The Socialist in the U.S. Senate

[Time for change]

It’s very interesting and revealing that Republicans would attack Democratic efforts to provide decent health care to millions of Americans who lack such health care by calling them “Socialism” and by calling anyone who advocates those efforts a “Socialist”. It’s the same old trick. They don’t dare try to argue their case on its merits. Indeed, there case has no merits that more than 15% of the American people would respect. If they tried to argue their case on its merits they would make themselves look like fools. So they resort to lying and name calling.

Calling someone a “Socialist” has a long political history in our country, and has often been politically effective. The logic works something like this. Joseph Stalin was a Communist. Socialism has something in common with Communism. Joseph Stalin was a terrible man and a mass murderer and responsible for our more than 40-year-long Cold War. Therefore, Socialists are terrible people who have no business participating in our government – or even living here.

There are truths and partial truths in that line of reasoning. But partial truths aren’t good enough. Nor is guilt by association good enough. In order to evaluate this line of attack, let’s begin by considering what Socialism is:


Socialism

There have been numerous strains of socialist thought put forth in recent centuries. A typical definition is this:

Various theories of economic organization advocating state, public or common worker ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals with an egalitarian method of compensation.

Note that socialism does not specifically refer to state ownership of the means of production and distribution. State ownership of the means of production and distribution would constitute socialism only if, and to the extent that the state truly represented the interests of the citizens of the state. If instead the state is a dictatorship or unduly influenced by corporate power rather than the majority of its people, then state ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods would more appropriately be termed tyranny than socialism. Even so, definitions like the one cited above don’t fully capture the root purpose of socialism.

Erich Fromm, in his book “The Sane Society” discusses socialism as clearly and thoroughly as anything I can recall reading. Fromm discusses several different schools of socialist thought, beginning with Francois Noel Babeuf, from the time of the French Revolution in the late 18th Century.

Fromm notes the central core of socialist philosophy as advocating the welfare of humankind, rather than any specific economic or materialist goals. To the extent that specific economic/materialist goals are advocated, they are advocated as a means to an end. The end goal is satisfying the needs – spiritual as well as material – of humankind. Fromm cites Pierre-Joseph Proudhon as the best embodiment of this idea. He says that to Proudhon:

the central problem is… the building of a political order which is expressive of society itself. He sees as the prime cause of all disorders and ills of society the single and hierarchical organization of authority… His vision of a new social order is based on the idea of “… reciprocity, where all workers instead of working for an entrepreneur who pays them and keeps the products, work for one another and thus collaborate in the making of a common product whose profits they share amongst themselves”.

To those who attack government sponsored plans to provide for universal health care by calling it “Socialism”

As I said, the insurance industry and their bought-and-paid-for politicians in the Republican Party (and some in the Democratic Party as well) try to scare us by telling us that publicly provided health insurance is socialism, and that it will therefore result in catastrophic consequences if it gets implemented here.

Well, to that I have this to say: They’re right about one thing. Publicly provided health insurance IS socialism – as is Medicare, Social Security, unemployment insurance, public schools, public highways, and so many other things that we currently have and need. They can’t get rid of all these things for the simple reason that so many of them have been so successful. And they know that a good public health insurance plan will be a great victory for socialism and the American people, and a great defeat for their own plans.

Indeed, so popular are these things that this is what Republican President Eisenhower had to say about them in a letter he wrote to his brother on the subject:

Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group that believes you can do these things. Among them are… a few Texas oil millionaires… Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

He didn’t use the word “socialism” in that letter. But that sure as hell is what he was talking about.


A Socialist in the U.S. Senate

Because of the highly pejorative meaning given to the word “socialism” in the United States, few American politicians, even those who have adhered to a fair number of socialist principles, have admitted to being a Socialist. And those who have admitted to it have not fared well politically.

But in November 2006, Bernie Sanders became the first admitted Socialist elected to the U.S. Senate. And not only that, but he won against a Republican opponent who was nearly a billionaire and who possibly spent more money on that election, per voter, than any previous Senate election in U.S. history. And furthermore, he won in a landslide, with 65% of the vote – a greater margin of victory than any U.S. President has ever claimed in a presidential election. I think that Bernie Sanders’ political rise is well worth recounting.

