Rachel Maddow - The European Socialism Nightmare

[Joanne98]

Run time: 05:52 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbaicycoZ8A   Posted on YouTube: July 29, 2010 By YouTube Member: StartLoving3 Views on YouTube: 92   Posted on DU: July 29, 2010 By DU Member: Joanne98 Views on DU: 4340

 

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Sounds a lot more like heaven than what is going on inthe US the economic world...

UNION INVOLVEMENT IN CORPORATE BOARDS!!!!!!!!!!

6-8 WEEKS VACATION!!!!!!!!!

CRADLE TO GRAVE ENTITLEMENTS!!!!!!!!!!!!

If only those self-destructive lemmings who follow the RWingnuts had any idea whatsoever what they were screaming and ranting about.
They are so damn stupid, ignorant and pathetic that they deserve what they get....It just pisses me off that the rest of us have to
suffer along with them.

The leaders of the repukes only know that they and their corporate sponsors will lose money if we move toward
a European Socialist Democracy...that is all they care about.

Most telling fact: All those "European Socialist Democracies" were based on the US model...or whatit once was...

sad...sad...sad..

I think it was in a Michael Moore movie that there were interviews with a whole slew of Americans living abroad...they were thrilled
with their lives..and knew they could never be as comfortable -not just economically- back in the US

[southmost]

24. the nightmare part is its still industrial/capitalism

had some interesting chats with german and finnish posters about how they actually wish it were more socialist and less capitalist.. I just explained that we (in the US) are so far down the rabbit hole of viral/ cancer stage capitalism, that their system (although imperfect) is far better than ours... I guess its a matter of perception, but hell yeah our current system is much worse

[PSzymeczek]

29. I do believe that was in

Sicko.

[Billy Burnett]

2. If Obama were like Fidel Castro, then we'd all have universal health care and universal higher ed.

Cuba's social stats rival those of the European socialist nations.

-

Americans don't want that for America. :sarcasm:

[dtotire]

8. Look At Sweden

A small country, population 8 million or so. They have some leading industries--Saab, Volvo. Husqvarna, and others. IKEA is headquartered there. They are a creditor nation, with more exports than imports. Some unemployment, but not as high as here. With all the social benefits of free health care, education, etc. They must be doing something right. Check it out on CIA Worldfacts. Maybe some of you could name other industries there are located there.

[Billy Burnett]

10. Cuba is poor, yet has world class socialized infrastructure.

Proof that it is far more than simply manufacturing sectors.

It is about public participation in their government, because a vast majority of people want efficient infrastructure that protects everyone equally well

Learn from Cuba


“It is in some sense almost an anti-model,” according to Eric Swanson, the programme manager for the Bank’s Development Data Group, which compiled the WDI, a tome of almost 400 pages covering scores of economic, social, and environmental indicators.

Indeed, Cuba is living proof in many ways that the Bank’s dictum that economic growth is a pre-condition for improving the lives of the poor is over-stated, if not, downright wrong.

-

It has reduced its infant mortality rate from 11 per 1,000 births in 1990 to seven in 1999, which places it firmly in the ranks of the western industrialised nations. It now stands at six, according to Jo Ritzen, the Bank’s Vice President for Development Policy, who visited Cuba privately several months ago to see for himself.

By comparison, the infant mortality rate for Argentina stood at 18 in 1999;

Chile’s was down to ten; and Costa Rica, at 12. For the entire Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole, the average was 30 in 1999.

Similarly, the mortality rate for children under the age of five in Cuba has fallen from 13 to eight per thousand over the decade. That figure is 50% lower than the rate in Chile, the Latin American country closest to Cuba’s achievement. For the region as a whole, the average was 38 in 1999.

“Six for every 1,000 in infant mortality - the same level as Spain - is just unbelievable,” according to Ritzen, a former education minister in the Netherlands. “You observe it, and so you see that Cuba has done exceedingly well in the human development area.”

