The Deliberate Misconception of Socialism

Meme found on Facebook

If you do a Google search of the definition of socialism, you will find a progressive definition of socialism and a progressive definition of socialism in history, both of which are historically incorrect. Both definitions bear a glaring discrepancy to reality and embody the progressives’ utopian dreams.

The first progressive definition of socialism is a “political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.” This could not be further from the truth. No community could regulate or own anything under socialism.

The definition of socialism in history is also factually incorrect. It defines socialism as a “range of economic and social systems characterized by social ownership of the means of production and workers’ self-management.” Workers never self-managed under socialism. They may have hidden at work in a warehouse to take naps during the workday but that would be the extent of self-management.

The real definition of a socialist society is the government’s ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange. Not at any point could the proletariat self-manage, they were told what to do by apparatchiks under the strict guidance of the Communist Party. Socialism was and still is a pre-cursor stage to communism.

The aggressive mass media, academia, and social media controllers’ agenda of indoctrination of the population is obvious at every corner by those of us who studied real (not manufactured) history and have lived under socialism.

The handsomely paid agents of indoctrination know what they are doing, and it seems to be working well with the low information voters and their fellow travelers who use Facebook and other social media as a source of information via memes cleverly designed for maximum misinformation/disinformation.

For example, a recent meme designed by Uncle Jack states “Republicans want you to be afraid of socialism! ‘Socialism’ means that we pool our resources to provide things for everyone! In America today, that includes: fire departments, police departments, public schools, public hospitals, veterans benefits, national weather service, roads and bridges, unemployment insurance, drinking water, military, NTSA, Medicare, Social Security, FEMA, G.I. Bill, Food and Drug Safety, CDC, NASA, sewers, bank deposit insurance, hazardous waste disposal and clean-up.” It continues by asking in boldface lettering reminiscent of Halloween, “So which of these current SOCIALIST programs scare you?”

For starters none of those listed represent socialism, they are services provided by the local, state, and federal governments with taxpayer funds accumulated from taxation, dues, fees, etc.

Schools are paid by property taxes in the U.S.  Under socialism, nobody owns property because the government controls everything. Schools are indoctrination tools run by the government and their indoctrinated teaching agents.

Police departments in the U.S. can apply for grants from the federal government under strict guidelines from agencies such as the USDA’s Community Facilities Direct Loan & Grant Program. Tax dollars from citizens pay for police and firefighters and each state is vastly different. Under socialism, the government controls the police and its funding under different levels of monitoring in order to keep the population under control.

Public hospitals are funded by the Department of Health. Patients pay a small nominal fee.

Health care is paid for by government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, private health insurance, and by out-of-pocket expenditures.

Developed countries except for the U.S. have partially or fully, publicly funded health care systems. They are not free; they are either financed by heavy taxation or via compulsory health insurance. Nothing is FREE.

In the U.S., state and local health departments receive their funds from grants (taxpayers’ money) given by the Prevention and Public Health Fund established under the Affordable Care Act passed by Obama in 2010 at Christmas time, with only Democrat input.

Medicare is financed through payroll taxes, premiums, and federal tax revenues.

Medicaid is tax-funded and administered by the individual states which operate the program with federal guidelines. Some individuals get free medical care while others must pay a nominal fee. Illegal immigrants and asylum refugees receive free care from the moment they cross our borders unlawfully.

In 2017, the U.S. spent about $3.5 trillion or 18% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on health expenditures more than twice the average among other developed countries.

According to taxpolicy.org in 2018 the federal government alone spent $1.1 trillion on health care; $583 billion on Medicare, $399 billion on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance (CHIP) and $70 billion on veterans’ medical care.

Medical organizations are funded by credit, venture capital, donations, grants, savings, subsidies, and taxes. Such medical organizations did not exist under socialism.

Veterans benefits was approved by Congress’ $86.5 billion in discretionary funding. The money comes from federal taxation which all working Americans pay. The U.S. Department of Veteran affairs requested a total of $220.2 billion in fiscal year 2020, a 9.6 percent increase over 2019.

Veterans were promised benefits for their service for their country and active duty in peacetime and wars. Their salaries are much lower and are not commensurate with their sacrifice. These veteran benefits are not welfare, they have earned them. They pay health insurance premiums for their medical care.