Let’s compare Bernie Sanders’ political career to that of George W. Bush. Sanders’ political rise was far less meteoric than that of George W. Bush. Nor has he risen as high – if you consider being rated as the worst president in U.S. history “high”. But Sanders had two great political disadvantages compared to Bush. First, he didn’t have any relatives who were previous U.S. presidents, or who had attained a position remotely comparable to that. And second, he didn’t receive hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate donations, or anything comparable to that.

So Sanders started out slowly. Some might have even considered him a “loser”. He first ran for the U.S. Senate from Vermont in 1972, obtaining 2.2% of the vote as the Liberty Union Party candidate. Between 1972 and 1976 he ran for the U.S. Senate or for Governor of Vermont four times, eventually reaching a vote total as high as 6%.

So in 1979 he decided to set his sites a little lower, running for Mayor of Burlington, Vermont. He won by 12 in a four-way race… that is 12 votes, not 12%. But notwithstanding the slimness of his victory, it was a turning point in his political career – for a very simple reason. From then on, his lack of family connections and lack of corporate donations were offset by something else, which apparently many Vermonters considered more important: his record in office. He went on to win three more terms as Mayor of Burlington, defeating a candidate endorsed by both major parties in 1987.

In 1988 Sanders ran for the U.S. House of Representative seat vacated by Jim Jeffords, losing in a close election to a Republican Lieutenant Governor of Vermont. Two years later he ran against the same man, beating him in an upset landslide victory – by 16% -- becoming the first independent member of the U.S. House since 1950. He then went on to be re-elected to the House 7 times, all by double digits except in 1994, when the Republican Party pulled off a national landslide to take control of Congress. Then, based on his 16 year performance in the House he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006 by a landslide, to become the first admitted Socialist elected to the U.S. Senate – again taking a seat vacated by Jim Jeffords.


Sanders’ political positions

In order to get an idea of how Socialism works in our country, let’s consider some of the political positions that Sanders has espoused:

Health care
From Sanders’ web site:

With more than 46 million Americans without health coverage it is clear that we need major changes to our country's health care system. Senator Sanders was the first member of Congress to take his constituents across the Canadian border to buy their prescription drugs at a fraction of the price they were forced to pay in the United States. He is one of the national leaders opposing the pharmaceutical industry's powerful lobby that spent more than 900 million dollars… to keep drug prices high. While a member of the House of Representatives, he was the author of major "re-importation" legislation which, if passed, would have lowered the cost of medicine in this country by 30-50 percent and would have laid the groundwork for a strong prescription drug benefit under Medicare…

A more general indication of Sanders’ position on health care is what he said in an interview with Amy Goodman:

Well, I think… the government has got to play a very important role in making sure that as a right of citizenship, all of our people have healthcare.

As noted above, the central issue in Socialism is “The building of a political order which is expressive of society itself”. Health care is one of the most important resources a nation has to offer, since peoples’ very lives often depend on it. How could our political order be expressive of society when so many of its members lack access to this life-giving resource?

Corporate control of the news media
From Sanders’ web site:

Nearly 60 years ago, the Supreme Court declared that "the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public, that a free press is essential to the condition of a free society." Unfortunately today, a handful of huge multinational conglomerates control more and more of what we read, hear, and see.

Today a mere five companies own the broadcast networks… and control 70 percent of the prime time television market share. At the same time, one-third of America's independently-owned television stations have vanished since 1975.

Media consolidation stifles diversity and ignores the needs and interests of communities. For example, the FCC has concluded that local ownership leads to more local news… We need programming that is responsive to local needs and responsible to the people. Senator Sanders has been a leader in the fight to stop media consolidation and return public interest obligations to broadcasters….

Thus, Sanders’ position on corporate control of the news media is essentially equivalent to his desire to preserve our First Amendment right of freedom of the press – a right without which it is impossible for our political order to express the needs of our society.

Wall Street greed
As a U.S. Congressman from Vermont in 1999, Sanders opposed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, thus allowing the merging of commercial and investment banks. The passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act led to windfall profits for the financial industry and helped set the stage for our current financial crisis – which was the main reason why Sanders and other liberals opposed it.

In November 2008, Sanders introduced the Stop the Greed on Wall Street Act, which would have limited executive compensation for banks receiving government bailout funds. Though his measure died in committee, a similar act was passed when proposed by the new Democratic President in 2009.

