The Elite Fear of Being Called Names (And the Flabbergasting Price We Are All Paying for It)

The fear of being called "socialist" seems to be preventing a whole lot of people in positions of actual authority who know better from doing the things that need to be done to overcome the current economic crisis -- things like outright nationalizations of failing financial institutions, the immediate breaking up of enterprises "too big to fail," investments in massive job-creating public works projects (high speed rail across the continent, new renewable solar and wind energy infrastructure, the repair of roads, bridges, and public utilities, and so on), strict regulations and oversight over industry corruption and conflicts-of-interest, and steeply progressive taxation -- things that are commonsensical whether people want idiotically to call them "socialist" or, more aptly, "saving capitalism from itself," things that are eventually going to be done anyway, after all, whatever they get called, after all this protracted pointless and wasteful shilly-shallying and last-ditch looting spree finally flames out. If it weren't for the fact that I already realized years ago that fear of being called "defeatist" seems to be preventing a whole lot of people in positions of actual authority who know better from doing the things that need to be done to save hundreds of thousands of lives and a trillion dollars of treasure and end the ongoing, illegal, immoral, unpopular wars and occupations of choice of the debased Bush epoch I would have found this latest exhibition of apparently paralyzing fear among the richest most pampered and powerful people on earth of being called names they dislike literally unfathomable.