Congressional Socialists No Longer in the Marxist Closet 1

Part one of an excellent series by Brenda J. Elliott cross-posted from RBO

The past week Americans experienced a coming out party compared to none other in our lifetimes. In direct defiance of popular opinion and common decency, the so-called Progressive wing of the Democrat Party, otherwise known as the Congressional Progressive Caucus, stood shoulder-to-shoulder and marched in lockstep with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to cram down unconstitutional and unwanted health care legislation. A lot of us have suspected and many others will soon come to realize what this means in the much too near future.

This brazen coming out by the Socialist Democrats in Congress has long been delayed. In fact, we can trace its origins to October 1990. In one of its "first pubic meetings" after the "collapse of one of its oldest foes," the Communist governments of Eastern Europe, the Socialist International gathered in New York to sort out its changed status and to "set a new course" in a post-Cold War world.

Attending with 300 delegates and observers from 100 countries was former West German Chancellor and president of the Socialist International 1976-1992, Willy Brandt.

Brandt "suggested" Socialism had been the "victim of semantics." "Let's face it,'' Brandt said, ''Socialism has been discredited by the mess created in the so-called 'socialist countries.'"

Brandt also noted that there were 28 nations with "Social Democratic governments or governments in which Social Democrats share power."

Pierre Mauroy, former Prime Minister of France and First Secretary of the French Socialist Party (Socialist International president 1992-1999), explained that Social Democrats were a "third way," somewhere "in between the totalitarian state and the unregulated free market."

In what sounds a lot like what is happening today with Greece and the European Union, "some Socialists expressed the concern that the collapse of state-run economies in Eastern Europe would discredit all Social Democrats."

Hans Janitschek, a former general secretary of the Socialist International, explained that, although Europeans did not "make a distinction between Communism and Social Democracy, the collapse of the first and only socialist experiment in history [would] have long lasting repercussions on the Socialist movement as [a] whole."

When Janitschek suggested the collapse could kill the Social Democratic movement altogether, POTUS Obama adviser, Cornel West, disagreed.

A member of the Democratic Socialists of America (formed in 1982 by a merger of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee and the New American Movement), and a professor of religion at Princeton University, Cornel West said, ''We no longer have this albatross on our backs."

The "albatross" to which West referred was Communism, adding: ''Our values can now be played out. We can begin to translate them into programs of action.''

One of those "programs of action" was soon realized in 1992, within two years following the October 1990 meeting by the Socialist International in New York.

Democratic Socialists of America helped to organize fifty plus members of the House of Representatives -- described as "a consortium of radical congressional collectivists" -- into the House Progressive Caucus, now known as the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

("Collectivism holds that, in human affairs, the collective—society, the community, the nation, the proletariat, the race, etc.—is the unit of reality and the standard of value. On this view, the individual has reality only as part of the group, and value only insofar as he serves it."--Leonard Peikoff, The Ominous Parallels, 17.)

Keep in mind, the DSA is not only the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International but also the “largest Socialist organization in the U.S.” The DSA hosted the October 1990 Socialist International gathering in New York, which was co-sponsored by the Institute for Democratic Socialism (DSA's 501c3 organization), Dissent magazine, the Michael Harrington Center of Queens College and the Jewish Labor Bund.

(Note that one of the speakers was none other than Lane Kirkland, president of the AFL-CIO.)

The Socialist International proudly boasts that it is the successor to the so-called “First International” of Karl Marx, founded in London in 1864.

By definition, the DSA and CPC are clearly a "collective", and have “worked in open partnership” since 1999.

A little more than ten years later, the "collectivist agenda" called for in a DSA position paper is in the process of being realized. The agenda has openly been pushed through the House of Representatives in large part by the DSA-backed CPC:

"massive redistribution of income from corporations and the wealthy to wage earners and the poor and the public sector”; “a massive shift of public resources from the military … to civilian uses”; and “expanding [Medicare] eligibility to people of all ages and income regardless of health or employment status” so that “the federal government can serve as the single payer” for the nation’s health care."

Clearly the Socialists in Congress are out of the Marxist closet.

Plus, as Kathryn Jean Lopez observed today at NRO, "If record spending, an explosion of government, and the imposition of debt on the next generation don't faze you, maybe this will: Obama and the Democrats aren't done yet..."