One step beyond: Lincoln as
Father of US communism?
Just when you'd thought you had heard every wild charge from the American Right, check this out.
Abraham Lincoln is the father of American communism and Chicago is its home of American communism.
According to Al Benson, Jr. at GunnyG http://gunnyg.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/chicago-communist-paradise-of-the-midwest-by-al-benson-jr/ .,, it all traces back to Abraham Lincoln and the dangerous European-born democrats driving him to oppose division of the nation and, eventually, to enact the emancipation of slaves.
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Chicago–Communist Paradise of the Midwest
Posted Today at 4:20 PM
By Al Benson Jr. It seems that the “Windy City” has had a love affair with communism that goes back a long time. Originally, you can trace it back to 1860 when the Republican Party convention was held there–the convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln to run for president on the Republican ticket that year. There were several “Forty-Fighter” socialists, refugees from the 1848 socialist revolts in Europe, there that year for the convention and some of these socialists, such as Carl Schurz, actually helped to write the Republican Party platform in 1860. In our book Red Republicans and Lincoln’s Marxists Walter Kennedy and I have noted this. On page 61 we stated: “In chapter one we noted the close ties between radical European socialists/communists and Lincoln. In that chapter we pointed out that we are not suggesting that Lincoln was a communist, only that for some reason, these early American socialists/communists found the new Republican Party and Abraham Lincoln very attractive.” So Lincoln was nominated, ran, and won, with the help of these Forty-Fighter socialists/communists–and it started in Chicago. How fitting. You can check out information about Red Republicans and Lincoln’s Marxists on http://olesouthbooks.com
For these folks on the Extreme Right, Chicago's notoriety is not based on anything you might think of. No, not the Haymarket Riot in 1886, not as the home of the IWW, the setting for activism by the unemployed and industrial unionists in the 1930's, the home office of SDS in the 1960's, the site of the Chicago police riot at the Democratic Convention., the the battle ground for the 1969 Days of Rage waged by the Weather Underground, or the election of that subversive African-American Myor Haorld Washington.
It all goes back to Abraham Lincoln and his nefarious supporters who sought to free the slaves.
I'm teaching in Labor Studies at Penn State and the University of Illinois in on-line classes. I've been continuing with my work as freelance writer, with my immediate aim to complete a book on corporate media coverage of globalization (tentatively titled The Giant Sucking Sound: How Corporate Media Swallowed the Myth of Free Trade.) I write frequently for Z, The Progressive Magazine's on-line site, The Progressive Populist, Madison's Isthmus alternative weekly, and a variety of publications including Yes!, The Progressive, Foreign Policy in Focus, and several websites.Ā I've been writing a blog on labor issues for workinginthesetimes.com, turning out over 300 pieces in the past four years.My work specializes in corporate globalization, labor, and healthcare reform... I've been a progressive activist since the age of about 17, when I became deeply affected by the anti-war and civil rights movements. I entered college at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee just days after watching the Chicago police brutalize anti-war demonstrators at the Democratic Convention of 1968. I was active in a variety of "student power" and anti-war activities, highlighted by the May, 1970 strike after the Nixon's invastion of Cambodia and the massacres at Kent State and Jackson State. My senior year was capped by Nixon's bombing of Haiphong Harbor and the occupation of a university building, all in the same week I needed to finish 5-6 term papers to graduate, which I managed somehow. My wife Carolyn Winter, whom I met in the Wisconsin Alliance, and I have been together since 1975, getting officially married 10/11/81. Carolyn, a native New Yorker, has also been active for social justice since her youth (she attended the famous 1963 Civil Rights march where Dr. King gave his "I have a dream speech"). We have two grown children, Lane (with wife Elaine and 11-year-old grandson Zachary, who introduced poker to his classmates during recess)Ā living in Chicago and Rachel (who with her husband Michael have the amazing Talia Ruth,5, who can define "surreptitious" for you) living in Asbury Park, NJ. My sister Francie lives down the block from me. I'm a native of the once-heavily unionized industrial city of Racine, Wis. (which right-wingers sneeringly labeled "Little Moscow" during the upheavals of the 1930's), and both my grandfathers were industrial workers and Socialists. On my father's side, my grandfather was fired three times for Socialist or union activity. His family lost their home at one point during the Depression. My mom's father was a long-time member of UAW Local 72 at American Motors, where he worked for more than 30 years. Coming from impoverished families, my parents met throughĀ a very low-cost form of recreation: Racine's Hiking Club.
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