Indeed, in Ritzen’s own field, the figures tell much the same story. Net primary enrolment for both girls and boys reached 100% in 1997, up from 92% in 1990. That was as high as most developed nations - higher even than the US rate and well above 80-90% rates achieved by the most advanced Latin American countries.

“Even in education performance, Cuba’s is very much in tune with the developed world, and much higher than schools in, say, Argentina, Brazil, or Chile.”

It is no wonder, in some ways. Public spending on education in Cuba amounts to about 6.7% of gross national income, twice the proportion in other Latin American and Caribbean countries and even Singapore.

There were 12 primary school pupils for every Cuban teacher in 1997, a ratio that ranked with Sweden, rather than any other developing country. The Latin American and East Asian average was twice as high at 25 to one.

The average youth (age 15-24) illiteracy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean stands at 7%. In Cuba, the rate is zero. In Latin America, where the average is 7%, only Uruguay approaches that achievement, with one percent youth illiteracy.

“Cuba managed to reduce illiteracy from 40% to zero within ten years,” said Ritzen. “If Cuba shows that it is possible, it shifts the burden of proof to those who say it’s not possible.”

Similarly, Cuba devoted 9.1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) during the 1990s to health care, roughly equivalent to Canada’s rate. Its ratio of 5.3 doctors per 1,000 people was the highest in the world.

The question that these statistics pose, of course, is whether the Cuban experience can be replicated. The answer given here is probably not.

“What does it, is the incredible dedication,” according to Wayne Smith, who was head of the US Interests Section in Havana in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has travelled to the island many times since.

[slay]

20. +1

there are good examples like Sweden of how to move forward in this day and age, but America is full of stubborn idiots with a cowboy mentality where they refuse to learn by example. it sucks. i may well end up leaving this country before it gets much worse i'm afraid.

[Rubble]

22. I live in Sweden, and it was absolutely the best move in my life

I lived for decades all over the USA, ran the gamut of lifestyles, from New York City squat dweller to corporate upper-level management with the big house near La Jolla, CA. From rural midwest to Miami Beach to Boston, Washington DC, etc. I worked 100 hour plus work weeks in many of those years. Slowly my health went, and after switching jobs, my company folded my division, and sent it to India. I never worked an above table job again. I sent over 2000 applications, had over 150 interviews, and it was always the same story. The hiring manager couldn't believe that I was (at the end of my desperation) willing to accept an entry level job, but hired me, with the proviso that HR just had to OK it. I never heard back. Finally, an old friend, who was very high up in a telecom (my background) said to me lets find out why. So he put me thru as a hire for one the cities (Phoenix) that he oversaw. 4 days later, he called me up, and said to me that I could never get hired with his corporation (one of the biggest telecoms in the world)as I was in a national database as a high-risk hire, due to my health issues, and that almost all in the industry now use this same database. The companies use a credit check, and regression-analysis software to determine patterns of purchases that indicate serious health risks. And I could not even buy any, any health insurance in the state I lived in (GA) as it is legal for insurance companies there to refuse any one.

6 months later, I left for Sweden. Even as an American, all the universities here are free, the health care is basically free, and superb. Twice I almost died, once in the USA, once here, due to my disease, which is on the verge now of being cured. In the USA, a 13 day hospital stay cost me a 340,000 dollar bill. Here in Sweden, a more serious 23 day stay cost me less that 50 dollars. And all my care since then, including chemotherapy (not for cancer)is free. In the USA, I would have to pay over 100 thousand dollars just for the drugs for 48 weeks. The EXACT same drugs costs the Swedish government less than 3,000 dollars.

It is so beautiful, clean, safe, culturally alive, non-violent, affordable, and stress-free to live here. GMO food is illegal, they don't poison the water with fluoride, the predatory USA and UK banks are basically banned from any significant role here, and almost all people are literally ten times as intellectually aware about politics all over the globe vis-a-vis the typical American.I WILL NEVER GO BACK TO THE USA to live, and most of the people on this board, if they think that their ideals will ever see the light of day in the US, within their lifetimes, are simply delusional.

