The Willfully And Woefully Ignorant

Ok … I’m exhausted, but I need to understand something:

In the comments on an article about Trump being laughed at for dissing Socialism, people were talking about how the world owes Trump an apology, because of all of the times Socialism failed.


France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Czech, Israel, Canada … They are all Democratic Socialist countries, and they’re doing just fine.

The only times that I can think of when Socialism failed was when the Nazis terminated the Weimar Constitution by coup d’etat in the middle of an economic crisis caused British and French exactions of heavy repayment and fines for WWI, and the Greek economic collapse a couple of years ago, that has since been worked out with the EU.

Communism, on the other hand, where the government owns all enterprises, where the government decides your employment, where the government sets ration quotas on goods, where the government is usually run by a strongman dictator and you have a few corrupt party officials gangstering things up, where free speech is off limits in favor of the party propaganda line … Communism has been a complete failure.

Even China saw the writing on the wall and transitioned out of strict Maoist Communism.

Socialism IS NOT Communism.

Communism IS NOT Socialism.

If you can’t tell the difference between Trudeau’s Canada and Ceausescu’s Romania, you have a really big problem.

Now, I’ve heard some pathetic right-wingers say, “Well they called it Socialism.”

Ok, and Communist East Germany called itself “The German Democratic Republic” … Was it democratic ???


People around the world actually know the difference. They are taught the difference. They have lived the difference. They have the knowledge and experience.

The USA still promulgates propaganda concocted in 1947 … and no American dare review and revise it.

The USA is insulated from the rest of the world by two tremendous oceans. The average American is completely ignorant about how other countries work and doesn’t even care to know because we are so insulated that what goes on in France has absolutely no effect on people’s daily lives … unless you’re in finance.

We, as a people are willfully and woefully ignorant. And ignorance is not bliss.

We are a suspicious people … not skeptical, paranoid suspicious of anything and anyone that doesn’t conform to the mythology that we’ve created to make ourselves feel “exceptional.”

We bullshit ourselves about free market economics. We bullshit ourselves about other countries. We bullshit ourselves about other cultures. And … worst of all … we bullshit ourselves about ourselves, our history, our alleged successes, and our place in the world.

Trump is the product of this parochial culture and education, so when he opens up his mouth on the world stage, confident in his ignorance, the world laughs.

The world laughs because our parochialism does not jibe in the slightest with the experience of people who have actually lived life in various countries and systems around the world. These people know nuance. These people are educated in economics. They know the difference. We don’t.


©2017, A.A.Spett.

All Rights Reserved.

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