Historical Comment

Here's a little more historical context relevant to the little debate in the comments section about "redistribution" and the more general leveling of charges of "socialism" against the Obama campaign in the past couple of weeks:

Back in the 1930s, as the American Communist Party tried to beef up its membership, they targeted African-American communities especially for recruitment. Their thinking was that this group represented the most victimized segment of society (especially hard hit with the coming of the Great Depression) and therefore most likely to gravitate towards a radical alternative, whether out of desperation or spite. Some of this organizing was somewhat covert, conducted in low key fashion by organizing house parties, community events, jazz concerts, etc. but also coordinated with highly publicized efforts to show that the Communists were willing to fight for civil rights (perhaps most famously through their legal support for the Scottsboro Boys). Their success was minimal to say the least, though they did manage to sway a couple of high profile leaders in the black community like Paul Robeson to at least lend vocal support to their efforts. Again, this was largely a failed effort, but it did result in the right-wing deciding that if any one was in favor of civil rights for minorities, they were by definition at least fellow travelers with the communists. As late as the mid-1950s, around the time of the Brown decision desegregating schools, there were southern Congressmen who were willing to state unequivocally that anyone who supported that decision must be a red. After the Montgomery Bus Boycotts, the FBI circulated photos of Martin Luther King Jr. that they claimed were taken at a communist indoctrination camp (actually they were from his time at the Highlander School, a place where labor and progressive activists were taught the value of non-violent protest). I'm sure there are other examples that a little research would uncover.

Thankfully, the issue of race has been a relatively minor distraction in the current campaign (at least compared to what many expected following the Jeremiah Wright nonsense in the primaries), but given that history, one has to wonder if the McCain camp isn't counting on some residual memory playing out in their invocation of socialism. For a good thirty years, race and radicalism were regularly tied together by many seeking to keep the black folk in their place, and McCain is certainly old enough to remember that.