Open Letter: John Boehner is a socialist?

Note: This letter is in response to a claim by David Lewis, a Tea Party candidate for Ohio's 8th congressional district, that his republican opponent, John Boehner is a socialist. View the video here. It was submitted to a number of local publications and a copy was mailed to Mr. Lewis.

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The membership of the Cincinnati branch of the International Socialist Organization (ISO) would like to set the record straight regarding Speaker of the House John Boehner's socialist credentials. On Monday the 19th, David Lewis, a Tea Party candidate for Ohio's 8th congressional district went on Fox News and told anchor Neil Cavuto that "John Boehner is a socialist."

We were as surprised as anyone to learn this, since none of our membership could recall Mr. Boehner ever having attended meetings of the organization. We thought that perhaps Mr. Lewis was suggesting that he was a member of the Socialist Party of Ohio, but party members could find no record of Speaker Boehner ever having even attended a meeting.

We weren't content to leave it at that, though. There are many other socialist parties on the left, and there are more every day. We telephoned our friends in Solidarity, another socialist organization, but they didn't count Mr. Boehner among their ranks either. Neither did the Democratic Socialist of America, nor the Socialist Equality Party. Mr. Boehner could well be a member of some party we hadn't heard of. In the interest of thoroughness, we took the time to make a brief review of Mr. Boehner's track record to see if there was anything in it to suggest that he is a member of a Socialist organization.

What we found is that Mr. Boehner has:
-Called raising taxes on the rich and corporations "class warfare"
-Said that the campaign for Palestinian self-determination was part of a "Triple Threat" against Israel
-Distributed bribes from tobacco lobbyists on the house floor.
-Acquired his personal wealth through the exploitation of workers inherent in capitalist production.
-Removed money from public schools with vouchers.
-Opposes democratic ideas like collective bargaining and trade unionism.
-Opposed single-payer healthcare.
-Proposed raising the Social Security retirement age to 70

In short, we have found is that capitalism seems to have no better friend than John Boehner, and that he, if anything, is categorically an enemy of working people everywhere and therefore by definition not a socialist.

Socialists fight for a just and equitable world; a world free of exploitation. Socialists are at the forefront of a number of struggles: the movement to stop war and occupation, fights against racism and anti-immigrant scapegoating, the struggle for women's rights like the right to choose abortion, opposing anti-gay bigotry, and standing up for workers' rights. John Boehner is on the opposite side of all of these fights.

Accordingly, we have contacted Mr. Lewis and requested that he cease referring to John Boehner as a Socialist, because we fear that people will come to some seriously negative (and mistaken) conclusions about socialism as a result of his remarks.