[Rubble]

23. actually, IKEA corporate HQ was moved to Holland by Ingvar Kamprad as a tax dodge..

many Swedes looked at this, and still do, as a betrayal to the folkhemmet (Swedish social compact)

[Douglas Carpenter]

3. one only needs to take a look and compare

I recall once someone lamenting how in Germany workers were getting company paid vacations to health spas in the Black Forest - saying it like these Black Forest health spas were the moral equivalent of Soviet Gulags. All I could say to him was, "sounds terrible, sure glad I'm not there!"

[CTyankee]

7. I heard a middle aged school teacher tell me she had just learned about

day care centers in Belgium and how she didn't think their system "is so bad." She seemed a little hesitant to say it, thinking she might get some strong arguments against "European socialism." I told I thought she was right...

[Pavlovs_Dog]

34. :)

Black forest retreats like Baden Baden were (and still are) some of the best vacation and spa towns preferred by European aristocracy since the 19th century (at least). It's funny how in Soviet Union 80s (when the country was going down), companies still had their own resorts in Crimea on the sea, available not just to management, but engineers, and all workers. My parents were able to spend 2 months with us, enjoying the beach, relaxing, mingling with co-workers, all free! My corporation here in the states was cheap enough this year to organize a picnic were family members were NOT allowed :) What a joke...

[Enthusiast]

4. Un-American claptrap!

:sarcasm:

[izquierdista]

5. American preferences

It is the preference of the "haves and the have-mores" that the rest of Americans work very hard to put money in their pockets. What the bottom 98% prefer doesn't matter.

[BlueMTexpat]

6. Right now, what we have looks a lot more like

European-style feudalism. The corporations are the new lords of the manor and the overwhelming majority of us are the serfs.

Give me European-style socialism anyday!

[European Socialist]

9. K&R. I wish the Swedes would invade--I would wave the first white flag.

[dotymed]

11. IF I ever get my SS disability,

which I paid for with 84 hour weeks for decades, I will be happy ex-pat.

[Joe Chi Minh]

21. I wish we could outsource our UK government to continental Euopeans. French, Germans, Scandinavians.

I'm not fussy.

[Naturyl]

37. How would that work?

Will the US send SSI payments overseas? If so, that changes everything...

[midnight]

12. Let me respond to the one question by Mitch McConnell.

"Were are we going to be in two years?" I have to wonder, why he didn't ask that after spending like a drunken sailor under Bush?



The chutzpah of Mitch McConnell is astounding. McConnell says that unemployment benefits cannot be entended because of the deficit. Candy Crowley asks McConnell if the Bush tax cuts should be allowed to lapse. McConnell was absolutely against that. McConnell then blamed the deficit on the Obama administration and refused to answer if Republicans spent too much during the Bush years. The economics policies of the GOP makes no sense in policy terms. Republican fiscal policies is a wishlist for the base.

http://pushingrope.blogspot.com/2010/07/mitch-mcconnells-fiscal-nonsense.html

[ellenfl]

13. totolatarian? newt, you're a moran! eom

[Shining Jack]

14. K&R

[Lars77]

15. Most Europeans look at that kind of rhetoric with bemusement and amazement

Whenever American right-wingers play the "we could end up like Europe"-card it actually sometimes comes up here on the nightly news as the last piece that is supposed to lighten the mood before they turn to the weather guy. It's either this or a cute animal or something.

Sure the founding ideals of America were vastly different from Europe, but the ideals of todays European societies are vastly different from what they used to be. The American working class (Most Americans who say they're middle class are actually working class) has been fooled into believing that it's somehow un-American to have such horrors as unemployment benefits, paid vacation etc.

I have a BA in North American studies, starting my Masters this fall so i follow American politics quite closely, and i think it's sad that Americans still don't seem to get it. And it makes me wonder how much shit regular people have to go through before they "wake up", to use Kucinich's words.