Sanders was a stalwart opponent for the plans to bailout failing banks, under both the Republican administration in 2008 and the Democratic administration in 2009. Both were widely criticized by most credible economists who lacked ties to Wall Street. Typical of the criticisms of Treasury Secretary Geithner’s plan were those provided by James Galbraith:

The plan is yet another massive, ineffective gift to banks and Wall Street. Taxpayers, of course, will take the hit… The banks don't want to take their share of those losses because doing so will wipe them out. So they, and Geithner, are doing everything they can to pawn the losses off on the taxpayer…. In Geithner's plan, this debt won't disappear. It will just be passed from banks to taxpayers, where it will sit until the government finally admits that a major portion of it will never be paid back.

And more recently, Sanders put Wall Street greed and its effects in perspective for the American people:

Even before Wall Street greed drove the world economy into a deep recession, more and more Americans were wondering why the very rich were becoming richer while our economy failed our working families. They wanted to know why the middle class was shrinking, poverty was increasing and the United States was the only major country without a national health care program. Despite all the rhetoric about "family values," workers in the United States now work the longest hours of any people in a major country. Our health care system is disintegrating…

Global warming
The first bill Sanders introduced as a member of the U.S. Senate, with Senator Boxer, was the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act. The proposed legislation required aggressive policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and encourage energy efficient technologies and the use of sustainable energy sources, including solar, wind, geothermal and biomass energy.

It was supported by several environmental groups. The Sierra Club said that it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by 80% by 2050 and would greatly help stabilize global temperatures.

The Iraq War
From Sanders’ web site:

Having originally voted against the war in Iraq, Senator Sanders has been an outspoken advocate for ending the war and bringing our troops home. Sanders believes that U.S. troops should be safely withdrawn from Iraq as soon as possible – with virtually all troops redeployed within a year – and has sponsored legislation to make that happen.

When asked in an interview with Amy Goodman why he believes that we should withdraw from Iraq, Sanders said:

I think the bottom line is that the people of Iraq, when asked what they believe is best for their country, amidst all the violence and the chaos, what they say is they think they would be better off if American troops came home. So I think we should respect the wishes of the people of Iraq…. think we’ve got to continue to work with the Iraqi government to do our best to try to bring stability. But I think they would be better off, we would be better off, the region would be better off, if our troops came home.

I believe that’s the first time I heard an American politician emphasize the wishes of the Iraqi people in explaining why we should withdraw our military from their country. And Sanders is absolutely correct about this. The Iraqi people have very much wanted us out of their country for a very long time.

On the need for straight talk
From a 2006 article by Michael Powell in the Washington Post:

Look," Sanders says, "you can't be afraid of the people. A lot of progressives sit around their homes and worry about being labeled or how to talk to people. I go out, I knock on doors, and I talk about economic justice and the oligarchy and what's fair, and more people than you might guess listen to me.

Accuse him… of wanting to soak the rich and he'll detail how the Republicans cut taxes for the rich and multinational corporations for two decades even as median family income declined. "The major untold story of our time," he calls it.

"The Republicans lie a lot and the corporate media is very weak and completely biased and has a hard time calling someone a liar."

Sanders on economic social justice issues

In his interview with Amy Goodman Sanders talked about socialism in terms of economic justice:

In terms of socialism, I think there is a lot to be learned from Scandinavia and from some of the work, very good work that people have done in Europe. In countries like Finland, Norway, Denmark, poverty has almost been eliminated. All people have healthcare as a right of citizenship. College education is available to all people, regardless of income, virtually free…

He noted that these issues should be important to poor, working and middle class Republicans, as well as Democrats:

If you put a lot of your energy into economic issues, what you find is, you know what, conservative Republicans don’t have healthcare, conservative Republicans can’t afford to send their kids to college, conservative Republicans are being thrown out of their jobs as our good-paying jobs move to China… I don’t mind really if millionaires vote against me. They probably should. But for working people, we’ve got to come together, healthcare for all, stop our disastrous trade policies, make sure all of our kids through… college get the education that they need. On those issues, I think we can bring people together.

