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Councilmember Kshama Sawant asks Seattle Public Schools students to walk out of class in front of Nova High School, Sept. 24, 2018. (Rob Munoz, KIRO 7)

If you believe that it is a better pathway to any kind of personal success to have government take stuff from other people and give it to you, that is socialism and it is the epitome of a losers attitude.

Youre never going to succeed at any great level because government does not want you to. The government does not care about you. It cares about you barely getting by, and you relying on governments largesse its socialism so that you can get just barely what you need. You can get your $15 an hour, but not much else.

Im sorry if youre offended, but I stand by that statement with truth as my defense.

Socialism has taken over more so now than ever before with the latest Seattle City Council around here.The only people who support socialism are losers. And we do have a lot of losers around here.

Dori: Are Sawant voters alright with encampment rapes, deaths?

Seattle never used to be that way. We were a region of fishermen and lumberjacks and self-sufficiency. The attitude was, I dont need anyone else to get by Ill take care of myself and of my family. We still have those people in this city. Weve got a lot of truck drivers who drive 60 hours a week to take care of their families.

People like that used to be the backbone of our region. Now, losers are the backbone of our region. Its sad to me, in a way, but like I always say, that means that if you do have some fire in your belly, and you do believe in outworking your competition, the competition has never been softer. It has never been easier to succeed, because youre not going up against a very motivated bunch of people.I know a lot of people who just got out of college and have that fire in their bellies. They are going to go and do great things.

But that is not the mentality in our public schools. We are teaching kids more than ever, through identity politics, how to sob about being a victim. What it has created is the woke and broke culture, as I was reading about in the National Review. Weve got a bunch of kids coming out of the public schools and out of our universities who are woke and they have no fundamental skills to make a decent living. They can tell you everything that they learned about how oppressed they are, but they cant market their skills to get a good job. Then they must rely on the government to take care of them. Yes, woke and broke is what government schools and universities are cultivating right now.

Its going to be an interesting time around here in the next four years. I just feel bad for all the people who will be carried downward when this economic bubble bursts and Amazon leaves town.

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from 12-3 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

Link:
Dori: Why socialism appeals to the woke and broke crowd - MyNorthwest.com

In episode two of HBOs 10-Emmy award-winning series Chernobyl, lead character Ulana Khomyuk (played by Emily Watson) delivers a scathing line to a male Soviet Communist Party leader: I am a nuclear physicist. Before you were deputy secretary, you worked in a shoe factory.

The dialogue hints at a fascinating reversal of traditional gender roles. In fact, writer Craig Mazin invented the fictional character of Khomyuk in recognition of the important scientific contributions of socialist women.

One area where the Soviets were actually more progressive than we were was in the area of science and medicine, Mazin explained on Varietys TV Take podcast. The Soviet Union had quite a large percentage of female doctors.

Most historians agree that the Eastern Bloc countries aggressively pursued policies to promote women into previously male-dominated professions and supported womens full-time employment through the provision of job protected parental leaves and state subsidized crches and kindergartens.

This isnt just a historical phenomenon, however. Socialist programs that encouraged women and girls to study and work in math and science have been a gift that keeps on giving.

This is especially timely for the US as it approaches the 2020 presidential election and candidates advocate for policies that can increase womens political representation, promote fare wages, and support more inclusive healthcare. As capitalist Western countries continue to wrestle with a dismal record of gender parity in the workforce, its worth examining this Soviet-era blueprint.

In 1975 the USSR actually introduced quotas to increase the proportion of men attending medical school.

Even three decades after the end of the Cold War, scholars still find substantial differences in aptitude and professional success between women in capitalist and former state socialist countries. A 2018 study titled Math, Girls, and Socialism examined a robust dataset of self-reported academic grades in mathematics together with standardized test scores. Using the former division of Germany as a natural experiment to isolate the historical effects of capitalist versus state socialist educationand controlling for differences in economic conditions and teaching stylesthe researchers found that teenage girls in the former Eastern part of the country significantly outperformed their western German peers in terms of closing the gender gap with boys.

The researchers found that girls in the East feel less anxious and more confident about their aptitude in math than their counterparts from West Germany, and were less likely to be intimidated in competitive situations with boys.

