Socialism is the stupidest word in the American dictionary. It’s meaning has been so obscured by propaganda and ideological assumptions over the past 60+ years that its only usefulness as a word today is to scare people into thinking the government is going to take all your money and give it to their pals.

Oh. Wait a second. That IS what obama is doing. Only it’s not what you think. He’s not taking all our money and giving it to POOR people. Or to working class people. Or to middle class people. Don’t make me laugh. He’s taking all our money and giving it to RICH PEOPLE. It’s not how we think socialism usually works, and in fact, it’s WAAAY worse than the sort of socialism they have in horrible, evil, despicable, ugly, ruined, dangerous, desperately poor countries like Switzerland, Denmark, Canada, and Holland.

What obama and his Goldman Sachs minions like Geithner, Summers, Bernanke, and Paulson are instituting is Socialism-For-Billionaires. The US Treasury, funded by the taxpayers obviously, is now underwriting nearly ALL the risk of the biggest financial institutions, the automakers, AND the health care industry. We are paying them to rob us. And to make us poor. And worried. And depressed.

The situation is actually so unbelievable that it’s sort of hard to believe.

As Paul Farrell writes today in the Wall Street Journal (where you’d expect to hear an Amen chorus of support for the president’s agenda of handing over billions and billions of taxpayer dollars to private interests  and corporations but instead find an analyst who actually quotes Matt Taibbi*approvingly):

“All the fear-mongering about health-care “socialism” is actually a strategic smoke screen, a brilliant counterattack, a sneaky political cover-up of the GOP’s recent historic takeover of America using taxpayer-funded bailout money against us. Get it? The Right’s making Left turns into “socialism.”

You heard me. In “Bailout Nation,” hedge fund manager Barry Ritholtz summarizes this clandestine takeover of the great American democracy, led by Paulson and the Goldman Conspiracy juggernaut. In less than a year America has become “Socialism for the Rich! Capitalism for the Rest,” says Ritholtz.”

–snip–

Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi also warned of an attack brewing in “The Big Takeover, how Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution.”

Yes, that “revolution” took less than a year. Except we did not return to the old Reganomics capitalism Klein warned of. Instead, the Goldman Conspiracy created a new American “Socialist-Capitalism.” As Ritholtz aptly describes it, America now has “socialization of risk” [with trillions of toxic bailout debt dumped on taxpayers] versus “privatization of profits” [for Wall Street insiders like the Goldman Conspiracy].

This is a historic government coup: The GOP created a new “American Socialism” that resembles Russia under Putin, with its bizarre blend of socialism plus just enough hint of capitalism to keep a steady flow of kickbacks to a corrupt dictator and his moneyed cronies.”

The first few paragraphs are indecipherable, so just skip to the 4th paragraph and read the whole thing from there. It’s worth it. This part is especially good, and should be spread far and wide across the internet, along with that already massively viral image up top. (I can’t credit the artist because she’s anonymous so far. But I’m SURE that when the artist DOES reveal herself she’ll be given a one-woman show at edgy museums like the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Or maybe not.)

Eight Principles for a New Socialist Manifesto

1. Always elect a figurehead president

Putin skirted term limits by getting Medvedev elected president. Then Putin was appointed party leader and prime minister, the real power behind the throne. That’s one way power stays in power playing the game. Wall Street is a master at playing this game, as the single largest money donor to political campaigns. Donations assure continued control behind an illusion of democracy, where all politicians are mere pawns.

2. Greed is great in the new ‘Socialist-Capitalism’

In his blog, Matt Taibbi asks “what’s wrong” with Goldman’s $3.44 billion second-quarter profits on top of setting aside $11.4 billion for insiders? “What’s wrong is that this is not free-market earnings but an almost pure state subsidy” as Congress steals our tax dollars giving them “to the same guys who had just blown up the financial world.”

