Washington
D.C. — Underscoring his Administration’s commitment to jumpstarting the
nation’s nuclear power industry, President Obama today announced that
the Department of Energy has offered conditional commitments for a total
of $8.33 billion in loan guarantees for the construction and operation
of two new nuclear reactors at a plant in Burke, Georgia. The project is
scheduled to be the first U.S. nuclear power plant to break ground in
nearly three decades. ~
WhiteHouse.gov
Did the Fukushima disaster change the
President’s policy? Why does the free market need government loan
guarantees? If nuclear power is such a great idea, why aren’t investors
clamoring to be let in? At a time in this country
when 19 percent of the population is on some form of public assistance,
is this a wise use of government funds? Of course not, but in a
capitalist democracy where courts rule, money is free speech, money
rules. When vote tallies are kept on computer systems proven to be
untrustworthy, can it even be called a democracy at all?
The only goal of capitalism is to make a profit and if a few acorns
of social improvement fall to the ground, well and good, as long as we
don’t remember that the roots of the tree are feeding on those pushed
below ground. Can a little shade in exchange for their life’s blood, be
considered a fair exchange?
Socialism says your children are as important as mine. Your health is
as important as mine. Your city is as important as mine. Your
prosperity in the end makes my life better. Capitalism creates problems
for society — Socialism solves problems. Wouldn’t public schools in
economically depressed areas equal to those in wealthy neighborhoods be
more cost-effective than public assistance for a lifetime?
Currently, there are 22 empty homes for every homeless person in the
country. Many are dilapidated and some beyond repair. These properties
could be picked up for pennies. The homeless need homes, the unemployed
need work. Save the homes that can be repaired, demolish those that
can’t. Create new neighborhoods and manage the program through lease
ownership. Train the young, help the old. Invest in people, creating a
profit of better lives for all. No longer is it a question of guns or
butter; the question becomes societal survival or disintegration.
The issues of fracking and continental pipelines are constantly in
the headlines. Fracking is the injection of toxic fluids to break loose,
low-grade oil deposits in the Earth’s strata. When we must frack the
Earth to supply our energy needs, we are down to stems and seeds as a
country. Fracking and tar sands are not necessary, only profitable; the
very idea of destroying water tables for the profits of oil companies is
a crime and an absurdity. The real issue is our trade balance. Forty
percent of our monthly trade deficit is for oil purchases. Either we
must reduce our energy usage or we must find alternative sources of
energy. Those sources are out there and well-known. The United States of
America has the greatest wind energy and solar potential of any country
on the face of the Earth.
We live in energy poverty, amidst clean and inexhaustible forms of
energy all around us. Energy denied to us by vested corporate interests,
yet we have $8.33 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear monstrosities
providing fewer than a thousand permanent jobs; mostly specialized
technical jobs, creating little actual new employment. And all this to
subsidize private industry in a project the Congressional Budget Office
predicts has a 40 percent chance of failure. Rather than leading the
world in alternative energy the US lags behind, locked in a vise of
corporate monopoly.
“It can’t be done, it will never work, alternative energy cannot
supply the baseline power requirements needed.” In 1957, this country
was incapable of putting a satellite into low earth orbit. In 1969,
Americans were standing on the surface of the moon. Twenty years later,
the Hubble space telescope began supplying more information about our
universe than was dreamed of in the era of Sputnik. The future holds
promise and bounty, if we approach it for the good of all. If we seek
terrorists we will find them, if we seek peace and prosperity for all,
we can find it as well.
We need a ten year Apollo-style program to build wind turbines and
solar plants across the country, along with the necessary
infrastructure, operating as a non-profit co-operative, the revenues
reinvested, until one day, coal and nuclear energy are no longer
competitive. A wind turbine costs roughly a million dollars, an
investment of a billion dollars would mean 1000 wind turbines; it would
also mean jobs. It would reduce our dependency on fossil fuels; it would
reduce our need to defend the Middle East militarily.
