One of the great unknowns in the 2020 election is the surprising shift of many young voters and Democrats toward a socialist agenda. It is still not clear if the majority of the country is ready for such a shift though polls show growing support for socialist policies. Not to be outdone, Candi CdeBaca won a runoff race last week against former Denver city council president Albus Brooks by pledging that she would implement not socialist, but virtually communist policies “by any means necessary.”
CdeBaca insists that we are now in “late phase capitalism” and that we are ready to move to “community ownership” of land and resources. Indeed, in the video from a “Denver Decides” candidate forum, CdeBaca seemed to be reading directly from Das Capital:
“I don’t believe our current economic system actually works. Um, capitalism by design is extractive and in order to generate profit in a capitalist system, something has to be exploited, that’s land, labor or resources. And I think that we’re in late phase capitalism and we know it doesn’t work and we have to move into something new, and I believe in community ownership of land, labor, resources and distribution of those resources. And whatever that morphs into is I think what will serve community the best and I’m excited to usher it in by any means necessary.”
What is astonishing is that, with failures of socialist and communist systems around the world, Democratic candidates are touting the superiority of such centralized economies over capitalism. A Harris poll found 55 percent of Americans would prefer to live in a socialist country. As with the popularity of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the victory in Denver shows just how far apart the extremes of American politics has become.
Two kinds. Of 2,200 institutions of higher education all but two depend on government funding. Only two are independent. Accreditation for the majority? “Suspect.”
I always tell liberals when debating to not worry, your side will win by destroying this nation. There policies move the cog of socialism every closer to reality. The conservative message of hard work and responsibility is a much harder sell. I tell conservatives to enjoy the moment, since eventually we will lose. I know this sounds dark, but I don’t see us winning against the drip of socialism.
That’s right Jim, the outlook is bleak. But guess what? It was ever thus. We’re all going to die anyways. So no problem!
True enough, I just hate that I get to live through seeing what we have attacked. I remember as a kid, with the cold war and communism over our heads, always wondering how or why would a group accept communism/socialism? It really seemed so foreign and obvious that it was bad. Well, I guess I’m seeing the answer.
An unidentified ‘Harris Poll’ means what to me? Absolutely nothing.
MA,, likely there is NO Harris Poll that means anything to you. Why most polls are wrong most of the time.
I would tell you except how do you respond to a machine part?
AND Colorado is indeed, by name a Red State.
It really is time to have the military live up to their oath of office. I read where the bar gir with suspect education wants a raise from her $174,000 a year salary after ‘working tirelessly’ for the ‘people’ a full five months.
Does this sound familiar? Remember the movie REDs. Socialism is the face of supreme greed but only for the ruling class of their classless society. What they are too inept to earn they become adept at stealing. Pelosi and Warren prime examples.
Here’s the part about Eee Awwwk (No offense to Ee Yore from Wind in the Willows)
Girl tends bar. Girl has no skills to offer,gets elected by roughly 5,000 votes promising free stuff.After five months of delivering nothing demands a raise. and the funny punch line ‘ The above serves as Cliff Notes to the Communist Manifesto.
Have to agree. Socialism and it’s two part society is just another name for National or International or progressive socialism. So much for Comrade non citizen Ocasio who still hasn’t become a real Representative and taken the Oath of Office.
Why not? Simple. She’s covering for Comrade Pelosi who let these types slide into office.
In spite of being irritated by the abject poverty of the mind and soul of many “Millieflakes” I can’t help but feel a profound sadness for them.
They are like federalistpapersrevisited belows cows in the pasture happily chomping their oats unaware they are destined for death.
Like The Komsomol, they were raised by the left to be one of two things, cannon fodder or property of the state.
They have been indoctrinated and socially engineered to usher in a Stalinist Style society by being stripped of self survival skills and worse yet stripped of any awareness that they need them.