3. Too-stupid-to-fail big banks will always get bailed out

In the New Yorker Joe Haggen described their arrogant culture: “The god is Goldman. You subjugate yourself to that god, and in return we will make you a gazillionaire.” But as recently as last fall “not a single Wall Street executive” Haggen interviewed “believed Goldman would have survived an overall collapse of the financial system. A large loss would have been inevitable as lending evaporated, and Goldman Sachs would have struggled to shrink the company to a fraction of its size overnight.”

Taibbi adds: “AIG owed Goldman about $20 billion at the time it went into a death spiral.” Thanks to Paulson’s $13 billion gift, tax dollars went through AIG straight into Goldman’s pockets.

4. Pretend to be a commercial bank, risk like an investment bank

Wall Street still gambles as investment banks. Worse: Taibbi says when Goldman converted they became “eligible for a new program that gives commercial banks FDIC backing for unsecured debt … a free AAA rating to the big banks and allows them access to mountains of cheap money.” No wonder “Goldman took full advantage of this deal, issuing $28 billion in FDIC-backed debt after its conversion. Exactly how hard is it for a bank to make a profit when it has unlimited access to virtually free money?”

5. American taxpayers are Wall Street’s personal piggy bank

Taibbi notes that Goldman got $10 billion TARP money, claims they’re now paid off. But the Treasury still has warrants which Goldman wants to renegotiate below market prices, and the juicy low-interest loans help them increase their profit margin.

6. High-risk leveraging guarantees high-paid insider bonuses

After converting into a commercial bank Reuter’s reported that Wall Street was “taking steps to reduce leverage.” But since then “Goldman has been emboldened by all its state backing to borrow more and gamble more than ever,” says Taibbi. “This is the equivalent of a regular casino gambler who hears that the house has doubled down on his credit line and decides to stay up at the tables all night, instead of going home and sobering up.”

Meanwhile, “Goldman’s VaR, or Value at Risk, which measures the amount of money the bank puts at risk on any given day” has “soared since last year.”

7. Government-approved CIA-style silence hides ‘The Game’

The TARP Inspector General estimates total new debt for all bailout programs will be a staggering $23.7 trillion. But the Fed Chairman refuses to disclose vital information, even to Congress. Bernanke learned that trick from the CIA, so they can’t be audited.

Taibbi warns that taxpayers are stuck with piles of Wall Street’s “worthless crap assets they acquired while they were playing roulette the past 10 years or so. We just have no idea how much crap they unloaded on the Fed, or how much they borrowed.”

8. New laws secure perpetual power for new ‘Socialist Conspiracy’

Wall Street, under the command of the Goldman Conspiracy, can further consolidate power over the American people forever by making sure Congress and the President (no matter which party wins elections) passes other new laws:

Kill the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Kill “public option” competition in the health-care reform. Kill all efforts to revive Glass-Steagall. Pass a “cap and trade” law so Wall Street can start gambling trillions in a new derivatives bubble. Pass laws to guarantee Wall Street’s “too-stupid-to-fail” big banks unlimited access to taxpayer funds in the future, as they’ve enjoyed since October.

So, yes the Right Wingnuts are wrong, just like they always are. But obama IS a socialist — just not in the way we usually expect. He’s WAAY worse than that.

And speaking of mind games, which after all is what the Joker was famous for, this whole effort to silence critics of HR 3200 with baseless accusations of Astro-turfing and infilitrating (it’s not freaking infiltrating when private citizens petition their representatives for crying out LOUD! It’s D-E-M-O-C-R-A-C-Y) is getting really friggin scary.

You know, when the mainstream media and the so-called major bloggers are intimidating people into NOT protesting or organizing or becoming activists using ridicule and dismissive lies, we’ve taken a GIANT step toward a police state very much like Iran’s or China’s.

• Don’t attend Town Hall meetings?
• Don’t demand your reps publicly answer questions from constituents about major legislation?
• Don’t rock the boat? Don’t embarrass yourself? Don’t be a tool?

Are you fucking serious??

*Matt Taibbi famously characterized Goldman Sachs as a “great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” A-yup.