"Let's talk about socialism. … I think it's very important to bring back the idea of socialism into the national discussion to where it was at the turn of the [last] century before the Soviet Union gave it a bad name. Socialism had a good name in this country. Socialism had Eugene Debs. It had Clarence Darrow. It had Mother Jones. It had Emma Goldman. It had several million people reading socialist newspapers around the country… Socialism basically said, hey, let's have a kinder, gentler society. Let's share things. Let's have an economic system that produces things not because they're profitable for some corporation, but produces things that people need. People should not be retreating from the word socialism because you have to go beyond capitalism."
-Howard Zinn
I blame Obama. I would never have sought this out had he not moved "liberal" over to center-right.
As someone who has never been exposed to what socialism actually is, I at first found it a little hard to believe I was sitting down and watching this. Then I found myself agreeing with every word, labels be damned. This still doesn't explain what socialism is. I'll probably have to read for that. But it's an extremely effective and damning criticism of capitalism, and I don't think any rational person would be able to sit through this and not be convinced by the end that the system isn't working. It's good.
The Case for Socialism w/Sherry Wolf from Steve Ramey on Vimeo.
Famous Democratic Socialists:
- Martin Luther King Jr.
- George Orwell
- Albert Einstein
- Ernest Hemingway
- Hellen Keller
- Noam Chomsky
- Howard Zinn
- Jack London
- Bernie Sanders
- Cornell West
- Lewis Black
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