They have been infantalized to the point they will vote for the “perpetual big tit” to latch on to and never realize the big tit has plans to abort them. Unfortunately in the Cosmic scheme of things within the human condition, without intervention of the human qualities of morality and mercy, nature, evolution is not very kind to the less fit, even if that unfitness for survival is just in their indoctrinated minds.
two thoughts here. 1:
the marxist analysis of the exploitation of labor as one of the means of production, and how it works under capitalist systems, is not, in itself a moralistic critique. substitute “use of labor” for “exploitation of labor” and it’s easier to understand. the notion is the capitalist (which may be even a humble shopkeeper, not some bigwig, just one who owns some means of production– but the boss employer pays the labor $10 an hour, say, to add more than that amount of value. Maybe to add, $15 an hour. The employer keeps the difference between the value added measured by market for whatever product or service, and the employee gets the cost of their labor paid in wages.
This is a non-normative description of the use (‘exploitation”) of labor.
I have no problem with it as a description of how and why bosses use labor, yes, to add value and thus make profits. I am not on some foolish crusade against Marx’s work in economics, which had significant merits in its time and even today.
thought 2.
“Communists” are politicians who have weaponized this into some set of slogans to enlist the working class as cannon fodder in their plans to expropriate the property — that means STEAL– the property– of their enemies — whom they call “Capitalists” or perhaps “Reactionaries” or “Fascists”
Communist politicians are thus, essentially, BANDITS
I give a warning to her and every other would be communist in America.
If you think you can make this happen in the United States without a civil war, no way. It will end up in blood, and it will be the blood of the bandits, flowing up to our horses nostrils into the gutters.
But in life, there are strange bedfellows. Watch for alliance between Communists, globalists, and technocrats. The lumpenprole again and again has been the tool of the biggest capitalists worldwide.
K. Now you know the reason for the left’s efforts at banning the arms of the militia.
To use your vernacular, I am astonished that people today do not understand the difference between Economic Systems and Governing Systems. If you don’t understand that we have a centralized economic system in operation today in the United States, then you are eating dry oats and shitting in a pasture! In fact our economy is so centralized that we tax indiscriminately and make people beg not only for collective services but to make ends meet in our own households. We are slaves to our own society and the Government that rules over it!
Is socialism the answer? NO! Is Capitalism the Answer? NO! Is a continuation of American (Western) Democracy the answer? Absolutely Not!
Then what is the Answer? The Answer is republican Government. On the surface republican Government may seem socialist to the casual onlooker, but it is only Socialist in the respect that it is Collective Governance. At its core republican Government is Indirect Democracy where everyone has the Right to participate equally to reach a Collective Majority Consensus through Representation. That means a republican Governing System has no leaders, only representatives, and the only control is voting, in the governing assembly, to reach Majority Consensus. The primary purpose of Government is to control the flow of revenue through Collection and Redistribution of taxes to pay for collective services at the lowest per capita cost, which the collective determines are important and necessary.
So, does everyone need no be forced into economic equality in a Republic? Absolutely Not! Is there redistribution of wealth in a Republic? Absolutely Not! Is there over taxation in a Republic? Absolutely Not!
Republican Government is all about the Power of the Purse, and each individual has the Power over their own Purse, meaning, No Taxation without Representation, we decide ourselves what taxes we impose on ourselves, only to pay for the collective services we approved of ourselves!
How does this work?
A community of people of various skills and resources finds that it is impractical to individually provide the services they need and come together to work out a collective solution which will result in lower cost and higher efficiency and productivity. For example, water, does it make sense for everyone to dig their own water well, or construct their own water line from the nearest lake or stream? Or would it be more efficient if the People came together and built a water distribution system that supplied water to everyone in the Community?
This is a cost analysis question, where the current cost, including opportunity cost, are calculated and compared with the per capita cost of the collective service. Once that cost minimization Analysis is completed there is a cost that must be covered and taxation is designed to cover the cost of the project. The people then decide what taxes can be assessed uniformly, and at what level, that would be necessary to cover the cost of the project and its continued management and maintenance. The taxes that would be first considered would be for Property, since water usage would coincide with the Property size, so everyone who owned property would pay property taxes. If this amount wasn’t enough then a tax on commerce could be assessed because businesses would use more water than individuals in the execution of their business activities. Then some would argue, fairly, that those that did not own property, or conduct commerce, would be freeloading off the system using the water for free that others paid for. Then a consumption tax could be assessed which would cover everyone’s usage.
Notice there are no income, capital gains, wealth, or inheritance taxes, all of which are extortive by their very nature, and a continuation of the principles of Slavery!
