America's Forgotten Socialist History

America's Forgotten Socialist History – Second Thought

From our very earliest education Americans are told that the US has never been and will never be a socialist country. While it's true that the US has never been governed by a socialist party, it's impossible to look at US history and say we've never had strong socialist movements and notable socialist figures. Let's take a look!

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Citations and Further Reading:

Socialist Orgs To Consider

Indigenous Socialism in America

Utopian socialism in America

Militant labor in American history (and its repression)

Eugene Debs

Socialist/labor mobilization and progress

The red scares

Hammer and Hoe

MLK quotes

More sources

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[john.m.shukites]

I recall one time arguing with my Dad (a Trump voter) who told me, "Your politics reminds me of your grandpa. That's scary." I found out in that conversation that my Dad's Dad (born 1908) was a socialist and was active in starting the Progressive Miners of America, a left wing labor union that split from the UMWA. It made me proud to be the descendant of a man who, as I have been told, put his life on the line to make sure his fellow workers had more bargaining power.

[Deathsight]

That “children aren’t in the mines” thing won’t hold true for long with how things are going in some states.

[Trein]

It's actually mind-boggling how twisted the American education system is

[Maleboligia]

My brother spent years 15-20 years ago researching the history of the labor movement and it led him to learn about Socialism among many other things and introduced me to it as well. He has passed but I know he would have loved to see this video, I certainly enjoyed it. Thank you very much.

[jimschachtschneider]

Conservatives are horrified and shocked that so many young people are attracted to socialist ideals. Could this be because conservatives dismiss any opposition to unregulated capitalism as socialism?

[crckpdgeon]

My grandmother used to tell me stories of going to visit her own maternal grandparents. They were immigrants and children of immigrants from Germany, living in a community of Germans and Irishmen in Kansas. She'd tell me about how every single year the entire community would get together to harvest each other's fields one at a time. Anyone who wasn't working in the fields was helping to make food and do the other work not directly related to harvesting. Everyone did what they were best able to do without regard of who's grain all of the work was going to. Everyone got as much harvest as was possible in the quickest time possible while distributing the labor evenly across the whole community so everyone got equal responsibility and benefit. Not everyone even spoke the same language, but everyone understood grinding that sweet grain.

[erikkennedy]

One thing you quickly find when you start discussing Socialism is that Capitalists cannot tolerate even the idea that another system might exist, much less be successful, and all talk of it is to be mocked and quelled. It's no wonder Socialist History has been expunged from our textbooks- the very hope for change represents a grave danger to the ruling class.

[MrJethroha]

It's a shame that most people, even socialists, are unaware of the history of socialism prior to the Russian Revolution, and if they know anything its limited to Marx and Engels. They were far from the first or only socialists and every single country has a socialist history to be told.

[benovard]

While doing some reading, I recently learned that my small conservative hometown in Idaho was established by a dairy cooperative. It literally exists because of socialism. Not that I'd expect any of the conservatives there to know that.

[nicolephillips]

It still amazes me how little I was taught about who the Black Panthers were growing up in the 90s. I was told they were bad extremists who only did terrible things. Learning all the good they did was something I researched on my own.

[Caero_]

The fact that there are centuries of history worth of socialism is all just massive proof of how massive the baked in contradictions of capitalism really are.

[OscarSotoJr]

Sorry, I haven’t even watched the video, but the minute I saw “forgotten history”, and I was like, “Forgotten? Or erased?”

[knolsey]

"Years ago, I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth... While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free..." - Eugene V. Debs, on the events of Haymarket Square.

[lazerblade]

Graduating school three years ago and watching these videos since then, just shows me how controlled and veiled the history I was thought was. They really drill the idea into your head that capitalism is the default, so much so that they make you believe that supporting the status quo is somehow a lack of a political position, when in reality it's the support of neo-liberal ideals, of course I never learned those kind of terms there, because they always say them in a way that makes them seem like they're not political beliefs, like we rarely even the mention the word capitalism, or how we often call capitalists 'entrepreneurs' . Everytime socialist history was thought, it was vague enough to uphold American exceptionalism, for example, a lot of us were probably thought about the October Revolution, but because it was the main thing behind the Red Scarce, we talked very little about the actual ideals behind it, being thought that things like that would never happen here, because we already live in the best democracy. Never learned about May Day, and the countless fights that let to the conditions we take for granted now, like 40 hr weeks, only vague ideas like Stalin and Mao were the big bad, but the USA is not. Glad the newer generations are acquiring class consciousness dispite these lies, and taking finding the thruth into their own hands, like by finding amazing comrade creators like you JT.

[michaelgj]

This could be a whole series. Really great to hear more about Shays rebellion, Thomas Paine, the communist generals that fight in the Civil War, the letter marks wrote to Abraham Lincoln and the battle of Blair Mountain.

[purplehaze]

People describing progressive ideals as "non-American" so they don't have to critically think about them in order to attempt refuting them is funny to me considering the entirety of modern America is non-American.

[emiebex]

1:18 What's depressing is Conservatives say words like Communist, Socialist, Marxist, Woke & a Majority of them don't have a clue what any of these words mean. They just clap like trained seals. 🦭

[claptree]

"Socialists going out there. shutting down the economy and burning stuff until things got better" WORD! Unionize! Socialize!

[carlwinters]

Amen. I don't know the name of Second Thought's narrator, but he is a warrior for our time. Especially since millennials and Gen Z are so financially disadvantaged compared to previous generations. Keep up the good work!!

[AmeRicaNBorat]

You can destroy a movement, but you can't destroy an idea