Socialist Kshama Sawan, who has just been elected to the Seattle city council,answered some questions for Salon. Of note in the interview, she said:
Now, what [the] Left has to do is to recognize that there is an opening here, there is a hunger among people in the United States, especially young people, young working people…In reality, what has become a dirty word is capitalism. Young people can see that the system does not offer any solutions. They can see that a two-party system is not working for them. But what is the alternative? We have to provide the alternative…
[RW note: There is a war going on right now for the minds of today's youth, between the Left and libertarians.]
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We are going to be pushing forwad [sic] for $15 an hour minimum wage in Seattle in 2014…
[RW note: More evidence of a failure to understand basic economics.]
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Democracy is nonetheless absolutely the bedrock of socialism. In fact, I would say that democracy is absolutely critical for this vision to come alive. And in fact democracy is antithetical in many ways to capitalism.
[RW note: Whoa, she has that right. Did she read Hoppe?]
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You also hear people saying, well it’s “crony capitalism” or it’s “disaster capitalism” or some other capitalism. Well, the fact is, you know, they’re all dancing around [that] this is capitalism…
[RW note: She won't recognize that "crony capitalism" is different from truly free markets because her entire argument for socialism falls apart. Also, here in San Francisco, when I talk to lefties about "crony leftism," they recoil in horror that I think there could be such a thing, as if subsidized solar panels operations don't exist.]
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What I can do on the City Council as one socialist is really far more than what people imagine it to be. Because it won’t just be my voice…to talk to other council members, but it’s also going to be to continue to really encourage and to invite public pressure into it. Which is how this camp succeeded.
[RW note: Scary, but probably true.]
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In the United States, the creation of the welfare program in the first place. The creation of Social Security. All the advances that have been made in women’s rights and LGBT rights – a lot of this are well within the vision of what I would consider a really humane society in the future, and what I consider socialism…The gains that we have today are very consistent with our vision for a socialist society, and also they came about because a lot of these movements were headed by socialists.
[RW note: She's right, these are all socialist programs.]
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You don’t have to be a socialist economist for someone to admit that the middle class is fast disappearing. You know, Paul Krugman talks about it.
[RW note: OMG, she reads Krugman.]
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RW final note:
I think that Sawan is absolutely correct when she says that "what [the] Left has to do is to recognize that there is an opening here, there is a hunger among people in the United States, especially young people, young working people."
Socialism offers a wrongheaded simplistic but tempting world view for youth who are disgusted with the current state of world affairs. The battle is on for libertarians to become superior communicators and explain how liberty tops central planning. The current state of affairs is very unstable.The proper groundwork must be laid or come the next revolution (whatever form it takes), things may go from bad to crony socialist worst.
This oughta be hilarious to watch unfold. It'll be interesting if this trend grows in Seattle. I can't wait to see the inevitable result and the lefties however of how it happened. Similar to obomber care supporters crying over losing their health care.
ReplyDeleteSeattle and NYC will be great test cases (as if Detroit weren't enough).
[RW note: Whoa, she has that right. Did she read Hoppe?]
ReplyDeleteI laughed out loud when I read that one...hilarious!
Great post. I agree 100% that the current state of affairs is unstable, but I have to admit that I don't think we will see a libertarian society emerge after the Big Crash. I'm grateful for people like Wenzel, Woods, Rockwell, Paul Sr., etc for the work they are doing, but the trend still seems against us.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, when I listen to people like Sawan I wonder how long it will be until libertarian speech is no longer tolerated in broad society, much as it isn't within the academy (i.e. say the government effectively nationalizes all hospitals and medical clinics, and doctors who have spoken out against the current medical establishment suddenly find themselves unemployable). Read Cass Sustein's book "Nudge" for a scary window into the left's vision for social control.
A socialist society is like a camp of starving cannibals feeding off of each other. In the end, they'll go extinct. So whatever happens after the Big Crash, in the end socialism will always lose.
DeleteSay what you will about the mixed economy fascists and social democrats, at least they understand that like the flea needs the dog, the vampire bat needs the cow and the mosquito needs the man, socialism cannot survive without capitalism.
You have to be a really deranged dodo bird to actually believe what this Sawan says in this day and age. So she is either a liar and opportunist, or she was dropped on her head as a child.
One more comment on the ridiculousness of a fast-food minimum wage... the little schwarma / gyro joint that I frequent for lunch in downtown Chicago now has robotic slicers on their rotisseries. So instead of having a cook monitor the rotisseries and slice off the outer layer when it is cooked, the robot knife does it. Last time I went, they had one guy monitoring four rotisseries while also making hummus and tending to chicken breasts on the grill.
ReplyDeleteHow hard is it to automate burger flipping or fry making? What's the incentive to do so if you have to pay your fry cook $15/hr? My answers are pretty easy, and very high.
Just an example of how minimum wage outlaws jobs.
i wish you good luck landing that interview rw. but i doubt she'll dare come within 1 mile of you...
ReplyDeleteI truly hope Sawan gets more interviews...she is so absurd and mindless! Please, oh please we need her on the Robert Wenzel Show!! Any word on that?
ReplyDelete"The battle is on for libertarians to become superior communicators and explain how liberty tops central planning."
