We are a nation full of armchair politicians and Archie Bunker throwbacks. We are also a nation brimming with a citizenry that isn't equipped to state what the Bill of Rights contains, much less discuss the more abstract conceptualizations of our political ethos. Yet that doesn't stop the large numbers of the ill-informed from spouting off about things they know nothing about. There is one term that these folks on the fringe like to toss around, presumably in the attempt to get the goat of all left leaners, or simply to stir up the stink in the big crap pond. That term is socialism.


We've heard these before, haven't we?

We're headed toward socialism.
The Affordable Care Act, (Obama Care), is socialized medicine.
So and so is a socialist.
Socialism's taken over the country.
On and on...
You can encounter those through talk at down-home gatherings, through discussions in bars over drinks, and out in the street on hastily designed, misspelled posters. When you see those, and all their variants, you can be assured of one thing: The speaker doesn't have a solid clue about what they're saying. The down-home screed doesn't originate from the foundation of clear definition, but rather from the cheat sheet passed down from generation to generation.

Well, let's ask right now: What is socialism? Hey, you! Let's hear you talk objectively for two minutes about what socialism is. What have you learned about socialism, and what is your definition of socialism? What is it about socialism that strikes so much anxiety and fear? Clearly we have just as much to fear from the erosion of our 'unalienable rights' as we do from some historically shifting political philosophy--Mao's socialism was never really Marx's socialism--the idea of socialism was around before Marx; Europe's socialism isn't the socialism that found its way to good old America; and Stalin and Lenin's brand of socialism was never really socialism, the socialist label in USSR carrying an entirely different connotation. The point is we have to look at any thing--issue, ideation, differentiation, etc.-- that rises in our awareness through the lens of the present societal context. It goes to relevance according to the immediate political climate.


What Socialism is:

Socialism is more of an economic model rather than a pure form of government. In other words, socialism isn't a sister model to democracy, but rather a counterpoint, an alternative to capitalism. In socialism, the worker owns and controls the movement of goods and services while in capitalism, the economy flows through private and special interests, in a lot of cases centralized and monopolized into large conglomerates and corporations.
Socialism seeks to level class structure so as to more fully assure that there are no haves and have nots, but it's easy to see the idealism wrapped up in such a view. It would be wonderful if we could achieve equity in our dealings with each other, but there will always surely be gaps in our visualization and subsequent implementation.

What Socialism isn't:

Socialism isn't just one flavor, or one size fits all. There are variants in socialism just as there are variants in democracy. Quick question: Is the United States of America a democracy? Answer: The answer is yes and no; the U.S.A. is democratic, but not a pure democracy; it is organized as a democratic republic, whereby all decisions that are made for the citizens are made under the blanket of a protective constitution. Further point, there are already elements of socialism embedded in every government.
Socialism isn't an isolate; you can't point to and prove the existence of socialism by any standardized set of features. Socialism is as malleable as capitalism, with each existing on a broad spectrum of institutionalization and practice.
Socialism isn't automatically a middle stage to communism, which is one of the hasty notes that got entered into the generational cheat sheet alluded to earlier, and hence the deeply entrenched fear of the word itself. There are brands of Democratic Socialism that are fairly stable and have been for a long duration.
The most important thing to point out is that there isn't anything inherit in socialism that we need to fear any more than we fear capitalism, and indeed there is just as much to fear in capitalism; capitalism isn't sacrosanct and can go astray just as much as socialism. There isn't any model that covers all the bases. Old fashion greed will always remind us of that.

Global Socialism

In order to allay the fear and misunderstanding, we have to track back, and see where the disconnect lies. The disconnect lies first of all at the level of the word; we invent words to stand for things, lose track of their meaning, and then we still scatter aim them like flame throwers. We have to realize that none of these things exist on a scale from negative to positive, bad to good; these are not considerations in the world of ideas.

Everything is a correlate of the other, nothing in opposition, nothing in enmity; Why do we fear socialism, and by association communism, in our society? It depends on who you ask? In general terms, though, it's traceable to Marx and the rise of the USSR, one of those Ss standing for Socialist.

