Cyrill Vatomsky, Where All Politics Are Global

Milton Friedman postmortem show, The Noon Balloon on KSCO AM 1080.

More talk about capitalism vs feudalism dichotomy and discussion of the word progressive with its origins and its understanding in at least today's Santa Cruz. The Communist Manifesto describes proletarians ans the only class that would go all the way (for progress, presumably) because they have nothing to loose but their chains. Here is your origin of why the left managed to hijack the word progressive. Just like the left with the help of unwitting contributors like Rush Limbaugh has successfully corrupted and hijacked the word "liberal."

The first reference to what later would become a haunting subject for me for the next several days: a childhood friend of mine, a Russian musician is in NY now with several other Russians for a festival of some sort. One of these others, a young artist from Russia, that has never been in the US is very upset.

After 9 days in NY this young man is extremely annoyed by Americans' "fake smiles". Can you imagine what kind of wretched, corrupting culture does one, so young, must come from so that a simple act of friendliness causes suspicions and annoyance?! These smiles are not fakes, but a person that only knows Russian culture would not know it, because that culture conditioned him to think it must be fake friendliness.

There is a myth that so many people around the world are adhering to without direct knowledge of capitalism and US in particular. US, is actually a much kinder place then most of the societies on the planet. Russian love to talk about kind Russian souls, but talk's cheap. And the current situation in Russia, the health care examples I brought back with me from there a month ago speak volumes about how immoral and completely unkind and indifferent contemporary Russia is. Even if these smiles the young Russian dumb ass is complaining were fake, I would take them over the cruel indifference of contemporary Russia.

Further on the left-right or rather capitalism vs. socialism dichotomy. Socialism is loosing. Most countries are moving away from government ownership and control of means of production (well, except Russia, that is apparently hell bent to have its own course even if it leads into a perpetual swamp) - two decades after Thatcher turned UK over towards prosperity, Tony Blair had to completely revamp the Labour Party platform, eliminating Clause IV - demand for nationalization.

One of the callers brought up Milton Friedman's  take on health care, or rather current insurance situation in the US.