Barbara Ehrenreich: Report From the Socialist International Conspiracy

[marmar]

from The Nation:



Report From the Socialist International Conspiracy
By Barbara Ehrenreich

October 21, 2008



Overmatter: This article originally was published on Barbara Ehrenreich's blog.


Surely you have heard by now of the imminent socialist takeover of America, and if you find the prospect unlikely, ask yourself: How many socialists do you know who lost millions in the recent stock market crashes? Just as I thought--none. And that's not only because you don't know any socialists. The truth is that we, the Socialist International Conspiracy, not only saw this coming, we are the ones who made it happen.

The plan took shape during a particularly intense criticism/self-criticism session at our 2000 annual convention in a booth at an Akron IHOP. We realized that we'd been recruiting no more new members per year than the Green Bay Packers and that, despite all our efforts, more Americans have been taken aboard UFOs than have embraced the historic promise of socialism. So we decided to suspend our usual work of standing on street corners and hissing, "Hey, how'd you like to live in a workers' paradise?" Instead of building socialism, one worker at a time, we would focus on destroying capitalism, hedge fund by hedge fund.

First, we selected a cadre of crusty punks from the streets of Seattle, stripped off their Che T-shirts, suited them up in Armanis and wingtips and introduced them to the concepts of derivatives and dental floss. Then we shipped them to Wall Street with firm instructions: Make as much money as you can, as fast as you can, and as soon as the money starts rolling in, send it out to make more money by whatever dodgy means you can find--subprime loans, credit default swaps, pyramid schemes--anything goes. And oh yes: Spend your own earnings in the most flamboyantly gross ways you can think of--$10,000 martinis, fountains of champagne--so as to fan the flames of class resentment. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081103/ehrenreich

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1. Confession/self-criticsm: Yes, I once attended a Socialist social event.

Somewhere, somehow -- most likely an item posted in the weekly 'events' section of the local, "alternative" news weekly -- I'd seen that among the events listed for a Saturday afternoon, a militant recruiting drive for the Socialist Party was featured.

It was a sort of potluck, picnic, BBQ-in-the-park, kind of thing. There were maybe two or three dozen people passing paper plates, squirting ketchup on brats, scooping ice cream, talking about the weather, how much the management of the Milwaukee Brewers sucked, and just about everything else you'd expect to hear from a group of total near-strangers.

The one person most responsible for everyone being there was Milwaukee's former Socialist mayor, Frank Zeidler. He was pretty old, by then, but still admirably self-possessed, thoughtful, and articulate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_P._Zeidler

Frank P. Zeidler (September 20, 1912 – July 7, 2006) was an American Socialist and mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, serving three terms from 1948 to 1960. He was the most recent socialist mayor of any major American city.

During Frank Zeidler's administration, Milwaukee grew industrially and never had to borrow money to repay loans. During this period, Milwaukee nearly doubled its size with a very aggressive campaign of municipal annexations. Large parts of the Town of Lake and most of the Town of Granville were annexed to the city during this era. The park system was upgraded. Federal funding was obtained to complete the highway system that had started under Daniel Hoan. Zeidler was instrumental in re-forming the Socialist Party USA in 1973, and served as its National Chair for many years. He was the party's presidential nominee in 1976, getting on ten state ballots. He and his running-mate, J. Quinn Brisben, received 6,038 votes.

Zeidler, who credited his activism as a socialist to his deep Lutheran faith (he adopted his socialist beliefs during the Great Depression while reading socialist literature at the library), was active and involved in politics as a Socialist until his death at age 93.

He used to walk back and forth to work, to his office at City Hall, from his house, in the 1950's. I happened to see him at an Office Depot a year or two later, this skinny old guy patiently trying to get some info from a salesperson about the options and specifications on a notebook computer, I think. I remember telling my stepson to, "take a good look. They just don't make politicians like that any more," like it might be his last chance to view a Passenger Pigeon, or Wooly Mammoth.

EDIT:

HOLY COW! The odometer just flipped! That was my 1,000th post. I couldn't figure out why it seemed stuck on 999 for a while -- do posts in the Lounge count? Or are posts at 3:00 in the morning, in the Lounge, given some sort of negative (subtract-from-the-total) fractional credit?

Anyway, I'm glad it came while posting a tribute to someone whose picture and bio should be a big part of any high school "civics" text book. (Do they still teach "civics?" My God, I'm dating myself.)

I was actually going to try and "save" the 1,000th post, in case I had to re-post the warning at the very bottom of this "0" Rec'd thread from the other day:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4276974

So far, so good, but Barack's not safely back from Hawaii, yet. (Like, if this were a weather forecast instead of a lousy blog post, I'd say "conditions still exist that could lead to the development of strong winds, high waves, and a total Media Sh*tstorm typhoon.)