When Public Schools Are Socialism but Bailouts Are Business
I ran a vocabulary audit from a newsroom basement and found the same government help wearing two different name tags. Public schools, roads, libraries, science, beaches, parks, public health, and fire departments get stamped “socialism,” as if a library card were smuggling revolution across the border. Meanwhile, corporate tax breaks, bailouts, subsidies, cheap public land, government contracts, bank rescues, and private profits stroll past security labeled “economic policy.”
The principle is apparently not “government should stay out.” It is “government should help the people least likely to own a private jet.” Shared goods are how ordinary people build a country they can actually live in; corporate handouts are how power builds a second country behind a velvet rope. The newsroom raccoon has completed its audit: if a fire truck serving a neighborhood is socialism, then a billionaire receiving the truck factory should at least require the same scary label.