Our socialist regime
by digby
so·cial·ism [soh-shuh-liz-uh m]
noun
1.
a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the government.2.
(in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.
How’s that program going anyway?
The December jobs figures out today indicate that there were 725,000 more jobs in the private sector than at the end of 2008 — and 697,000 fewer government jobs. That works into a private-sector gain of 0.6 percent, and a government sector decline of 3.1 percent.In total, the number of people with jobs is up by 28,000, or 0.02 percent.
How does that compare? It is by far the largest four-year decline in government employment since the 1944-48 term. That decline was caused by the end of World War II; this one was caused largely by budget limitations. The only other post-1948 four-year drop was during Ronald Reagan’s first term, when government employment fell 0.6 percent.
Going back to Dwight Eisenhower, there have been only two administrations that turned in a worse performance in private-sector job growth. There were small declines in Eisenhower’s first term and in George W. Bush’s first term. Mr. Bush’s second term posted a scant 1.1 percent gain in private-sector employment — a gain that was wiped out during the first two months of 2009.
Over all, Mr. Obama’s first four years narrowly — and preliminarily — escaped being the second four-year presidential term since World War II to suffer net job losses. The first was George W. Bush’s first term.
Until Obama took office I hadn’t even heard the word socialism in a couple of decades, and certainly not from right wingers. Having the word and concept out of circulation so long seems to have confused them — they have mistaken it for mainstream conservatism. (Or maybe it’s just their old reflexive assumption that all black people are communists. Why they thought that always baffled me.)
On the other hand, I suppose they have successfully moved the Overton Window on this question to the point at which the leftward side of American politics has moved so far right the leaders of the Democratic Party today openly brag about having the same policies as “mainstream” Republicans of just a few years ago. You have to give the right wing credit. This stuff works.
If the left started calling everyone to their right totalitarian fascists I wonder if it would have the same effect?
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