This example of iterative cost and tax analysis would be done to cover the cost of all the collective services the people in their collective capacity deemed important and necessary to their community, which is no different when you expand this model to a city, a county, a State, or the entire country. But as you migrate up the Governing pyramid the lower levels control the spending on each progressive level, always through their power of their Purse. Once taxes are assessed on each progressive level it becomes collective revenue, on that level, and they have the Power to decide how much of that revenue will be expended, and for what services on their level, including their share of collective services on the next level of Government.
Anyone that can’t understand that this is in fact the governing and economic model that was established by Article 1 of the US Constitution needs to get back to eating your dry oats. In fact, the entire Constitution Unamended has the singular purpose of forming the structure for Republican Government to join the States into a Union, the States in their Collective Capacity, where each State in turn is the People of their State in their Collective Capacity, making our Governing System a Collective Decision making Body.
The United States, in Congress Assembled, The Union that makes our Country the United States of America.
“And whatever that morphs into is I think what will serve community the best and I’m excited to usher it in by any means necessary.”
“Whatever that morphs into?”
It morphs into the same thing every time, slavery and death. The fact is in order to seize, control, maintain and hold power, The Communist MUST kill people. The other fact these Communists are missing is the United States is not 1918 Russia where everyone is abused and starving. Our poor live better than billions of others in the world and the “middle class” Communisms mortal enemy, has options galore to thrive.
Not that that matters under Communism because in spite of their glorious propaganda, Communism doesn’t do parasitical generational welfare.
Soviet Constitution ARTICLE 12.
In the U.S.S.R. work is a duty and a matter of honor for every able-bodied citizen, in accordance with the principle: “HE WHO DOES NOT WORK, NEITHER SHALL HE EAT.”
THE PRINCIPLE APPLIED IN THE U.S.S.R. IS THAT OF SOCIALISM: “FROM EACH ACCORDING TO HIS ABILITY, TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS WORK.”
(This is one of those “any means possible” provisions of the Soviet Constitution that Stalin used for the purges and extermination by starvation of those who “wouldn’t work” in the gulags.)
And Communism doesn’t do middle class.
“The immediate aim of the Communist is the same as that of all the other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.”
– Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto
bour·geoi·sie
/ˌbo͝orZHwäˈzē/
noun
the middle class, typically with reference to its perceived materialistic values or conventional attitudes.
Like their “Fundamentally Change America” schtick The Democrats layed out before the gullible American People in 2008 and no one bothered to asked “To What?” The Democrats have layed out their vision of Communism for America in the Green Deal and no one is asking “how?”
What is the environmental and human cost of complete destruction and rebuilding of everything? Where are the resources? Where do millions live during the transition? How is any of this accomplished?
Seizure and destruction of private property that will make millions refugees. Seizure of production and abolishment of means via abolishment of fossil fuel. This will immediately necessitate massive amounts of human slave labor to keep pace with simple basics like growing food and distributing it to feed the entire country under a impossibly inadequate TBD magic unicorn system that will create huge food shortages, not to mention the logistics like how feeding everyone everywhere is going to he accomplished without refrigeration under a distribution system which has not been determined yet?
The answer is…it’s not.
The Green Deal is just a segue into absolute power by destruction of societal support systems to create mass dependency on government. The Green Deal is a nationwide terrorist act that makes 9/11 look like a summer picnic.
Then we come to the other very large ugly fly in the ointment.
What if slavery under a death cult political system is not what hundreds of millions of American Citizens want?
“I believe in community ownership of land, labor, resources and distribution of those resources. And whatever that morphs into is I think what will serve community the best and I’m excited to usher it in by any means necessary.”
What a coincidence. Millions of heavily armed Americans feel exactly the same way about Preserving, Protecting and Defending The Constitutional Republic.
The answer is a little more complicated and much more deadly than just more debt and taxes to expand the parasite base.
To paraphrase Tip O’Neill, “Like politics, All Civil War is local.”
GREAT RECESSION GAVE..
BAD NAME TO CAPITALISM
Personally I dont think this country needs to radically transform the economy. But conservatives must realize that the Millennial generation came of age just when the Great Recession hit. That event, no doubt, had a huge impact. Millennials got the impression that capitalism had serious deficiencies.
