Socialists say their true beliefs are being misconstrued

NORFOLK

Jerry Denzer of Norfolk likes to smoke a pipe and chat with friends of all beliefs about politics.

He shops only at locally owned hardware stores and restaurants, and hopes to someday hire employees for his lawn care business.

Denzer is a socialist.

And in some circles of modern political culture right now, that's not a good thing.

Denzer and other socialists have noticed the increasing use of the word "socialism" by conservatives to describe Democrats, and say it's off-base.

"Socialism places the control over the means of production with all," Denzer said in an interview at a restaurant in Norfolk's Northside neighborhood.

"At the end of the day, a classless, unified

society is what I would love to see - where everybody cares for everybody else. Isn't that the quote-unquote Christian thing to do?"

Now those are the words of a socialist.

Denzer was in the Navy for 12-1/2 years before retiring with a physical disability. He gets his health care from Veterans Affairs hospitals - socialism, he said. Police, firefighters and roads are products of socialism, too, Denzer believes.

It is difficult to say how many people in the United States are socialists. Brian Moore, a socialist candidate for president in 2008, received 6,528 votes nationally. (By comparison, independent candidate Ralph Nader received 738,475 votes.)

Voters in Virginia do not designate a party affiliation when registering to vote. The State Board of Elections says no socialist candidates are running for office this year.

The Socialist Party of the United States of America has one chapter in Virginia. The Central Virginia chapter stretches from Harrisonburg to Virginia Beach, said Brandon Collins, a musician and bartender in Charlottesville who is the group's secretary. It has 17 members.

Collins said he is trying to help get a chapter formed in the northern and southwestern parts of the state.

It's a small group that now has a big task: explaining what socialism is, and isn't.

Nearly every day, Collins hears people use the word "socialism" to describe Democrats, the president or ideas put forth by liberals.

"There's a lot of disinformation out there about it," he said.

Socialism is not, for instance, the government bailout of the banking and auto industries, Collins said.

"What the right wing is calling socialism - it's government control of corporations, which is not what real socialists believe in. We believe in worker control," he said.

The bailout, he said, "was really socialism for the rich, it was socialism for corporations - basically corporate welfare times a thousand."

President Barack Obama is not a socialist, Collins said, though many protesters at this month's anti-tax rally in Washington claimed he is.

"Absolutely not. Well, he's not even a liberal," Collins said.

He added, "If he was a socialist, he'd be all about single-

payer Medicare for all. He wouldn't be so interested in protecting the free market when it comes to these bailouts and Wall Street."

Quentin Kidd, a political science professor at Christopher Newport University, said the explosion of the word "socialism" started in 2008 when the government began bailing out banks. "That's when I really started hearing people say, 'This is socialism' or 'These are socialistic policies.' "

At it's root, use of the term symbolizes a fear of government, he said. A similar backlash occurred during the Great Depression and during Great Society programs of the 1960s.

The fear goes back to debates between Jefferson, Hamilton and Madison about the role of centralized government, Kidd said.

"The term socialism has always had kind of a dark hue to it, anyway," he said. "But this takes the demagoguery to a new level, and it links the demagoguery to Obama."

While some conservatives today don't hesitate to liberally use the word socialist to describe Obama and Democratic policies, GOP party leaders would need make the term their mantra to make it an effective attack, which right now they're not willing to do, Kidd said.

"I think most of mainstream America looks at these demonstrators... and they read their signs and they go, 'That's just a little bit too radical for me,'" he said.

"The only way the socialism critique is going to work, if it's going to be a long-standing critique, is if leaders in the party pick it up."

As the economy recovers, use of the word socialism will become less powerful as a critique, he said.

Gary Shaw, a graduate student at Old Dominion University who said he realized he was a socialist in the 1980s, said Franklin Delano Roosevelt was labeled a socialist by some, just as Obama is now. "I see erroneous users of the term as either ignorant or savvy," he said in an e-mail interview. "Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas, early 20th century candidates for president, were socialists. Study the difference."

Patrick Wilson, (757) 446-2957, patrick.wilson@pilotonline.com