Stalin? Really?

Christopher Blosser observes that some in the Occupy movements sport T-shirts with famous Communist leaders, including mass murderer Joseph Stalin. When I was in college, there were a few people who self-identified as communists, but they were pretty easily brushed off. However, in 2012, there are more people in the country who self-identify as socialists and communists, and I find that prospect puzzling and frightening. It is certainly good that many more of us today are able to see the flaws and abuses of unrestricted capitalism, but far from countering these abuses, socialism is really the flip-side of the same oppressive coin. And communism, by far, is a great evil. I have no words to describe those who hail Joseph Stalin as their personal folk hero. Those who do not listen to history are indeed doomed to repeat it. Are there alternatives to capitalism and socialism? Yes. Among them, practical Distributism.