Mar 5, 2013 2 min read

Fashionistas and Who fans should know that Pete Townshend has come out of the closet on page 502 of his 2012 memoir “Who I Am” as a socialist. Fear and ignorance of socialism is the fundamental problem in the U.S., a fact that a Washington & Jefferson College professor once acknowledged, but had no idea how to correct.

Knowledge of socialism and the courage of leaders like the elderly rock star Townshend to espouse it are essential. Otherwise, the overwhelming capitalist propaganda misrepresenting and demonizing socialism will continue to erode American democracy, human rights, peace and security.

Public service through government, socialism, traces its modern development to the American Revolution and, Karl Marx dwells on the connection, Napoleon, the first historical figure to identify himself as a socialist. Marx famously criticized the abuses of Napoleon, capitalism, religion, and the bourgeoisie. His perspective continues to inform literature, art, politics, social science, education, and history.

Henry Kissinger, the secretary of state in the presidencies of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, was the single most effective shaper of modern international capitalism and American foreign policy owing to his profound understanding of Marx and fearlessness regarding socialism, which he thought inevitable and his historic mission to delay it. Today’s China, Russia, Israel, and the United States bear witness to his success, while Europe, Vietnam, Cuba, and Latin America have advanced socialism.

Many, if not most, 21st century Americans are retrogressing, contemptuous of 19th century scholars like Charles Darwin and Marx, early 20th century socialists such as Eugene Debs, Norman Thomas, John Dewey, and Albert Einstein, and the lessons of the last 50 years. It amounts to mental illness of epidemic proportions frequently erupting in irrational violence, momentarily identified and even more quickly swept under the rug to preserve fear and ignorance of socialism.

Jim Greenwood

Washington