[Pen-l] aren't you glad that socialism is still a dirty word?

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

The New York Times / March 1, 2009

‘Socialism!’ Boo, Hiss, Repeat
By MARK LEIBOVICH [*]

Washington — Conservatives might be seeking a spiritual leader,
organizing principle and fresh identity, but they at least seem to
have settled on a favorite rhetorical ogre: socialism.

As in, Democrats are intent on forcing socialism on the “U.S.S.A” (as
the bumper sticker says, under the words “Comrade Obama”).

It seems that “socialist” has supplanted “liberal” as the go-to slur
among much of a conservative world confronting a one-two-three punch
of bank bailouts, budget blowouts and stimulus bills. Right-leaning
bloggers and talk radio hosts are wearing out the brickbat. Senate and
House Republicans have been tripping over their podiums to invoke it.
The S-bomb has become as surefire a red-meat line at conservative
gatherings as “Clinton” was in the 1990s and “Pelosi” is today.

“Earlier this week, we heard the world’s best salesman of socialism
address the nation,” Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina,
said on Friday, referring, naturally, to a certain socialist in chief.

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas decried the creation of
“socialist republics” in the United States. “Lenin and Stalin would
love this stuff,” Mr. Huckabee said, speaking at the Conservative
Political Action Conference here over the weekend, a kind of Woodstock
for young conservatives.

[By the way, if we need a good one-syllable name for these folks,
let's call them "newts" after their spiritual leader.]

“Socialism is something new for us to hit Obama over the head with,”
said Joshua Bolin of Augusta, Ga., who founded a Web site,
“Reagan.org,” which he calls a conservative analog to the liberal
MoveOn.org.

Of course, there is nothing remotely new about “socialism,” or the
willingness of conservatives to hit the opposition over the head with
the term, just as the name callers among the liberals have bludgeoned
conservatives as “fascists,” “fundamentalists” and “plutocrats” and
whatnot for decades.

But the socialist bogey-mantra has made a full-scale return after a
long stretch of relative dormancy.

The contemporary era of socialist demonizing dates to the general
election campaign between Mr. Obama and John McCain. Mr. McCain and
his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, repeatedly accused Mr.
Obama of wanting to “spread the wealth,” an offshoot of Mr. Obama’s
caught-on-tape exchange with an Ohio plumber (i.e. “Joe the,” last
seen signing copies of his new book at CPAC).

“Socialism” became a star of subsequent McCain and Palin rallies in
the same way that a dead bull is the star of a bullfight — an object
of slings, spears and overall bloodlust.

The early fiscal activism of President Obama has provided a heap of
new fodder for anti-socialists, effectively turning a useful label
meant to inspire fear into a we-told-you-so taunt. Last week’s
blizzard of economic developments — the administration’s new budget,
its partial takeover of another major bank — was fortuitous timing for
CPAC, which ran from Thursday to Saturday, giving conservatives an
opportunity to give full-throated voice to this re-fashioned refrain.

“The right would use ‘socialist’ against Franklin Roosevelt all the
time in the 1930s,” said Charles Geisst, a financial historian at
Manhattan College in the Bronx. “To hear him referred to as Comrade
Roosevelt during that period was not unusual.” But while socialism is
being invoked repeatedly now, Mr. Geisst said, it is a less potent
slam than it once was.

Vermont’s Bernie Sanders — an actual real-life, self-identified
socialist in the United States Senate — agrees, saying that
“socialism” used to carry a ready-made stigma given its association
with Soviet-style Communism.

But since there are so few Communist regimes left today, and
generations have grown up since the end of the cold war, that stigma
has been muted.

Mr. Sanders said he was encouraged that even some conservative critics
— he mentions Newt Gingrich — seem to be equating Mr. Obama’s economic
agenda to “European-style socialism,” as if to consciously distinguish
it from the old Soviet vintage of the term.

“I think this country could use a good debate on what goes on in
places like Sweden, Norway and Finland,” said Mr. Sanders, saying that
notions like universal health care, more funding for education and a
greater tax burden on the wealthy have accessible models in those
countries.

Still, when Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana,
denounced “European-style socialism,” in his speech at the conference
on Thursday, the jeers from the crowd did not exactly signal an
openness to debate it on the merits.

Or for that matter, any eagerness to differentiate the Swedish, Soviet
and San Francisco flavors.

“The word is most resonant in places where no one is going to
discriminate between the various meanings of the term,” Mr. Geisst
said.

And one of those places might be CPAC. “Socialism is a bold color
concept for conservatives,” said one CPAC celebrity, the commentator
Bay Buchanan, who had just finished scribbling autographs for a small
cluster of young fans. She contrasted the “bold color” distinctions
with the “pale pastels” that conservatives have drawn for too long.

Ms. Buchanan said that while “socialist” has largely been on hiatus as
a put-down in recent years, it was an effective instrument in
defeating Bill Clinton’s effort to overhaul the country’s health-care
system in the early 1990s. “ ‘Socialized medicine’ was a great
argument for us,” she said, noting that the term will surely gain even
more of a hold when the Obama administration unveils its own health
care proposal, probably sometime this year.

“Americans are just genetically opposed to socialism,” said Matt
Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, a conservative advocacy group headed
by Dick Armey, the former House Republican leader.

Mr. Kibbe had just finished moderating a CPAC panel in a packed
ballroom on Friday morning called “Bailing Out Big Business: Are We
All Socialists Now?”

After four speakers took turns whacking the S-beast, Mr. Kibbe ended
the proceeding with a quick survey:

“If anyone here is not a socialist, raise your hand,” he said, before
heading off to a reassuring mass of palms.

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

[*] Further investigation may reverse my conclusions, but it looks
like this guy changed the spelling of his last name in order to avoid
being associated with his brother, Mike Lebowitz.
-- 
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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