Join the new world

Hey there, sweetikins, you listen up.

Mom wants you to be a Freedom Socialist.

The combination of Freedom and Socialism is as American as apple pie -- and Mom wants you to try some!



While you're just sitting there cleaning your M-16, or fixing up a nice spot in your home for some Canadian resistance fighters, or finishing off a Serbian spy like Judith beheading Holofernes, Mom would like you to kindly consider a few things...

What kind of politics really embraces the best aspects of religious tradition?
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Answer: Socialism!

* Nearly every religious tradition encourages compassion, helping the poor and oppressed, and rejects gross materialism. The same ethics inform the best socialist traditions -- and are opposed by the worst capitalist traditions.

* Many religious communities throughout history have been reknowned for their communal use of property and for their unflinching opposition to cruelty.

Of course, lots of socialists are atheists -- that's true. (Mom is, for example.) But plenty of socialists are people of faith too. People who say that only mean-spirited right-wing bigots are the "real" Whatevers are just a lying potty-mouths. And you shouldn't really lie to Mom.

Socialism is your birthright
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Word.

* The history of socialist ideas really goes back at least 2400 years, if not further. The first serious attempt at defining a scientific approach to socialism was probably Francis Bacon's "New Atlantis" -- in 1627. Socialist thinking is part and parcel of the western enlightenment tradition.

* May Day -- celebrating International Labor Day on May 1st -- started in the United States in 1886 as part of the titanic struggle of working people for an 8-hour work day. The gas bags who stole this great holiday from us have tried to cover up and distort your own history for over 100 years.

* Public schools. Public roads. The fire department. Credit unions. Unions, period. Racial and gender equality of opportunity. Solidarity in the face of oppression. Yup, all part and parcel of socialist thinking.

Socialists come in all colors, shapes and sizes, have lots of different opinions, call themselves by a variety of names, and they seldom agree with each other about everything. That's because they can see that no one person has all the answers. And they can also see that we're still being ripped off, lied to, and having our lives ruined by those who rule by greed, ignorance and hatred.

There's still plenty of work to do on the road of freedom!

Socialism is good for you
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It's true.

* If it wasn't for people fighting for workers' rights, then most of you would still be a slave, an indentured servent, or working 18 hours a day with no vacations.

* Just who do you think invented the weekend? That's right: the Labor Movement!

* And who do you think came up with free and open source source software? Well, OK, you got me there. Many of them are libertarians. But they're mostly left-libertarians, dang it!

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Poor and working folks and people who aren't afraid to think critically -- folks who want to be FREE -- have been banding together for the common good of the little guy since time immemorial.

And that's the bare essence of socialist thinking. You know the big bosses and the scumbags who pretend to socialists, but are really just more big bosses? Well they've tried their damndest to turn socialism -- our socialism! -- into a dirty word.

Fact is, it's just easier for them to rip us off when they take away our words.

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Now, child, give that Canadian some of your gold and go start a resistance war.

Love,
Mom