this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2026
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MeanwhileOnGrad
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I'm saying that those are things that were described as "socialism" to scare people away from supporting them (the point #1).
They are socialism, but there are also many articles that only talk about their good points as well. Are you proposing that all western media refuses to say nice things about Obamacare and Social Security? Because I can bring up some examples for you if that's what you're saying.
I feel like this is some kind of friendly fire because the tankies got you all spun up to look for enemies lol
There's a specific point I am answering here:
There's a separate conversation about what are the issues that no big media in the US is willing to talk about, and how that list was in the year 2000 versus today, but that isn't this conversation. I'm literally just answering examples for point number 1, because it definitely is accurate that some (emphasized) journalists (to use the word a little bit loosely) will cover any middle-of-the-road normal Western democratic policy as "socialism" because they are wildly capitalistic. I feel like you are responding to some different point than that here, which again is fine if you want to talk about that, but it's separate from this conversation. Right? Doesn't that make sense?
Edit: To answer your specific question, no I don't think that it is universally true that the media unanimously refused to say anything good about social security or Obamacare. I do think that it was pretty much universal that they refused to say anything good about universal health care in the mid-1990s when Clinton was trying to do it, which led to its defeat. That's sort of my central thesis in some of my other comments here, that up until about 2000 big business had a total monopoly on media in this country which led it to be pretty easy for them to defeat anything to the left of Thatcher or Reagan that tried to rear its head. When Obama tried again in 2008, they had maybe about 60% control, which was enough to lead a lot of people to hate Obamacare even up to the present day but their control had slipped sufficiently that he was able to do some weakened and distorted version of health care without it being just completely vetoed by the insurance companies because of their and their friends' control of media.
When I said "Example, please" I wanted an Example of a subject that the "Capitalist Media" has completely kept the USA in the dark about.
Obamacare was not a valid example. Here, have a look:
Huffpost - "Health Care Costs Skyrocket For Millions Of Americans As Subsidies Lapse"
"Capitalist Media" has articles saying all kinds of nice things about that "socialism".
Sounds good. You gotta be more specific then, you were answering a point number 1 with a response numbered number 1 that had nothing to do with that specific question.
(I made an edit to my answer BTW to answer your specific question with some details and comparing it to health care in the 1990s, check that out if you didn't see the edit yet.)
This new question, I addressed here:
https://piefed.social/comment/9553470
And then there's some back and forth about whether or not there actually was the type of embargo on these topics that I'm claiming there was, which still didn't come to much of any conclusion, but I laid out my side of it at least. I won't say they kept people completely in the dark, but enough so to prevent any useful action from being taken on it until their monopoly broke up in the early 2000s (and still to heavily heavily mute a useful response from taking shape). Other examples include the deaths of Iraqi children under American sanctions or American sponsorship of torture and anti-democratic movements in South and Central American all throughout the late 70s and early 80s.
1 and 1 were figuratively and literally 1:1 given the context of the post.
What was point 1 in the comment you were answering? The exact wording, I mean.
I'm not going to sit here and explain things a second and third time when you're not even the one who made the comment in question.
I'm trying to help you. I think if you quote the exact wording, it'll help you realize something, and me quoting the wording didn't seem to make much of an impact, so I'm trying this approach.
Anyway, I was happy to move past that and address the substance of what we're talking about at some significant length and answer your specific question, because it is an important question and I've got some things to say about it. If you're not happy with that idea I'm not sure what to tell you lol.
They aren't socialism you dingus are you serious? That's literally just spending taxes, what's what every government does. Decides how to spend taxes
Spending taxes on goods and services for the public is socialism's barest definition. Roads are socialism. Libraries are socialism.
You want to know what's not socialism? The USSR.
By this logic all governments thought history are socialist. So what's the purpose of the word? Without meaning to sound rude, you are simply incorrect. Socialism is not "spending taxes good". The barest definition might be economic democracy. My own barest definition would be workers controlling the means of production.
Socialism and Communism are the only words in the English language to describe a system of production and redistribution of goods owned by the workers and the general public.
The fact that these words are also defiled and poisoned by autocratic militaristic dictatorships like the USSR, China, etc is just the circumstances we find ourselves in.
Their antonyms would be Mercantilism or Capitalism, though mixing of the systems can exist due to the complex nature of markets and society, wherein privatization produces goods and services based on profitability.
Yes. That's correct
Socialism isn't just when the government "does stuff" bucko. It involves the restructuring of political economy to one where workers are in charge of state apparatus
Perhaps such a system could involve workers voting on how best to allocate resources?
Yes. Socialism isn't one thing. There are different ways of structuring socialism; the most important thing is that the workers hold power. Your description aligns with the anarchist view.
I just described when the government “does stuff” bucko.
The biggest joke here is you think governments represent workers
It's called Democracy.
Riiiiight. Keep telling yourself that