The national weather service (NWS) is an agency of the United States federal government and is funded by taxpayer dollars. We did not have a national weather service system under socialism. We were on our own when disaster struck, and nobody warned us beforehand. The government did not see fit to invest in such endeavor because nobody paid ANY taxes. We were serfs to the government’s whims.

Roads and bridges are funded through federal grants to state and local governments via taxation. One-quarter of spending on roads and bridges comes from the federal government, the rest financed by state and local governments. Gas taxes, tolls, user fees, license plate taxes, income, sales and property taxes are used to maintain infrastructure which varies from state to state. The Highway Trust Fund for highway and mass transit programs awards grants to localities and states. Under socialism, paved roads were scarce and deficient because there were no taxes levied by the government or paid by the proletariat.

Unemployment insurance is paid by employers and is not a feature of socialism.  It is a tax collected by state and federal governments. It is part of payroll taxes. The employer payroll taxes include: Social Security taxes (6.2%), Medicare taxes (1.45% of wages), and federal unemployment taxes (FUTA).

Drinking water is controlled by the Safe Drinking Water Act which authorizes the EPA, a federal agency supported with taxpayer dollars of those who pay taxes. The act establishes minimum standards to protect tap water and requires all private, public owners or operators of public water systems to comply with the standards. Water infrastructure includes systems of water supply, treatment, storage, water resource management, flood prevention, and hydropower. Different private and public owners and agencies control the water infrastructure. It has nothing to do with socialism, on the contrary.

Under socialism, the government controlled the water supply and delivery. Rivers and canals were polluted, water was substandard, and it was delivered whenever the government rulers decided to do so. A few hours during the day cold water flowed, but hot water was in short supply or non-existent, and, in summer time, there was no water at all as the mighty government had to do maintenance for three months and the people were supplied drinking water via cisterns that combed the neighborhoods.

Sewage treatment is the responsibility of each municipal wastewater treatment plants. It is a service provided to the citizens for a monthly fee. It is not socialism either as these are owned by various towns and even private companies that have invested in the wastewater treatment facilities.

The four branches of the military, Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force are funded by Congress through the federal budget. The money comes from taxation and again, it is federalism, not socialism. For FY 2019, the Department of Defense budget is approximately $693 billion.

Social Security is not socialism, on the contrary, it is welfare for the federal government which dips into the fund to transfer money to other agencies, for other spending as they see fit. The Social Security program is funded by the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax, a payroll tax. The tax is assessed at a rate of 6.2% of income paid by employer, and another 6,2% paid by employee. The self-employed pay the full 12.4% tax. “The money that employees and employers pay into the fund through taxes is not the same money that you will receive later in life.”

FEMA is the Federal Emergency Management Agency established by executive order by President Carter in 1979 which merged many disaster-related responsibilities at the federal level. It is funded by taxpayer dollars. It is not socialism at all. Socialist governments usually leave their citizens to deal on their own with natural disasters and wait on capitalist nations such as the U.S. to donate food, water, blankets, medical help, and other resources when disasters strike. I know because we survived a terrible earthquake in 1977 and we went hungry, cold, and homeless for days, and had to find our own sources of water.

G.I. Bill is a term that refers to any educational benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs to members of Active Duty, Selected Reserve and National Guard Armed Forces, and their families. The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (the G.I. Bill) was a law that provided a range of benefits for returning WWII veterans. The G.I. Bill is part of their otherwise low military pay, for their service, sacrifice, and putting their lives on the line, it is not an entitlement and not socialism as the lefties imply.

Food and Drug Safety falls under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration (a taxpayer funded bureaucracy) which “protects the public health by ensuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices, and by ensuring the safety of our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation.” There is no socialism there.

CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) is a federal agency (taxpayer funded) under the Department of Health and Human Services and as such it receives federal funding from Congress with funds from taxpayers.

CDC Foundation receives charitable contributions and philanthropic grants from individuals, foundations, corporations, universities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other organizations to advance the work of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is not socialism. Socialist governments do not have the equivalent of the CDC.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the civilian space program. It is funded by research opportunities with other government agencies, private, and non-profit sectors. It has nothing to do with socialism, on the contrary, it benefits from the existence of capitalism. Socialist governments did not have money for such research or even other types of research. There is a reason why most discoveries came from capitalist economies, never socialist ones. Barack Obama defunded NASA’s shuttle space flights and research in 2010. Since then, NASA bought seats on the Russian space flights.

