Wisdom of the stairwell

By Al Pons
Shanghaied by Beagletorial Syndicate Worldwide

(Albuquerque, NM) -- On the morning of Election Day, I had to have some tire work done. While I was waiting, the service manager commented on the upcoming events and remarked, "We are going to become a socialist country." Not having the time or inclination to engage in an exercise in futility, I did not address his concerns. But later, in the mode I am sure we have all gone through, i.e. "I wish I had said that at the time," I did muse on some reflections I might have shared with him.

I grew up in the "socialist" country he says he fears. I was three years old when the stock market crashed, and my childhood years were informed and controlled by the Depression. Whenever my parents denied me something I wanted that was costly, they said that it was because of the Depression, to which my whine was "When will the Depression be over?"

Several things remain in my memory about that "socialist" country. My father spent his last nine months in a Veterans Hospital in central Louisiana. In addition to the World War I veterans who were the primary focus of this health care unit, quite a number of young enrollees of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) were admitted for various medical needs. (For this seven-year old, those boys were welcome companions in the recreation hall for checkers, cards, and other pastimes.)

The CCC was one of the effective programs of the New Deal, providing employment for thousands of late teen and early 20-somethings for whom employment by the "free market" sector was unavailable. They carried out much of Teddy Roosevelt’s vision for public lands, parks, nature preserves, etc., and supported themselves and folks back home.

My father died when I was seven, and my widowed mother was lacking in education and employment skills, but she got a job at the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as a seamstress. From the modest wages created by this New Deal "socialist" program, she fed us both. The WPA created job opportunities for her and so many others because the free market couldn't. Many schools and facilities that are still in use today were created by this "socialist" program.

Franklin D. Roosevelt and his crew of bold thinkers used the CCC, WPA, and other initiatives to preserve our free enterprise system and avoid the radical revolutionary forces which might easily have overtaken us. This combination of assertive government and human capacity saved our economy. It helped train a workforce and build a national resolve that carried us through the dreadful challenge of resisting Fascism and the remarkable opportunities during the period of post-war growth.

Who can envy our inspired leader-elect for the task before us; yet who can doubt we are in good hands? So we go into a "socialist" mode, feared by Joe the Plumber, George the Service Manager, and George the Sociopath-in-Chief. The choices before us are whether we harness our national resources to build roads and bridges, create new energy technologies, and prepare for the challenges ahead or continue to count on the good will of the inexhaustibly greedy practitioners of Byzantine financial engineering who have caused our economy to collapse.

If evoking the better angels of our humanity and investing in people, the nation's infrastructure, and the future be socialism, then let us have it. For the sake of my grandchildren and great-grandchildren and yours, let us have it and rejoice.