On the concept of 'socialism'....

Since the right is going ON about how the new health care reform is 'socialist'... oh my gawwd....

oooo... how skeery, oooo, how terrifying....

When I returned from Austria the first time, my co-workers asked me what it had been like, and I said it had been wonderful. Whereupon they got shy, and said, 'Oh, so I guess that means you are a Communist...' They thought Austria was behind the Iron Curtain. As a matter of fact... it wasn't.

The first time I ever met a socialist was in 1972. Minding my own business, walking down the hall in our dormitory, and this red-headed kid came running down the hall at me yelling 'It's terrible! Just terrible!'

And I thought, 'whaaaaa?' So I asked him.

Turned out he was a Juso, a young socialist party member. And he said the cafeteria we were working in had no refrigerating rooms, so they were throwing out perfectly top food into the garbage every day, and we had to do something about it, and his eyes were just so angry.

So I asked, 'Well, what can we do?' And he said, 'I need someone from every floor in the building to stand up against this waste, and ---whisper whisper whisper.'

Well, it sounded sensible, and I thought he wanted someone as moral back-up, so I said, 'Ok, I'm in....' because I didn't like the thought of things going to waste....

So the next day, we gathered in the lobby and went to the MANAGEMENT offices. And then, wonder of wonders, they pushed ME to the fore to do the pitch.... back-stabbing extraordinaire... And I was so 'HUH?' at first, it freaked me. And thought, 'ok, am gonna do this and probably get fired, and have to return to the US, but it will be worth it...'

That was my split-second of, 'Do you want to be selfish, or do you want to help?'

I was fluent in German by then, but hardly eloquent.

I said, 'We have learned, that you are throwing away a great deal of food every day, because there are no refrigerating rooms here. That is a huge waste. (And then I really got into it, Dickensian rage... because if I was gonna be fired, I wanted it to be good.)

We cannot believe that there aren't homes, or poor people who would happily receive what you are throwing out, and find it unconscionable that you would do that so unthinkingly. What we want, is that it does not get thrown out, and gets to people who need it, and not throw it away.

And if you do not... we will strike on opening day... (big pause)... and report it to the 'Bild Zeitung.'

They blanched. The Bild Zeitung is sort of a cross between the New York Post and the Enquirer, only nastier.

Next day, we had dozens of cars picking up the food, and carrying it off to social service places for use.

And I didn't get fired.

So that was my first run-in with Socialism.

Pretty radical, huh?

We didn't gain anything by it, but it was the right thing to do, as far as I am concerned..... it didn't hurt anyone....

And I thought, 'Well, maybe socialism isn't so bad... that was cool...'

In the meanwhile.... everything has become bastardised, and greed rules the world.

For the past nineteen months, it seems to me that trying to get health care reform is something 'so' horrible and 'so' awful, and leaving aside the lies, and the partisan attacks....

It seems to me that it 'should' be about caring about your fellow man, and seeing that everyone has the right to the same kind of care, and not about greed, profits, or feeling you are better than everyone else because you happen to be healthy.

So-called 'Christians' go on and on, but it is the old version of... God helps those who helps themselves.' And if anyone else thinks they do not, well, they have only themselves to blame.

If I remember my catechism and Bible correctly... you are supposed to have compassion, and help your fellow man.

Maybe I slept through the lesson where the opposite was taught, and you take the last penny they have.... I don't remember that one, at any rate...

Am sorry, but I don't get the villifying part of the debate on health care reform, because all I see is greed, and the fear that someone is going to take something away from someone else, and that someone has more than they ever needed in their lives, and would walk and step on your cold corpse if you were out on the sidewalk and not think twice about it.

Greed.

It is about time that people get equal, and have good care. It would be about helping your fellow man. And if that is socialism... am for it....