By further comparing the standardized test scores for children across the continent, the authors also found evidence that the gender gap in math is smaller in European countries that used to be part of the Soviet bloc, as opposed to the rest of Europe. In some former socialist countries, the gender gap in mathematics aptitude disappeared altogether.

A similar story can be told about medicine. In Latvia and Estonia, for example, women accounted for nearly three out of every four medical doctors in 201875% compared to only 34% in the United States. Across the former Eastern Bloc, women dominated the field of medicine throughout the Cold War, so that in 1975, the USSR actually introduced quotas to increase the proportion of men attending medical school.

In the realm of technology and engineering, four of the European Unions top five most gender-balanced tech workforces in 2017 were in former socialist countries: Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania and Latvia. According to Eurostat, Bulgaria boasted the highest percentage of women working in information and communication technologies at 27% compared with the EU average of 17%.

In 2018, eight of the top 10 countries with the highest proportion of women working in high-tech companies were in Eastern Europe.

Bulgaria also had the highest percentage of female students in these fields in 2017; at 33% one in every three tech students in Bulgaria was a woman. Across the EU, the average was 17% with the Netherlands at an abysmal 6% and Belgium at 8%, most likely because girls avoid studying subjects in fields where they are unlikely to find employment.

But what explains these stark differences? Eastern Bloc countries once celebrated the equality of men and women as one of the unique products of building a socialist society, in no small part because socialist countries faced severe labor shortages after WWI in the USSR and after WWII throughout the Soviet Bloc.

As a result, socialist countries began training women in science and engineering well before Western countries.

For instance, 43% of Romanian students enrolled in engineering institutes were women in 1970, as were 39% of all engineering students in the USSR and 27% of students in Bulgaria. Compare these percentages to the United States, where by 1976 women earned only 3% of bachelors degrees in engineering.

In Latvia and Estonia women accounted for 75% of medical doctors compared to 34% in the United States in 2018.

But it wasnt only state investments in education that made the difference. Socialists understood that women would always face a disadvantage on the free market for labor because of childbearing and their domestic responsibilities. If care work occasionally forces women out of the labor force, employers view them as less reliable employees, which means they are paid less and have fewer resources invested in their professional development in the long run. In science and technology careers where research, innovation, and product development proceed at lightning speed, the perception that women are more likely to temporarily leave the labor force renders them less than ideal employees.

In countries such as the former German Democratic Republic or Bulgaria, state-owned technology enterprisessuch as those that made the Robotron computers in East Germany or the Pravetz computers in Bulgariacould hire qualified women with more confidence.

Family responsibilities interfered relatively less with womens work because the state had socialized many of the domestic tasks shouldered by women in capitalist countries. Childcare, public cafeterias, and public laundries, as well as an extensive network of sanatoria to care for the aged and infirm, meant less care work for women in the private sphere. And when an expectant mother took her paid job-protected maternity leave, the state easily organized her temporary replacement with a qualified university graduate completing their mandatory national service.

As more women thrived in careers in science, math, medicine, and engineering, more girls pursued studies in those fields. The higher percentage of women in the dynamic technology sector today is a direct result of state socialist policies that both encouraged women to enter male-dominated fields and alleviated their domestic responsibilities through the public provision of social services.

Chernobyls Ulana Khomyuk may be a fictional character, but she represents a valuable lesson from 20th century Eastern Europe that is well worth remembering:

Girls and women are no less capable than boys and men, but without institutional interventions to encourage their studies and support their informal responsibilities for care work, gender gaps in fields like science and medicine will persist.

Read the original here:
Socialist countries employ more women in math and science - Quartz

Though Halloween has passed, with ghosts, goblins and scary scarecrows all about, an upcoming event based on real-world history and current events will really scare you to death.

The Gray Republican Committee is teaming with the Windham Republican Committee and 46 other sponsors to host an event examining the true nature of socialism. The night kicks off at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 20, at the Windham Veterans Center.

WGAN NewsRadio has been advertising the event, and it sounds like organizers have an information-packed night planned, complete with three speakers, one of whom owned a business in socialism-wracked Venezuela.