In Europe, a non-profit consortium is working on the Desertec
initiative; a plan to build solar power plants across the Sahara desert
to provide Europe with clean, renewable electricity. Construction cost
estimates of 400 billion Euros over fifty years or one sixth of the cost
of the Afghanistan – Iraq military adventure. It is forecast that the
Desertec initiative will create 250,000 jobs and generate 15 percent of
Europe’s electricity, along with electricity and jobs for North Africa. A
similar project for a solar power and a smart electrical grid are in
the design phase in Asia.
In the US, there are also plans for a super grid, spitting and
sputtering along, dependent on private industry and tax credits. The
petroleum financed President and Congress has dithered, failing to
create a long-term energy policy, offering only one year increments, and
by doing so, Congress strangles the baby in its crib. The Obama
administration boasts of increased oil production, but when a coalition
of 24 governors asked the administration to offer a more favorable
business climate for the development of wind power, Obama offers tax
credits for twelve months.
So why Socialism? We live in an America with record numbers of poor.
We live in an America with record trade deficits. We live in an America
with a burgeoning police state and a mono-party political system — two
wings of one corrupt bird. At a time of the greatest economic hardship
in seventy years, Congress and the President cut food assistance. During
a time of massive unemployment and under employment, the Congress and
the President play political football with the lives of 1.3 million
unemployed Americans. Capitalism is a disaster and only Socialism offers
hope.
You might never become Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg, but you’ll
never have to watch your children go hungry. Socialism is about meeting
the needs of the people — all of the people. Socialism solves the
problems Capitalism creates. To the socialist the answers are simple —
end Capitalism. End a system that builds jails instead of schools,
builds ghettos instead communities, and derides the poor instead of
eliminating poverty. Socialism is hope, the greatest hope for humanity.
“There is no other definition of socialism valid for us than that of
the abolition of the exploitation of man by man.” ~ Ernesto Che Guevara
About the author: David Glenn Cox is a senior staff writer for TLR
and an award winning author and musician; he is the author of the novel,
“The Servants of Pilate.”
Washington
D.C. — Underscoring his Administration’s commitment to jumpstarting the
nation’s nuclear power industry, President Obama today announced that
the Department of Energy has offered conditional commitments for a total
of $8.33 billion in loan guarantees for the construction and operation
of two new nuclear reactors at a plant in Burke, Georgia. The project is
scheduled to be the first U.S. nuclear power plant to break ground in
nearly three decades. ~
WhiteHouse.govid the Fukushima disaster change the
President’s policy? Why does the free market need government loan
guarantees? If nuclear power is such a great idea, why aren’t investors
clamoring to be let in? At a time in this
country
when 19 percent of the population is on some form of public assistance,
is this a wise use of government funds? Of course not, but in a
capitalist democracy where courts rule, money is free speech, money
rules. When vote tallies are kept on computer systems proven to be
untrustworthy, can it even be called a democracy at all?
The only goal of capitalism is to make a profit and if a few acorns
of social improvement fall to the ground, well and good, as long as we
don’t remember that the roots of the tree are feeding on those pushed
below ground. Can a little shade in exchange for their life’s blood, be
considered a fair exchange?
Socialism says your children are as important as mine. Your health is
as important as mine. Your city is as important as mine. Your
prosperity in the end makes my life better. Capitalism creates problems
for society — Socialism solves problems. Wouldn’t public schools in
economically depressed areas equal to those in wealthy neighborhoods be
more cost-effective than public assistance for a lifetime?
Currently, there are 22 empty homes for every homeless person in the
country. Many are dilapidated and some beyond repair. These properties
could be picked up for pennies. The homeless need homes, the unemployed
need work. Save the homes that can be repaired, demolish those that
can’t. Create new neighborhoods and manage the program through lease
ownership. Train the young, help the old. Invest in people, creating a
profit of better lives for all. No longer is it a question of guns or
butter; the question becomes societal survival or disintegration.
