By Naomi Klein, The Nation
Editor’s Note: The conservative tribe is rarely correct about anything—either by ghastly disregard for the truth or total lack of compassion—but their claim that fixing the climate would require doing away with capitalism is not far from the truth. Capitalism in all substantive matters is the enemy of nature. And the same applies to any industrial system in any nation that puts the interests of humans ahead of nature’s well-being.
Another disgraceful area of social and economic activity in the United States where conservatives have long opposed a real fix is healthcare. The fact is that a universal healthcare system based on a “single payer” model would quickly show the superiority of a public oriented solution over private enterprise, with the masses soon losing fear of “socialism”. As usual, capitalists abhor and fear the “demonstration effect” of socialistic policy. It threatens their mythology that the free market knows best. That fear has also shaped their unrelenting attacks and disinformation on the accomplishment of socialist nations from the moment of their inception.—P. Greanville
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There is a question from a gentleman in the fourth row.
He introduces himself as Richard Rothschild. He tells the crowd that he ran for county commissioner in Maryland’s Carroll County because he had come to the conclusion that policies to combat global warming were actually “an attack on middle-class American capitalism.” His question for the panelists, gathered in a Washington, DC, Marriott Hotel in late June, is this: “To what extent is this entire movement simply a green Trojan horse, whose belly is full with red Marxist socioeconomic doctrine?” Continue reading »
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