Top myths in American politics

Recommended article by Lee Roscoe -- LINK. The myths:

• That Democrats are socialists. We should wish they were. It is a failure to move to a redistributive economy with legislated limits to greed (and to corporate funding of elections) that is pushing America on the road to ruin.
• That socialism is a bad thing. Modern socialism has nothing to do with totalitarian communism. The countries that are doing the best for their citizens in terms of schools, health and child care, vacations, full employment, full housing, clean energy, and caps on CEO salary are, in fact, socialist in their economies, democratic in their governments. They have not done away with capitalism, but simply have turned it to the common good. This is the case in much of Scandinavia and many EU countries, such as Germany.
• That the government should not spend money and get us into debt. The mantra that so-called fiscal conservatism is good for this country is at this point nothing more than a slander. It shows a basic misunderstanding of the way capitalism works. The government must spend money, as FDR did for a massive jobs program, if we are to have an economy again.
• That the Republicans want less government and the Democrats want more. The Republicans have created more government, such as the Patriot Act, which is a totalitarian blueprint, and the huge Homeland Security apparatus (employing over 800,000 people — ironically this spy network is the only growth industry in the U.S.). Republicans are fine with huge subsidies of taxpayer monies for agribusiness, big pharma, the defense industry and other corporations. They are fine with huge tax cuts for the rich and increased taxes for the middle and working class. They want more government for the rich and less for the rest of us.
• That we have a "liberal press." In fact huge corporations, almost always larger contributors to Republicans than to Democrats, own the major networks and cable companies, and many of what few newspapers are left.
• That the tea party is just a group of angry but benign folks. NAACP reports just issued show that the tea party has a large preponderance of leaders affiliated with white nationalist movements which consider Jews to be Satanic, and blacks to be subhuman (and who hate Obama for being black). The tea party is funded by such as the Koch family, huge oil and corporate interests that want no protection for the environment or workers, and no benefits — except for themselves.