[emmadoggy]

16. i can haz sum yuropeean soshalizm? Plz? kthnxbai. nt

[spicegal]

17. European socialism sounds pretty darn good to me.

The problem is that the vast majority of Americans have no idea what it actually is.

[WillyT]

26. I'm Ready !!!

:woohoo:

:kick:

:hi:

[Diclotican]

31. spicegal

spicegal

And for more than 60 Year, they have been put their heads full of propaganda, of how bad it is, to have a public healt opption, universal healt care system.. Paid vacation, and so on...

But, if they had known... they would have revolted to get what we look at as a human right...

Diclotican

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

18. "He'd be very comfortable in pre-Tony Blair Labour Party"

He says it like it's a bad thing? That's supposed to be a smear? An attack?

Your right-wingers have really gone off the deep end.

[valerief]

19. Gimme some socialized livin'! nt

[War Horse]

25. I'm so glad I don't live in Sweden!

Sounds like Hell on Earth.

Guess I'm lucky to live right next door, in Norway, where we don't have to endure that kind of Social Democrat inferno... :sarcasm:

Seriously, though, it's the health care thing that bothers me the most. As long as you're reasonably healthy you can always have a go at that 'bootstrap levitation' thing - although we all know that people fall through the cracks for a lot of different reasons - but what if you're diagnosed with cancer (for example?)

I just can't imagine having to go through something like that and at the same time having to worry about losing your house to be able to afford the treatment.

Don't mean to be US bashing or anything here, but it just seems so short sighted to me.

[mzmolly]

33. Welcome.

:hi:

[fascisthunter]

27. Bill O'Really, isn't afraid of socialism... he's afraid socialism will...

treat everyone the same regardless of economic/political background. He's afraid of its potential to help Americans.

He's also afraid that an infusion of socialism will regulate and therefore make it harder for criminals to corrupt the system in their favor. Yes.... he's afraid of a REAL democracy where in which wealth isn't a factor... you have one vote... everyone else has one vote, the fairest system imaginable; a system that nurtures solidarity while taking care of those people who make it all possible. Something everyone is a part of.... no exclusivity.

He also knows people will embrace it once they know what i"socialism" really is and what it really means. He tries his damnedest to make the word, "socialism" as unattractive as possible, nullifying any possibility of people finding out the truth for themselves. Turn people off and away from the subject matter and there is no truth, just their fiction.The louder he yells, the angrier he gets, the more I know he is panicking.

[ca3799]

28. Most

Most Americans have no idea how anyone in other countries live. They just know, somehow deep in their bones, that the 'American way is the best way and all other ways are wrong.' My cousin lives in Norway and loves everything about it. I believe she told me she received a partial salary to stay home with her newborm for an extended time.

[Diclotican]

30. Joanne98

Joanne98

If americans had known, how good mutch of Vestern Europe style of "socialism" really is, with universal health care, 6-8 week paid wecation, sickleave (paid too) and so on... And our social welfare net is something that most americans could just dream of, in their best dreams...

So, if Obama is to turning USA into a social democratic state.. You should FIGHT for it... nail and toe.. But I doubt that Obama would turn US into anything european... Mostly becouse most american could not fhantome what it was... And to be brutal honest, are to ignorant, about their own superiority, to even start turning things around..

So, when O'Really, and the other clowns at FOX news is trying to tell you that Obama would turn US into a social democratic socity, you should jump on the chance, to get what we in western europe look at as natural and a universal Right...


Diclotican

[Lorien]

32. The only people in America who truly benefit from the U.S. system are the top 3%

of the wealthiest-particularly the top 0.5%...but enlightening the intellectually incurious non traveling mainstream working or lower middle class American about this fact is nearly impossible. They've turned the word "Socialism" into the new "Liberal"; two things that Jesus Christ would have embraced, two things that Obama has rejected completely... yet they keep the spin and distortions going to swindle the bottom 97% of the population into giving their lives for the benefit of the wealthiest.

[Progressive Cancer]

36. Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the rest

[glowing]

35. if you talk about these issues without labels, almost everyone would be considered

a socialist.