New Speak 2019

Let's talk about socialism.

It's a word that's in heavy rotation these days. Mostly by the threat-happy Republicans who warn a gullible electorate, "If you vote Democrat, you'll be turning this country into Venezuela. Or a similar socialist dystopia."

They say this without irony. And are completely unwilling to acknowledge that for all our free market chestbeating we already live in a Socialist state.

I'm not referencing the hackneyed -- though valid -- rebuttals that have been bandied around.

You've heard them. Like how we use tax money to fund libraries, roads and dysfunctional post offices. Or even the $28 billion the US government (us) now have to shell out to farmers who no longer have markets for their soybeans.

Those tropes have been well-troped.

I'm talking about the unseen socialism that continues to pour our precious tax dollars into the hands of insatiable one percenters.

Last week, I drove by the new LA Stadium, a soaring multi-billion project that can be seen from space. As well as the Lowe's parking lot in Hawthorne.

It's a huge monstrosity. And it's monstrously socialist.

Think about it. Tax incentives were offered to the owners to construct this modern day coliseum that sprawls over 300 acres. Meaning the public coffers were pillaged.

But you can be sure the public will not be benefitting nor will they be invited to pass through those pearly front gates. That will be reserved for people, rich people, who can afford the $500 tickets, to see multimillionaire football athletes turn themselves into human wrecking balls.

And the people who pay the $500 price tag? Well they're mostly wealthy white businessfolk, who will, in turn, pad their expense accounts for the tickets, the $21 hot dogs, the foam fingers and the post game hookers at nearby Inglewood brothels.

I hope I don't have to draw a chart, but that all makes its way back to a Schedule C tax return and the endless trough of taxpayer dollars.

And that's just one example. Scratch a little off the surface and you'll find socialism for the wealthy everywhere you look. See Haliburton. See Northrop. See Wall Street Bailout. See outrageous tax expense regulations for owners of private jets vs. the pocket picking of US teachers.

I mention this today (on Yom Kippur) because in the past I was guilty of taking advantage of the same crooked system.

There can be no denying, the rules were written by rich white people for the benefit of rich white people.

It's Socialist through and through. It's income redistribution, but it's the kind of income redistribution no one wants to acknowledge.

Because in true Orwellian fashion the people who created the system had the good sense to call it something else -- Capitalism.