As monosyllabic on the platform as in the press. Flat as a riddle whose answer is known in advance. Whether it was a question of the right of petition or the tax on wine, freedom of the press or free trade, the clubs or the municipal charter, protection of personal liberty or regulation of the state budget, the watchword constantly recurs, the theme remains always the same, the verdict is ever ready and invariably reads: “Socialism!” Even bourgeois liberalism is declared socialistic, bourgeois enlightenment socialistic, bourgeois financial reform socialistic. It was socialistic to build a railway where a canal already existed, and it was socialistic to defend oneself with a cane when one was attacked with a rapier.
Quite apart from any question as to the intelligence or acumen of Glenn Beck (or any other current or former right-winger for whom any action on the part of American liberalism is indistinguishable from socialism), isn't it remarkable that Marx understood how liberalism would, in the end, eat itself to defend its very survival? Everything gets tossed over the side in defense of the interest of capital. We saw that during the Bush Administration as "the war on terror" became the excuse for sweeping the Constitution under the rug. Now, out of power, the right has no recourse but to screech from the rooftops that the other capitalist party is, in fact, socialist.
