Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez: 'Capitalism Won't Always Exist' (A very revealing interview)
Frontpage Mag ^ | 07/19/2018 | Matthew Vadum

Posted on 07/19/2018 8:29:48 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

​Democrat giant-slayer and soon-to-be Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez came close to saying she supports abolishing the free enterprise system and the precious economic freedoms on which it is based that have made America wealthy beyond its founders’ wildest dreams.

The so-called democratic socialist Ocasio-Cortez whom DNC Chairman Tom Perez hails as “the future of our party,” breezily dismissed the current strength of the U.S. economy, claiming unemployment is low only because Americans are working two jobs. 

Capitalism is a fleeting phenomenon, she told PBS in an astounding display of historical ignorance that would no doubt endear her to anti-American conspiracy theorist Naomi Klein.

I do think that right now, when we have this no-holds-barred Wild West hypercapitalism, what that means is profit at any cost. Capitalism has not always existed in the world, and it will not always exist in the world. When this country started, we did not operate on a capitalist economy.

Asked if democratic socialism, the system to which Ocasio-Cortez claims allegiance, “calls for an end to capitalism,” the candidate said:

“Ultimately, we are marching towards progress on this issue. I do think that we are going to see an evolution in our economic system of an unprecedented degree, and it’s hard to say what direction that that takes … ”

The interviewer interjected: “It sounds like you are skeptical that capitalism is going to continue to be the right answer.”

“Yeah, I think it’s, um, I think it’s, I think it’s at least a question,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I think it’s absolutely a question.”

At Legal Insurrection, William A. Jacobson marveled at the candidate’s radicalism.

“There you have it. The hottest star in the Democrat universe will not commit to a continuation of capitalism under her Democratic Socialist political world view. That’s the headline.”

But it shouldn’t be the headline. This fraud called democratic socialism is nothing new.

As I’ve written before, democratic socialism is a profoundly dishonest euphemism calculated to make the horrors of communism more palatable. Karl Marx regarded socialism as a necessary way station on the road to the supposed utopia of communism. A socialist is merely a communist who isn’t in a revolutionary rush.

Socialists and communists “all want government or the collective to be master. They all subscribe to bad, un-American ideas, are all in the same ideological camp, and all tend to believe that the ends justify the means. In ideological terms, there is no bright line or safe harbor that neatly separates socialism from communism. They overlap and blend into each other.”

So of course Ocasio-Cortez isn’t committed to the truly revolutionary economic system that has liberated billions of human beings. She prefers the sclerotic, repressive system that murdered hundreds of millions of people in the twentieth century in the pursuit of absurd social justice abstractions.

The evidence of the power of capitalism to do good and effect positive outcomes is overwhelming and irrefutable. As Gayle Smith, then the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said of world poverty rates in 2016:

I think everyone in the room knows that this is a moment of extraordinary progress. Over the last 30 years, extreme poverty has been cut in half. Boys and girls are enrolling in primary school at nearly equal rates, and there are half as many children out of school today as there were 15 years ago.

Ocasio-Cortez’s ignorance aside, the radical leftist upstart’s unexpected primary trouncing of a key member of the House Democratic leadership is sending shockwaves through the Democratic Party establishment.

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member and first-time candidate Ocasio-Cortez, 28, slaughtered ten-term incumbent U.S. Rep. Joe Crowley, 56, in the primary election June 26 for the 14th congressional district in New York City. Crowley is chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, the fourth-highest leadership position among House Democrats and had been a leading contender to become House Speaker if Democrats regained control of that chamber. Ocasio-Cortez, who previously worked as an organizer for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential bid, won by a margin of 57.5 percent to 42.5 percent.

The photogenic Ocasio-Cortez beat Crowley by running on an extreme-left utopian fantasy platform of abolishing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, expanding Medicare to everyone, providing free college education, guaranteeing jobs for all, as well as a $15 an hour federal minimum wage.

Ocasio-Cortez is a confirmed ignoramus. In one media interview the newly anointed leftist folk hero seemed to confuse ICE with the CIA.

ICE’s “extrajudicial nature is baked into the structure of the agency and that is why they are able to get away with black sites at our border with the separation of our children,” she said during a journey into fact-free paranoia on CNN June 27.

Ocasio-Cortez has called for the abolition of U.S. borders. The politician told an Al-Jazeera spinoff that foreign citizens, border crossers, and illegal aliens ought to enjoy a “right of passage” into the United States.

She explained:

I think that immigration should be safe. I think that we should grant people a safe and documented right of passage. Republicans try all these scare tactics. And they go ‘Oh, open borders.’ Because they’re trying to incite fear. But what we really need to do is demilitarize a lot of what’s going on in terms of the detention of people, which has been happening for a very long time by the way.

