State Rep. Candidate Takes WJR's Frank Beckmann to Task on the Question 'Socialism'
Tuesday, 21 October 2008

DETROIT -- Dually-nominated Socialist/Green State Representative candidate Matt Erard (53rd District -- Ann Arbor) was invited to be a live, in-studio guest yesterday on the program of WJR-760AM's mid-morning radio personality Frank Beckmann. During his portion of the show, Erard answered attempted challenges on air from WJR callers, in addition to those from the host. Beckmann's two other guests on yesterday's program, following Erard, were Mitt Romney and 'Joe the plumber' Wurzelbacher.

The inevitably ensuing debate between the conservative talk radio host and socialist candidate, which predictably centered on the topic of socialism, demonstrated a remarkable divergence over even the most foundational premises for an objective understanding of either socialism or capitalism; both conceptually, and as they relate to modern conditions.

Erard suggests that equation of socialism with Wall Street's demand for a public bailout, as expressed nearly ubiquitously in recent weeks by conservative corporate media outlets, is largely of a similar product to their highly intensified anti-immigration rhetoric. Both, Erard contends, are aimed at diverting outrage over the corporate establishment's increasing reduction of jobs and wages, against the unified interests of working people.

"The manufactured conflation of such an obscene public robbery by the ruling class, with socialism, and with all general class-blind notions of 'spreading the wealth around,' is aimed precisely at diverting outrage from the distinct source of this devastating theft, toward demonization of the sole solution to the extreme social inequality and systemic decline that's created it. Such an effort is only imaginable within the context of the immense historical ignorance that it's made every effort to impose upon working people in the U.S. for generations," Erard said.

Erard further argued that the unceasing efforts of the Republican section of the corporate establishment to designate the presidential candidate of its other big business party as a "socialist," during this same period of financial crisis, stem from the directly related aim of entrapping all expression of such outrage within the walls of the two corporate parties. Such rhetoric, he asserts, is particularly directed at small business owners facing increasing insecurity in the prospects for growth and sustainability of their assets, as well as those within the working class, as most recently personified by Beckmann's later guest yesterday, 'Joe the Plumber', whose narrow focus on progressing to the ranks of petty capitalists displaces their recognition of their own class interests as members of the working majority.

When asked by Beckmann, at the end of his portion of the program, whether Barack Obama is a socialist, Erard questioned what such a designation would then make a past presidential candidate, whose positions on all related points of economic comparison were substantially to the left of those held by Obama today -- Richard Nixon!

The podcast of Erard's appearance on the Frank Beckmann show is online here.