Socialism or Progress?

To The Editor:

The Schulenburg letter writer’s use of the phrase “ideological diatribe” last week simply does not apply to my recent letter. Rather, my letter raises valid concerns about corporate money destroying our Constitution’s representational democracy’ based upon facts that practically all apply to the Republican Party.

His admission that corporate dark money and political gerrymandering are also matters of concern to him once again raises the question as to why finding a Republican Member of Congress willing to pass a resolution to amend the Constitution to repeal the 5-4 GOP Justice SCOTUS ruling in Citizens United is almost impossible.

He used the term “Democrats” instead of my use of the term “Progressive Democrats.” Certainly, he did not drop the word “Progressive” because Progressive Democrats (as opposed to Republicans as well as corporate Democrats available for rent) are the only lawmakers who are genuinely fighting against corporate political and economic tyranny in America? Certainly, he did not fail to use my term given that most if not all Progressive Democrats fighting for Affordable Medicare for All were returned to Congress in 2020 in Congressional Districts that Trump won in 2020.

What was surprising was his failure to associate the term “Democrats” with a Fox Cable News favorite word, “Socialism.” Perhaps he knew he could rely on the trifecta of extreme right-wing writers who often appear together on the same page in the Record to inappropriately apply that term to “Democrats” as a fear tactic? So, I will let the following words of President “Give ‘Em Hell Harry’ Truman in 1952 speak for themselves in anticipatory rebuttal of their genuine “ideological diatribe” that typically either has no basis in fact or, at best, is nothing more than Fox Cable News like half-truths used to deceive voters:

“Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.

“Socialism is what they called public power (meaning electric cooperatives). Socialism is what they called social security.

“Socialism is what they called farm price supports.

“Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance.

“Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.

“Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.

“When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan “Down With Socialism” on the banner of his “great crusade,” that is really not what he means at all.

“What he really means is “Down with Progress …”. That’s all he means.

John W. Mikus

Houston