Why Does Everything Good Have to be Communist?

By John Gilmore

At 17th and Market Occupy Philly met to have a pep rally to
celebrate May Day as a day to support workers. 
Movements all over the world are “reclaiming May Day and taking it
back to its origins.”

Occupy Philly us calling for a general strike for the day,
specifically targeting Philadelphia banks saying that their bad investments for
the city, along with slick contracts, drove the Philadelphia public education
system into bankruptcy.  During their
“mic check,” for which the Occupy Movement is so well known where one
person speaks and the crowd repeats the statement back, they spoke of the rise
in student debt, the privatization of prisons and the creation on an industrial
prison complex, and perpetual wars that have driven almost fifty percent of the
United States into out close to poverty.

Despite some clown dressed in a military uniform and posing
for the camera with a red book and what was supposed to be a communist flag,
they made quite a bit of sense.  The nut
with the flag, obviously a plant or idiot, probably wasn’t a real
communist.  They are not stupid enough to
wear such peraphernalia and turn people off.

I, myself, was insulted that this person would refer to the
good old US democracy this nation was founded on, and the responsible spending
the conservative party used to be founded on, as communism.  The lack of coverage and the refusal to
discuss these issues of which many US citizens are aware, that is Soviet and
Chinese style communism.