The event is a response to Democrat presidential hopefuls espousing the virtues of socialism. The two Republican committees want to remind attendees of past atrocities committed under authoritarian socialist regimes around the world and also warn voters to beware anyone espousing similar views here.

The need for such an event would have been unimaginable just a decade ago. Americans have always loved and coveted their freedoms. That propensity is shifting, however, with polls saying many would be willing to forego freedom for government-provided, cradle-to-grave security.

With the rise of socialist stars such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren calling for universal health care, free college tuition and burdensome taxation required to pay for it all, the need to remind voters how socialist policies choke the life out of the economy and sap personal freedom is sadly required.

One of the events speakers will be former Rep. Bruce Poliquin, who was interviewed recently on WGAN. Poliquin gave an apt summary for how socialism destroys freedom by first asking the radio audience to imagine paying 80-90% of their wages in taxes to afford all the freebies Sanders and Warren are promising.

That level of taxation, he said, would mean very little left over to pay for the needs of daily life such as food, rent and utilities. With all of ones wages going to daily needs, there would be little left for wants such as hobbies, sports or even Sunday afternoon drives in the countryside.

And for those entrepreneurial capitalists who dream of one day opening their own business, of course thered be no money left over for such pursuits, he added.

As a result, the deadly combination of high taxation and little extra spending money would strangle the economy.

Right now, America thrives because most citizens have the buying power to provide for their needs and wants. Trumps tax cuts have further fueled citizens and companies cash reserves. If taxes rise to 80% and accumulated wealth dries up, those dreams disappear and life becomes one of survival.

Sure, wed have free health care (as long as doctors and nurses still enter that demanding field for little reward), but wed lead miserable lives making sure we always pleased the government, from which all things would derive.

History tells us that socialism results from societies choosing equality of outcome and security over equality of opportunity and freedom. Americas founders were the first to trust the common people with true liberty and a vote. For 245 years, weve enjoyed abundant life brought on by this inheritance of freedom, so much so that many take it for granted.

Democrat Presidential hopefuls promising personal and economic security through socialism are threatening that freedom. I dont think theyll win over the majority of Americans with their foolish ideology in 2020, but at least they are sparking spirited discussions of the issue, one of which will take place Nov. 20 in Windham.

Excerpt from:
Here's Something: Now more than ever, socialism's evils need to be unveiled - Press Herald

EVO YES, battered with graffitti .

They pledged to do it, and they did Bolivian feudal lords, mass media magnates and other treasonous elites they overthrew the government, broke hope and interrupted an extremely successful socialist process in what was once one of the poorest countries in South America.

One day they will be cursed by their own nation. One day they will stand trial for sedition. One day they will have to reveal who trained them, who employed them, who turned them into spineless beasts. One day! Hopefully soon.

But now, Evo Morales, legitimate President of Bolivia, elected again and again by his people, is leaving his beloved country. He is crossing the Andes, flying far, to fraternal Mexico, which extended her beautiful hand, and offered him political asylum.

This is now. The striking streets of La Paz are covered by smoke, full of soldiers, stained with blood. People are disappearing. They are being detained, beaten, and tortured. Photos of indigenous men and women, kneeling, facing walls, hands tied behind their backs, are beginning to circulate on social media.

Before a slum, now good town of El Alto

El Alto, until recently a place of hope, with its playgrounds for children and elegant cable cars connecting the once dirt-poor communities, is now beginning to lose its native sons and daughters. Battles are raging. People are charging against the oppressors, carrying flags, dying.

A civil war, or more precisely, a war for the survival of socialism, a war against imperialism, for social justice, for indigenous people. A war against racism. A war for Bolivia, for its tremendous pre-colonial culture, for life; life as it is being perceived in the Andes, or deep in the South American rainforest, not as it is seen in Paris, Washington or Madrid.

*****

The legacy of Evo Morales is tangible, and simple to understand.

During almost 14 years in power, all the social indicators of Bolivia went sky-high. Millions were pulled out of poverty. Millions have been benefiting from free medical care, free education, subsidized housing, improved infrastructure, a relatively high minimum wage, but also from pride that was given back to the indigenous population, which forms the majority in this historically feudal country governed by corrupt, ruthless elites descendants of Spanish conquistadors and European gold-diggers.

