{"id":8563,"date":"2011-11-07T13:22:03","date_gmt":"2011-11-07T18:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=8563"},"modified":"2011-11-07T13:28:22","modified_gmt":"2011-11-07T18:28:22","slug":"the-s-word-a-short-history-of-an-american-tradition-socialism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2011\/11\/07\/the-s-word-a-short-history-of-an-american-tradition-socialism\/","title":{"rendered":"The S Word: A Short History Of An American Tradition … Socialism"},"content":{"rendered":"

I first learned about John Nichols’ book The \u201cS\u201d Word: A Short History Of An American tradition … Socialism<\/a><\/strong> when I watched the video from the Free School University at Occupy Boston in my previous post Professor Victor Wallis Speaks on the \u201cRoots of the Current Crisis.\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

I found this book to be even more eye-opening than my various posts about Capitalism Hits The Fan<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

I learned that there has been a long tradition of Socialism in this country since before The American Revolution.\u00a0 The famous American revolutionary pamphleteer Thomas Paine promoted many socialist ideas.\u00a0 The Republican Party was founded on Socialist ideals.\u00a0 Its second presidential candidate, Abraham Lincoln, also espoused many socialist ideals.<\/p>\n

There have been many successful Mayor, Governors, Senators, and Representatives in our history that have been socialists.<\/p>\n

There has always been a backlash against these ideas, but maybe the worst of it started when the Socialists in this country started taking stands against our participation in World War I.\u00a0 Woodrow Wilson wanted no dissent about his war, so he introduced anti-sedition laws that made it a crime to express any doubts about the war.\u00a0\u00a0 He used his power over the U.S. Postmaster General to get him to rescind second class mail privileges for the distribution of Socialist magazines and newspapers.\u00a0\u00a0 Some publishers and speakers who dissent about the war were jailed under the anti-sedition laws.\u00a0 Some were deported after serving their sentences.<\/p>\n

During the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt implemented many ideas that were first proposed by Socialists.\u00a0 Many Socialists became part of or advisors to his administration.\u00a0 This sort of cross-fertilization of ideas and programs went on through the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.<\/p>\n

With the Cold War and the likes of Senator Joseph McCarthy, many people with Socialist leanings were fired from their jobs and hounded from public view.<\/p>\n

Is it any wonder that with this 90 year concerted assault on all things Socialist, that our view of Socialism and its value has been turned very negative.\u00a0 My grandfather, Louis Kaplan, had\u00a0 socialist leanings and background since he came to this country in the early 1900s.\u00a0 I always had the impression that this was an odd outlook for someone in this country.\u00a0 I now realize that my opinion had been badly tainted by the propaganda war to destroy socialist ideas that started way before I was born.<\/p>\n

Now, having read the book <\/strong>The \u201cS\u201d Word: A Short History Of An American Tradition … Socialism<\/a><\/strong> I am ready to give these notions another look, this time with a more open mind.\u00a0 Many of these ideas already align with some of what I have been thinking and proposing.<\/p>\n

I have already posted a few items from Democratic Socialists Of America<\/strong><\/a> as a result of this research. See What is Democratic Socialism?<\/a><\/strong> and Stop Digging: The Case Against Jobs<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I first learned about John Nichols’ book The \u201cS\u201d Word: A Short History Of An American tradition … Socialism when I watched the video from the Free School University at Occupy Boston in my previous post Professor Victor Wallis Speaks on the \u201cRoots of the Current Crisis.\u201d I found this book to be even more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8563","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-stevegsposts","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8563"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8568,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8563\/revisions\/8568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}