Taupe Hat Systems

One of the fear-points bandied around by the extremists on the right, and to some extent bought into by more moderate folks, is the notion that if an Obama administration is combined with a "liberal" Congress and a "liberal" Supreme Court, then this country is doomed to fall into the pit of hardship and evil that is "socialism."

Huh. No, really, huh?

Unlike most of the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy, I've actually spent some time in a country they'd describe as socialist. It was called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, in fact, so it wasn't like it was kept on the down-low what was going on there.

It was an awful place. Over the years, I've described it as "an industrialized third-world country." Any kind of technology that was in the least bit modern was imported, especially in the realm of consumer goods - the best and brightest of that country had either flown off for a better life elsewhere, or were immured within one of the "new cities" near the Ural Mountains - where they managed to create some truly amazing fighter jets, for example. One of the images that sticks in my mind after all these years was that of a supposedly-fancy hotel in Kiev, with the fire-escape literally hanging off the side of the building because the bolts hadn't been anchored to anything more substantial than decorative fascia. The afternoon before, as we were departing Moscow via train, we drove past an immeasurable number of flatbed cars loaded with T-72 battle tanks all dry-humping one another so more could fit on the rail cars. It's possible that our Soviet minders put on this display deliberately (nothing like impressing 300 teenagers to help fix foreign policy from afar), but there was no doubt of the lethality and power that those machines represented.

Yes, the government was completely incompetent. I really can not begin to describe here the number of ways the controlling system of governance managed to screw things up. Suffice to say, people were extremely poor, and damn scared of their minders. There is and was a good reason that the top Soviet export product was really good vodka - the place was awash in it, and not especially out of happiness.

Having said the above, what was truly evil, awful, and insidious about the Soviet State wasn't their economic policy, but instead their iron grip over the social lives of the people who lived in that nation. Want to travel out of town? "Motherland Security Wishes You To Show Papers." Want to get married? If the People's Local Committee approves. Do you wish to travel outside the country? For why you want to leave this glorious world-leading nation? Want to know what is happening around the world? The big newspaper "Truth" (Pravda) will give you fair, balanced account of world events.

Seriously, there are far more comparisons that can be made between the worst excess of the Soviets and what the far-right types in this country want to create. The biggest difference is the names assigned to the parlor-tricks used. In the USSR, it was Party this, Party that, committee and apparatchiks. In the Republican Party, it is Christianity this, Christianity that, and deacons and pastors. But the goal is the same: total social and economic control over the masses. And given our recent history, the economic and sociopolitical outcome would be the same.

Fortunately, I think people in this country are too damn stubborn, too damn strong-willed, and too independent-minded to fall for that kind of rubbish. Fortunately, we got smart before the monsters fully pulled the wool over our eyes, but we need to stay smart, stubborn, and independent-minded, and waste no time in throwing the demagogues over the rail and dumping stale tea on them as they fall into the murky waters below.

I will say this: if I thought for a fraction of a second that a candidate for office would want to create the conditions I list above, I'd be first in line volunteering for his or her opposition. Think about it.