Indigenous people waiting for free medical care in La Paz

Evo Morales made the Aymara and Quechua languages official, on par with Spanish. He made people who communicate in these languages equal to those who use the tongue of the conquerors. He elevated the great indigenous culture high, to where it belongs making it the symbol of Bolivia, and of the entire region.

Gone was the Christian cross-kissing (look at the crosses reappearing again, all around the oh so European-looking Jeanine Aez who has grabbed power, temporarily but still thoroughly illegally). Instead, Evo used to travel, at least once a year, to Tiwanaku, the capital of the powerful pre-Hispanic empire that dominated a large area of the southern Andes and beyond, reached its apogee between 500 and 900 AD, according to UNESCO. That is where he used to search for spiritual peace. That is where his identity came from.

Gone was the veneration of the Western colonialist and imperialist culture, of savage capitalism.

This was a new world with ancient, deep roots. This is where South America has been regrouping. Here, and in Correas Ecuador, before Correa and his beliefs were purged and ousted by the treacherous Moreno.

And what is more: before the coup, Bolivia was not suffering from economic downfall; it was doing well, extremely well. It was growing, stable, reliable, confident.

Even the owners of big Bolivian companies, if they were to care one bit for Bolivia and its people, had countless reasons to rejoice.

*****

But the Bolivian business community, as in so many other Latin American countries, is obsessed with the one and only indicator: how much higher, how much above the average citizens it can get. This is the old mentality of the colonialists; a feudal, fascist mentality.

Years ago, I was invited, in La Paz, for dinner by an old family of senators and mass media owners. With no shame, no fear, openly, they spoke, despite knowing who I was:

We will get rid of this Indigenous bastard. Who does he think he is? If we lose millions of dollars in the process, as we did in 1973 Chile and now in Venezuela, we will still do it. Restoring our order is the priority.

There is absolutely no way to reason with these people. They cannot be appeased, only crushed; defeated. In Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador or in Bolivia. They are like rats, like disease, proverbial symbols of fascism as in the novel The Plague, written by Albert Camus. They can hide, but they never fully disappear. They are always ready to invade, with zero notice, some happy city.

They are always ready to join forces with the West because their roots are in the West. They think precisely like the European conquerors, like North American imperialists. They have double nationalities and homes scattered all over the world. Latin America for them is just a place to live, and to plunder natural resources, exploit labor. They rob here, and spend money elsewhere; educate their children elsewhere, get their surgeries done (plastic and real) elsewhere. They go to opera houses in Paris but never mingle with indigenous people at home. Even if, by some miracle, they join the Left, it is the Western, anarcho-syndicalist Left of North America and Europe, never the real, anti-imperialist, revolutionary Left of non-European countries.

They dont need the success of the nation. They dont want a great, prosperous Bolivia; Bolivia for all of its citizens.

They only want prosperous corporations. They want money, profit for themselves, for their families and clans, for their bandit group of people. They want to be revered, considered exceptional, superior. They cannot live without that gap the great gap between them and those dirty Indians, as they call the indigenous people when no one hears them!

*****

Stunning La Paz

And that is why Bolivia should fight, defend itself, as it is beginning to do so right now.

If this, what is happening to Evo and his government, is the end, then Bolivia will be set back by decades. Entire generations will again rot alive, in desperation, in rural shacks made of clay, without water and electricity, and without hope.

The elites are now talking about peace, peace for whom? For them! Peace, as it was before Evo; peace so the rich can play golf and fly for shopping to their beloved Miami and Madrid, while 90% of the population was getting kicked, humiliated, insulted. I remember that peace. The Bolivian people remember it even better.

I covered the civil war in neighboring Peru for several years in the 90s, and I often crossed over into Bolivia. I wrote an entire novel about it, Point of No Return. It was an absolute horror. I could not even take my local photographers to a concert or for a cup of coffee in a decent place because they were cholos, indigenous. Nobodies in their own countries. It was apartheid. And if socialism does not return, it will be apartheid once again.

Last time I went to Bolivia, few months ago, it was totally different country. Free, confident. Stunning.

