SPMI State Chair and State Rep. candidate Matt Erard was a live in-studio guest on WJR’s Frank Beckmann morning show on Monday October 20th.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OCTOBER 21st 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. As an apparent ‘warning’ to follower’s of his program, Beckmann’s official website presently lists the false quote attributed to former Socialist Party leader Norman Thomas, regarding the supposedly insidious implementation of socialism through the guise of ‘liberalism.’ That this quote attributed to Thomas was in fact made up by Ronald Reagan is in no way exceptionally ironic within the present wave of obscenely demogogical efforts to distort the meaning of the term ‘socialism’ to the point of its inversion. Such continuous attention to socialism in the wake of the bailout, coupled with consistent distortions of the meaning behind the term stem directly, Erard contends, from the threat socialism now poses to the U.S. corporate establishment as present conditions increasingly demonstrate its realization as the only sensible or sustainable solution for the working majority.
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 assaults on jobs, wages, public revenues, and living standards, and channeling them 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, and rather 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. Similar appeals are made to the most backward, oblivious, hierarchically-minded sections of the working class, now personified by the constructed identity of 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 recent appearance on the Beckmann program can be heard online at: http://wjr.com/Article.asp?id=943394&spid=6525