On his web site, Sanders puts the current status of our economy in perspective:

Since President Bush has been in office, 5.4 million Americans have slipped out of the middle class and into poverty; 3 million workers have lost their pensions; and median household income has declined by nearly $1,300. Today, even college graduates are struggling. According to the Census Bureau, real earnings for college graduates are down more than five percent between 2000 and 2004.

And he proposes solutions to benefit all Americans, not just the wealthy:

If the middle class in America is going to succeed, Sanders believes we need fundamental changes in our economic policies. Instead of tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, Sanders believes we need to make certain that our country has the best public education system in the world and that every student, regardless of family income, can afford a college education…. Instead of making it easier for corporations to move to China, throwing American workers out on the streets, Sanders believes we need to develop a trade policy that creates good paying jobs here and works for the middle class of this country. Instead of providing billions of dollars in corporate welfare, Sanders believes we need to put Americans to work rebuilding our decaying infrastructure and creating affordable housing… Senator Sanders introduced S.818, the National Priorities Act. This important legislation would expand the middle class, reduce the gap between the rich and the poor, and lower the poverty rate by repealing the Bush tax breaks for the top one percent and eliminating unnecessary Cold War era defense spending.

Senator Sanders defends socialism

What all of the above positions advocated by Bernie Sanders have in common is, as I quoted from Proudhon earlier in this post, “the building of a political order which is expressive of society itself”. Each is a position that benefits society as a whole, and that most Americans favor, often at the expense of the rich and powerful. So… what’s so terrible about that?

As the U.S. Senate’s first and only Socialist, Sanders is often asked – or challenged – to defend socialism. When Amy Goodman asked him, “What do you mean, Socialist?” Sanders responded:

that as a right, all of our kids, regardless of income, have quality childcare, are able to go to college without going deeply into debt; that it means we do not allow large corporations and moneyed interests to destroy our environment; that we create a government in which it is not dominated by big money interest. I mean, to me, it means democracy, frankly. That’s all it means. And we are living in an increasingly undemocratic society in which decisions are made by people who have huge sums of money. And that’s the goal that we have to achieve.

Sanders also recently defended Socialism is his own article, in which he pointed out that the system under which we currently live is very far from the heaven on earth that so many defenders of the status quo portray it to be:

We have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. Our childcare system is totally inadequate. Too many of our kids drop out of school, and college is increasingly unaffordable. One of the results of how we neglect many of our children is that we end up with more people in jails and prisons than any other country on earth. There is a correlation between the highest rate of childhood poverty and the highest rate of incarceration.

The bottom line

But most of all, as Sanders noted in his interview with Amy Goodman, he equates Socialism with democracy itself. That makes sense since democracy, like socialism, is meant to promote “the building of a political order which is expressive of society itself”. Each of Sanders’ positions, as discussed in this post, are pro-democracy positions. His complaint about corporate control of our news media arises from his recognition that democracy cannot exist without a free press. His expressed concern about the opinions of ordinary Iraqis regarding our occupation of their country arises from his genuine belief that Iraqis deserve democracy (i.e. the right to control their own destiny) as much as Americans do. His passionate pro-democracy views also express themselves in his hatred of the excessive influence of money on the political direction of our country:

I want to focus on an issue that is almost never talked about on the floor – that is the power of big money. What are the moral implications? What do these people do when they have tremendous amounts of money? They use that money to perpetuate their own wealth and their own power. Every day Congress works on behalf of big-money interests.

Why is it then that Socialism has for so long been such a pejorative term in our country? I’ve discussed this issue in depth in other posts. But in a nutshell, the simple truth is that those with a strong interest in maintaining their wealth and power at the expense of everyone else have worked very hard to make it a term of abuse. FDR spoke of this issue at the 1936 Democratic National Convention, without mentioning the word “Socialism”:

Out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital … the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service…

The privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over Government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man…

What FDR described there was the kind of capitalism that existed in our country that led to the Great Depression of the 1930s – the kind of capitalism that existed here before FDR’s own New Deal changed the rules and led to what Paul Krugman calls “the greatest sustained economic boom in U.S. history”. But with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, which led to the gradual dismantling of FDR’s New Deal, and thus to the greatest income inequality in U.S. history (Scroll down and see graph), we find ourselves once again with that toxic brew of pre-FDR type of capitalism.