Socialism became lumped with all of the other -isms that were rising in force during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Socialism isn't the same animal as totalitarianism, despotism, anarchism, (this one, in particular, being totally in the realm of political philosophy), communism, on and on; anything that appeared to run counter to good old patriotism was evil, pure and simple, no in-depth study or soul-searching required.

In order to understand a concept like socialism, a requirement is to shed the preconceptions, the half-baked mind sets that keep us trapped inside that prison that is only the prison each believes it to be. The moment you release the charge, you can walk straight out the front gate, free, and you can manage to talk openly about a thing and what's wrapped up in it in more rational terms, with the spirit of exploring the possibilities rather than accepting the loaded cultural biases.

The fact is that socialism has a lot of positive elements; there are times when those elements prove useful in bringing an unhealthy economy back to some semblance of balance and health.

Chief Minister of WB, Smt. Mamata Banerjee in the Formation of Government in India in 2014. Do you know a political leader in India who believes that there are no permanent friends or foes in politics? The leader is not only of a great importance in regional politics but also at national level. Dressed in a traditional cotton sari and rubber sandals, she has changed the way electoral politics was dictated in West Bengal. You are right! She is Mamata Banerjee. She has ended the 34 year long democratic rule of the Left Front (LF) led by CPI (M) in the state.

But everyone is not happy. The urban population of West Bengal (WB) has taken their strongest guards against her as well as for her party Trinamool Congress (TMC). Many issues that have a widespread dissonance among the people of WB include a massive Chit Fund issue, acts of violence by TMC party workers during the last Panchayat Elections and controversies involving rape cases.

"Maa, Maati, Manush!" This was the slogan that rural population in WB found very close to their identity and heart. The resonance of the rural population to this slogan ensured huge loss for the LF in southern parts of WB. The three tier election was held in July 2013 involving District Councils, Panchayat Samities and Gram Panchayat seats. TMC thumping win in all the three formats held put an end to all speculations of a downfall of Mamata and a split in her party.

Mamata has been accused by various groups to be arrogant and intolerant to criticism. The leader who has been voted as the most honest politician by the social group IAC is focusing on improving health sector, sanitation and poverty alleviation in the state. Her dictatorship trait involving forced resignation of former railway minister Dinesh Trivedi and Kunal Ghosh controversy involving Saradha Chit Fund can take a back seat as for now.

In the absence of any unified leadership for Congress in WB together with the downfall of LF in southern districts of the state Mamata wave is likely to continue as she has been able to win the trust of Muslims and rural population of the state. We need greater insights to understand how from just winning 1 seat in 2004 Mamata was able to win 19 seats in 2009 at Lok Sabha elections. Mamata phenomenon in the state is ruled by many factors.

First thing first, ruling parties in WB are chosen by minority vote banks. Muslims alone account for 30% of the total electorates. Mamata has heavily relied in the support of these minority groups together with all those disadvantageous sections of society who have faced ethnic discrimination or poverty in the state for a long time. This includes adivasis, tribals and below the poverty line population.

Second, it is now a proven fact that most of the land holdings in Singur and Nandigram that were marked for the acquisition by WB government under the LF rule were owned by Muslims. Mamata was instrumental in protecting this section of land owners and thus was able to win their faith. Keeping out Tata's Nano project and a proposed SEZ was believed by many as a mistake that Mamata did as the repercussions of such protests was definitely to keep economic development and employment generation in the state at bay.

In 2014, she is expected to win 28 out of a total of 42 seats during Lok Sabha elections. With Nitish Kumar and Naveen Patnaik as her close ally in the national politics, she has all the options of teaming up with Mulayam and Jag Mohan Reddy in AP to call for the next big shot. She has been able to force communists to get isolated from poor in the state. Can she do the same for BJP as well as Congress to deprive them a power at the Centre in few months to come? Don't dare to call her lunatic then?

Saudi Arabia has invested in Pakistani nuclear weapons projects and believes it could acquire atomic bombs "at will," the BBC reported this on Thursday.

Saudi Arabia's quest has often been set in the context of countering Iran's atomic programme though it is now possible that the Saudis might be able to deploy nuclear devices more quickly than Pakistan, said the report that quoted unnamed Western and Pakistani officials and intelligence operatives.