The issues of fracking and continental pipelines are constantly in
the headlines. Fracking is the injection of toxic fluids to break loose,
low-grade oil deposits in the Earth’s strata. When we must frack the
Earth to supply our energy needs, we are down to stems and seeds as a
country. Fracking and tar sands are not necessary, only profitable; the
very idea of destroying water tables for the profits of oil companies is
a crime and an absurdity. The real issue is our trade balance. Forty
percent of our monthly trade deficit is for oil purchases. Either we
must reduce our energy usage or we must find alternative sources of
energy. Those sources are out there and well-known. The United States of
America has the greatest wind energy and solar potential of any country
on the face of the Earth.
We live in energy poverty, amidst clean and inexhaustible forms of
energy all around us. Energy denied to us by vested corporate interests,
yet we have $8.33 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear monstrosities
providing fewer than a thousand permanent jobs; mostly specialized
technical jobs, creating little actual new employment. And all this to
subsidize private industry in a project the Congressional Budget Office
predicts has a 40 percent chance of failure. Rather than leading the
world in alternative energy the US lags behind, locked in a vise of
corporate monopoly.
“It can’t be done, it will never work, alternative energy cannot
supply the baseline power requirements needed.” In 1957, this country
was incapable of putting a satellite into low earth orbit. In 1969,
Americans were standing on the surface of the moon. Twenty years later,
the Hubble space telescope began supplying more information about our
universe than was dreamed of in the era of Sputnik. The future holds
promise and bounty, if we approach it for the good of all. If we seek
terrorists we will find them, if we seek peace and prosperity for all,
we can find it as well.
We need a ten year Apollo-style program to build wind turbines and
solar plants across the country, along with the necessary
infrastructure, operating as a non-profit co-operative, the revenues
reinvested, until one day, coal and nuclear energy are no longer
competitive. A wind turbine costs roughly a million dollars, an
investment of a billion dollars would mean 1000 wind turbines; it would
also mean jobs. It would reduce our dependency on fossil fuels; it would
reduce our need to defend the Middle East militarily.
In Europe, a non-profit consortium is working on the Desertec
initiative; a plan to build solar power plants across the Sahara desert
to provide Europe with clean, renewable electricity. Construction cost
estimates of 400 billion Euros over fifty years or one sixth of the cost
of the Afghanistan – Iraq military adventure. It is forecast that the
Desertec initiative will create 250,000 jobs and generate 15 percent of
Europe’s electricity, along with electricity and jobs for North Africa. A
similar project for a solar power and a smart electrical grid are in
the design phase in Asia.
In the US, there are also plans for a super grid, spitting and
sputtering along, dependent on private industry and tax credits. The
petroleum financed President and Congress has dithered, failing to
create a long-term energy policy, offering only one year increments, and
by doing so, Congress strangles the baby in its crib. The Obama
administration boasts of increased oil production, but when a coalition
of 24 governors asked the administration to offer a more favorable
business climate for the development of wind power, Obama offers tax
credits for twelve months.
So why Socialism? We live in an America with record numbers of poor.
We live in an America with record trade deficits. We live in an America
with a burgeoning police state and a mono-party political system — two
wings of one corrupt bird. At a time of the greatest economic hardship
in seventy years, Congress and the President cut food assistance. During
a time of massive unemployment and under employment, the Congress and
the President play political football with the lives of 1.3 million
unemployed Americans. Capitalism is a disaster and only Socialism offers
hope.
You might never become Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg, but you’ll
never have to watch your children go hungry. Socialism is about meeting
the needs of the people — all of the people. Socialism solves the
problems Capitalism creates. To the socialist the answers are simple —
end Capitalism. End a system that builds jails instead of schools,
builds ghettos instead communities, and derides the poor instead of
eliminating poverty. Socialism is hope, the greatest hope for humanity.
“There is no other definition of socialism valid for us than that of
the abolition of the exploitation of man by man.” ~ Ernesto Che Guevara
About the author: David Glenn Cox is a senior staff writer for TLR
and an award winning author and musician; he is the author of the novel,
“The Servants of Pilate.”
- See more at: http://www.leftistreview.com/2014/01/23/why-socialism/davidcox/#sthash.2LjacgqA.dpuf
Why Socialism?