Amid the Great Recession, as unemployment was surging, Republicans attempted to implement a Libertarian agenda championed by Paul Ryan. For about 2 – 3 years, so-called ‘Fiscal Hawks’ dominated the national conversation. Mainstream Media, in fact, was oddly deferential to the hawks, as noted many times by columnist Paul Krugman.
I suspect that Fiscal Hawks heightened the anxieties of millions during the depths of the recession. The unemployed didn’t want to hear how ‘important’ it was to slash government spending. I suspect that Bernie Sanders realized how sick people were of the Fiscal Hawks and that explains how Sanders suddenly shot to prominence with Facebook memes promoting socialism.
Therefore Republicans have only themselves to blame for the current popularity of socialist ideas. Had Republicans been sensitive enough to recognize the mass anxiety caused by the Great Recession, they would have known it ‘not’ the moment to implement a Libertarian agenda. By attempting that they triggered a socialist backlash led by Bernie Sanders.
Trump is obviously not a fiscal hawk. And that faction of Republicans did try and screw him, for sure.
When are you going to check yourself into Bellview?
Warning of an imminent Civil War if the majority of People together decide they want a governing system of their own choosing.
You better get back to eating your dry oats and making road apples in your pasture!
Fed, you sound like a babbling homeless man off the street who picked up someone’s smartphone and haphazardlly logged a comment here.
Out of respect I will not reply to your offensive and condescending comments! Get a life!
And yet, you did reply.
Wow, that’s very perceptive of you. What else you got bouncing around in that wasted space you have at the top of your neck?
Tell it to someone who cares.
There are Constitutional Republic Party members and then there are Republicans in Name only who are the right wing of the far left. Just as there are the hard core socialists and the DINOs both of whom are the left wing of the left.
I reply to Peter’s set of half-truths he laid out about the Great Recession, Fiscal Hawkd, Paul Ryan, Krugman, etc. Since it apparently did not post, and since experience has demonstrated that Peter Hill is abysmally ignorant of anything related to the field of economics, In won’t bother trying to retype all of the comment that did not post.
Anyone who wants a factual background on what turned out to be the last era of the Fiscal Hawks should probably look at the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Commission appointed by Obama in 2010. That commission ostensibly rose out of a concern for the massive U.S. debt/ defits, and the several years of annual deficits in excess of a $Trillion, on top of the debt that had been piled on in the Bush 43 Administration.
I know all of the lame excuses given here and elsewhere trying to explain away all if the Obama year deficits, and since I’ve dealt with that horse**** numerous times in these threads already, I’m not inclined to go over that again .
Suffice it to say that the proposals of the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Commission were duly dismissed on a bipartisan basis. Someone looking to make ShareBlue points may want to spouting off only about Paul Ryan, or Krugman.
That misses the point that virtually no major political figure has prioritized the growing U.S. federal debt for several years, at least. Every now and then there might be an article about it, and there have been 2-3 JT columns that I’ve seen about it, but realistically, this is not a political issue that now longer gets traction.
Any discussion of any issue involving budgets/ deficits/ debts requires at least a basis knowledge of what the budget is, where the money goes, the sources of revenue, etc. Not many people are that interested in having that discussion, and some who claim that they are, like Peter, have demonstrated that they are lacking in even a basic understanding of the components of the budget, the drivers of the deficit, etc.
These issues I’ve looked at for decades, and I may have a better-than-average understanding of where that c.4.5 $Trillion in annual federal spending goes. And I can roughly give amounts and percentages promptlyvin any discussion without referring to,for cutting and pasting, WikiPedia or ShareBlue, or quoting that charlatan Paul Krugman ( whose been coasting on what a group of old Swedes decided years ago).
So there needs to be a basic recognition of where “fiscal responsibility/ Budget Hawks” are in the political mix of recent years. They are AWOL. A propaganda piece from HHHNN dies not change that fact.
If someone does choose to engage in a debate about budgetary/ deficit/ debt issues, I’m not interested in having that discussion if the person repeatedly shows he does not know his *** from a hole in the ground.
Note the massive federal borrowing during the 2d World War. Note also that Congress and the President had balanced the budget by the close of FY 1947. This isn’t that difficult. They. Just. Don’t. Feel. Like. It.
The U.S. Congress is an incompetent, nay criminal, organization. Our political class is trash.
