Thanks Business Week for Clarifying Some Things

Its been a little grating on the nerves of socialists to hear all these righty-idiots blabbering about Obama and the Democrats enacting a socialist agenda. Finally, we can thank a publication of the bourgeois press for clarifying some things, and letting genuine socialists speak for themselves. Business Week published an article titled "Socialism? Hardly Say Socialists" with interviews with representatives of the Socialist Party U.S.A., International Socialist Organization (ISO), and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), about what a socialist politics and program would actually look like. Here are some choice quotes:

The DSA works within the Democrat Party, by the way, which is what Business Week means by "more inclusive", and doesn't consider itself a party as misrepresented in the article.

"But even to the more inclusive DSA, Obama is no socialist. "The discussion
of socialism that has appeared in the media is surreal," says Llewellyn. "Nobody
in their right mind would think Obama is a socialist if they knew anything
about the meaning of the word. Obama is acting as Roosevelt did, trying to
save capitalism from itself."

The ISO is a bit more radical:

"Sherry Wolf, an activist with the Chicago-based U.S. branch of the
International Socialist Organization (ISO), scoffs at the idea that the U.S. is
at the dawn of a socialist era. "What Marxists mean by socialism is different
from what Rush Limbaugh means," she says. "We believe the class that produces
the wealth should own and control that wealth. That's a far cry from what's
happening now. The state is propping up banks, mortgage, and insurance
companies, while the lives of working people are torn apart by foreclosures,
evictions, and unemployment. It's an effort to save global capitalism from its
own excesses."

Wolf's group sees itself as "revolutionary," meaning it advocates not
incremental changes but rather a "total transformation of society and political
economy."

Finally there is the Socialist Party USA, which is kind of a nostalgic organization for the great World War I era socialist Eugene Debs. (the picture at right is Socialist Party campaign material from 1912, Debs is on the left). Their representative Billy Wharton was quoted as saying:

"You see [Obama] operating as a hedge fund Democrat on health care now,"
Wharton says. "He blocked advocates of a single-payer system from presenting
their case to the Senate Finance Committee."

So there. Finally genuine socialists have gotten a chance to break through the mainstream media silence barrier to actually give their perspective. Although on one level irritating, perhaps the right's false accusations of Obama and his party as socialists has done us genuine socialists a favor. Now the word is on the tongue of many more people, and they might endulge in some curiosity and further research into future socialist possibilities. And the time is right with capitalism entering such a profound crisis. I never thought I would be thinking "Thank you Sean Hannity". I hope he lives to see and regret what he may have done, perhaps opening up a socialist Pandora's box.