By Lewis Diuguid, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist
The "socialist" label that Sen. John McCain and his GOP presidential running mate Sarah Palin are trying to attach to Sen. Barack Obama actually has long and very ugly historical roots.
J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI from 1924 to 1972, used the term liberally to describe African Americans who spent their lives fighting for equality.
Those freedom fighters included the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who led the Civil Rights Movement; W.E.B. Du Bois, who in 1909 helped found the NAACP which is still the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization; Paul Robeson, a famous singer, actor and political activist who in the 1930s became involved in national and international movements for better labor relations, peace and racial justice; and A. Philip Randolph, who founded and was the longtime head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and a leading advocate for civil rights for African Americans.
McCain and Palin have simply reached back in history to use an old code word for black. It set whites apart from those deemed unAmerican and those who could not be trusted during the communism scare.
Shame on McCain and Palin.









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Socialism Is also CODE for Communism
Thank you, LD, for your courageous viewpoint. It can't be easy standing up for people of color when the majority refuses to "get it" or educate themselves to the issues of anyone but caucasians.
Socialism exists with us every day: Firemen, police officers, schools, city councils, judges, roads, sewers....hey, anything publically funded is socialistic. IE: For the good of society.
But, Republics are trying to turn this idea of the common good into an ugly word and an ugly concept, like McCarthyism....
Doing anything socialistic is now communism? Yes, Socialism is the NEW COMMUNISM. I'm sick to death of Republic twist and spin on unifying ideas that are healthy for all of us, scare tactics, name calling, baiting, unbridled selfishness and labeling good tax payers "unpatriotic." My god, I am happy and privileged to pay my taxeds to this great nation. It means I have a job and I'm being rewarded for my work with money. AND, I'm contributing toward the common good of others. That gives my life meaning. I am proud and delighted to be a part of something greater than myself. You should think about that you greedy __________s.
Socialist Cats
are bad luck when they cross your path.
Lewis Diuguid Wins "Unglued Idiot" Award
Thanks to Drudge linking to his article, Lewis Diuguid has been a laughingstock for the past couple of days as a result of his inane attempt to link John McCain and Sarah Palin to racism by accusing them of using "socialist" as a code word for "Black." As comment after comment demonstrated, any association between Black and socialist appears to exist only the race-baiting mind of Lewis Diuguid.
For demonstrating that having editors does not necessarily prevent stupidity from being paraded on a major city's newspaper editorial page, I have awarded the prestigious "Unglued Idiot of the Day" Award to Lewis Diuguid. From what I've seen of his articles, he would be a contender for the "Unglued Idiot of the Year" Award too, except that unless Drudge links another of his articles, no one will know how stupid and ignorant he is.
I imagine his bosses are urging him now to write another dumb article, because all the hits from the Drudge audience look good for their web site statistics. I have faith that Diuguid has demonstrated a degree of stupidity that will produce what the Kansas City Star wants and needs.
Please go to my post below to learn more about my fun-filled past two days, thanks to Diuguid's ignorance and his editors' incompetence.
http://strongasanoxandnearlyassmart.blogspot.com/2008/10/socialist-is-code-word-for-blacks.html
Major Mike
Peskime....
Good foretelling of a messiah presidency...
Atrocities will be in the middle east as he abondons them and dishonors America....
the messiah, closet racist, pacifist, socialist(the real meaning, not crazy Lewis' meaning), not fit to lead
coolluke; Voltaire said it best
Those who make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
The right's hysteria is downright hilarious
25 million, my arse.
I take it you'll be moving after November 4.
LMAO
25 million...
I made a typo. The Ayers Socialist Weather Underground had a serious plan to mass murder 25 million US citizens in their agenda to force socialism on the United States of America.
That's a serious radical. I wouldn't call the framers of socialist genocide in the US "respectable"... no matter what desk they hide behind.
Ayers didn't want to just stand on our American flag in a picture... his group wanted to stand on the graves of 25 million Americans as they destroyed the freedom for which that flag stands.
That's Ayers... and let's not play word games.
Let's deal with the man behind the mask... no matter what color the skin of the mask is.
Ayers is a socialist... and so is Barack Obama.
Same ideology... and they are friends... and Ayers launched hte political career of Obama in more than one way:
1. Placing Obama on boards by which Obama became a "mover and shaker" in Chicago leftist politics.
2. Launching the political career of Obama from his living room
Socialists. Birds of a feather flocking together. Different colors - same man.
No... not really
Obama called himself a socialist when he joined the NP Socialist Party in the US. I call Ayers a socialist because he is a Marxist. I'm not calling him black. I'm calling him a radical. Did you know that the Weather Underground stated that they would mass murder 25 US citizens to institute socialism??
Black Liberation Theory may be Marxist socialism... but socialism is neither "black nor white".
It's an idealogical and political movement. Most of the people that Obama has associated with, white and black, are socialists and communists radicals.
Hitler was the head of the Socialist Party in Germany. He wouldn't see "socialist" as a code word for "black". "Socialist" as related to Hitler would be a code word for "Aryan".
There is no logic to your reasonings.. only an attempt to shield Obama for being "outed" as a Marxist communist socialist - because that's where he has allied himself.
I see no relationship between "black" and "socialist" just as I see no relationship between any race and a political ideology that is without color or ethnicity but is rather an ideology.
What is your ulterior motive in trying to tie the word "socialist" to "black"?? Is it socialist propaganda??
Peskime
I appreciate your concern but I am doing fine thank you, I have a job. Why don’t you dedicate your effort to help the Acorn hole employees get their GEDs. Break this code: Osama is a communist.
Mr. Duiguid: READ THIS ARTICLE
It's written by a Democratic journalist who at least is willing to ask honest questions that demand honest answers:
http://www.ldsmag.com/ideas/081017light.html