When average, rational, free-trade loving Midwesterners think of socialism, they think of a fanatical demagogue, foaming at the mouth and spewing incoherent vitriol about the evils of the capitalist system and how it must be destroyed. For those Midwesterners living in Madison, something similar to the Christian fundamentalists near State Street comes to mind.
They would be right, but only halfway so.
Sherry Wolf, editor of the International Socialist Review and author of the soon-to-be released "Gay Liberation and Socialism," conformed to the stereotype while at the same time countering it in her speech to a roomful of 40 or more students Sept. 12. At the meeting she was hard-hitting, letting loose with a steady barrage of statistics. Its power was only slightly diminished by my nagging doubts about the accuracy. I was sincerely shocked to learn that the top three wealthiest people in the world own more in assets than the world's 600 million poorest people.
Her intellect was at its height as she made a passionate and well-articulated case for the broad set of ideals that American socialism has come to embrace since its heyday under Eugene V. Debs in the early 20th century. At the top of Ms. Wolf's list was the classic socialist rallying issue of inequality, followed by racism and injustice within government.
And the inequities minorities have to face. And don't forget Hugo Chavez, bless his soul. And of course — how could I forget — the war in Iraq, that monstrous, evil, devastating — blah, blah, blah — horrible catastrophe was also addressed with a generous, albeit overused, heap of scorn. The justified complaints never ceased. And perhaps that was Ms. Wolf's — and to a larger extent, the Socialist Party's — greatest failing. For all its advocacy of revolution, the Socialists and their fellow fringe groups have been relegated to little more than bratty, whiny younger sisters of the Democratic Party, talking and writing a considerable amount but lacking real action.
More bluntly, they've lost their teeth. A number of glaring problems in our society were complained about with such ferocity that I almost thought we would stand up and rush outside for refreshments 10 minutes early in our fervor to start the revolution, but to no avail. And to make it all worse, one student even had the gall to say that maybe the reason people in American society are not upset anymore is because they think their lives are actually going well! You should have heard the barrage of intellectual truism unleashed upon her!
Sarcasm aside, however, the group's flag — a black fist on a background of red with the letters ISO at the bottom — was admittedly intimidating. But the wordy, almost pleasant Q-and-A session that followed Ms. Wolf's speech would have had Karl Marx rolling in his grave.
There just wasn't enough anger, enough desire for change in this group of brilliant but unlikely revolutionaries to inspire any more excitement than what Madisonians see every day in the form of one of the religious fanatics who sit near the Humanities building and threaten students with damnation. Besides Ms. Wolf, for whom I find myself having a grudging respect, it would be a great shock to see any of the young idealists present in that room arguing with a crowd many times their number, like those zealots near the end of State Street who entertain us so much.
Watch them, the UW socialists. You may not like what they're complaining about, but at least they're not sitting in a room, surrounded by those who agree with them. At least they make their grievances a little bit more difficult to ignore.
Sam Clegg ([email protected]) is a freshman majoring in creative writing.