ReplyDelete"liberty" is insipid and, in practice, merely a license for insatiable plunderers who sneer at justice. Further, anyone with a moderately functional b.s. sniffer can tell that "liberty" is for slippery theocratic weasels like Tom Woods, Jr. Youth detect the clues of this faster than you can spell the name of Murray Rothbard.
"slippery theocratic weasels"....? Please explain further.
DeleteYes, yes.
DeleteWe know you lefties get a boner from centrally planned totalitarian shitholes. Nothing gets the lefty's heart racing faster than a man (preferably with his own bronze statue) with full scale decision making power talking fatherly about the plight of the down trodden, and using increasing force against anyone who dares resist his "just" policies. What are over a hundred million people dead but eggs that needed to be broken to make an omelet, eh? What are people eating the bark from trees to nurture themselves but ingrates?
Centrally planned socialism ALL THE WAY, baby...
That's why on one hand i actually think it would be extremely entertaining watching the whole system come down. It's easy to talk like a commie when like fleas you have plenty of dogs to latch onto.
Hey, anonymous! Why don't you list a few of these "insatiable plunderers" and their misdeeds? Furthermore, "a license" is granted and enforced through coercive state power.
DeleteOk. This is a case in point and exactly what I'm talking about, This little shit is so full of envy for what someone else has that he wants to drag everyone down.
DeleteI admit I really don't get the theocratic accusation. I've read a lot of Tom Woods stuff but I don't see a desire for theocracy in ANY of his writings or speeches. I guess this moron doesn't realize that you need BIG GOVERNMENT for that. This is exactly the OPPOSITE of what Tom Woods and people like him a re advocating.
I guess socialism hasn't murdered enough people yet either. I mean, it only murdered 200+ million during the 20th century. Not enough, eh?
Bob,
ReplyDeleteThe historical (or maybe a better word is hysterical) track record of socialism is dismal. The historical track record of freedom is amazing which should give our side one up in the fight. The confusion, and failure I think of the freedom movement, is allowing people to believe we have a free market in the US. Not just their fault but also that of the media and public school education. If we can educate about rent seeking, crony capitalism, mercantilism, and even crony leftism and how they differ from a free market we might begin to make progress. I think it was Mises who said the failure of socialism is its inability to price good and services, including money. If the market cant price money everything else is distorted. Might be a good place to start.
"THE BLACK T SHIRT THAT SAYS IT ALL, DEATH TO A SYSTEM THAT MAKES THE RICH RICHER AND THE POOR POORER! KINDA FUNNY THAT ONE WOULD END UP BUYING SOMETHING LIKE THAT FROM ANOTHER SOMEONE THAT HAPPENS TO OWN A CLOTHING LABEL...BUT NO ONE HERE AT LAUDANUM DRIVES A LAMBO EITHER. THIS IS A GUERILLA STYLE CLOTHING COMPANY, SO WE ARE ALLOWED TO DO SHIT THAT DOESNT MAKE SENSE, AS LONG AS YOU LOOK GOOD WEARING IT!"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.laudanumclothing.com/index.php/mens/louis2/
This sort of thing doesn't bother me in the least. It makes a well-deserved mockery of the voting process and proves what a joke politics actually is. Sawan is like a caricature of a socialist and appears to embrace every destructive and discredited policy imaginable. I can't help but think how much H.L. Mencken would have enjoyed it.
ReplyDelete*facepalm* This woman is a plain idiot, and lots of people voted for her and agree with her idiotic statements. Refuting socialism with reasoned, logical arguments, as Mises did, doesn't work. The failure of socialism, resulting in millions killed and millions more impoverished, doesn't work. The idiocracy still wants socialism.
ReplyDeleteYeah I know what you mean. The idiot fuck turd masses just stick their fingers in their ears and go "la, la, la, la, la, la....." when you show them how idiotic socialism is. I really just don't get it either. I guess it's just like the poster below me says. It's just hate and envy.
DeleteI feel like I am forced to live with a bunch of 2 year old cry babies. It's not fair! He's rich and I'm not! Waaaaaah!!! And since it's "not fair" I'm going to drag him down like hell so the person next to me can't prosper. Waaaaaaah!!
We're all going to much poorer in the future. Man learns nothing from history. No matter how poor he gets he will always seek to drag down his neighbor. Better the world burns than his neighbor succeed. Socialist have nothing to fear, they will always have plenty of envy and hate to feed upon.
ReplyDeleteAll hail our lord and savior, the government. That's why we don't live in a utopia! The government's not doing enough!
ReplyDeleteThey're all going...."Sieg heil!....Sieg heil!....Sieg heil!....Sieg heil!"
DeleteThe Great God Government has spoken!
Isn't it amazing how superstitious these morons are?
We need to make "government" the dirty word. It already is in my mind, I hope we can make it spread like wildfire.
ReplyDelete"[RW note: Whoa, she has that right. Did she read Hoppe?]"
ReplyDeleteI would say it's common knowledge among Socialists that the only way to bring about public ownership of the means of production is through democracy. The Proletariat will vote to forcibly remove the means of production away from the capitalists and into their "capable" hands. Of course, there will need to be a short term dictatorship of the proletariat. But one day, there will be pure democracy, which socialists tend to equate with anarchy.
You have to wonder if the ONLY reason this fool is getting any attention at all is because she's a socialist and the media wants to promote her for that reason.
ReplyDelete