Seventeen Socialists

Baucus Says Socialist Candidate Should Be Arrested:

President Wilson has been urged to order the arrest of Morris Hillquit, Socialist candidate for Mayor on a charge of high treason, as a result of his utterances in a speech made on Sunday afternoon at the New Star Casino, Lexington Avenue and 107th Street. In this address Mr. Hillquit said that a Socialist victory in New York City would... (October 30, 1917, Tuesday)

Oh, either we've got Portrait of Dorian Grey going on or there's just not much new in the world, including names. Maybe something a bit more current...?

Sen Spencer Bachus (R-AL) is a bit more modern version of the homonym blast from the past as he told The Birmingham News (April 9, 2009) that Obama listens better than GWB but he's worried about Congress.

But he said he is worried that he is being steered too far by the Congress: "Some of the men and women I work with in Congress are socialists."

Asked to clarify his comments after the breakfast speech at the Trussville Civic Center, Bachus said 17 members of the U.S. House are socialists.

So far nobody has managed to get names to go with the number though it would be fairly safe to say that Sen Bernie Sanders might just qualify. We do keep hearing the word "socialism" from Republicans and their fellow travelers in the loon right but they don't seem to be very definite about the measuring stick they use.

The Economy Professor defines socialism for us which would cover the practitioners known as socialists.

Socialism is an economic system under which the means of production and distribution are owned by the state, and not the individuals.

In a socialist economy, the state owns the industrial plants, and centrally controls production.

The idea of socialism was enunciated by Karl Marx.

Socialism is different from communism, which, in fact, is the ideal and final stage of socialism where the state is no more, and the people are equal as proletarians.

So is this the latest iteration of Sen Joe McCarthy's waving of a piece of paper with supposed Commie names? If you throw Rep Michelle Bachman into this mix with her "re-education camps" rhetoric one has to start to wonder. You will note that in the definition the "perfected" form of socialism is communism. The Republicans do manage to throw around words questioning the patriotism of Democrats or anyone who doesn't follow their version of political policy. I'm sure quite a few people can remember the BushCo versions of "terrorist appeasers" and other offensive appellations for opposition to the Iraq war.

Quite frankly I have seen less than no evidence of socialism from anybody in Congress, what I have seen is the propping up of the oligarchy and plutocrats through loans and the purchases of stupidity generated "assets." To assert that attempts to keep private enterprises afloat in the face of Republican encouraged stupidities that threaten the entire financial system with destruction as socialism is beyond lunacy. If we were to see deliberate attempts to use these various forms of bailouts as mechanisms to level the economic field there might be some justification in the allegations of socialism. Rather what we do see is the same old crap headed our way in regard to economic justice with no more that a bit of proposed oversight to prevent today's type of meltdown. For pete's sake, the median income in this country is around $50K/year and we're looking at bonuses that are 100 times that. Bonuses???

I could think of a boatload of names to call these people and most of them are not only rude but also true.