When you hear ‘socialist’ epithets, think ‘common good’ instead

My life as a socialist began at age five when my mother took me by the hand to P.S. 188 in Brooklyn, New York.

P.S. meant public school, an institution that the collective… er, community created to serve everybody. It was free. All New Yorkers paid for it through their taxes.

And it was normal. Now I hear it was socialism.

Need I tell you I walked to school and all over for years on sidewalks built and maintained by the city and paid for with taxes? That the snow got cleared the same way. And the cops who protected us were similarly organized and paid.

It was the same at James Madison High School — no charge, thanks to the taxpayers.

Out of school, my life was playing softball, basketball and touch football at Kelly Playground (yes, a municipal operation) and reading at the nearby public library (ditto).

On Saturdays, I often rode the subway to Manhattan to visit museums, see plays and dance recitals or just walk the avenues. They dug the subway, you know, and subsidized the fares with taxes.

My parents, raised on horrific stories of the Old Country, never complained about paying them — small price for the privilege of having their kids grow up American. Of course, they assumed the progressive tax structure was fair; I doubt they knew the rich routinely cheat or that (as Leona Helmsley so perfectly explained) “only the little people pay taxes.”

My life as a socialist continued at Brooklyn College, a tuition-free city institution — we certainly couldn’t afford a “paying” school.

After graduation came not socialism but Super Socialism!

The U.S. Army provided free room and board, health care, PX discounts and a modest salary to boot! I’ve often wondered how many soldiers reenlisted because of cradle-to-grave cosseting.

DOD paid for my travel, too, to sites ranging from the unpleasant to the hellish before they slipped up, detailing me to SHAPE, outside Paris, France. My dream!

You’ve read that World War II veterans took advantage of the 1944 GI Bill for schooling or starting businesses. So did we Korea-era vets and soon there I was, civilian again, studying at l’Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris. All because the American comintern… er, community figured subsidizing education for veterans would benefit the nation.

I don’t know if the investment in Alpert paid off, but the GI Bill overall helped build the world’s greatest middle-class and a booming American economy.

Despite my socialist upbringing, I became a free enterpriser, even an entrepreneur. Early on, I reported sports and news, wrote editorials and theater criticism for newspapers, before jumping into TV.

This was risky. Once or twice, employers told me to get lost. More often, I fired them.

Funny about risk — as I dared the flying trapeze, my TV station/network employers enjoyed federal subsidies and protection.

Fast forward, please, to the 1980s, when supply-siders axed our mixed economy or welfare state. No more taxes for public projects, use them for corporate welfare instead. Also, deep-six anti-trust laws, neuter regulation, undermine organized labor, cut taxes on the superrich, reward job-exporters and inventors of arcane financial instruments. The result will be….

Behold the American economy, 2009.

So when I hear cries of “Socialism!” today aimed at President Obama’s proposals to reverse course, I understand perfectly.

In the Rightist lexicon, socialism means using government and its tax revenues for the common good — not private interests.

I sure didn’t understand that when mom walked me to P.S. 188. But you live and learn.