"Earlier this year, a senior Nato decision maker told me that he had seen intelligence reporting that nuclear weapons made in Pakistan on behalf of Saudi Arabia are now sitting ready for delivery," said Mark Urban, diplomatic and defence editor of BBC's Newsnight programme.

Last month Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told a conference in Sweden that if Iran got the bomb, "the Saudis will not wait one month. They already paid for the bomb, they will go to Pakistan and bring what they need to bring".

Since 2009, when King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia warned visiting US special envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross that if Iran crossed the threshold, "we will get nuclear weapons", the country has sent the US numerous signals of its intentions.

Gary Samore, who was President Barack Obama's counter-proliferation adviser until March, said, "I do think that the Saudis believe that they have some understanding with Pakistan that, in extremis, they would have claim to acquire nuclear weapons from Pakistan."

The report said the story of Saudi Arabia's project - including the acquisition of missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads over long ranges - goes back decades.

In the late 1980s, the Saudis secretly bought dozens of CSS-2 ballistic missiles from China, the report said. These rockets, considered by many experts too inaccurate for use as conventional weapons, were deployed 20 years ago.

"It has also been clear for many years that Saudi Arabia has given generous financial assistance to Pakistan's defence sector, including, Western experts allege, to its missile and nuclear labs. Visits by the then Saudi defence minister Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz al Saud to the Pakistani nuclear research centre in 1999 and 2002 underlined the closeness of the defence relationship," the report said.

Pakistan refuses this nuclear weapon project

It said some experts think it is a cash-and-carry deal for warheads while others believe it is an arrangement whereby Pakistani nuclear forces could be deployed in the Kingdom.

However, Samore was quoted as saying that giving Saudi Arabia nuclear weapons would be a "very provocative action".



Defence publisher Jane’s revealed the existence of Saudi Arabia’s third and undisclosed intermediate-range ballistic missile site, approximately 200 km southwest of Riyadh
In its quest for a strategic deterrent against India, Pakistan co-operated closely with China which sold them missiles and provided the design for a nuclear warhead.

The Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan was accused by western intelligence agencies of selling atomic know-how and uranium enrichment centrifuges to Libya and North Korea.

AQ Khan is also believed to have passed the Chinese nuclear weapon design to those countries. This blueprint was for a device engineered to fit on the CSS-2 missile, i.e the same type sold to Saudi Arabia.

Because of this circumstantial evidence, allegations of a Saudi-Pakistani nuclear deal started to circulate even in the 1990s, but were denied by Saudi officials.

They noted that their country had signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and called for a nuclear-free Middle East, pointing to Israel's possession of such weapons.

The fact that handing over atom bombs to a foreign government could create huge political difficulties for Pakistan, not least with the World Bank and other donors, added to scepticism about those early claims

In Eating the Grass, his semi-official history of the Pakistani nuclear program, Major General Feroz Hassan Khan wrote that Prince Sultan's visits to Pakistan's atomic labs were not proof of an agreement between the two countries. But he acknowledged, "Saudi Arabia provided generous financial support to Pakistan that enabled the nuclear program to continue."

Whatever understandings did or did not exist between the two countries in the 1990s, it was around 2003 that the kingdom started serious strategic thinking about its changing security environment and the prospect of nuclear proliferation.

A paper leaked that year by senior Saudi officials mapped out three possible responses - to acquire their own nuclear weapons, to enter into an arrangement with another nuclear power to protect the kingdom, or to rely on the establishment of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.

It was around the same time, following the US invasion of Iraq, that serious strains in the US/Saudi relationship began to show themselves, says Gary Samore.

The Saudis resented the removal of Saddam Hussein, had long been unhappy about US policy on Israel, and were growing increasingly concerned about the Iranian nuclear program.

In the years that followed, diplomatic chatter about Saudi-Pakistani nuclear cooperation began to increase.

In 2007, the US mission in Riyadh noted they were being asked questions by Pakistani diplomats about US knowledge of "Saudi-Pakistani nuclear cooperation".

The unnamed Pakistanis opined that "it is logical for the Saudis to step in as the physical 'protector'" of the Arab world by seeking nuclear weapons, according to one of the State Department cables posted by Wikileaks.

By the end of that decade Saudi princes and officials were giving explicit warnings of their intention to acquire nuclear weapons if Iran did.