Remembering what I saw in Bolivia and Peru, quarter of a century ago, I declare, clearly and decisively: To hell with such peace, proposed by elites!

*****

None of this is, of course, mentioned in Western mass media outlets. I am monitoring them, from the New York Times to Reuters. In the US, UK, even France. Their eyes are shining. They cannot hide their excitement; euphoria.

The same NYT celebrated the massacres during the 1965-66 US-orchestrated military coup in Indonesia or on 9-11-1973 in Chile.

Now Bolivia, predictably. Big smiles all over the West. Again, and again, the findings of the OAS (Organization of American States) are being quoted as if they were facts; the findings of an organization which is fully subservient to Western interests, particularly those of Washington.

It is as if by saying: We have proof that a coup did not take place, because those who had organized the coup say that it actually did not happen.

*****

In Paris, on November 10th, in the middle of the Place de la Republique, a huge crowd of treasonous Bolivians gathered, demanding the resignation of Evo. I filmed and photographed these people. I wanted to have this footage in my possession, for posterity.

They live in France, and their allegiances are towards the West. Some are even of European stock, although others are indigenous.

There are millions of Cubans, Venezuelans, Brazilians, living in the US and Europe, working tirelessly for the destruction of their former motherlands. They do it in order to please their new masters, to make profit, as well as various other reasons.

It is not peace. This is terrible, brutal war, which has already taken millions of lives in Latin America alone.

This continent has the most unequally distributed wealth on earth. Hundreds of millions are living in misery. While others, sons and daughters or Bolivian feudal scum, are attending Sorbonne and Cambridge to get intellectually conditioned in order to serve the West.

Each time, and I repeat each time, a decent, honest government is voted in, democratically, by the people, each time there is someone who has invented a brilliant solution and solid plan to improve this dire situation, the clock begins ticking. The years, (sometimes even months) of the leader are numbered. He or she will either be killed, or ousted, or humiliated and forced out of power.

The country then goes back to literally shit, as has happened just recently to Ecuador (under Moreno), Argentina (under Macri) and Brazil (under Bolsonaro). The brutal status quo is preserved. The lives of tens of millions are ruined. Peace returns. For the Western regime and its lackeys.

Then, as a raped country screams in pain, countless international NGOs, UN agencies and funding organizations, descend upon it, suddenly determined to help refugees, to keep children in classrooms, to empower women, or to fight malnutrition and hunger.

None of this would be needed if the elected governments which are serving their people were to be left alone; left in real peace!

All this sick, pathetic hypocrisy is never discussed publicly by the mass media. All this Western terrorism unleashed against progressive Latin American countries (and dozens of other countries, all over the world), is hushed up.

Enough is enough!

Latin America is, once again, waking up. The people are outraged. The coup in Bolivia will be resisted. Macris regime has fallen. Mexico is marching in a cautiously socialist direction. Chile wants its socialist country back, a country which was crushed by military boots in 1973.

In the name of the people, in the name of the great indigenous culture, and in the name of the entire continent, Bolivian citizens are now resisting, struggling, confronting the fascist, pro-Western forces.

Revolutionary language is once again being used. It may be out of fashion in Paris or London, but not in South America. And that is what matters here!

For them we fight and will win

Evo did not lose. He won. His country has won. Under his leadership, it became a wonderful country; a country full of hope, a country that offered great prospects to hundreds of millions all over La Patria Grande. Everyone south of the Rio Grande knows it. Marvelous Mexico, which has given him asylum, knows it, too.

Evo has won. And then, he was forced out by the treasonous military, by treasonous business thugs, feudal land owners, and by Washington. Evo and his family and comrades have been brutalized by that extreme right-wing paramilitary leader Luis Fernando Camacho who is calling himself a Christian; brutalized by him and by his men and women.

Bolivia will fight. It will bring back its legitimate President where he belongs to the Presidential Palace.

The plane which is taking Evo to Mexico, north, is actually taking him home, back to Bolivia. It is a big, big detour. Thousands of kilometers, and months, perhaps even years But from the moment the airplane took off, the tremendous epic journey back to La Paz began.

The people of Bolivia will never abandon their President. And Evo is forever tied to his People. And Long Live Bolivia, Damn It!