Washington
D.C. — Underscoring his Administration’s commitment to jumpstarting the
nation’s nuclear power industry, President Obama today announced that
the Department of Energy has offered conditional commitments for a total
of $8.33 billion in loan guarantees for the construction and operation
of two new nuclear reactors at a plant in Burke, Georgia. The project is
scheduled to be the first U.S. nuclear power plant to break ground in
nearly three decades. ~
WhiteHouse.govid the Fukushima disaster change the
President’s policy? Why does the free market need government loan
guarantees? If nuclear power is such a great idea, why aren’t investors
clamoring to be let in? At a time in this
country
when 19 percent of the population is on some form of public assistance,
is this a wise use of government funds? Of course not, but in a
capitalist democracy where courts rule, money is free speech, money
rules. When vote tallies are kept on computer systems proven to be
untrustworthy, can it even be called a democracy at all?
The only goal of capitalism is to make a profit and if a few acorns
of social improvement fall to the ground, well and good, as long as we
don’t remember that the roots of the tree are feeding on those pushed
below ground. Can a little shade in exchange for their life’s blood, be
considered a fair exchange?
Socialism says your children are as important as mine. Your health is
as important as mine. Your city is as important as mine. Your
prosperity in the end makes my life better. Capitalism creates problems
for society — Socialism solves problems. Wouldn’t public schools in
economically depressed areas equal to those in wealthy neighborhoods be
more cost-effective than public assistance for a lifetime?
Currently, there are 22 empty homes for every homeless person in the
country. Many are dilapidated and some beyond repair. These properties
could be picked up for pennies. The homeless need homes, the unemployed
need work. Save the homes that can be repaired, demolish those that
can’t. Create new neighborhoods and manage the program through lease
ownership. Train the young, help the old. Invest in people, creating a
profit of better lives for all. No longer is it a question of guns or
butter; the question becomes societal survival or disintegration.
The issues of fracking and continental pipelines are constantly in
the headlines. Fracking is the injection of toxic fluids to break loose,
low-grade oil deposits in the Earth’s strata. When we must frack the
Earth to supply our energy needs, we are down to stems and seeds as a
country. Fracking and tar sands are not necessary, only profitable; the
very idea of destroying water tables for the profits of oil companies is
a crime and an absurdity. The real issue is our trade balance. Forty
percent of our monthly trade deficit is for oil purchases. Either we
must reduce our energy usage or we must find alternative sources of
energy. Those sources are out there and well-known. The United States of
America has the greatest wind energy and solar potential of any country
on the face of the Earth.
We live in energy poverty, amidst clean and inexhaustible forms of
energy all around us. Energy denied to us by vested corporate interests,
yet we have $8.33 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear monstrosities
providing fewer than a thousand permanent jobs; mostly specialized
technical jobs, creating little actual new employment. And all this to
subsidize private industry in a project the Congressional Budget Office
predicts has a 40 percent chance of failure. Rather than leading the
world in alternative energy the US lags behind, locked in a vise of
corporate monopoly.
“It can’t be done, it will never work, alternative energy cannot
supply the baseline power requirements needed.” In 1957, this country
was incapable of putting a satellite into low earth orbit. In 1969,
Americans were standing on the surface of the moon. Twenty years later,
the Hubble space telescope began supplying more information about our
universe than was dreamed of in the era of Sputnik. The future holds
promise and bounty, if we approach it for the good of all. If we seek
terrorists we will find them, if we seek peace and prosperity for all,
we can find it as well.
We need a ten year Apollo-style program to build wind turbines and
solar plants across the country, along with the necessary
infrastructure, operating as a non-profit co-operative, the revenues
reinvested, until one day, coal and nuclear energy are no longer
competitive. A wind turbine costs roughly a million dollars, an
investment of a billion dollars would mean 1000 wind turbines; it would
also mean jobs. It would reduce our dependency on fossil fuels; it would
reduce our need to defend the Middle East militarily.
