Can I be a socialist and have things that work?

The evidence that I sold out

by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

It's no fun being a damn socialist in America.  I was down the pub tonight, or this afternoon and part of the early evening and was enjoying a nice pint and listening to a local musician ply his trade.

As readers might be aware, I am a retired public sector worker.  We, or most of us, tend to have better working conditions, wages and benefits when compared to our private sector comrades.  This is why we are under attack.  Individuals that earn $5 billion a year clipping coupons, selling currencies or laying off workers and the like are given hero worship status but public sector workers, or any worker,  that might have a pension that we can live on, are demonized, are blamed for destroying the American way of life along with Muslims and Arabs and foreigners of all sorts.

So someone noticed my glasses.  My wife is still working and she is also a public sector worker so I still have the benefits that this type of work gives married couples. My glasses are new, only a week old.  Apparently, some Italian guys name is on the side of the frame. His name is Giorgio Armani.

Man, did I take some crap.

"Oh, designer glasses are they"  said one friend who shall go unnamed.

"What's a socialist doing wearing Giorgio Armani glasses" says another derisively.

"I'll bet you never put that on your blog do you?" says a third.

"I dare you, go on, put that on your commie blog."  another guy who I thought was a friend told me.

Well, here it is.  Now I know they were all teasing me, and I did make the point that this Italian never

There's no way this guy made anything

made my glasses some Cambodian or Vietnamese worker probably did, someone who can't even afford to buy the glasses she's making. The Italian just signed his name on the frames and took all the money.

Now these may be good glasses and they may not be. They seem pretty good to me and they do fulfill the criteria I asked of the woman that sold them to me, they make me more handsome. Coupled with the handsome pills I take, I think I'm on a roll.

But the most important thing, and what irritates the 1% the most, is that an ordinary worker can have a wage they can live on, a retirement they can live on and glasses that do the job.

As my friend said to me tonight, as I tried to defend my new glasses, and he was  mocking me really, "Richard will just say we all should have these glasses."

He's right about that I guess.