De ursprungliga New York-socialisterna

NEW YORK Här i Harlem ser man i dessa dagar ett och annat flygblad med Marx' nuna. Det är inte mer än rätt att det amerikanska Socialistpartiet får lite uppmärksamhet, nu när USA socialiserar banker och bolån. New York Times besöker partikansliet på Manhattan (kolla fotografiet):

Tucked in a musty wooden cubby in a building one block north of Houston Street, the party’s national office is a voluble and strident little place, a lecture hall of sorts, where the lectures — some might call them propaganda — have been thumbtacked to the walls.

“Feed the Poor!” they say. Or “Eat the Rich!” Or “Don’t Trust Corporate Media!” Like an older cousin from your childhood, the room itself is forever giving advice.

Much of that advice these days concerns the bailout, which the party has opposed in a series of elaborate communiqués that advocate a federal tax on millionaires and the eventual abolition of all financial markets. It’s a far cry from the government’s plan to introduce a whiff of Soviet-style command into the capitalist economy — a juxtaposition that the Socialists find absurd.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Zelig Stern, a taxi driver and the secretary of the party’s New York chapter. “Corporate socialism can’t exist — it’s a contradiction in terms.”

/Gunilla