In Europe, a non-profit consortium is working on the Desertec
initiative; a plan to build solar power plants across the Sahara desert
to provide Europe with clean, renewable electricity. Construction cost
estimates of 400 billion Euros over fifty years or one sixth of the cost
of the Afghanistan – Iraq military adventure. It is forecast that the
Desertec initiative will create 250,000 jobs and generate 15 percent of
Europe’s electricity, along with electricity and jobs for North Africa. A
similar project for a solar power and a smart electrical grid are in
the design phase in Asia.
In the US, there are also plans for a super grid, spitting and
sputtering along, dependent on private industry and tax credits. The
petroleum financed President and Congress has dithered, failing to
create a long-term energy policy, offering only one year increments, and
by doing so, Congress strangles the baby in its crib. The Obama
administration boasts of increased oil production, but when a coalition
of 24 governors asked the administration to offer a more favorable
business climate for the development of wind power, Obama offers tax
credits for twelve months.
So why Socialism? We live in an America with record numbers of poor.
We live in an America with record trade deficits. We live in an America
with a burgeoning police state and a mono-party political system — two
wings of one corrupt bird. At a time of the greatest economic hardship
in seventy years, Congress and the President cut food assistance. During
a time of massive unemployment and under employment, the Congress and
the President play political football with the lives of 1.3 million
unemployed Americans. Capitalism is a disaster and only Socialism offers
hope.
You might never become Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg, but you’ll
never have to watch your children go hungry. Socialism is about meeting
the needs of the people — all of the people. Socialism solves the
problems Capitalism creates. To the socialist the answers are simple —
end Capitalism. End a system that builds jails instead of schools,
builds ghettos instead communities, and derides the poor instead of
eliminating poverty. Socialism is hope, the greatest hope for humanity.
“There is no other definition of socialism valid for us than that of
the abolition of the exploitation of man by man.” ~ Ernesto Che Guevara
About the author: David Glenn Cox is a senior staff writer for TLR
and an award winning author and musician; he is the author of the novel,
“The Servants of Pilate.”
- See more at: http://www.leftistreview.com/2014/01/23/why-socialism/davidcox/#sthash.2LjacgqA.dpuf
Why Socialism?
Washington
D.C. — Underscoring his Administration’s commitment to jumpstarting the
nation’s nuclear power industry, President Obama today announced that
the Department of Energy has offered conditional commitments for a total
of $8.33 billion in loan guarantees for the construction and operation
of two new nuclear reactors at a plant in Burke, Georgia. The project is
scheduled to be the first U.S. nuclear power plant to break ground in
nearly three decades. ~
WhiteHouse.govid the Fukushima disaster change the
President’s policy? Why does the free market need government loan
guarantees? If nuclear power is such a great idea, why aren’t investors
clamoring to be let in? At a time in this
country
when 19 percent of the population is on some form of public assistance,
is this a wise use of government funds? Of course not, but in a
capitalist democracy where courts rule, money is free speech, money
rules. When vote tallies are kept on computer systems proven to be
untrustworthy, can it even be called a democracy at all?
The only goal of capitalism is to make a profit and if a few acorns
of social improvement fall to the ground, well and good, as long as we
don’t remember that the roots of the tree are feeding on those pushed
below ground. Can a little shade in exchange for their life’s blood, be
considered a fair exchange?
Socialism says your children are as important as mine. Your health is
as important as mine. Your city is as important as mine. Your
prosperity in the end makes my life better. Capitalism creates problems
for society — Socialism solves problems. Wouldn’t public schools in
economically depressed areas equal to those in wealthy neighborhoods be
more cost-effective than public assistance for a lifetime?
Currently, there are 22 empty homes for every homeless person in the
country. Many are dilapidated and some beyond repair. These properties
could be picked up for pennies. The homeless need homes, the unemployed
need work. Save the homes that can be repaired, demolish those that
can’t. Create new neighborhoods and manage the program through lease
ownership. Train the young, help the old. Invest in people, creating a
profit of better lives for all. No longer is it a question of guns or
butter; the question becomes societal survival or disintegration.
