[Info-vax] HP stopping VMS paper documentation ?

[JF Mezei]

Phillip Helbig---undress to reply wrote:

> No, I think it's possible, it's just that I wouldn't call the US a
> socialist country, as some people (some who are opposed to Obama, say) 
> do in exaggeration.  (Even worse or those who confuse socialism and 
> National Socialism, painting a caricature of Obama as a Nazi.)

Socialism is not black or white. There are many degrees of socialism.

In my definition, socialism refers to the government offering social
services such as health, education, dental, family service etc.

When my mother had alzheimers, we had government provided health care
workers visit her a couple times a week to give her a bath, check on her
condition etc, and this allowed her to stay at home longer. She was on a
wait list to get to a government sponsored home for alzheimers patients.
(this wait list is prioritised by the state of the patient, and my
mother was just about to be placed in such a home when she got an
infection and passed away).

Just because you have government provided social services does not
prevent industry from functioning. In fact, the US car makers have more
profitable operations in Canada in large part due to lower health care
costs. (corporations pay taxes to the government so the later can pay
provinces to run health care).

A government running puplic transit or national railways or the post
office is not really socialism because it is a basic service like roads
and water which are expected to be provided by government and which do
not interest private enterprise.


A government that creates artificial/fake jobs to reduce unemployement
may be considered socialist. There are times when government get votes
when they are seen creating jobs. And if industry isn,t creating them,
governments are backed in a corner and forced to create them.

The thing is that socialism and capitalism are not exclusive of each
other. They can co-exist because socialism generally works in areas
where capitalism isn't interested in.


When the USA and UK started buying banks (and for the USA, 2 car
companies) during the crisis, one could argue it was a form of communism
 since commercial "capitalism" assets became owned by the state.
However, this was not done for strategic reasons to steer the nation in
one direction, it was done siply to prevent massive bankrupcies.

Had the USA government bought GM and kept GM and gotten GM to staop
making ars that use gasoline and focus on electric cars, then this could
have been considered communism where a capitalist asset is owned by the
people and the government uses it to steer the economy in a certain
direction.

Such a tactic may work for specific actions (such as buying a car
company, or venezuelle buying up oil cmpanies), but it won't work at a
national level which was shown by failures of soviet union, cuba and
north korea. Soviet Union went capitaistic, Cuba is slowly opening up to
people owning their own businesses, and north korea is still in a state
of denial over their failure,