May Day With The Dems

 Being a socialist, May Day has a bit of a different meaning for me than it does for many Democrats. For one thing, we socialists have been speaking up for immigrants far longer than the Dems though perhaps with too much of an edge. But that is because we have been aware of what immigrants have had to face long before both the Dems expressed concerned and Trump came to power.

However, not all of us socialists are the same. Some focus also on empowering workers at the workplace regardless of their ideologies while others are pushing an ideological agenda too hard. Stalinists are an example of the latter. 

Also, I got introduced to Antifa during a May Day event. I talked with them in person. Though Antifa can stand for being anti-fascist, there is an organized group called 'Antifa' some of whose members told me that they are reliving the street battles that communists were fighting in  Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

I was just celebrating my first May Day with the Dems and it was very laid back which was both good and bad. While the socialists I've celebrated May Day with have too much of an edge, the Dems have too little of one. 

Plus, the Dems have a more narrow view of the workers' needs than socialists do. What socialists see that Dems don't is that workers need to have power in the workplace in addition to unionizing which allows them to enter into collective bargaining to negotiate for both better pay and working conditions. And so unions are there to help prevent businesses from exploiting and abusing workers.

A protest sign at May Day rally. The quote is from the movie 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'. It is response to King Arthur when he identifies himself as the King of England to a couple of peasants.

The Dems approach is to portray themselves as vanguards for workers. That means that the Dems will represent the demands and needs of the workers in government in exchange for their support. But it also means that the Dems are not empowering workers in the workplace. In addition, the Dems are heavily influenced by money from corporations. The result is that the Dems can have a conflict of interest when representing workers.

Socialists enable workers in multiple ways. Not only do socialists work to represent the concerns of workers, they also seek to empower them.  Socialists want workers to go beyond what unions do by adding to their collective bargaining rights, positions of power both in businesses and the government. An example of workers gaining power in the work place can be seen in Germany's codetermination laws that allow for a percentage of workers to be placed on a business's executive  boards depending on the number of employees a business has.

Without those positions of power, workers have no partial ownership of the businesses that employ them. Such workers have no say in how a business operates and treats its other stakeholders. Workers have no say as to the direction a business will take and where it locates or relocates. And unless workers are also included in Congress, they have less to say as to what regulations, which would protect people and the environment, will be written and passed. 

And so the approach taken by the Dems, who are already compromised by corporate money, cannot represent workers like socialists could if socialists were given a chance.

In addition, socialists have justice concerns that extend beyond the borders of their own nations. Socialists are concerned about the injustices that come with American imperialism. Unfortunately, some socialists are so focussed and American imperialism that they let the injustices practiced by other nations, such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine, fly in under the radar. The same occurs with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict where some socialists are so focussed on the injustices practiced by the Israeli government that they give hall passes to Palestinian terrorism. On the other hand, while, for the most part, the Dems are rightly reacting and responding to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, many of them overlook both the injustices that come with American imperialism and with those practiced by the Israeli government.

And so there is a difference between celebrating May Day with my fellow socialists than with the Dems. Both groups have contributions to make and faults to change. But if the Dems want to present a more contrasting and positive alternative to the Repubs, they will refuse to be influenced by corporate money and will keep what they rightly doing  while moving closer to how socialists analyze and approach problems and injustices.

In the eyes of many of my fellow socialists, I am slumming it when protesting with the Dems. That is because of the differences, some of which were mentioned above, that exist between socialists and the Dems. I agree with my fellow socialists that we feel significantly offended when the Repubs call the Dems 'Marxists' or 'socialists.' Obviously, the Repubs like to oversimplify life by overlooking the significant differences that exist between socialists and the Dems. The Repubs tendency to over simply things appeal to many of its followers. 

At the same time, we socialists will be promoting injustices if we believe, as how Martin Luther King Jr. described the West, while speaking against the Vietnam War, when he said that it believe it had everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them. And so we socialists, and we are a very diverse group,  need to look for what we can learn from the Dems, the traditional Repubs, and even from the Trump's Repubs if we wish to avoid being narrow-minded ideologues with very small audiences. Narrow-minded ideologies ming appeal to those of us who embrace authoritarianism, but it also sabotages our efforts to bring change.

Who Are Socialists Scared Of?

In an effort to discredit Obamacare as well as any further attempt to nationalize healthcare, Franklin Graham (click here for a bio) quoted conservative Catholic leader who said:

socialists and atheists are scared to death of the church

Graham also added the following:

I'm not a Catholic, but as the Democratic Party embraces socialism...

