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Women's History Month is a perfect opportunity to celebrate the women who paved the way for our current women leaders who have found socialist principles in their religious traditions, including U.S. Congresswomen and Democratic Socialists of America members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Roman Catholic; Rashida Tlaib, a Muslim; and ordained Christian pastor Cori Bush.

The Religion and Socialism Working Group is led by former DSA national director Maxine Phillips, with several other activist women helping to guidethe groupthat publishes weekly articles, produces monthly podcasts, and hosts webinar discussions featuring socialists of diverse faith backgrounds.

They all stand on the shoulders of women who built the religious socialism movement in past generations, including:

Vida Dutton Scudder(1861-1954).Historian Gary Scott Smith concluded that Scudder was the principal female leader of the Episcopal Church during the early 20thcentury. Scudder was active in the Socialist Party of America, a supporter of striking textile workers, and an activist for women's suffrage. Her view of the Gospel message was unequivocal: "Woe is proclaimed to rich people. Possessions are described as subject to theft and corruption... We are distinctly bidden not to seek or accumulate them and are told it is all but impossible for a rich man to enter that social utopia, the Kingdom of heaven."

Fulfilling Jesus' mandate could not be achieved by mere charity, Scudder insisted, pushing back against some congregations' go-to response to poverty. Saying that philanthropy is "a sedative to the public conscience," Scudder pointed out that fundraising efforts only "squeezed a little more reluctant money from comfortable classes, who groaned and gave but changed not one iota." Instead, she worked for a full restructuring of society around socialist principles. For more, read "Vida Scudder: A Voice from the Past Speaks to the Present,"a 2009 profile of Scudder by Norm Faramelli, an Episcopal priest and Religion and Socialism activist within DSA.

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Frances Willard (1839-1898).The longtime president of the 200,000-person strong Women's Christian Temperance Union told delegates to the WCTU convention in 1893 that, "In every Christian, there exists a socialist, and in every socialist a Christian." Willard is considered by some historians to be the most influential American woman of the 19thcentury, leading DSA Religion and Socialism group founder John Cort to conclude in his bookChristian Socialismthat she did more than anyone to introduce the idea of socialism to Middle America. For more on Willardand other women socialists of her era, check out Mari Jo Buhle'sWomen and American Socialism, 1870-1920(Chicago: U. of Illinois Press, 1983).

Mary White Ovington (1865-1951). Like Scudder, Ovington was a leader in the U.S. settlement house movement and was moved to join the Socialist Party after witnessing the struggles of the working poor who lived in the settlements. Active in the women's suffrage movement and the opposition to World War I, Ovington, a Unitarian, would go on to write the bookSocialism and the Feminist Movementand become one of the founders of the NAACP. The NAACP has a nice bio of Ovington on their sitehere.

Pauli Murray (1910-1985).Murray was a lawyer, professor, priest, and activist with a remarkably varied and deep career of activism and service. Murray worked alongside socialist civil rights and labor leader A. Philip Randolph in his organizing campaigns, helped devise the constitutional argument to overturn the doctrine of "separate but equal," became the first African American woman to be ordained an Episcopal priest, and co-founded the National Organization for Women (NOW). Thurgood Marshall called Murray's 1951 book,State's Laws on Race and Color,the Bible for civil rights lawyers.A recentNew Yorkerprofile of Murray is available onlinehere.

There are many more women who have led the U.S. religious socialist movement in recent years, including the Catholic theologian and feminist scholarRosemary Radford Ruetherand the German liberation theologianDorothee Solle, who helped build the RS Working Group in its earliest days. The movement to connect the socialist cause with religious beliefs in the human right to shelter, healthcare, and necessities owes them a great debt.

Read the original:
Celebrating Women Leaders of the Religious Socialism Movement - Common Dreams

On the heels of Congress voting to spend another $1.9 trillion on an assortment of relief programs related to the Covid pandemic, I thought it might be a good time to mention the dirtiest word in American politics: socialism. Before you race to the sink to wash your mouth out with soap, its time for a closer look.

