been arrested for the January assault on democracy.
My personal favorite---shared over 15,000 times on Facebook-- claimed that four of the cities where violence did occur were in bankruptcy due to the protests. (Portland, Chicago, Minneapolis and New York didn’t go belly up.)
Times are hard for people living in alternate realities, so an oldie but a goodie is being recycled by the verbally challenged. It’s time to bring back the commie/socialist boogie man!
Those of you who thought this straw man might have been put to rest after it was discovered that Sen. Bernie Sanders didn’t eat babies for breakfast, should remember that the only kind of recycling Republicans support are smears.
Here in California, recall grifter Carl DeMaio is sounding the alarm about Kevin Faulconer’s far left connections.
Faulconer, on the other hand, is pounding his podium because People’s World wrote an article about the recall. They thought the recall was a bad idea, but I’m sure they were thrilled when getting their name out in front of Faulconer’s 45,000 followers. The former San Diego Mayor thought Gov. Newsom should rush to disavow the article. Meh. Or should I say zzzzzzz?
https://twitter.com/Kevin_Faulconer/status/1421142119448649731?s=20
Out on the far fringes of reality, one-time Trump lawyer Sidney Powell is accusing Fox News of becoming the “propaganda arm of the Democrat Socialist Communist Party, just like all the other mainstream media outlets are.”
This accusation comes after Fox --already facing lawsuits for wild claims made about the election-- decided not to run ads by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell promoting a “cyber symposium” which will supposedly prove the election was stolen from the Former Guy.
Claiming the evidence about rigged voting machines is undeniable, Lindell seems to think the Supreme Court will rise from its summer slumber and overturn the election. The problem here is that there are people drinking his kool aid who might take matters into their own hands. In case you haven’t heard, Dear Leader is supposed to be returning to power this month .
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Coming back to San Diego, and a little closer to sanity, we have the American Life Sciences Innovation Council’s half-page ad in Sunday’s paper praising Rep. Scott Peters for saving America from radical progressive socialized pricing policies.
This isn’t the same as calling somebody a communist or socialist, but the inference is there for all to see. There’s no doubt in my mind that we’re supposed to imagine Nancy Pelosi lofting Molotov cocktails at scientists in white coats.
What the drug companies paying for this ad are afraid of is HR 3, the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, which has 71 co-sponsors in the House, including D53’s Sara Jacobs.
What would his horrible bit of policy actually do? You’d better be sitting down for this…
Allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. (Just like the Veteran Administration does) Former Senator Joe McCarthy must be rolling over in his grave. Vladimir Lenin is smiling as he looks up from heck.
Here’s how bad this idea is, according to US Medicine.com:
Medicare Part D could save more than $14 billion annually if it paid the same prices for top medications as the VA, according to a new study.
The American Life Sciences Innovation Council says we’ll lose 1 million jobs and new medicines that could save lives just won’t be discovered. These are the same arguments used everytime big pharma is questioned, i.e., granny will die if we don’t get our $$$$.
Here’s the truth, via the New York Times:
Drug company executives faced tough questions from Congress on Tuesday as they attempted to explain why, thanks to high drug prices, per capita spending on pharmaceuticals in the United States is double the average of other advanced countries. For decades, American drug makers have justified these high prices by asserting that the higher profits they generate fund research that accelerates the development of new medicines. Our data shows, however, that these companies spend every penny of their profits on distributions to shareholders in the forms of cash dividends and stock buybacks.
Because the greater part of management compensation is linked to stock price, the prime beneficiaries of this abuse of corporate profits are the executives who claim that high drug prices redound to the common good. At the same time, drug giants such as Merck and Pfizer seem to have become focused more on buying companies with successful new drugs rather than developing their own.
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This commie baiting stuff just pisses me off. I’d say it was childish name calling, except that a whole generation of artists was largely decimated by the quest to eliminate an idea.
There are for-real communist organizations in the United States. They spend most of their time fighting each other and other sects. Things just haven’t been the same since most of the undercover FBI agents stopped paying dues. The implosion of the Soviet Union and its subsequent takeover by organized crime makes for a hard sell when it comes to a vision.
Plus, the powers that still call themselves communists have come to the realization that ruling over other countries isn't as effective as neutering them. That government stuff is hard work; setting up a bunch of bots and stealing tech stuff is easier.
The fact is that Real Commies have had no role in mainstream American politics since the 1940s. A few African-American organizations over the years have defied McCarthyist vilification for the simple reason that the CPUSA actually cared about Black people back in the day. And you probably weren’t taught in history class that the “Party” (by virtue of its internal discipline and its notions about working conditions) had a great deal of influence in organizing labor in the first half of the 20th century.
The very real failures of capitalism in the US have sparked a renewed interest, especially among young people, in exploring the ideas of socialism, mostly as expressed in the Scandinavian countries. One 2020 survey by YouGov found that 49% of those considered to be Gen Z (16-23) think socialism is a good idea; 26% of all Americans support “the gradual elimination of the capitalist system in favor of a more socialist system.”
When modern day mainstream politicians start mouthing off about socialism/communism what they are trying to do is invoke images of a totalitarian government taking your property.
The fact is that the modern day threats to civil liberties and democracy as practiced in the United States (there ARE other flavors) come from the right side of the ideological aisle.
When Hillary Clinton lost the election in 2016, nobody stormed the Capitol. People protested peacefully (most of the time) and vowed to make voting great again. Eighty-eight percent of eligible California voters are registered!
Republicans have responded to increased citizen involvement by making it harder to vote. Stuff our country hasn’t seen since the post-reconstruction era has been enacted into law. Officials who don’t like what they’re seeing at the polls have been given the power to effectively toss votes out..
The evolution (they didn’t used to drive tanks around) of law enforcement into heavily armed social arbiters is “trickle down” from our government’s involvement with less savory characters from around the world.
A cycle of increasing monopolism has negatively influenced corporate behavior as they have gained more power. These days performance in the business world is defined by stock buybacks and CEO bonuses; the making of products and services is an afterthought. Screwing employees and customers is just the way things work, unless those actions go viral on social media.
Is it any wonder that, given ever-increasing inequality, people are looking for other ways of doing things?
End of rant.
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