I had a discussion yesterday with a local shop owner. We were talking about elderly parents and people she and I knew who were very ill and she said she believed that when there was no hope and you were suffering terribly, that you should have the right to take your own life in a dignified way. She didn't believe the state should stop you. She also expressed that she didn't believe abortion should be a political issue and the state should never force a woman to have a baby. She then went on to say she wasn't a religious person, but she knew many religious people and she respected their views on such things, and believed everyone should be free to follow their own beliefs as long as they don't try to impose them on others.
I wasn't sure what to make of her political views as in the past I was sure she said she was a Republican, and this didn't sound too Republican to me. Soon we were talking about politics and I mentioned that I had been enthusiastically for Obama. She scrunched up her face and said "Well, I'm a conservative and I could never vote for Obama because I know he's a socialist. Don't get me wrong, I didn't like McCain - he was the worst candidate - but Obama is a socialist so I couldn't vote for him. However, I do wish him well and hope he proves me wrong."
I asked her how she "knew" he was a socialist. She mentioned some interview on public radio from ten years ago when, according to her, he said he had read Karl Marx and been influenced by him. I asked if she could point me to the interview so I could hear it myself and she backed off - didn't know how to refer me to it. But she was certain of her view of him. I then replied that I doubted if Bush had read Karl Marx, but he had certainly become a socialist lately with the nationalization of the banks. It was then that she said everyone in Congress was to blame and brought up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are the Republican talking points, so I decided it was time to go.
I thought about this all the way home.
Did this interview really take place or was it some Republican piece of propaganda from someone like Rush Limbaugh or Hugh Hewitt or Sean Hannity?
If the interview did take place, were Obama's words fairly represented? And why did we not hear more about this during the campaign? The Republicans control talk radio and FOX News. Couldn't they have broadcast this more effectively? Or was it one of those internet rumors?
If someone reads Karl Marx and is "influenced" by them does that make him a socialist? What does it mean to be influenced by someone? I, for instance, have been influenced by many writers but I don't agree with all of them. Sometimes they influence me to think of things a different way, or to question something I once believed in, or even to reject what they are writing.
My guess is that Obama has read a lot of great and influential writers and, in fact, if you are going to go into politics, people like Karl Marx would have to be on your reading list along with conservative writers, liberal writers, the founding fathers, and great philosophers through the ages. Politics is really the application of ideas to governing and reading Marx along with many others should not be an indictment of your governing philosophy.
And finally, I wondered what it is about the word "socialist" that so frightens Republicans. We have elements of socialism in our government, some of those elements like Social Security and Medicare being among the most popular programs in government. The reality is that we have a combined economic system, capitalism combined with some socialism, with socialism currently rescuing capitalism, which today would fail without the government's assistance.
When I came home I tried to find evidence of Obama's speech online and all I could find were websites where Obama was accused of knowing "socialists" or of having teachers who were "socialists."
I think a lot of people confuse the writer Marx with the political leaders Lenin and Stalin of the Soviet Union, where there was a perversion of Marx's ideas. But, if this woman is correct about Obama reading Marx, I am unlike him in that I do not know enough about Marx's actual ideas to argue effectively about them. So I've decided to read Marx, not because I want to be a socialist or a communist, but because I think to be informed citizens we ought to know what such a powerful and influential writer has said.
I suspect some of his ideas are similar to those of Jesus Christ, who I always thought spoke as something of a communist (communal living, sharing of goods, etc.) but I could be wrong. The point is I don't really know, and I suspect those who accuse Obama of being a socialist don't know either. I'm sure Limbaugh, Hewitt and Hannity haven't read Marx, as I don't consider them intellectuals by any means. I do consider Obama an intellectual, so it doesn't surprise me that he has read Marx and probably thousands more books that his critics haven't read.
I'll keep you posted on what I discover in my reading.