While the word may conjure images of bread lines, cultural revolutions and the dour military parades of an authoritarian state, the truth is that socialism cant be summed up in one simple anti-capitalist declaration. The globally regarded Scandinavian model is proof positive that democratic socialism, where benefits like education and health care coexist with free enterprise, can be highly successful.

Here at home, Republicans have been able to cast socialism as a dark and sinister ideology on par with Stalins gulags. Most every progressive policy with a goal to offer a modest boost to someones quality of life is roundly attacked and denigrated by conservatives as wasteful spending or just another handout to lazy welfare queens. Never mind that these same politicos would never turn away an extra dollar earmarked for their states, and theyre certainly guilty of big spendingtheirs on the relentless growth of the military industrial complex and a raft of other corporate welfare projects.

The hypocrisy has been around for decades. In 1977, it encouraged New Yorks Senator Patrick Moynihan to begin reporting annually on a calculation called the balance of payments. His work consistently showed that New York sent more money to the federal government than it received in return. Moynihan spurred a national reckoning around each states balance of payments that continues to this day. Worst off is New Jersey, which receives only 74 cents back from every dollar it sends to Washington. Mississippi, on the other hand, receives $2.13 for every dollar it sends east. It doesnt make much sense based on what you hear from Republicans on the steps of the Capitol building, but trust that the states giving the most vote blue. Those that get the most vote red.

Just last year, during the height of the Covid crisis, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell expressed his reluctance to fund coronavirus relief for hard-hit cities and states. He called them blue state bailouts. To that, New Yorks governor reminded the Kentuckian that, in the past four years, New York put $116 billion more into the federal pot than it received. Meanwhile, Kentucky took out $148 billion more than it put in. The governor asked, Senator McConnell, whos getting bailed out here?" By one measure, of the initial money that was earmarked in the spring of 2020 for Covid relief, New York received about $12,000 per positive case. Nebraska received $379,000 per positive case.

The balance of payments is a good gauge to see which states rely more heavily on government, but its not the only one. Industry subsidies are another way to see where welfare is flowing. You may not have been aware the last time you slathered your hot dog that mustard seed subsidies totaled $13.7 million over the last 25 years, with Montana and North Dakota the biggest winners. Over that same period, Riceland Foods and their farmer members in Arkansas and Missouri reaped a whopping $554 million windfall in U.S.D.A. subsidies. Including money from Covid relief, direct government payments in 2020 to the farming industry were forecast at over $51 billion, making these handouts an astounding 43 percent of net national farm income.

If socialism is going to be defined as production, distribution and exchange owned or regulated by a community as a whole, should we be concerned that red states are routinely relying on socialist entities to the benefit of their residents? Nebraskas electric grid and utilities are publicly owned. There are no stockholders, and thus no profit motive, the Nebraska Power Association says proudly. Our customers, not big investors in New York and Chicago, own Nebraskas utilities.

The federally owned Tennessee Valley Authority is another example. When asked about the future of their socialist enterprise in such a deeply red part of the country, Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said, This loony idea of selling T.V.A.s transmission lines seems to keep popping up. It has zero chance of becoming law.

Tennessee also has the honor of being the first state to offer two years of free college tuition to its high school graduates regardless of family income. Thats not criticism youre reading. Its jealousy.

When talk turns to a universal basic income, Republicans quickly cry foul. But what about Alaska? Since 1982, the Alaska Permanent Fund, a state-owned investment corporation funded by oil revenues, has paid out an annual dividend to every man, woman and child in Alaska. Ive yet to see any Republicans in that state tearing up their annual checksor their Covid relief checks, for that matteron principle.

If you look closely, its not hard to find a wealth of successful socialist programs in this, our cradle of capitalism. Whats interesting isnt what you find, its where you find it.

Amos Klausner lives in San Geronimo and serves on the local school board.

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Will the real socialist please stand up? - Point Reyes Light

To the editor:

Re: The letter to the editor entitled Biden is Destroying our Country by Karen Ostrom-Kelly. (Voice of the public, March 24)

Dear Karen, it might be useful to look up the word socialism before using it. Thats a good idea with any word you dont understand. Its not the scary buzz-word you want it to be. If youve ever driven on a road, youve got socialism to thank. As an actual socialist, I would be overjoyed if Biden or any Dem were one. They are not.