Having warned the Americans in private for years, last year Saudi officials in Riyadh escalated it to a public warning, telling a journalist from the Times "it would be completely unacceptable to have Iran with a nuclear capability and not the kingdom".

But were these statements bluster, aimed at forcing a stronger US line on Iran, or were they evidence of a deliberate, long-term plan for a Saudi bomb? Both, is the answer I have received from former key officials.

One senior Pakistani, speaking on background terms, confirmed the broad nature of the deal - probably unwritten - his country had reached with the kingdom and asked rhetorically "what did we think the Saudis were giving us all that money for? It wasn't charity."

Another, a one-time intelligence officer from the same country, said he believed "the Pakistanis certainly maintain a certain number of warheads on the basis that if the Saudis were to ask for them at any given time they would immediately be transferred."

As for the seriousness of the Saudi threat to make good on the deal, Simon Henderson, Director of the Global Gulf and Energy Policy Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told BBC Newsnight "the Saudis speak about Iran and nuclear matters very seriously. They don't bluff on this issue."

Talking to many serving and former officials about this over the past few months, the only real debate I have found is about how exactly the Saudi Arabians would redeem the bargain with Pakistan.

Some think it is a cash-and-carry deal for warheads, the first of those options sketched out by the Saudis back in 2003; others that it is the second, an arrangement under which Pakistani nuclear forces could be deployed in the kingdom.

Gary Samore, considering these questions at the centre of the US intelligence and policy web, at the White House until earlier this year, thinks that what he calls, "the Nato model", is more likely.

However ,"I think just giving Saudi Arabia a handful of nuclear weapons would be a very provocative action", says Gary Samore.

He says: "I've always thought it was much more likely - the most likely option if Pakistan were to honour any agreement would be for be for Pakistan to send its own forces, its own troops armed with nuclear weapons and with delivery systems to be deployed in Saudi Arabia".

This would give a big political advantage to Pakistan since it would allow them to deny that they had simply handed over the weapons, but implies a dual key system in which they would need to agree in order for 'Saudi Arabian' "nukes" to be launched.

Others I have spoken to think this is not credible, since Saudi Arabia, which regards itself as the leader of the broader Sunni Islamic 'ummah' or community, would want complete control of its nuclear deterrent, particularly at this time of worsening sectarian confrontation with Shia Iran..

Chelsea says that she'll go to court, if its necessary, to get treatment for gender identity disorder, which is also called "Gender Dysphoria".

This US Army private formerly known as Bradley Manning wrote a letter to the Private Manning Support Network that her defense attorney, David Coombs is helping her seek treatment for the disorder at the US Disciplinary Barrack, a Men's military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The support group posted this letter on its website 28th October, Wednesday.


Manning is serving a 35-year sentence for sending more than 700,000 secret military department documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks while working in Iraq.

Bradley Manning and Wikileaks

Manning, (25 years old) wrote that she wants to be allowed to live her life like
a woman and receive Hormone Replacement Therapy. She said that Coombs will represent her in those efforts.

Coombs didn't respond immediately to queries from the Press. After Manning announced her request in August 2013, Coombs said that he hoped the military prison would take right steps so Manning wouldn't have to go to court.

The military has said, it does not provide treatment for any kind of gender dysphoria. Pentagon policy dictates that transgender soldiers are not allowed to serve the U. Manning can't be discharged until she's released from prison and exhausts appeals of her criminal convictions. The Army Medical Command said that prisoners cannot receive hormone treatment at Fort Leavenworth, though Manning is apparently the first to request for it and prison officials have said Manning won't be allowed to dress like a Lady.

Manning was diagnosed with gender dysphoria by two army health specialists before her trial, but the Army has said prisoners must be re-evaluated.

News Source

Manning also wrote that Coombs will help her file a petition for a formal name change from Bradley to Chelsea. The prison officials have said that name changes are allowed.

 In one delivered to the Guardi, she apologized for an earlier public statement delivered to the Guardian in which she said that she is not a "pacifist". She also recieved the 2013 Sean MacBride Peace Award. Manning wrote in her apology that her decision to leak classified information to Wikileaks, reflected her "dedication to transparency" and a concern for human life and nation.