Perhaps Senator Sanders best puts his Socialist beliefs in perspective when he says on his own web site:

The true greatness of a country is not measured by the sum of its millionaires and billionaires. Rather, a great nation is one in which justice, equality and dignity prevail for all.

[Ardent15]

1. Democratic Socialism-I like the sound of that...

K and R

[rurallib]

2. Sure wish Bernie was the majority leader.

[dana_b]

4. +1

[Time for change]

16. That would be wonderful

But I don't think that our country is ready for him yet. If he was a lot younger and if I was a lot younger, I'd say, "Hopefully before I died..." But I'm afraid I won't live to see it.

Nevertheless, his courage in proclaiming himself a Socialist helps set the staqge for others to follow, just as so many civil rights leaders set the stage for a black president.

[Tashca]

3. Bernie says:

"I don’t mind really if millionaires vote against me. They probably should."

I hope people take time to read what you wrote. It says much more than just a profile of Senator Sanders......of course you knew that.

Rec.

[Time for change]

13. Thank you -- I've written about Socialism from more of a historical perspective before

By emphasizing the only declared Socialist in our current Congress I hoped to get people to picture what Socialism would be like if it took hold in our country. Especially I would like moderates and Independents to consider just how scary Socialism really is... and if they find it to be as scary as they've been led to believe it is after a thorough consideration of what it really involves, then.... I guess they're too easily scared for me to be able to persuade them of much.

[slay]

5. The best senator by far!

His SenatorSanders Youtube page is right on! http://www.youtube.com/user/SenatorSanders#p/a

[slipslidingaway]

6. Great stuff, thanks for compiling all this info. knr nt

[Time for change]

20. Thank you -- Bernie Sanders has had a very interesting career

Many of us could learn a great deal from it. I'd love to see a major motion picture on the subject.

[Vidar]

7. Coincidentally, also the best Senator. Apologies to Russ.

[Time for change]

22. If Sanders had been a US Senator in 2001

I believe we would have had two Senators instead of one voting against the PATRIOT Act.

[Vidar]

42. Preety good bet.

[zeos3]

8. Great post.

[waiting for hope]

9. Nicely done - and a K&R ..

The problem herein lies with the label - socialism is getting the bad rap that liberal did over thirty years ago. People equate socialism with a culture/society via the media and RW nut jobs.. i.e. The Soviet Union, China, Venezuela and they paint a very negative picture while not telling the truth that it's actually an economic model. I would bet that if you presented Sanders' views without mentioning his name or the word socialism, over 70% of Americans would agree with hm.

[Time for change]

23. Yes, I believe that 70% of Americans would agree with him

But I also believe that he was right to declare himself a Socialist. Socialism has been a term of derision in the United States for a century and a half -- the wealthy and powerful have done everything they could over that time to ensure that it remains so:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=834963

By proudly admitting to being a Socialist, Bernie Sanders is helping to rehabilitate the term. By the same reasoning, it makes me very said to see our elected representatives try to distance themselves from the term "liberal".

[NoUsername]

10. Socialism gets a bad rap because it threatens the status quo.

Plain and simple. After all, "socialist programs" would divert taxpayer dollars to programs that would actually benefit the taxpayers and that's something that's just not allowed. Everyone knows that those dollars are put into a pot that is destined to be split up amongst the rich. Once in awhile, the peeps in DC will throw us a few crumbs (what used to be crusts has now become crumbs) in order to maintain the pretext that they are actually representing us but it's nothing more than a pretext. Anyone that thinks otherwise is fooling themselves.

[Echo In Light]

19. +1

[Time for change]

25. Yes -- It's the essence of class warfare

Socialists want an equitable distribution of resources, whereas those who wield so much control over our political process want it all for themselves. I think that that simple sentence pretty well summarizes the essence of the most important issues that confront the world today, including why so many millions die of hunger.

[NoUsername]

41. That's it in a nutshell.

"Socialists want an equitable distribution of resources, whereas those who wield so much control over our political process want it all for themselves."

That's an excellent way to summarize it.

One need only look at the difference between how quickly the T.A.R.P. (aka, Transfer of Assets to the Rich and Privileged) bill was passed vs. the endless debate over the health care bill to see how the current system operates. In a Socialist society, single-payer would have passed in a flash and the banksters would have been told to take a hike. And rightly so.

