Socialists Get Newfound Attention as 'Red-Baiting' Draws Interest From Youth

[babylonsister]

Teabaggers' unintended consequences?

Socialists Get Newfound Attention as 'Red-Baiting' Draws Interest From Youth

by Chris Kenning


The socialist agenda that some conservatives see lurking around every corner, hidden in everything from health insurance reform to stimulus spending to President Obama's policies, exasperates Louisvillian Fred Hicks.

As the leader of a local socialist group, Hicks says the use of the "S-word" as a political smear is a gross mischaracterization that ignores the reality that socialism remains a lonely movement, with his 40-person group struggling to get more than a dozen people to attend a meeting.

And yet while the term's recent popularity irks Hicks, the retired professor says it's also beginning to have an unexpected result: It's bringing newfound interest and attention to his cause.

"Suddenly there are more people who want to know what it actually is," said Hicks, head of the Committee of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, whose members seek more government regulation of business, health care and wages.

Nationwide, the Democratic Socialists of America partly credits the term's usage with a 64 percent rise in memberships between 2008 and 2009. The party now has nearly 7,000 U.S. members, and the 1,000-member Socialist Party USA has seen new chapters pop up in Kansas and Oklahoma.

snip//

Elam said socialism doesn't carry the same negative Cold War connotations it did 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, while interest has been further piqued by the recent banking crisis.

"This is a wonderful gift the Republicans are giving us," said Frank Llewellyn, the national director of the DSA. "We've had more attention in the last 12 months than in the last 12 years. But most people don't have a clue what socialism is."

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/01-5

[SpiralHawk]

1. Perennial result of Republicon strategery: FAIL

[old mark]

2. Never fails - Back in the mid 60's magazines warned of the "drug culture",

and kids who never heard of drugs couldn't wait to try some....

I am happy that interest in socialism in America may be sparked by the GOP's idiocy.


mark

[fascisthunter]

3. kids watch a crowd of nutty dumb dumbs and say...

"fuck that!"

[druidity33]

4. oooohhh baby, i'll kick that...

i'd LOVE to see Socialism make a comeback in the US. There used to actually be a few Socialist Reps in the early part of the century.

Rec-kin it too...

:)

[juno jones]

5. K&R! n/t

[DCKit]

6. Because 73% of the population doesn't get their information from Faux Snooze.

Until the Republicons can correct that, they'll continue to increasingly marginalize themselves with their hate speech and willfully ignorant opinions. "Some People" just won't accept every smear as fact, will, invariably, research for themselves and draw their own conclusions. And so it will be, until the fascists finish the decimation of education.

Idiocracy anyone?