They don't want anyone except the government responsible for caring for the poor...

Here in this country, the poor were cared for by churches for over 200 years, the Catholics, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, the Baptists all had great hospitals to care for the sick

The article that reported these remarks were quoted in a CNS News article (click here for the article). Graham also predicted that if the "Democratic Socialists" get the healthcare program they want, the quality of healthcare will go down while its costs will become prohibitive to the poor.

In short, Graham's remarks seem to be a combination of a spiritual machismo along with both a historical and political ignorance. And this is sad simply because that combination of traits, while not affecting Graham's choir, inadvertently discredits and thus dishonors the Gospel that Graham serves before others.

Graham's seems to equate Socialism with big government and government intervention. And it seems that in Graham's statement, there is the implicit claim that anything Socialism can do, the Church can do better. And thus, he accuses, and possibly projects onto, Socialists of being afraid of competition. Competition for Socialists in this case, according to Graham, would be the Church.

To get to why Graham is doing the Gospel more harm good, one should note the following:

• Big government is not the same as Socialism
• The Democratic Party neither pursues nor follows Socialism
• Some Graham's claims about the Church providing healthcare for the poor are false 
• Socialists are a diverse group. And thus Graham's claim about all socialists are demonstrably false since some Christians are also socialists.

 Regarding the first point, just because a government is big or intrusive, doesn't mean that it is practicing socialism. This is especially true from the Marxist tradition. Here we should note that a socialist government, according to the Marxist tradition, would be one where those without wealth would have at least an equal power in determining laws as those who have wealth. In fact, Marx believed that the transition from the economic and political systems he observed at his time to the classless paradise he envisioned would by performed by a proletariat dictatorship. Seeing that Marx was opposed to the rule of the bourgeoisie, any big or intrusive government that was controlled by wealth could never be called Marxist. Thus, it appears that Graham is, to say the least, confused as to what constitutes socialism.
 
Now whether we have Republicans or Democrats controlling the three branches of government or whether there is a mixed control by both parties, it is evident that those with wealth do control our government (click here for some documentation). Thus, any big government program that is the result of control over government by either major political party is not a demonstration of socialism. Obamacare, itself, was the result of legislation that was crafted by and written for the benefit of the health insurance industry (click here and there). And Obamacare definitely has problems. So while Graham's observation about the future perils of our healthcare system might have some merit, he is wrong to attribute that to socialism. He can rightfully blame one or both of our major political parties, but he can't blame socialism.

In addition, his claim about the Church in America providing hospital care for 200 years doesn't account for the fact that churches did not provide hospitals until the mid 1800s. And even if we ignore that fact, we need to understand that just prior to Obamacare, healthcare costs were the first cause for personal bankruptcies. In addition, the costs of healthcare, prior to Obamacare, made getting treated prohibitive for many people. Thus, the transition from our past system into Obamacare was not an exodus from any kind of healthcare utopia. Rather, for all of its flaws, Obamacare did try to at least partially address the shortcomings of our then healthcare system.

Finally, considering that some socialists were proponents of Liberation Theology, and considering that some Marxists, like Rosa Luxemburg for example, coveted support from the Church in helping people, it is difficult to make the case that Socialism is afraid of or opposed to the Church. Even if you want to call Democrats who support Obamacare 'socialists,' we should note that some Democrats are confessing Christians. Thus Graham's bipolar view that we have Christians in one corner and socialists, both real and pseudo ones, in the other paints a false picture of reality. 

What Graham is really asserting is that his politically conservative ideology is the only one that both provides for people in need and is aligned with Christianity. In other words, Graham is making an ideological tribal claim on God. And because his claim is a false one, he is misrepresenting the Gospel. And in misrepresenting the Gospel, by associating the Gospel with inaccuracies and distortions, he causes some to dishonor the Gospel as they respond to that association.  

Like others who conflate religiously conservative Christianity with conservative politics and ideology, Graham seems to believe in an American mythological past. And when changes occur that challenge that past, Graham, in this case, lashes out and does so while spouting the errors that come with American mythology as well as his lack of understanding of the diversity that exists in Socialism. But not only that, his response is ideologically tribal--something we are all at risk for doing. And when we do respond tribally, we are likely to sound more like the self-righteous Pharisee from Jesus's parable of the two men than like preachers from the New Testament or the prophets from the Old Testament.