Socialism 2026: Updating the Old Socialism
Under socialism, everything is free – except tickets to the September 4-7 “Socialism 2026” conference in Chicago. Those cost up to $120.00. Plus, attendees were on the hook for travel, lodging and food expenses.
Nonetheless, more than 3,000 well-heeled Marxists and socialists showed up!
(Full disclosure: I didn’t attend or watch the conference live stream. The organizers’ online information, interviews, video clips, photos, and the (on-site) City Journal commentary on which I relied were stomach-churning enough. Doubt I, anyone I know or want to know could have lasted four hours there, much less four days.)
From the conference website: “Socialism 2026 is a four-day conference bringing together thousands of socialists and radical activists from around the country to take part in discussions about social movements, abolition, Marxism, decolonization, working-class history, and the debates and strategies for organizing today.”
Presenters and attendees appeared to consist primarily of academics and activist-class malcontents, including virtue-signaling white women, some unreconstructed hippies, nonspecific-gender oddballs, and spoiled, degreed, albeit unaccomplished kids. One suspects it would have been difficult to find many (any?) attendees who ever contributed much of anything to society, unless self-righteousness, imagined grievances, disappointment, anger, entitlement, envy and unrealized ambition have become somehow “contributory.”
The conference’s “Opening Plenary,” entitled “Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Palestine, Internationalism, Abolition,” was conducted by Angela Davis, an avowed communist and the third woman ever placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted Fugitives list.
Davis was sought for her alleged involvement in kidnappings and murders during the 1970 armed invasion of the Marin County, California Courthouse. To be fair, Davis has been “rehabilitated.” She’s now part of the Golden State’s “educational” establishment.
“Abolition,” a recurring conference theme, was applied promiscuously to America’s market economy, private property, police, prisons, border security, gender, the family, and the United States of America as we know it.
Workshops (from the conference website) included:
“Health Fascism, Body Politics, and the Anti-State State” (One wonders, when and how did health, personal discipline and fitness became fascist…?)
“Black Left Feminism and the Fight Against Fascism: Lessons and Assignments” (Yeah…no… Took a pass on this one…)
Apparently, America is so oppressively “fascist” that organizers were able to preannounce a gathering to protest the American system, and then assemble thousands in one location, all without being rounded up, arrested and sent to concentration camps – or worse.
Ironic, huh?
More conference workshops:
“Ocean Deep Solidarity: Reparations, LANDBACK, and Collective Liberation” (Your guess is as good as mine. It was probably VERY deep, though.)
“Neighbors Get Ready: Forging New Solidarities and Defeating ICE” (Clearly, the left still hates ICE. One suspects the “neighbors” advised to “get ready” are illegal aliens.)
“War, Capitalism, and Navigating the Climate Crisis” (Because warfare, weather and the economic system that enabled 3000+ misfits to afford attending a vanity conference are somehow inextricably intertwined, right?)
“The Power of Speculative Fiction in a Shifting Political Climate” (Presumably a tutorial on how to guess at, then fabricate stuff to influence politics.)
Presentations included a lot of sex…or…gender…or something…
One presenter spoke against: “the naturalization of assigned sex.”
British Marxist Sophie Lewis said, “In our species, there’s no preexistent or natural sex-gender system. The dyad known as ‘men and women’ is a product of culture, which is to say labor, all the way down.” (For the record, Lewis does not hold a degree in, nor, thankfully, does she teach biology.)
Another session entitled, “Sex for Pleasure: Controlling your Reproduction Under a Pro-Natalist Regime,” was big on sexual indulgence and unlimited abortion on demand.
Attendees in a session on family abolition “through a Black feminist lens,” sat in a circle and colored together using Crayola markers. (Our grandkids love Crayolas! The younger ones still have trouble staying inside the lines, though…)
Professional attire was not required, so a lot of attendees dressed in 1960s/70s-protest-style denim and T-shirts. Many sported shopworn slogans such as “No Kings,” “Free Palestine,” “Black Lives Matter,” and “Pride.”
It’s been more than three years since the coronavirus panic ended, yet participants were still required to wear masks. If masking up was a test of attendees’ obedience and willingness to conform, Marxist organizers were not disappointed.
Simultaneously unfocused, cynical, nihilistic. neurotic, narcissistic, puerile and shrill, “Socialism 2026” was merely anti-American performance art.
Nevertheless, it’s certain that organizers and attendees took – and take – themselves very seriously…
https://www.pottsmerc.com/2026/09/20/jerry-shenk-socialism-2026-updating-the-old-socialism/
