Of Socialism, Communism, and Terrorism (Ah, the -isms!)

Today was the last day of summer school, so now I have about 6 weeks until school starts up again that are pretty much work free! (I have a half-day training in Rosetta Stone in July, and a full day Leadership Retreat in August, and I will be doing some reading, decorating, and planning in the meantime, especially in early August, but quite little compared with how much I normally work. And I can have lots of days with no working at all if I want.) Not to say summer school wasn't fun. But I kind of wished it would have started an hour later so I could have slept more. Oh well.

Yesterday, after the first hour of class, I ended up talking to one of the ENL students relating to the essay he'd done on his test about foreign policy and the military. He asked in particular why the US and Venezuela have such relationship problems now. (For those of the uninformed, Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, recently called George W. the devil, and Bush, while not so colorful in his language, has been very strongly disapproving of Chavez.) I tried to explain it the best I could, because I do have what I believe is a pretty good theory, though I'm sure my explanation came across much less articulately in Spanish than it will as I try to explain it in English here:

As I see it, the main problem is that Venezuela, in contrast to the US, is very socialist. Chavez is a socialist. Most news outlets refer to Venezuela or the Chavez government at some time or another as "leftist". I don't think the problem is really a left/right one, though it seems slightly suspicious that Bush ("right wing") is anti-Chavez ("left wing") and vice versa, and in contrast, I'm more progressive (read "leftist") and am much more approving of Venezuela's policies, though I don't consider myself informed enough to really speak specifically to any of them.

Actually, I think the real issue is the leftover ethos of the Cold War. As I tried to explain to my student, adults just a bit older than me grew up in the Cold War, with fallout drills and this desperate fear of communism. Rather than being just an alternate political system, or even a bad alternate system, it was taught as a monster, a bogeyman of sorts, the demon that could destroy the world if we didn't "contain" it. While communism and socialism are not the same thing, they are deeply linked in people's minds, and this primitive childhood fear overrides a lot of adult reason. And the majority of adults today lived through the Cold War; a very significant portion of adults today were in their formative childhood years during the Cold War. I think this leads to a deep, innate, illogical distrust of all things socialist in a large percentage of the population. My student made the logical jump to how today we fear terrorists. That is the communism, the "bogeyman" for today's children.

In contrast, I grew up in the 80's, in the "detente", when the tension was beginning to cool off. We didn't have fallout drills; there wasn't the same fear of nuclear annihilation. It's true I did somehow or another still absorb some of that attitude. I don't even know who or what taught it to me, but I remember being deeply shocked learning about communism in 7th grade social studies. The basic tenet of communism is equality of all and that no one should lack basic necessities? Where's the evil part? However, I'm sure my indoctrination was much less intense, and I was able to think more logically about communism than my older counterparts. I don't particularly want our country to become communist, but I would like it to be more socialized.

In many ways I feel I am in a lucky in-between generation. Not old enough to be indoctrinated into anti-communist thought, but old enough by 2001 to not become perpetually afraid of terrorists. My formative years were relatively calm and relatively free of those sorts propaganda. Of course, it may just be my individual attitude and deliberate attempt not to be manipulated by the fear-mongering our politicians and media seem to push on us today. I was talking to a teacher at school recently who is older than me but was deeply affected in the bias kind of way by 9-11. I personally resent how politicians try to control us through fear. It doesn't make us a better people. I believe it makes us worse.

That's my sermon for now. It was an interesting thing to think about, one reason I enjoyed teaching the class this summer.