I Must Not Be Smart Enough To Understand Socialism

A pleasant young lady handed me a flyer advertising a public meeting tomorrow night entitled "The Breakdown of Capitalism and the Fight for Socialism."  It was surreal enough in its text, that I present it as delivered.  Color emphasis is mine.

Public Meeting sponsored by the International Students for Social Equality

The Breakdown of Capitalism and the Fight for Socialism

The world capitalist system is ensnared in its greatest crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.  The financial turmoil that began two years ago with the sudden failure of Wall Street icons has metastasized into a global economic breakdown.

The Obama administration's claim that it has "broken the back" of the recession is a self-serving lie, told by cynical politicians who are convinced that the people can be made to believe anything.  Tens of millions of people are unemployed, and millions have been thrown out of their homes.  Public schools and universities are cutting tens of thousands of jobs and reducing admissions.   State and local governments are responding with mass layoffs, pay cuts and the elimination of basic social programs.

The corporations and wealthy, led by the Obama administration, have used the economic crisis to increase their wealth, seizing on high unemployment to lower wages and increase profits.

In the aftermath of the 1929 collapse on Wall Street, the government and the press repeated endlessly the refrain: "Prosperity is just around the corner."  But the depression that began with the stock market crash and then spread throughout the world lasted more than a decade and led to unprecedented suffering and destruction.

A new warning must be raised with all necessary urgency.  The present crisis will not simply go away.  There is no peaceful, let alone easy, way out of the economic and social impasse into which capitalism has led mankind.  Join us for a series of meetings to discuss the socialist program and the political strategy for building a working class movement against capitalism.

So, let me get this straight.  An economic crisis leads to higher profit?  That must be why so many new businesses have opened or existing businesses expanded during the current economic situation, creating so many jobs.  And the concept that high supply and lower demand for workers led to a lower wage clearly has nothing to do with basic economic truths and everything to do with greed.  And Obama, as a consistent voice for expanded and extended social programs, is clearly the ringleader of the corporations and the wealthy.  Also, schools and universities are apparently turning students away in reaction to the tens of thousands of job cuts they have made.  Clearly peaceful methods of reversing this trend is impossible and the time for violent uprising is at hand.

Look, I've never won the Nobel prize in anything but this is highly counterintuitive to me.  We can't even afford what we're providing for people right now (and still wouldn't be able to, even if the wars stop tomorrow.)  The idea that providing more services, requiring more government revenue, taking that revenue from businesses, causing the businesses to employ fewer people, causing more people to be in demand of social services, causing prosperity just does not add up for me.

Sadly, I will not be able to attend the public forum.  Does somebody with a mightier brain than I care to explain any of this to me, especially the "reducing admissions" part?