Bank deposit insurance protect deposits of individuals covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). This is a private corporation with shareholders even though the name federal implies ownership by the U.S. government – it is not. The deposit insurance fund is mandated by law for each Federal Reserve Bank to set aside money and to pay back up to $100,000 per depositor in case of failure of a financial institution.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) does not receive Congressional money, it is funded by insurance payments made by banks. So, it has nothing to do with socialism, on the contrary, it is capitalist finance. Socialism has one bank only, that which is owned by the central government and they do whatever they want with the depositor’s cash. They often confiscate at whim the funds of citizens they don’t deem socialist enough or who have offended the socialist government in some way.

Hazardous waste disposal and clean-up funding comes from taxpayers; states pay ten percent of cleanup costs, fifty percent if the state operated the facility responsible for contamination, and the company which polluted is responsible for cleanup. By law, the parties responsible for use, transportation, storage, and disposal of hazardous substances/waste and oil are liable for costs. This is not socialism at all.

As we can plainly see, the disinformation of the Left is quite insidious and unfortunately millions and millions of low information voters and illegal aliens who vote but don’t speak English, fall for the Left’s inflammatory, misinformed, deceitful rhetoric and memes which are generously funded by billionaires who stand to profit from their deception.

Falsifiers of History

“The absolute worst – and often irreparable – damage done to the Free World has been caused by the Kremlin’s disinformation operations designed to change the past.”
– Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa

The Oxford dictionary defines “disinformation” as false information that is intended to mislead, especially propaganda issued by a government organization to a rival power or the media.” The word originated in the 1950s with the Russian word, “dezinformatsiya.”

According to Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, the KGB manual he perused long time ago clearly described on the first page in upper case letters, “IF YOU ARE GOOD AT DISINFORMATION, YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH ANYTHING.” (p. 80)

Pacepa reveals that Kremlin’s “dezinformatsiya” goes back to 16^th century Russia. In his opinion, the most successful disinformation attack had been launched against the Vatican and the Catholic Church, culminating into a “vicious war against Pope Pius XII and the Judeo-Christian world that broke out in 1945 and has never ended.”

Misinformation and disinformation are not interchangeable, he clarified. “Misinformation is an official government tool while disinformation is a secret intelligence tool.”

Lt. Gen. Pacepa, who defected from the Soviet bloc and was intimately knowledgeable of its security, explained that “During the Cold War, more people in the Soviet bloc worked for the disinformation machinery than for the Soviet army and defense industry put together.” (p. 38)

Disinformation is channeled in many ways. It is daily manufactured news, programs, and statistics from the main stream media, giving voters false impressions that the economy is quite rosy and recovering although stark reality reflects a different story.

Disinformation is telling naïve voters what they want to hear, making false promises of better and cheaper health insurance, of health care readily available for all, practically free, of redistribution of wealth of the “evil rich” who built their wealth on the backs of the poor, and of “social justice” reigning supreme.

The reality is that millions of Americans have already lost or will lose private insurance because their insurance plans, which they liked and afforded, were deemed inferior by the Affordable Care Act. The actual health care delivery will be hampered by the total chaos, faulty exchanges, ill-prepared and dishonest navigators, the lack of sufficient doctors and nurses, and by new patients who will rush to see doctors for basic services that are free under ObamaCare. Meanwhile, patients with serious illnesses will have to wait patiently their turn in line behind younger Americans and illegal aliens.

Disinformation is manufactured history spoon-fed by teachers and college professors to our nation’s youth, creating false narratives that our country has committed countless atrocities. The current and future Americans are thus obligated to redress such real or imagined atrocities through endless apologies, sensitivity training, and “white guilt” driven wealth redistribution caused by the invented notion of “white privilege.”

Did the current citizens of the United States engage in the slave trade or suffered from slavery? No. Yet race baiters continue to strain race relations through blatantly false storylines because keeping the Civil War alive, slavery, and racial division is very lucrative. The real slave holders and traders around the world today are never discussed.

Disinformation is the main stream media telling the public that a “study found” that mercury, a known neuro-toxin, is actually beneficial for infants when given in vaccines.