The harebrained, politically suicidal promise to abolish ICE is too crazy even for Bernie Sanders who refuses to endorse it. Polling suggests the idea is political poison among Democrat voters.

And contrary to media propaganda, the idea that the DSA is only now “taking over” the Democratic Party is false: it took over the party long ago. The group’s members already largely control the party through various Democrat-related organizations. Virtually every member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, co-founded by the DSA in 1991, is already a member of the DSA, according to DiscoverTheNetworks

DSA, a small-c communist group, is on the rise because the Left is in revolt against the Trump administration and perhaps because Bernie Sanders popularized the “democratic socialist” label, taking away much of the stigma traditionally associated with socialism. Trump Derangement Syndrome has pushed DSA membership nationwide to the reported 45,000-mark.

The far-left CPC has 79 members in the House and one in the Senate (Bernie Sanders).

What is happening now is that DSAers from outside the formal party structure are causing a huge media stink by tossing out Democrat office-holders in insurgent primary campaigns. DSAers have been succeeding at the state and local level but they haven’t been knocking off Democrat office-holders in large numbers at the national level. 

In fact, Ocasio-Cortez is the only DSA-endorsed candidate to take out a sitting congressman. So while her victory is important and is clearly helping her shape party policy, it’s not quite the watershed event leftists build it up to be. It is more like an excuse, or permission, from the party’s radical electoral base to get even more radical.

The destruction of capitalism is what the crazies in the Democrats’ base have wanted for years.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez aims to give them what they want.

Ocasio-Cortez’s ignorance aside, the radical leftist upstart’s unexpected primary trouncing of a key member of the House Democratic leadership is sending shockwaves through the Democratic Party establishment.

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member and first-time candidate Ocasio-Cortez, 28, slaughtered ten-term incumbent U.S. Rep. Joe Crowley, 56, in the primary election June 26 for the 14th congressional district in New York City. Crowley is chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, the fourth-highest leadership position among House Democrats and had been a leading contender to become House Speaker if Democrats regained control of that chamber. Ocasio-Cortez, who previously worked as an organizer for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential bid, won by a margin of 57.5 percent to 42.5 percent.

The photogenic Ocasio-Cortez beat Crowley by running on an extreme-left utopian fantasy platform of abolishing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, expanding Medicare to everyone, providing free college education, guaranteeing jobs for all, as well as a $15 an hour federal minimum wage.

Ocasio-Cortez is a confirmed ignoramus. In one media interview the newly anointed leftist folk hero seemed to confuse ICE with the CIA.

ICE’s “extrajudicial nature is baked into the structure of the agency and that is why they are able to get away with black sites at our border with the separation of our children,” she said during a journey into fact-free paranoia on CNN June 27.

Ocasio-Cortez has called for the abolition of U.S. borders. The politician told an Al-Jazeera spinoff that foreign citizens, border crossers, and illegal aliens ought to enjoy a “right of passage” into the United States.

She explained:

I think that immigration should be safe. I think that we should grant people a safe and documented right of passage. Republicans try all these scare tactics. And they go ‘Oh, open borders.’ Because they’re trying to incite fear. But what we really need to do is demilitarize a lot of what’s going on in terms of the detention of people, which has been happening for a very long time by the way.

The harebrained, politically suicidal promise to abolish ICE is too crazy even for Bernie Sanders who refuses to endorse it. Polling suggests the idea is political poison among Democrat voters.

And contrary to media propaganda, the idea that the DSA is only now “taking over” the Democratic Party is false: it took over the party long ago. The group’s members already largely control the party through various Democrat-related organizations. Virtually every member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, co-founded by the DSA in 1991, is already a member of the DSA, according to DiscoverTheNetworks

DSA, a small-c communist group, is on the rise because the Left is in revolt against the Trump administration and perhaps because Bernie Sanders popularized the “democratic socialist” label, taking away much of the stigma traditionally associated with socialism. Trump Derangement Syndrome has pushed DSA membership nationwide to the reported 45,000-mark.

The far-left CPC has 79 members in the House and one in the Senate (Bernie Sanders).

What is happening now is that DSAers from outside the formal party structure are causing a huge media stink by tossing out Democrat office-holders in insurgent primary campaigns. DSAers have been succeeding at the state and local level but they haven’t been knocking off Democrat office-holders in large numbers at the national level. 

In fact, Ocasio-Cortez is the only DSA-endorsed candidate to take out a sitting congressman. So while her victory is important and is clearly helping her shape party policy, it’s not quite the watershed event leftists build it up to be. It is more like an excuse, or permission, from the party’s radical electoral base to get even more radical.