Many moons ago, there was a battle for land in Colorado year 1864
Colorado militia massacre Cheyenne at Sand Creek
Colonel John Chivington and his Colorado volunteers massacre a peaceful village of Cheyenne camped near Sand Creek in Colorado Territory, setting off a long series of bloody retaliatory attacks by Indians.
Chivington, a former Methodist preacher with ambitions to become a territorial delegate to Congress, saw in the Indian wars an opportunity to gain the esteem he would need to win a government office. Disappointed that the spring of 1864 failed to produce any major battles, Chivington apparently determined to burn villages and kill Cheyenne whenever and wherever he could, making little distinction between peaceful or aggressive bands.
Now Candi squaw wants another fight.
Perhaps its just election hyperbole on her part, but if they ever actually tried to enact this and seize people’s property – the guns *would* come out. I have scoffed at the notion of armed conflict, but something like this would definitely tip the scales in that direction. Is anyone over the age of 30 voting in blue states anymore?
Vote and buy guns.
Trump was wrong. The Press aren’t enemy of the people. The Dims are. But he gets partial credit for identifying their propaganda arm.
No. The subcultures in society for which the Democratic Party is an electoral vehicle are enemies of the rest of us, and of the country as historically constituted. The apparatus of the Democratic Party and the elected officials it slates are just a manifestation of concentrated grossness.
NB, the bulk of the professional-managerial class in this country favors the Democratic Party by default. Certain business sectors do not (e.g. extractive industries). In almost any sector, I think you’ll find the propensity to favor the Republicans (who are an omnibus of segments dissatisfied or appalled with our current elites) is directly proportional to the distance of the practitioner from the apex and center of a given guild or sector. So, in law, the Republicans are small practice attorneys, provincial mid-law, or work for firms with certain specialties – e.g. representing oil companies. In finance, the Republicans are community bankers, mid-market commercial bankers, local insurance agents and tax preparers &c. In medicine, the Republicans are ordinary practitioners, and are hardly to be found on the boards of any professional associations. In academe, the Republicans are business and engineering faculty (or athletic coaches) who have no influence on institutional policy. In business in general, the chances your interlocutor is a Republican is directly proportional to his distance from the executive suites and boardrooms.
Raymond Aron referred to ‘the unification of the elites’ as a hallmark of totalitarian systems. WTF is going on in this country when credit card companies and outfits like Patreon are taking orders from a collection of grifters like the $outhern Poverty Law Center? At best, that’s a gross failure of due diligence. That explanation, however, doesn’t answer the question of why these financial apparatchiks would be inclined to harass their clientele in this way.
One of the things we learn in this forum is that the opposition fuses dupes and dopes with genuinely malevolent people with people who manage to be malevolent and stupid at the same time. The culture necessary to maintain free and popular government has largely evaporated and what were our referee institutions hopelessly corrupted. This will not end well.
The Press aren’t enemy of the people.
Bill Maher unloaded on the press on a CNN interview. Good for him
Bill Maher calls political correctness ‘cancer on progressivism,’ says he doesn’t trust media
“I don’t trust the media. If that’s the question, that’s my answer,” Maher told CNN anchor Chris Cuomo.
The conversation then pivoted to his criticisms of Democrats and the attacks he’s received in return.
“I go after them because they need going after. They need some tough love and I’m not going to stop,” the “Real Time” host said.
“I think a lot of this far-left political correctness is a cancer on progressivism. I think when you talk to Trump supporters, they’re not blind to his myriad flaws, but one thing they always say is, ‘he’s not politically correct.’ I don’t think you can overestimate how much people have been choking on political correctness and hate it.”
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/bill-maher-political-correctness-cancer-progressivism-media-trust
Socialism is an unjust system of government.
If we are stupid enough to vote for our own destruction, then one day, we’ll have the same problems that have driven millions of people to immigrate here. There won’t be enough food or medicine. Only, there won’t be any US left to save us.
Indian Reservations are an example of what happens when the residents don’t own the land. There is no incentive to improve a property that isn’t yours, so the homes are broken down. There’s also no worth of the land to the residents, so they can’t take out a HELOC to make improvements. They just get by on government charity. From the state of their education and lives, the government does not make a very good benefactor.
No one thrives on government assistance. Why would any one vote so that all of us depend on government assistance and housing?
Prof. Turley, I think it’s perfectly understandable why “many young voters” are migrating “toward a socialist agenda.” The U.S. system of higher education brainwashed them to think that way. They’re defenseless and don’t know any better. However, with luck–and a strong U.S. economy–even these dunces will figure it out over time. It’ll just take ’em awhile. Higher education is one of the few places that avowed socialists can be gainfully employed; and it’s about the only place where, once they receive tenure, they can’t be fired.
Tenure is the mother’s milk of socialism. It ought to be outlawed.
Except there is no evidence of education of any altitude. Ocasio is a sure and certain reason to retain the letters F and D in the grading system.
What is it that many on the left posting to this blog really want?
The ideologues on the left that belong to the political or managerial class want political control. What does the average person on the left outside of that group really want?
Do they want a leadership that is unconcerned with their well being? A leadership that in reality is only responsive to corporate interests and removes power from the individual? A leadership that takes middle class jobs globally for the benefit of a few and leaves the rest impoverished? A leadership that creates wealth disparity while the regular citizen struggles under the burden of of social planning that represents virtue signaling rather than concern for the middle class?
Those questions do not impact the rich or the most of the managarial class. The have money and/or power.
This might sound like I am advocating socialist ideas and policies of the left but actually this is what one gets when individual liberty is compromised and socialism displaces capitalism.
“I believe in community ownership of land, labor, resources and distribution of those resources. And whatever that morphs into is I think what will serve community the best”
Sounds like socialism to me.
Over 100 Million people killed outside of war last century to preserve that type of system.
In the Democratic competition to move as far left as possible former capitalistic views are being hidden. The trick for these candidates is to promote socialism without anyone knowing it, Bernie Sanders being the exception.
So they killed one hundred million in addition to the near hundred million killed in their never ending wars? My source is the World Almanac and Book of Facts refers to the US Military deaths since1909 under progressive liberal socialist leaders.. What’s your source and focus?
I’ve seen the number many times from historians and others but what is your problem? Our number seems to agree.
Nothing unknown about it. Those espousing collectivist ideologies will loose badly. What is in question however is how violent will the progressives reaction be.
But what if they don’t lose? It would have been inconceivable for a socialist to win any position, down to dog catcher, back when Americans understood that socialism meant ruin. Now we see one politician after another get elected on the socialist platform, voted for by people who don’t want to work for anything.
Every socialist country in smoldering ruins once had another system of government that was abolished to make way for it, to its own demise.
I don’t think the United States is impervious to rot from within.
Depends on when our Military decides enough is enough and begins the tribunals in support of their oath of office.
stop with the Ayn Rand hocus pocus right now indydog., for your own good.
nationalism is the antidote to capitalism and in her mind that was a sort of collectivism too.
and individual is one person the weakest gang of all. to fight a gang of bandits you need a counter-organized gang. not a bunch of cats to herd.
Liberterianism as a political organizing force is a total failure and makes no sense.
In Donald Trump, we have a real leader of a nation, and not some bean counter like Ryan.
Counting properly has an important role in all forms of administration, but liberterian thinking takes the mystery out of existence in the same materialistic fashion that communism did. Real leaders of successful groups at the national level need to speak to the mysterious shared existence that pervades the national consciousness precisely as a group in itself and not just a bunch of assorted individuals.
To hell with John Locke’s poisonous inspiration for Ayn Rand, while I’m at it
Do you really believe this BS that you are spouting?
What do you do and where did you go to school? I want to check their accreditation!
You can wonder. They were universities.
Did you finish high school? You sound like a 19 year old. Other times you talk like you’re about 80 and you been kicked out of the “common law” writ-writer’s conventions a few times, those where people learn how to declare themselves sov’rin shitizens and thusly emanicipate from the martime joorisdikshun gold fringed federal flag & related nonsense.
Here’s a bit of advice. put a cork in it.
I’m sorry, but I will not comply with your request, I like it here, and I especially enjoy antagonizing you. I’ve never come across anyone as arrogantly ignorant as I perceive you to be. What’s worse is you actually believe you are an authority on the subjects you comment on.
No, I think that bed a Bellview is what’s best for you, but you are in luck, I have experience helping people check themselves in for much needed treatment.