Disinformation is the media advising listeners and readers that they are wasting time and money taking daily vitamins; they are not beneficial to overall health. Never mind that the actual study was done on individuals who had suffered a heart attack. One of the stated biases in the study was that the subjects did not take the vitamins regularly or the proper dosage daily, making the reliability of the findings questionable.

Disinformation is portraying Mitt Romney and other conservative Christian political candidates as enemies who wage a fictitious “war on women” while the real war is waged on women around the world: abortions of millions of potential Americans at taxpayer subsidized clinics, genital mutilation, forced late-term abortions in China in order to comply with one-child policy, honor killings of women when these women are raped and falsely accused of adultery, or facial acid burnings when pubescent girls refuse to marry old men.

Disinformation is continuing to implement public policy affecting all Americans and billions around the globe based on the manufactured “consensus science” of global warming/climate change, costing taxpayers billions of dollars in unnecessary expenses, taxes, and fees in order to line the pockets of interested parties, individuals, and NGOs who gain immensely from taxing CO2 and from destroying the use of cheaper fossil fuels through unreasonable and costly regulations. The energy derived from cheaper fossil fuels must be replaced by more expensive and dirty “green” energy.

The MSM gave little coverage to the news that the global warming/climate change “team of scientists and members of the public retracing the footsteps of the Australian Antarctic expedition of 1911” http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/25/antarctic-expedition-scientists-trapped-ice found themselves and their cruise ship trapped in 15 ft. thick ice in the Antarctic, in need of rescue from ice breakers and helicopters. http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/30/world/antarctic-ship-stuck/

Was it a fact-finding mission, looking for dead polar bears and melted ice caps?

Disinformation is propagandizing the idea of Green Growth and Sustainability Everything for the better good of the planet while planning on massively moving people off their lands and from the suburbia into urban micro-pods, 200 square feet of space, stacked 9-story high, without cars and elevators, just walking and biking, in order to re-wild private lands because environmentalists have decided long time ago that suburban sprawl is bad and there are too many destructive humans on the planet. When challenged and presented with the evidence of all the Smart Growth plans and Agenda 21 documents, American citizens are “framed” and vilified as dangerous loons.

Disinformation is dismantling piece by piece, executive order by executive order, judicial decision by judicial decision, Congressional Act by Congressional Act, the American family, the military, the labor force, the stellar American healthcare system, the education system, decency and morality, the justice system, businesses, and our Christian faith while telling low information voters that it is done for the greater good, for the collective that will eventually rob them of their freedom.

Disinformation is allowing Islamic infiltration into America’s cities because our government has decided that we are so “intolerant and hateful” that we must be taught lessons in how to get along and “coexist” with invading cultures whose values and laws are incompatible with our Constitution and who wish to bring their third world slums to America. The sensitivity training and reeducation must include a healthy dose of welfare to make illegals and those who follow the religion of peace feel at home in our country.

Disinformation was creating a non-existent “well-organized white-supremacist movement” responsible for black church fires during President Clinton’s years in office.  Lt. Gen. Pacepa describes in his book, Disinformation, how the National Fire Protection Association disclosed that “there had been far fewer church fires than usual, and law enforcement officials in the South could not confirm any as having been racially motivated.” Pacepa concluded that, after the National Council of Churches was accused of manufacturing “a great church-fire hoax,” nobody investigated why this hoax was created. (p. 2)

Disinformation is justifying by the MSM the violent attacks of black individuals against white and Hispanic elderly as a “knockout game,” while condemning only two attackers who happened to be white.

Pacepa used in his book an example of disinformation that was meant to vilify Americans as careless Neanderthals who do not appreciate museum artifacts. The MSM reported that “170,000 items of antiquity dating back thousands of years” were destroyed in April 2003 at the National Museum in Baghdad. In reality, treasures were safe in American custody and only 25 items were eventually listed as missing. (p. 36)

The “falsifiers of history,” the disinformation agents, have created the myths like Che Guevara, the darling of liberals and college students in this country. They wear with pride t-shirts and berets with the mug shot of a criminal who was sentenced to death and executed for mass murder and terrorism.

As part of the Soviet dezinformatsiya campaign, the “framing” of ordinary citizens as “uncooperative” or “Nazi collaborators” has resulted in the death of millions of innocents behind the Iron Curtain. 

Lt. Gen. Pacepa believes “respect for Marxism and admiration for murderous communist leaders” to be “the greatest political hoax perpetrated in history.”