The destruction of capitalism is what the crazies in the Democrats’ base have wanted for years.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez aims to give them what they want.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections; US: New York; US: Vermont
KEYWORDS: berniesanders; capitalism; congress; medicareforall; newyork; ocasiocorte; ocasiocortez; socialism; vermont
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-72 last
To: henkster
Democrat giant slayer... Okay, I'll bite. Who has this kid ever slayed?
61 posted on 07/19/2018 10:31:35 AM PDT by gigster (Cogito, Ergo, Ronaldus Magnus Conservatus)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

“soon-to-be Congresswoman”

I highly doubt this.


62 posted on 07/19/2018 10:33:34 AM PDT by Lean-Right (Eat More Moose)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Lady, I know I’m a teen, but capitalism will succeed if morons (i.e. liberals, Marxists and Commies) would stop trying to control people.


63 posted on 07/19/2018 10:42:22 AM PDT by ConservaTeen (Islam is Not the Religion of Peace, but The religion of Pedophilia...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Don Corleone

The original system had a Samoset clause


64 posted on 07/19/2018 10:47:43 AM PDT by Phil DiBasquette
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 56 | View Replies]

To: jughandle

” ‘Communism/Socialism won’t always exist’ as long as humans strive for freedom.” [jughandle, post 35]

Sure it will.

Say, rather, that socialist yearnings and tendencies will resurface - relentlessly, remorselessly, inevitably. That’s because envy and covetousness are attributes of human nature. Western civ wants to see these as character flaws, but they are central to human psychology and culture, basic to our makeup, as impossible to change as eye color or blood type, or (to give a nod to more-culturally-determined factors) our tendencies to form families, tribes, and larger social groupings, which then cannot help but rival other groups, and compete for loyalty, power, status, and resources.

Doesn’t matter if one’s worldview is religious/moral based, or something else. These attributes will be there, under the surface, ready to come out and mess things up all over again.

The social/cultural mindset of Americans is the oddball situation, unsustainable without great effort and even greater understanding. The late Ronald Reagan understood this, alluding to the truth that the loss of freedom is never farther away than one generation. It’s a truth both fundamental and immutable.

Socialism appeals to the childish, immature, pre-modern mindset. We must indoctrinate all younger generations carefully, educate them to become real adults, who will grasp the benefits and workability of American liberty and dedicate their lives to participating in the life of the nation, and move to defend it. Childish motives and policies must be set aside. It won’t happen automatically.

None of it will be easy. It’s not being done very well just now, but if we do not undertake the labor, those who know will be outnumbered and overwhelmed by those who don’t.

And that will be that.


65 posted on 07/19/2018 10:55:49 AM PDT by schurmann
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: schurmann

One of the ways to explain the flaws of Socialism is to point out an internal contradiction.

If everyone should share and share alike then why shouldn’t beautiful women (like our favorite Socialist) be available for sexual relations to all men?

Everyone should serve society—everyone should be equal, right?


66 posted on 07/19/2018 11:42:30 AM PDT by cgbg (Hidden behind the social justice warrior mask is corruption and sexual deviance.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 65 | View Replies]

To: pepsionice
You could wipe capitalism off the map right now, and within sixty seconds...it’d come right back. It’s kinda like Kudzu...you can’t wipe it out.

Indeed, just ask the Chinese. They've been around for a while now.

67 posted on 07/19/2018 11:59:00 AM PDT by Charles Martel (Progressives are the crab grass in the lawn of life.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Charles Martel

They did a study amongst citizens of different countries to determine the most pro-Capitalist country, the winner: Vietnam.


68 posted on 07/19/2018 12:00:38 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 67 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

She has the eyes of a socialist / terrorist like Che


69 posted on 07/19/2018 12:55:56 PM PDT by minnesota_bound
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

I know you Marxists would love to see capitalism die, but I believe it is the way of the future...


70 posted on 07/19/2018 2:01:37 PM PDT by Deplorable American1776 (Proud to be a DeplorableAmerican with a Deplorable Family...even the dog is, too. :-))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t realize that in order to do away with capitalism, you have to vote it out. It will never be destroyed of itself because it is the one system that really works. Socialism, such as in Venezuela has already failed. The Russians and Chinese are slowly letting capitalist things like property and business ownership back in. They will continue to revert to capitalism slowly but surely because it works. People will come to realize she has about as much going for her as David Hogg, and I hope it happens more quickly than slowly.


71 posted on 07/19/2018 3:49:39 PM PDT by maxwellsmart_agent (.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TADSLOS
Alexandra Google with the goo, goo, googly eyes...
72 posted on 07/19/2018 5:29:52 PM PDT by Chode ( WeÂ’re America, Bitch!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-72 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson