Is "Socialist" an old codeword for "Black"?

[alfredo]

Not sure if that would work for people who weren't around for Hoovers reign and the civil right's movement.

http://voices.kansascity.com/node/2493


Shame on McCain and Palin for using an old code word for black
By Lewis Diuguid, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist

The "socialist" label that Sen. John McCain and his GOP presidential running mate Sarah Palin are trying to attach to Sen. Barack Obama actually has long and very ugly historical roots.

J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI from 1924 to 1972, used the term liberally to describe African Americans who spent their lives fighting for equality.

[skooooo]

1. I don't think so...

Never heard it used that way. Just an "insult" to liberals.

[rebel with a cause]

17. Socialist translates to communism to many people

who do not know there is a difference between the two. And Communism is the code word for the cold war and the villains who will kill democracy. So on and on.

[ColbertWatcher]

27. In a way it is because "communism" is shorthand for "welfare." n/t

[skooooo]

35. You can stretch connections, but the word..

....is not a "codeword" for blacks.

[ColbertWatcher]

49. Not for you it isn't. n/t

[Lorien]

2. No, it's just another term that they don't understand

like "liberal"; they know not of what they speak.

[NoSheep]

44. Ding! YOU nailed it there.

[Strawman]

51. Exactly

Raising taxes on the top 2 brackets to 1990's levels is not "socialist."

Expanding access to health care for the uninsured is not "socialist."

If anything, Obama will save a the economic component of liberalism (free markets) from its own excesses, just like FDR did.

Radicalism (including socialism) has never been particularly resonant in America. The bigger threat to liberty as we have known it in America has always come from the inegalitarian/ascriptive/exclusionary/racist (whatever you want to call it) strain of American political culture from the right.

[NeoTheo]

3. Yes, this article is dead on

I hadn't thought of that in years until I read this article earlier tonigh, but that was the polite way to phrase it instead of using the ever popular epithet, Ni**er Lover.

[skooooo]

7. and you heard it used this way??

[NeoTheo]

11. You bet!!!

I lived through the civil rights movement in America and remember it clearly.

[appleannie1]

43. Yes but not just against blacks, American Indians and other races fell into that catagory.

[Trajan]

4. Hoover wasnt the Lord of Language ...

Socialist was bandied about for those who promoted liberal policies, such as those legislated during FDR's New Deal administration ....

For the RW nutcases: Socialism = ANY sort of social legislation, even feeding the starving or schooling the ignorant ....

Hell ... Even the development of common infrastructure, like roads and bridges, could be considered 'socialist', by the idiotic RW, who prefer private ownership of every aspect of public life ...

Hoover held sway in some aspects of the public sphere, but only as much as the current director ....

[alfredo]

9. They are grasping at straws, hoping some label will stick.

[Myrina]

5. Its a fear-smear ...

... trying to make "Joe Sixpack" think that Obama wants to steal all his hard-earned money and give it to the "lazy no good bums who won't get a job", rather than levelling the playing field by making it a little more difficult for the millionaires to gank the system and become billionaires while the rest of us starve.

Its an appeal to people's most selfish instincts.

[bridgit]

6. It's code for beret wearing, pot smoking, go-teed, Molotov cocktail throwing radicals

Interchangeable in McCain/Palin's feeble mind with 'commie' and yeah...shame on them!

[skooooo]

8. Code word for "Jews" if anything..

..many of the most active socialists back in the day were Jewish.

[alfredo]

10. By the fifties, the Jews were promoted to "Commies."

[Behind the Aegis]

14. Yup. That is what the 'code' stood for 'in the day.'

Then, as the poster says, upgraded to "communist."

[alfredo]

16. I remember the hatred directed toward Jews during the Civil Rights era.

[bridgit]

23. Bolshevik

[Raksha]

31. I was going to say that even before I opened the thread...

looks like you beat me to it! You're absolutely right--Jews have been associated with the Left since at least the 1930s. The PTB hated them not only (or mainly) because of their religion, but because so many union organizers were Jewish.

Hah...I just now remembered what my avatar looks like! I've had it for a few months and don't even think about it any more. It's a tribute to the union guys and gals in my very typical Jewish family.

[Cerridwen]

12. Though it may have been used prior to 1924, it was

used to attack any government defined "radicals," women's rights and peace movement activists. Calling pro-populist and/or anti-status quo activists "unAmerican" is a "time honored" tradition in the US. Other countries have their own un/anti {country name} scapegoats. It was used during the Civil Rights Movement to try to paint the movement and its leaders as un/anti-American.

Below is one example of its use:

The "notorious spider-chart" propelled, as well as initiated, many "red" accusations from the Daughters of the American Revolution, the American Defense Society, and The Woman Patriot. When the Women's Joint Congressional Commission investigated the source of this chart, it discovered that Brigadier General Amos A. Fries's assistant, Lucia Maxwell of the Chemical Warfare Bureau, compiled it. The discovery of government involvement in the chart's origins aroused the protest of Carrie Chapman Catt (see Document 4). The chart's title was taken from a report on seditious activities compiled by the Lusk Committee in 1920. State Senator Lusk of New York headed this committee which conducted raids on "radical" organizations and investigated alleged radicals.

The chart accuses the leading women reformers named in the boxes along its margins of a variety of socialist and communist affiliation. Some of these are true, most are distorted, and some are untrue. For example, Florence Kelley did not advocate "the gradual abolition of property privileges." The chart links these names with fourteen mainstream women's organizations, such as the League of Women Voters, and two mainstream umbrella organizations, the Women's Joint Congressional Committee, and the National Council for Prevention of War.

The Women's Joint Congressional Committee was formed in 1920 to advance the legislative agenda of the women's organizations named in its central column. The National Council for the Prevention of War was one of three peace organizations formed between 1919 and 1925, the high point of peace activism in American History. Those committed to internationalism formed organizations to support the League of Nations, those committed to pacifism joined WILPF and the War Resisters League. Liberal reformers who affiliated with both internationalism and pacifism organized the National Council for Prevention of War.<8>

<snip> link. Scroll down to see the chart Note the title of the chart.

Poison Propaganda

By Carrie Chapman Catt
Some time ago insidious comments upon all educational peace movements and their leaders began to appear in the press. In 1922 there was a widespread circularization of the newspapers with a fanciful declaration that the "Law, not War" day celebrated in many cities was being financed by Moscow, and an especially virulent attack was made upon Mr. Libby, Quaker, of the National Council for the Prevention of War, who was promoting these demonstrations. Many papers reprinted the matter. In 1923 the American Defense Society sent out similar propaganda declaring that Russian communism and American efforts to promote peace were working hand in hand.

From time to time similar attacks have been made upon individuals, any individuals, who have appealed to public opinion on behalf of world peace. The charge has been implied in these stories that various women's organizations, well known and composed of highly honorable memberships, were being financed by Moscow because they were promoting peace sentiment.

On March 15 1924, the Dearborn Independent carried an amazing story, continued in the number of March 22, under the starting title "Are Women's Clubs Used by Bolshevists?" These articles asserted that the masses women within the many well-known organizations were being weakly played upon by a few women in "key positions" who were linked to world communism and its aim to overturn all governments. The second instalment was accompanied by a chart compiled from the Lusk report and connecting the highest and best organizations with socialist-pacifist activities. A definite attack was made upon the Women's Joint Congressional Committee, its seventeen component organizations and many of its members.

<snip> to what happened next

The repubs just keep using what works.

edit: one too many commas.

[leftofthedial]

13. not directly, but they did use the "welfare" word,

which is rightwing-speak for "shiftless n-----r"

[Canuckistanian]

15. I doubt it.

Black were not involved in the progressive struggles between capitalism and socialism in any major way.

I can't see any reason to connect the two situations in anyone's minds.

[yardwork]

19. Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered when he started focusing on worker's rights.

That's why he was in Memphis that day - to address a group of mostly white workers who were trying to unionize. The Southern establishment has a deep and abiding fear of unions and any kinds of worker's rights. After all, this was where slavery was legal until the 1860s.

In 1979 a group of Communist Workers Party organizers was murdered by Klan and Neo-Nazis in Greensboro, NC. They were attempting to organize black workers.

Edited to add: Despite video evidence of the murders taking place, the murderers were acquitted in two trials.

[Docente]

18. yes it is, and so it's "skinny"

And "good", and "red', and "tall".

[alfredo]

21. Soon it might have to be prefaced with Mr President.

[Earth Bound Misfit]

30. WTF?

[JackRiddler]

20. Of course it is...

At this point, every word they try to pin on Obama is a codeword for black, because that's all they have left to run on.

However, socialism is also the direct referrent for a thing called socialism, another RW swear word with a long history.

It's all one web.

Elite* = Liberal = Socialist = Communist = Black or Pro-Black = Traitor = Un-American

*=intellectual, egghead, gay.

[dorkulon]

22. Nah, it means commie and foreigner, but not black in my experience. /nt

[upi402]

24. Commie, liberal, socialist = rightist propaganda smears

Jesus was a socialist!
:bounce:

[BlooInBloo]

25. No, it's a new codeword for "communist".

[Wiley50]

26. NO, It's A Codeword for "RED" as in "RED SCARE" It's McCarthy Era BS n/t

[hfojvt]

28. no, sorry, it's been used against all on the left, even white leftists

that it may also have been used against civil rights activists is irrelevant. Since in the public mind socialist==communist==USSR==evil, then naturally it is used as a smear against any group that conservatives were trying to oppose.

[wisteria]

29. NO! Socialist is a form of government . A lot of European countries incorporate socialistic ideals

into their governments. Really, it is no a bad word. The trouble is the Rebubs have their base confused and thinking it mean communism. It is being used as a scare tactic.

[JackRiddler]

32. One of the things most hated about Communists...

back when there were actual American communists, was their association with the black struggle. There were a lot of black party members and communists generally were derided as "n****-lovers." Of all groups on the left, the Communist Party was most open and unapologetic in allying with black movements, often providing lawyers and PR machinery for court struggles, as with the Scottsboro Boys. You can argue what the party's motivations were, but it's the simple fact. I don't know what echoes this may still have today, 60 years and more later.

[Jack Rabbit]

33. No, it's an old codeword for liberal

Concocted by the likes of Joe McCarthy and later Jesse Helms, neither of whom knew the difference between a New Dealer and a Stalinist, although it's plainly obvious to any intelligent person.

In the hands of old Southern segregationists, including the unlamented Senator Helms, the word Communist could be a codeword for Black or liberal or anybody else who supported the end of Jim Crow.

[alfredo]

34. If called a Socialist, I wear the label with pride. Fuck em.

[Jack Rabbit]

39. Whether you're a socialist or not, take it with a grain of salt

The label is being bandied about by people who don't really know what a socialist is, beyond someone who pisses them off.

Muslim is the latest codeword, especially when "accusing" the President-in-waiting of being one. If they really knew anything about Islam, then they would know that Muslim isn't even a smear, as General Powell so eloquently pointed out Sunday.

[alfredo]

47. My blood is from the Mideast. There's even a town in Iran with my

surname. Though a "genetic" Atheist, I respect the sincere believer.


A genetic Atheist is a person who has a visceral reaction to belief in the supernatural. They are unable to believe.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

36. Not unless Kerry, Gore and Clinton are black. It's a codeword for "Democrat".

Anyone who doesn't support the drowning of the state in a bathtub gets called a socialist.

[aikoaiko]

37. code for Democrats are going to take your money & give it to lazy people

Race has nothing to do with.

[Aristus]

38. It seems to be a new code word for black. Because, thank God, all the old code words

for "black" are now words that intelligent, good-hearted people of goodwill justifiably recoil from in disgust and revulsion. The repukes know that by using those old codes words, they'll gain the unswerving dog-loyalty of the 20% or so of the Sieg Heilers in this country, and lose everybody else.

Ask any one of those idjits to define "socialism", and there isn't one of them who could do it. Code words are for brainless idiots...

[goforit]

40. Wev'e been dominated by tyrrannical socialist for the last eight years!

[Douglas Carpenter]

41. no I think it is code for "un-American" and is thrown in along with "pals around with terrorist,"

Hussein= might be a Muslim.

When it comes to the freeptard wing of the Republican party which is after all the majority of the rank-and-file activist Republicans, they truly seem to believe in a conspiracy theory about Sen. Obama being the Manchurian candidate of some evil foreign influence. They just have not decided whether he is the Manchurian candidate of the Third International (which no longer exist) or is he the Manchurian candidate of Al Qaida. Perhaps they believe he is both and don't know that is contradictory.

I suspect the official McCain campaign simply believes that they need to keep throwing out various terms in an attempt to cast doubt on Sen. Obama's "Americaness" and to fire up their most enthusiastic supporters in the far right of the Republican Party who have always been for the most part Birch Society type right-wing conspiracy theorist.

[Puregonzo1188]

42. No, and I think the article is using faulty logic.

At one point in time in this country the idea that people should be treated equally regardless of their skin color was radical idea, and only radicals embraced it. The Socialist Party (and the Communist Party) embraced civil rights before the rest of the country. It eventually became something that the "mainstream" accepted. And I don't know about the other three people referenced in the article, but Martin Luther King and W.E.B. Dubois were both Socialists. Civil Rights, like minimum wage and the eight-hour work day, is just one of many things that Socialist are not given proper credit for.

There's nothing wrong with Socialism.

[anigbrowl]

45. No. Total fail.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

46. Not Being Used That Way Right Now Whatsoever.

Since not a single person who would hear it right now would think about racism after having heard it, it would be a bit ridiculous to assert that is how they're intending it to be taken.

[alfredo]

48. That's what I was thinking.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

50. In a sense it always was.

The major, unspoken opposition to socialism was its appeal to racial equality.

[EFerrari]

52. Exactly. n/t