Photos by Andre Vltchek

This article was posted on Friday, November 15th, 2019 at 8:04pm and is filed under "The West", Bolivia, Coup, Mexico, Opinion, President Evo Morales, United States.

See the rest here:
Evo overthrown but Bolivian Socialism will be victorious! - Dissident Voice

Nothing in politics is more self-affirming, in a very public way, than winning an election.

Your message has resonated. Your principles have been given a public thumbs-up. The people like you, they really like you.

So it was interesting to catch up with freshly elected Seattle City Council member Andrew Lewis on Tuesday, and find him instead feeling a bit misunderstood.

There were narratives in this election that were forced on us as candidates that we did not choose, Lewis, 29, said. I dont think we all see ourselves as part of this story.

He was talking about the Amazon versus socialism smackdown that played out in the elections final few weeks. Lewis said it completely drowned out what most local candidates were actually proposing. Since the election ended, that polarized story line may only be intensifying.

After decisive Socialist victories, Amazon should ditch Seattle for Bellevue, read a hot take Monday on local radio website mynorthwest.com.

The space between Seattle liberalism and Sawant socialism has closed, pronounced local political consultant DJ Wilson,referring to Socialist Alternatives Kshama Sawant, who won a stirring come-from-behind victory.

She, not surprisingly, agrees:The overall City Council results were as close to a referendum on the Amazon tax as possible, she said Saturday, as a crowd chanted for her other top priority: Rent control, rent control, make Seattle affordable.

Is any of this borne out by the election we just had?

First, one Socialist candidate scored a victory, not plural Socialists (the only other one running, Democratic Socialist Shaun Scott, didnt win). Second, while Amazons tone-deaf electioneering plainly backfired, that doesnt mean all the candidates who won last week fit neatly into Sawants anti-Amazon or pro-socialist camp.

I can confirm that I am not a socialist, said Lewis, laughing.

Take the Amazon tax, otherwise known as the head tax, which Sawant wants to bring back. Three of the four new, incoming members of the City Council said during the campaign theyre opposed to that (one, Ballards Dan Strauss, was more of a maybe, but he did say my preference is to not have it come back.)

Lewis, a self-described labor Democrat who will now represent the downtown district that contains Amazon, got grouped with the tax Amazon slate when the Chamber of Commerce endorsed his opponent. But all campaign long he kept saying a per employee type of head tax was a bad idea.

People were concerned about Amazon putting all that money into the election, because they want the council to be responsive to the general public, Lewis said. But thats different than the public wanting us to now turn around and tax Amazon. I just dont think the election meant tax Amazon.

Likewise three of the four incoming members of the council said in surveys and debates that they oppose rent control Lewis, Strauss and Alex Pedersen of the 4th District. That would leave Tammy Morales of the 2nd District as the only new member of the council who comes in backing rent control.

Im not arguing for or against these policy ideas, just that the winning slate is nowhere near as monolithic as advertised. This election, while unusually exciting, is now being predictably oversold by right-wingers who love to hate on Seattle as a socialistic hellhole, and by Sawant, who Tuesday on Democracy Now called the vote an absolutely historic event for progressive politics.

But in some areas the council may even have just tilted rightward. Take the urbanist environmentalist plan for congestion tolling downtown streets, which was a goal of outgoing Councilmember Mike OBrien. Five out of the seven candidates elected last week answered a hard no to that in Seattle Times surveys (a sixth, incumbent Debora Juarez, said maybe). That leaves only one booster for a tolling scheme, Strauss who is OBriens replacement.

Issue stances that did get a clear political boost include more housing density in single-family zones (all seven winning candidate answered yes to that). Seattle opening a safe-injection site for drugs got the support of six winning candidates only Pedersen said no.

The record spending by outside groups and the contrived slates was like an out-of-body experience, Lewis said, obscuring the distinct character of any us. Ironically it may have gotten him elected, but now its continuing, and we havent even taken office yet, he said.

Thats politics, circa 2019. Polarize first, try to govern later. Maybe everyone take a break and, uh, go watch the impeachment hearings or something.

Go here to see the original:
I am not a socialist: One candidates attempt to make sense of the polarizing Seattle elections - Seattle Times