Madam, I want you and other readers to understand that no person is illegal. Immigrants to this country pay their taxes the same as you; they just use a Tax ID Number instead of a Social Security Number.

In fact, by your argument theyre owed even more, since we happily tax them without directly representing them.

Charity, madam, begins in the heart, so try to have one.

Jean Sanson

Attleboro

Excerpt from:
Letter to the editor: Socialism is not a bad word - The Sun Chronicle

A century ago, the Mother Ship of Socialismthe Soviet Unionwas teetering on the precipice. The Poles had just vanquished the hopes of dictator Vladimir Lenin to sweep across Europe. Under the bludgeon of Marxist central planning, the economy had collapsed to a fraction of its pre-war dimensions. The country was seething in discontent. Insurrection seemed imminent. Indeed, the month of March 1921 had begun with hungry Soviet soldiers and sailors mounting the Kronstadt Rebellion against the Bolshevik regime.

What was Lenins remedy for his unfolding socialist catastrophe? It wasnt more socialism, at least for the moment. That would be like chasing a glass of tainted water with a gallon of Clorox. Desperate to reverse the consequences of socialism, Lenin turned to their only known antidotecapitalism.

Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of the start of Lenins New Economic Policy (NEP). In a stunning about-face on March 21, 1921, the NEP began undoing the previous four years. Expropriation of businesses and the nationalization of industries stopped. Lenin proclaimed a partial restoration of, in his own words, a free market and capitalism. Even state-owned firms would seek to operate on a profit basis. Individuals could own small enterprises again. Market prices would be permitted in place of state directives.

A little bit of freedom goes a long way. In this instance, it turned the economy around and saved the infant Bolshevik tyranny. But it did not last long. Three years later, Lenin would be dead. Before the end of the decade, Stalin obliterated the NEP with a massive collectivist campaign to re-socialize the economy. Of the NEP, former US national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in his 1989 book, The Grand Failure, For many Russians, even more than sixty years later, these were the best years of the era ushered in by the revolution of 1917.

On that March day in 1921, the very day winter bowed to spring, the socialists in Moscow effectively admitted they had to stop stealing. There just was not much left to steal. In a 1990 article, economist Peter Boettke cited a litany of mea culpas from leading Soviet intellectuals, including a most revealing tribute to free market economist Ludwig von Mises from socialist architect Nikolai Bukharin. He grudgingly admitted that Misess devastating critique of socialism made him one of the most learned critics.

It would be Mises, nearly 30 years later in Human Action, who expressed the distinction between socialism and capitalism in the following eloquent fashion:

A man who chooses between drinking a glass of milk and a glass of a solution of potassium cyanide does not choose between two beverages; he chooses between life and death. A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.

Many socialists, however, stubbornly adhere to their vision no matter what happens along the way. Some will read the above paragraphs and object that what Lenin sought to reverse was a more radical version of their philosophy. They will say, Were not for that! We are democratic socialists! as if the veneer of democracy blesses socialisms multitudinous sins. The truth is this: disastrous policies are disastrous policies; it does not matter much that their advocates were voted in.

The track record of the 20th century brand of socialism often labeled communism is horrificthe worst mass murdering cause in world history. The Black Book of Communism documented its crimes, including the murder of more than 100 million people.

Democratic socialism may be more seductive and less bloody but it too has a miserable track record. Like its nuttier communist cousin, it consumes lives and wealth and must sooner or later be administered the capitalist antidote. If countries embrace democratic socialism and stay afloat, their longevity is always explained not by the socialism they adopt, but rather, by the capitalism they have not yet destroyed. And the more a country drowns itself in democratic socialism, the more the democracy part evaporates in the face of concentrated state power.

Socialists and socialism possess no theory of wealth creation; indeed, they show no interest in it. Wealth is just there for them to vilify, confiscate and redistributeuntil its producers produce no more. Long-term thinking is not their strong suit.