[Ironman3476]

11. Good on ya, Bernie.

When the shriekers on the right grow hoarse enough for you to get a word in,tell them that insurance is basically a Socialist concept.
But not just any Socialist concept, a corrupt Socialist concept because of the plundering(profit).And since just skimming the cream off the top isn't enough for the rapacious pirates, they routinely resort to defrauding through all their denial of benefit loopholes.
It would tickle me pink if all the healthy people under, say, 40 years old were all to drop their insurance on the same day. It'll never happen, but it would sure be a hoot.

[Cerridwen]

12. K & R n/t

[Blue_Tires]

14. wonderful stuff...

ttt

[OnyxCollie]

15. K&R.

BANG! Out of the park, Time for change.

[Time for change]

28. Thank you OnyxCollie

[philly_bob]

17. REC for well-organized presentation of Sanders' Socialism.

Sanders' style of socialism is not as radical as the me-first Ayn-Randian libertarians.

[bullwinkle428]

18. Sanders is the BEST - can't wait to here his take on the HC bill

this morning on Thom Hartmann's show, starting at 11:00 A.M. CDT.

http://www.thomhartmann.com/

[bigtree]

21. Bernie's great

It's amazing that more haven't adopted his style of independence, given his success in maintaining his office with his values in line with his actions. Nice focus, TFC.

[Time for change]

33. It really is too bad that more of our politicians aren't as straight forward as he is

Maybe that's because most politicians learn deception as a way of life?

[Greyhound]

24. Auto K&R.

Another effective piece. I wish more would read your posts.

[Time for change]

35. Thank you Greyhound

[robertpaulsen]

26. I think McCarthyism was the most lasting cultural blow contributing to its demonization.

Not that there wasn't an effort by TPTB at demonizing socialism prior to the 1950s, and you certainly have done a wonderful job of documenting that history in this country in your previous posts. My perspective on this is colored by a recent book that I read that strangely enough is about baseball. It's the first person account of the author, a college boy who lives for baseball during the year he considers the best ever for baseball, while at the same time marvelling at the collapse of the world around him descending into war. It's a great book if you're a baseball fan like me, but even if you're not, there's some perceptive political insight. It's called Baseball and Other Matters in 1941 by Robert W. Creamer. I found these pages 227-230 particularly illuminating:



Hitler's invasion of Russia was the turning point of the war. It eased the pressure on Britain, even though the devastating air attacks continued. A German invasion of England had been a dreaded possibility, even a probability, for a year. Now prospects for such an invasion had all but disappeared. Hitler had to take care of Russia first, and Britain breathed easier. America began sending help to Russia as it was already sending help to England. For those middle-of-the-road Americans who had been wondering whether a negotiated peace between Britain and Germany might not be a good idea, Hitler's double cross of Russia was final evidence that you couldn't do business with him. He could not be trusted. America, despite continued bleats from the America Firsters, became more united behind Roosevelt.

American Communists, noisily antiwar and anti-Britain since Stalin's 1939 pact with Hitler, did an abrupt about-face, stopped being isolationists and became interventionists. This second easy switch of allegiance just about finished Communism as a serious political influence in America, which it had been in the 1930s. Many bright, concerned people had embraced Communism as a way to a more equitable society and had looked upon the Soviet Union as an almost perfect state. M.R. (Morrie) Werner, a wonderfully irascible old man who worked for Sports Illustrated when I was there and who was markedly liberal in politics, told me that he traveled to Russia in the early 1930s to see for himself what it was like. When he came back, he discussed what he had seen with Edmund Wilson, the literary critic, an old friend who shared Morrie's concern about social and economic inequities. Werner and Wilson had both been born in an age when Russia was ruled by the czars, and Morrie dismissed the Soviet Union by saying "It's the same old tyranny." Wilson, who had not been to Russia, scoffed, saying, according to Werner, "Pish. Tush. Bullshit." A few years later Wilson visited the Soviet Union himself and when he returned he said to Werner, "Morrie, you were right."

Such disillusion with Communism spread slowly, and not until the Nazi-Soviet pact did many abandon their now-shattered ideal. Hard-core, hard-line Communists accepted the pact, criticized Britain, called Roosevelt a warmonger for wanting to help Britain and encouraged labor unrest in defense industries. Their loyalty to Stalin impressed some wavering followers, but when they did their second about-face in 1941, the change of heart to a pro-British, pro-Roosevelt, prowar stance was so transparently servile that few intellectuals and labor activists took them seriously anymore.