The issues of fracking and continental pipelines are constantly in
the headlines. Fracking is the injection of toxic fluids to break loose,
low-grade oil deposits in the Earth’s strata. When we must frack the
Earth to supply our energy needs, we are down to stems and seeds as a
country. Fracking and tar sands are not necessary, only profitable; the
very idea of destroying water tables for the profits of oil companies is
a crime and an absurdity. The real issue is our trade balance. Forty
percent of our monthly trade deficit is for oil purchases. Either we
must reduce our energy usage or we must find alternative sources of
energy. Those sources are out there and well-known. The United States of
America has the greatest wind energy and solar potential of any country
on the face of the Earth.
We live in energy poverty, amidst clean and inexhaustible forms of
energy all around us. Energy denied to us by vested corporate interests,
yet we have $8.33 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear monstrosities
providing fewer than a thousand permanent jobs; mostly specialized
technical jobs, creating little actual new employment. And all this to
subsidize private industry in a project the Congressional Budget Office
predicts has a 40 percent chance of failure. Rather than leading the
world in alternative energy the US lags behind, locked in a vise of
corporate monopoly.
“It can’t be done, it will never work, alternative energy cannot
supply the baseline power requirements needed.” In 1957, this country
was incapable of putting a satellite into low earth orbit. In 1969,
Americans were standing on the surface of the moon. Twenty years later,
the Hubble space telescope began supplying more information about our
universe than was dreamed of in the era of Sputnik. The future holds
promise and bounty, if we approach it for the good of all. If we seek
terrorists we will find them, if we seek peace and prosperity for all,
we can find it as well.
We need a ten year Apollo-style program to build wind turbines and
solar plants across the country, along with the necessary
infrastructure, operating as a non-profit co-operative, the revenues
reinvested, until one day, coal and nuclear energy are no longer
competitive. A wind turbine costs roughly a million dollars, an
investment of a billion dollars would mean 1000 wind turbines; it would
also mean jobs. It would reduce our dependency on fossil fuels; it would
reduce our need to defend the Middle East militarily.
In Europe, a non-profit consortium is working on the Desertec
initiative; a plan to build solar power plants across the Sahara desert
to provide Europe with clean, renewable electricity. Construction cost
estimates of 400 billion Euros over fifty years or one sixth of the cost
of the Afghanistan – Iraq military adventure. It is forecast that the
Desertec initiative will create 250,000 jobs and generate 15 percent of
Europe’s electricity, along with electricity and jobs for North Africa. A
similar project for a solar power and a smart electrical grid are in
the design phase in Asia.
In the US, there are also plans for a super grid, spitting and
sputtering along, dependent on private industry and tax credits. The
petroleum financed President and Congress has dithered, failing to
create a long-term energy policy, offering only one year increments, and
by doing so, Congress strangles the baby in its crib. The Obama
administration boasts of increased oil production, but when a coalition
of 24 governors asked the administration to offer a more favorable
business climate for the development of wind power, Obama offers tax
credits for twelve months.
So why Socialism? We live in an America with record numbers of poor.
We live in an America with record trade deficits. We live in an America
with a burgeoning police state and a mono-party political system — two
wings of one corrupt bird. At a time of the greatest economic hardship
in seventy years, Congress and the President cut food assistance. During
a time of massive unemployment and under employment, the Congress and
the President play political football with the lives of 1.3 million
unemployed Americans. Capitalism is a disaster and only Socialism offers
hope.
You might never become Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg, but you’ll
never have to watch your children go hungry. Socialism is about meeting
the needs of the people — all of the people. Socialism solves the
problems Capitalism creates. To the socialist the answers are simple —
end Capitalism. End a system that builds jails instead of schools,
builds ghettos instead communities, and derides the poor instead of
eliminating poverty. Socialism is hope, the greatest hope for humanity.
“There is no other definition of socialism valid for us than that of
the abolition of the exploitation of man by man.” ~ Ernesto Che Guevara
About the author: David Glenn Cox is a senior staff writer for TLR
and an award winning author and musician; he is the author of the novel,
“The Servants of Pilate.”
- See more at: http://www.leftistreview.com/2014/01/23/why-socialism/davidcox/#sthash.2LjacgqA.dpuf
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