Tag: Socialism
Better Sex Through Socialism
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Kristen Ghodsee: “A comparative sociological study of East and West Germans conducted after reunification in 1990 found that Eastern women had twice as many orgasms as Western women. Researchers marveled at this disparity in reported sexual satisfaction, especially since East German women suffered from the notorious double burden of formal employment and housework. In contrast, postwar West German women had stayed home and enjoyed all the labor-saving devices produced by the roaring capitalist economy. But they had less sex, and less satisfying sex, than women who had to line up for toilet paper.”
Ayn Rand Was a Good Ol’ American Socialist – Just Like You, Me and 226 GOP House Members
According to a new book “100 Voices: An Oral History of Ayn Rand,” by Scott McConnell, late in her life, Ayn Rand, the tea partyists’ anti-government patron saint, went on the government dole. That’s right, when the going got tough, Rand, the “every man, woman and child for him or herself” objectivist, author of “Atlas Shrugged,” the cartoonish libertarian bible that is the second-best selling book in the world, availed herself of good ol’ red, white and blue American socialism.
Any time the citizenry bands together to pool its resources to cover the costs of a community benefit — whether it is fire and police protection or other emergency services; public institutions like schools, hospitals and libraries; or infrastructure like streets and highways, bridges and tunnels, airports and harbors — that is, by definition, socialism.
According to McConnell, who is the founder of the media department at the Ayn Rand Institute, a social worker he interviewed had helped Rand, who was known to the government as Mrs. Frank (Ann) O’Connor, and her husband sign up for government benefits in 1974, when Rand, a lifelong, two-packs-a-day smoker, was 69 years old and going broke from the costs of treating her lung cancer.
A freedom of information request confirmed that Ayn Rand, or Ann O’Connor, received thousands in benefits before she died eight years later. Efforts to confirm that Rand received Medicare payments were inconclusive, but, technically, Medicare is a part of the Social Security system so it is more likely than not that she did.
Here, according to the oral history, is how Rand justified her late-life conversion to socialism:
Life without Socialism: Fee-Based Fire Dept. in Tenn. Lets House Burn to Ground Because Homeowner Hadn’t Paid Up
Here is a case study in the downside of the privatized, out-sourced free market systems the GOP tea party is advocating to replace America’s current socialized services:
NV Sen: Angle Confirms That She and Her Husband Receive Socialist Health Care
Despite tea baggers’ misuse of the term, “socialism” applies to any system in which citizens pool resources to provide a service for the community — in other words, any service that is not private and provided on a fee basis. Public education, as well as public police, fire and emergency services, public hospitals and, of course, government-run pensions, like Social Security, and health-care, like Medicare, are all bona fide socialist services.
So it is a surprise — although, on second thought, it shouldn’t be — to learn that tea bagger queen Sharron Angle, who rails against the evils of socialism on the campaign trail, is actually a dyed-in-the-wool socialist herself:
Angle’s campaign acknowledged to Nevada journalist Jon Ralston Monday that both the candidate and her husband receive health care from the federal government. Spokeswoman Ciara Matthews said in a statement: “Mr. Ted Angle receives his pension through the (federal) Civil Service Retirement System. While it is not supplemented by the federal government, current civil servants pay into the program to pay the schedule of those already retired — much like how the Social Security Program works today. Mr. Angle does not qualify [for] — nor does he receive Social Security benefits. His health insurance plan (the Federal Employee Health Program), which also covers Sharron, is a continuation of what he was receiving while he worked for the federal government.”
If government-provided health care is so abhorrent to Sharron Angle, then she and her husband should reject it and buy insurance on the open market. I’m sure they could find a plan with similar coverage that would cost them less than $1,500 a month somewhere. Otherwise, she reveals herself to be just another rage-aholic tea bagger railing about socialism while apparently unaware that she is, in fact, soaking in it.
