Soci@l*sm is a bad word
This most recent election cycle has polarized the American people. In 2017 you can turn the on news and be inundated with false information and scandals which are unprecedented in the information age. Our domestic relationship with Russia concerns a large percentage of the us, while the rest of the country is worried about Mexico importing “bad hombres.” In 1956 America was forming the ideals of nuclear families, the Cold War was underway, and tensions were high. America by Allen Ginsberg criticizes this America, the America he lived in. He criticized the lack of enthusiasm for socialism, how minority groups were being treated, and how evident it was that corporate America was running the show. Ginsberg’s analysis is eerily relevant to today. Many political commentators claim that the main divide for voters were the ideals being presented by either party. The stark contrast between party platforms and within that conservative or liberal. The primaries saw the divide between socialism and a conservative liberal, and later the country was given a choice between reason and a reality TV star. Ginsberg wrote about these same divides,“America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies, America I used to be a communist when I was a kid I’m not sorry.”(Page 40 Howl) The issues our political system faces are not new, they’re just a different iteration of the same thing.
In a lot of ways the Bernie movement seen during the 2016 election was a counter culture reminiscent of the beat generation. The young adults, and some older flower children, embraced the ideals of socialism and thought they would be beneficial for the American people. This main-stream appreciation for socialism was lost with Ginsberg’s generation. With the Cold War ongoing being labeled a Communist, or even a Socialist was a bad thing, and yet Ginsberg and American voters in 2016 refused to apologize. Sadly this counter movement did not end as many of my generation would have hoped, we are still in the “basement of the Berkeley public library,”(Page 41 Howl) hoping for a chance to start the movement again. The counter spaces still exists for us as they did for Ginsberg and now we get to be more vocal, Socialist is becoming less of a bad word and we no longer have to apologize.
If you read the news, as Ginsberg refused to do, you will see countless articles discussing America’s change in policy with two major countries, Russia and Mexico. Many believe that President Trump has unethical affiliations with Russia, and his harsh policies with Mexico are to appease his voter population base. Either way America is at a crossroads. We have the highest tensions we’ve had domestically in generations and now we are forced to deal with hacking and manipulation from one of our “allies,” or should I say Trump’s main financial supporters.
In 1956 the Cold War had America at odds with Russia. Nuclear attacks loomed on the horizon, and it forced socialists like Ginsberg and other beats underground. With a need to to express their opinions they turned to art and other unconventional ways to convey their fear and disgust of the new “nuclear” system. On page 43 of Howl there is a dialogue between Her, Russia, and He, America. Ginsberg comments on how America thinks Russia is trying to steal the automotive business from the Midwest, and how Russia thinks America exploits and abuses the minority workforce in those areas. The average white man would be affected by the movement of the automotive plants to “Siberia,”but he would be able to find another job. Realistically it would leave the average black man in Detroit with no prospects other than to live in poverty creating generations of underprivileged communities of people.
Now the average worker in one of these industrial jobs would be a lower class white man, an American subgroup with much more political pull than the African Americans of Ginsberg’s era. In 2017 if you replace Russia with Mexico you have the slogan for many of Trump’s rallies, “The Mexicans are stealing our jobs.” Instead of nuclear attack, hopefully, taxpayers are burdened with the construction of a fourteen billion dollar wall. Instead of having Socialist being a bad word we are forced to endure the perpetuation of stereotypes for entire ethnic groups and terrible behavior of a president who made fun of a mentally disabled reporter.
When America was written the beats had very little means of resisting the status quo besides their art or altercations with the police. Today our generation can mobilize and fact check, we can protest and film. There is no excuse to allow corporate America and corrupt politicians thrive. We must resist like Ginsberg and his cohorts did, but we have to do it on a larger scale. We have to go steps further than Ginsberg and his fellow artists. We have to leave the libraries and safe havens of Caffe Trieste and force everyone to listen to our cause. We can no longer retreat to our safe spaces, because by hiding we admit defeat, something this resistance cannot afford.
There is very little all Americans can agree on currently. Reaching across the aisle is rarely done leaving the American population stuck with bad policies and the short end of every stick. The slogan for many political movements now is “resist,” resist fascism, resist hate, resist making America a joke. Now in the information age the only way to resist is through the truth. Trump has tried time and time again to discredit news sources and promote false facts, but he has come up short. Members of both sides have stood up to his accusations and have discredited him. Now that America is polarized to this extent and at a crossroads we need both sides to stand up for the truth, to resist the lies and manipulations coming from the White House and to protect America. In past weeks we have seen this happening, but it needs to keep happening so counter cultural movements like the beats wont be all for not, but instead a template for how to insight change. Socialist is no longer a dirty word, but bystander should be.
