Think, Rebel

A Letter to the Man Who Already Agrees With Us

To the man who rages with reflexive revulsion when he hears the dread word “socialist”:

You are brave, you don’t care what people think. You stand for what is right, no matter what they say about you.

Unless they say you’re a socialist.

Why is that so hard to hear?

In the privacy of your own mind, just sit and pick at it. Who said that’s a slur?

Hearing that word feels like hearing the name of the devil. Something you’re not supposed to even look at. You just know it’s bad.

Are you afraid to just check what it actually means? To do your own research?

Here, look: www.dsausa.org , it’s fine.

I’m afraid that what’s happened here is a government and media propaganda campaign so large and ubiquitous that it’s become too big to see.

A veteran running for congress here told me he had a good long talk with a man in the street, that they agreed on every single thing. That corporations have too much power and the government’s corrupt, that working folks are getting screwed and that we’re getting sucked into another foreign war for no good reason. That the people aren’t being heard or benefitting from the current government.

And then at the end, they disclosed their party affiliations, and the man in the street was a republican, and the candidate was a socialist, and the man in the street was affronted. Offended.

Probably felt tricked, maybe even mocked. Because socialist has been put out as a bad word. Because socialists are all soy drinking sissies and that’s not him.

I don’t know when the propaganda made you forget that brotherhood is socialist. Workers’ rights, trade unions, alliances of blue collar men standing up for themselves together against elitist, soft-handed robber barons- that’s socialist.

You want to be a regular American? Someone who can be proud of our great country, leading the world?

Me too.

Why are we the only developed nation without healthcare provided by our tax dollars?

Why are so many people sleeping rough?

How can we say we’re a rich nation when most Americans are struggling to afford the basics of shelter, food, utilities, and healthcare?

I’m most Americans here. Think about if you are too. What would happen if you got in a crash? Are you afraid to call an ambulance? Isn’t that insane?

No one else on earth is afraid to call an ambulance. Why the hell are you tolerating that? ‘Cause change and reform are being offered by a party you’ve been told to sneer at? Not even to fear, just to revile? Something embarrassing to be associated with?

That’s what’s held a lot of people back.

They’d say they were “independents” or they’d say they were looking at libertarianism, ‘cause that sounds stronger and manlier and nobody makes fun of them for that.

Don’t be a pussy, man, put your money where your mouth is. You don’t just do what the government tells you to, you don’t care what people say about you, why would it bother you to be called a socialist?

I told my dad about the goals of Democratic Socialism, and he said, “Well, you don’t have to call it socialism, those things are just common sense. You’re not gonna win anybody over calling it socialism”.

Turns out my dad’s a socialist.

Frankly, it turns out that people with common sense, moral decency, and American values are socialists.

Your fear that the movement that actually works to meet your needs and aligns with your values is called “Democratic Socialism” is just a hidden shackle, holding you back from strengthening and uniting real Americans against greedy, corrupt politicians and the billionaires who own them.

If what you’re afraid of is how bad you’ve heard socialism has gone in other countries, in South and Central America, go see why that happened. ‘Cause I’m sorry to tell you, it was capitalist intervention, it was us, meddling in foreign governments, toppling governments and destabilizing nations so we could say socialism doesn’t work.

Do you know guys who fought in Vietnam? That was another one of these, the absolute panic of other countries adopting any political stance apart from capitalism led us to send thousands of men to die in a war we lost anyway. And nothing catastrophic happened when we left Vietnam alone. I never even think of it, I can’t imagine you do either.

Maybe you’re against Democratic Socialism because you confuse it with old communist regimes that killed loads of people to push an ideology? Yeah, that’s fucked up. We’re not doing that, that’s not part of it. That’s something else.

What we’re after is Democratic Socialism — more than just the safety net they have in Scandinavia (though even their Social Democracy would be better than what we suffer through). We want working people to actually own a piece of what they build. Co-ops, public utilities, democratic control over the economy. Some of that already exists here. They just don’t want you to call it socialism.

Do your own research. Don’t just go with the narrative you’ve been fed.

Be strong enough to know your own mind, and don’t be afraid to stand up with us when you see that we are you.

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