Communism in America never had the appeal that socialism did. In the Depression years the Socialist Party had a much broader following than the Communists, with surprising strength in the Midwest and Southwest. Debs Garms, the National League batting champion in 1940, who was from Bangs, Texas, was named for Eugene V. Debs, a Socialist candidate for President five times in the early decades of the century.

What the Communists had was a ruthless understanding of the mechanics of political control. They understood how a small group of skillful people could run a group in which they were a distinct minority. When I was a junior in high school a delegation of seniors went into New York City to attend a meeting of the National Youth Association, a group that was supposed to rally the kids of the nation behind good causes, or whatever. A credo of anti-Semites at that time was that Jews were Communists. Perhaps that's why I was so impressed when Maurice Kurtz, a Jewish kid from our school, came back from the NYA meeting and said it was lousy and told me why. "The Communists took it over," he explained. "Nobody else could say a word. They rammed through everything they wanted."

The double switch from opposing Hitler to accommodating him to opposing him again castrated American Communism. We cheered for the Russians, rooted for them to stop Hitler, turned them into gallant heroes in our movies and even hummed the stirring Soviet anthem, "Meadowland", but only a handful of political automatons continued to follow the Stalin line. The party tried hard, but Communism as a political force was dead long before Joe McCarthy - the senator, not the manager - began waving papers around in the 1950s as he accused everyone he didn't like of being a Communist. A witch hunt is looking for something that isn't there, and that's what McCarthy did. Our country's shame is that so many paid attention to him.

(bold emphasis mine)
http://books.google.com/books?id=fA1_XoV6RegC&lpg=PA1888&ots=tU-vlm-Twa&dq=Robert%20Creamer%201941&pg=RA1-PA228#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Being 36 myself, I wasn't around during the 1950s, but it seems to me from my understanding of history that the McCarthy era was a time when even the slightest left-wing affiliation made you suspect (pink) in the eyes of McCarthyites of being Communist. McCarthy eventually was censored and died in disgrace, but I think the fear he engendered lived on to where socialism and Communism became synonymous with the general public throughout the Cold War. I think historically what was initiated at the turn of the century stuck during the Cold War: making socialism and Communism indistinguishable to the masses.

[Time for change]

32. Very interesting

I was 5 days old when McCarthy made his big anti-Communist debut in WV, waving his phony papers in the air that purported to implicate so many Communists in our State Department. 4 years later, McCarthy was a totally discredited political force, and 3 years after that he was dead of cirrhosis of the liver. So I never consciously lived through it, but I was fortunate to have politically active and liberal parents, who talked about McCarthyism through much of my older childhood.

He certainly did inflame our country against Communism and Communists, and he certainly did lead it in some insane witch hunts.

But I disagree that in the context of history, his actions were especially important in producing our anti-Communism and anti-Socialist attitudes. I don't even believe that he talked about Socialism.

Stalin was a mass murderer on par with Hitler in that regard. Any adherence he ever had to Socialist principles was purely opportunistic. And he certainly seemed to represent a great threat to our country at the time (though it turns out that the USSR under him or anyone else never had much chance of defeating us in a war, and therefore had no reason to start one). So we certainly didn't need McCarthy to inflame us against the USSR. And furthermore, we intervened in the Russian Civil War against the Boshevik/Communists long before it exhibited any tendency towards world wide expansion. And then there were the Palmer Raids of 1919-21.

Creamer points out the popularity of Debs by noting the naming of a baseball player after him. It is true that Debs was quite popular on the left. But while running for President 5 times as a Socialist, he never received more than a million votes, he never received a single electoral vote, and his high popular vote percent was 6%. And he spent much of his life in prison -- undoubtedly because of the danger he represented to TPTB. So how popular could he have been?

Our whole history, since the onset of our industrial revoluation, has been characterized by hysteria against Socialism on the part of our nation's elites. Even FDR never admitted to any "Socialist" sympathies, even though so many of his policies embodied Socialist principles.

