Capitalism's psychopathy

The Green Party, at their Houston convention last week, passed an amendment to the platform that replaced the words "responsible stakeholder capitalism" with "an alternative economic system" based on "workplace and community democracy."

Because capitalism has demonstrated that it cannot function properly without socialism to rein in its rapacious greed.  Here's how Bill Maher -- who gets it wrong on the "chicken or fish" choice in this election -- gets it right here.

"Someone needs to explain to the free-market crowd that when it comes to socialism, you’re soaking in it.” So many Americans hate the word ‘socialism’ but love the concept: Medicare, unemployment, disability, farm subsidies...."

"America’s real religion is capitalism. And like any religion, it needs a devil. And that devil has always been socialism."

"... (T)he unfounded fear of socialism spreading out of control is nothing compared to how we've let capitalism spread out of control. It's eaten our democracy. It's eaten our middle class. It's eaten our health care system, our prison system, our news media. It's even eaten our food system so thoroughly that a lot of our food is no longer something that should be eaten."

In the common unacknowledged ground rule of negotiations, you can't get a little if you don't ask -- or demand -- a lot.

One of Maher's main targets in the kind of capitalism most often seen corporate in America, and the way it leaks into every part of our culture. Recently, the National Parks system decided it would allow naming rights as a solution to it's $11 million debt problem, which Maher thinks of as the last brick in the fall of America. "Get ready to see the bison roaming at Yellowstone with the Nike swoosh shaved into their ass."

In the end, Maher doesn't say socialism is a replacement for capitalism, but that he thinks of it as "capitalism's lap band." 

I can settle for some if we can't have it all.  And if Clinton's Democrats are afraid to ask for any... then I suppose we'll be back here in four years.  And Bernie Sanders, the guy who lit the socialism fire that burns so brightly this year, is probably going to be lying on the dock in back of his new summer home, on the lake in Vermont.