The next time you hear a democratic socialist declare that his system hasnt been tried yet, reel off this list for starters (for more, check out the recommended readings below):

Ancient Romes Republic began its deadly experiment in democratic socialism in the 2nd Century B.C. It began as a welfare state, degenerated into a regulatory nightmare and finally collapsed into an imperial autocracy. Legislative assemblies voted into office by the Roman electorate constructed the socialist edifice brick by brick. Rome was not built in a day, but concentrated state power had no trouble tearing it down completely.

The Pilgrims of Plymouth, Massachusetts famously tried another version of democratic socialism seventeen centuries later. It was the communal variety, in which they placed the fruits of their labors into a common storehouse and then distributed it to each other equally. Their Governor was elected, by the way, which made it democratic. Starvation forced them to scrap it rather quickly in favor of private property.

Adolf Hitlers National Socialists came to power through the democratic process in 1933. Oops, back to the drawing board for socialists on that one too!

After World War II, Great Britain voted the democratic socialists into power and turned the country into the Sick Man of Europe. Margaret Thatcher administered a strong dose of capitalism 30 years later, before the patient would have expired.

Scandinavia adopted the welfare state version of socialism around the same time as Britain. Economic decline set in as it took hold. But Norwegians, Danes and Swedes learned much from their mistakes and reversed many of them. Today, their economies are among the freest in the world.

New Zealand found itself mired in the doldrums of democratic socialism by the 1980s but recovered dramatically through drastic reductions in government. (See New Zealands Path to Prosperity Began With Rejecting Democratic Socialism.)

On and on it goes, like a broken record. Socialists make big promises, wrap them in velvet, and beat the economy into submission using the iron fist within. Then when its victims have had enough, capitalism must come to the rescue.

Wouldnt it make a lot more sense to simply avoid the socialist trap in the first place?

Soviet Admissions: Communism Doesnt Work by Peter J. Boettke

Private Ownership: A Must by Henry Hazlitt

The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991 and Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime by Richard Pipes, Martin Malia and Ralph Raico

Socialism: Force or Fantasy by Lawrence W. Reed

Four Ways Socialism is Anti-Social by Lawrence W. Reed

Margaret Thatcher on Socialism: 20 of Her Best Quotes by Lawrence W. Reed

The British Parliamentarian Who Jumped Ship from Socialism by Lawrence W. Reed

Socialism on My Mind by Lawrence W. Reed

61 Quick Facts and Observations on Socialism, Jesus and Wealth by Jon Miltimore

A Revolution to Always Remember but Never Celebrate by Lawrence W. Reed

Dont Call Scandinavian Countries Socialist by Lawrence W. Reed

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When the Soviets Admitted Socialism Doesn't Work - Foundation for Economic Education

In China, Yang Lians poetry has been banned, destroyed and derided as spiritual pollution.

The censorship began in earnest in the early 1980s, after Yang wrote the poem Nuorilang, which deploys Tibetan mythology and was seen as a critique of Han Chinese nationalism. It reached its peak in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre and another poem, 1989, in which he said the violence and suppression were nothing new and they signified no doubt a perfectly ordinary year.

But in Britain, Germany, Spain, Italy and Scandinavia, the dissident is hailed as a literary superstar, a poet praised by Allen Ginsberg before the Beat poets death for his individualism, and even tipped as a future Nobel laureate.

To his mantelpiece of honours, as of yesterday, Yang can add another: the inaugural Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry in Translation, for his book Anniversary Snow. He shares what will be a biennial award in memory of one of Britains most distinguished champions of international poetry with his long-time Scottish translator, Brian Holton.

Yang describes the process of reinventing his work in English as like growing a second tree but from the same root. But this second tree, I have to say, is a very beautiful tree.

Were sort of like the Morecambe and Wise of our language pair, says Holton, who has worked with Yang since 1993. I dont know of any other translator and poet whove stayed together so long.

The Scotsman is delighted, too, to see some adulation for his own craft. Translators always feel underappreciated, you know. As I have written, the translation may be a cover version, but some cover versions are as good as the original. Some are better, even.

Read more:
China is the worst capitalism plus the worst socialism: poet Yang Lian on the regime he fled - Telegraph.co.uk