[cali]

27. kudos. nice piece. but you know why bernie beat peter smith? because peter was pro-gun control

at least that was a BIG piece of it. And his rise in politics really isn't surprising and it really wasn't at that glacial a pace. Bernie knows his constituents. I mean he really knows them. (I credit that to his hippie years in the Kingdom)

[barbtries]

29. i think i'm ready

to join the socialist party. it's more democratic than the democratic party. at least with Bernie Sanders being in it. thank you time for change, a good read about a very good man.

[Time for change]

36. Thank you. It was a lot of fun to write about him.

[Shagbark Hickory]

30. Bernie Saunders makes a lot of sense to me.

Then again I'm a socialist- quasi communist.

[PeaceNikki]

31. I think you will find this an interesting read as well:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/42448437.html">Here, Socialism meant honest, frugal government

By John Gurda
Posted: April 4, 2009

"Are We All Socialists Now?" That was the plaintive title of a panel discussion at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. The word "socialist" is being heard all over America these days as the federal government takes over banks, tells automakers what to do and tightens regulations in an effort to pull our economy out of its current tailspin. The label is not generally intended as a compliment. To many Americans, socialism means being governed by the government - suffocating under layers of bureaucracy that sop up tax dollars and smother individual initiative.

And that's the positive view. Some critics carelessly lump socialism together with anarchism or even communism. After invoking the "s" word at the recent conservative conference, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said, "Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff." He conveniently forgot, or perhaps never knew, that most American socialists were sworn enemies of Soviet Communism.

The view from Milwaukee is radically different. I'm not a socialist and never have been, but I can testify that Socialism - with a capital "S"- was one of the best things that ever happened to this city. Without realizing it, even the most red-blooded capitalists are enjoying the fruits of their efforts, from spacious parks to clean streets and from a working infrastructure to an expectation, however frequently disappointed, of honest government.

Before the Socialists took charge, Milwaukee was just as corrupt as Chicago at its worst. Our mayor at the turn of the 20th century was David Rose, a political prince of darkness who allowed prostitution, gambling dens, all-night saloons and influence-peddling to flourish on his watch. Grand juries returned 276 indictments against public officials of the Rose era. "All the Time Rosy" escaped prosecution himself, but district attorney (and future governor) Francis McGovern called him "the self-elected, self-appointed attorney general of crime in this community."

...

After years in the political sewer, Milwaukee became, under "sewer Socialists" Seidel, Hoan and Zeidler, a model of civic virtue. Time Magazine called Milwaukee "perhaps the best-governed city in the U.S." in 1936.

...
As it came to life in Milwaukee, the Socialist movement had a moral gravity and a passion for results that still resonate in our civic life. Honesty, efficiency, creativity, frugality? If that's Socialism, let's bring it back tomorrow.

More at link

[Time for change]

38. Nice article. Thank you.

[Roland99]

34. Awesome post!!

[Time for change]

39. Thank you.

[valerief]

37. Bernie Sanders is WONDERFUL! I love catching his segments with Thom Hartmann on XM. nt

[DrZeeLit]

40. I am so very PROUD that Bernie is my senator. We love him. He's caring, open, forthright, and

accessible.

But that's what is truly astounding about living in Vermont -- access and connection to representation.
From local candidates to US Senatorial candidates, they actually come to my door and talk to me. In person.

And I know if I call or drop by Bernie's office, I will be able to converse with staff, or even Bernie himself.

Vermont is the epitome of a civil, democratic state -- we still have town meeting day where every item on the budget is discussed in person and voted on in person.

We are so blessed to have 3 great people in DC looking after our state and our nation.

[penndragon69]

43. Please don't forget.

Hitler took over the "Democratic Socialist party" of Germany and used it to empower his own "Fascist" party.

So before anyone declares themselves a "Democratic Socialist" as i have, be prepared to be called a NAZI traitor.

Since Reich wingers are too blinded by party bigotry to remember history, they will attack you for your beliefs in social justice and call you an un American traitor.

Now that's the pot calling the kettle black!

[Time for change]

44. Yeah

It was the National Socialist Party. However, there was nothing Socialist about it. The word Socialist was put in only to be able to attract people who cared about Socialism. Calling the Nazis Socialists is something like calling George W. Bush a "compassionate conservative" or the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" or FOX News "Fair and Balanced" or today's Republican Party "the Party of Lincoln".