I've always called myself a liberal/progressive. But to hell with it. From now on I'm a SOCIALIST

[Armstead]

If the definition of Socialist -- a Democratic Socialist,. that is -- is the reasonable but assertive liberalism of Bernie Sanders, then to hell with it. I'm a Socialist too.

If that is what the modern Democratic Party "centrists" wants to call what is simply an extension of the New Deal, Great Society, New Frontier, in contrast to the waffling, surrendering, complicit corporate conservatism of the Same Old Deal, and the Meh Society and the No Frontier, then I'll take it.

I'll take it. Just call me a Proud Socialist.

[Kip Humphrey]

1. US: Democratic Socialist THEM: Corporate Socialist

repeat as necessary.

[restorefreedom]

48. a freakin men. nt

[JPnoodleman]

2. The title fits well

I am definitely in line with a Democratic Socialist policy.

To use the family/clan model, we stick together and help one another out.

[Cheese Sandwich]

3. I'm a little concerned the definition of socialism might be getting watered down too much

Democratic socialism is not simply being super liberal.

It means workers and communities should have democratic control over certain major parts of the economy. Or least that we should progress toward that. It also means everybody should have the right to a guaranteed job at a living wage and other basic needs of life like health care and education should also be guaranteed. I think that's a difference between liberal and socialist.

[Armstead]

7. It's one of those fluid terms -- According to some Democrats today.....

anything to the left of center-right is automatically socialist. That leaves a lot of room.

That's the definition I'm using.

[Glamrock]

20. I disagree

It's been anything/anyone from the Democratic Parry for like 35 years at least.

[TBF]

52. Taking back positive vibes for the word is a start -

we'll work on who owns the means of production next. Clue - it's not Donald Trump, unless he's willing to share with all the rest of us.

[PyaarRevolution]

54. You mean like the great...

Mondragon!!!!! The biggest Workers Cooperative in the world that is thriving?! Like that?!

[Maedhros]

56. I'm with you, Cheese Sandwich.

There was a time when words had meanings, and those meanings were useful. When someone used a word, one could be reasonably confident in what they meant by it.

These days "extreme left" means "supports Social Security", and profiting from the incarceration of black and latino people means "progressive."

[Manifestor_of_Light]

4. My dad actually had the opportunity to vote Socialist for President!

He voted for Norman Thomas in 1932. He told me that the Democratic and Republican platforms were basically the same, so he voted Socialist. He also told me that after Roosevelt was elected, he took a large part of the Socialist platform and enacted it into law that we now know as the New Deal.

He said the guys counting the votes probably wondered who that communist was in Ashtabula County!

[Gregorian]

5. This is what people need to hear.

Real history. I've been saying, Bernie is essentially mainstream American politics in 1900.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

14. Yes, and there were several socialist parties back then.

Eugene V. Debs ran for president in 1920 from prison and got a million votes.

Norman Thomas was a Presbyterian minister who wore three-piece suits and was very well-spoken. He did not give the impression of a wild eyed bomb throwing radical.

Roosevelt enacted enough reforms to avert a fascist revolution. People were hungry and desperate and mad, according to my parents, who were young adults during the Depression. They said that if we had had a fascist revolution, Huey P. Long would have been the dictator. And it was common knowledge that he had to be stopped from becoming President. As a side note, my dad's first wife was from Louisiana, Plaquemine Parish, and her brother was roommates with Dr. Carl Weiss, the alleged assassin of Huey Long. This woman's brother said there was "no way in hell" he shot Huey Long.


Because Roosevelt did not complete his socialist reshaping of society, as he laid out in the "Four Freedoms" speech, eventually, starting in the 1970s, our prosperous postwar economy started being controlled by Republicans and the Republicans becoming the racist Southern party began, in the days of George Wallace running for president in 1968, the same year that Richard Nixon ran for the second time.


The rightwing takeover really began in earnest with Reagan's election in 1980 and his union busting of the Air Traffic Controllers. The oligarchy was consolidating its power. Reagan eliminated free college tuition when he was Governor of California, because all those students were protesting the Vietnam War, and he eliminated the Fairness Doctrine from broadcasting as president. Since I lived through the sixties and seventies and eighties, I feel like the Baby Boomers (I am one) have been spinning our wheels and making no forward progress for the last thirty-five years. Wages have stagnated and jobs have been exported for decades. I feel like Bernie is our only hope.

I voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. I saw Hillary at a fundraiser in 1992, up close and personal, and went to see Bill the three times he visited my city in the summer of 1992. I liked both of them. They talked like liberal Democrats, but I and many others have been horribly disappointed in both of them. Even though I don't believe a lot of the right-wing theories about what a criminal Hillary is, I am frankly tired of looking at her, and she is just as corporate as the Republicans. President Obama has been a disappointment too, although I realize it's a miracle he's accomplished anything with the obstructionist Congress out to stop him from doing anything of substance.

[Gregorian]

21. Interesting.

Huey Long is very much in parallel with Sanders. That's remarkable.

Anyone making over ten million should be pretty happy to pay only 52%. That's Bernie's rate if I recall. I really enjoy hearing the stories from the earlier years. We don't all know it. I was shocked when finding out there was a Communist party. A few greedy people are very touchy about their money. They'll do anything to protect it.

So that's what happened to the free schools in California. I went to college for free. I wasn't sure what happened, because as I continued studying over the years I saw fees introduced, and then increased on a regular basis. I don't know how to fix it. But like most complex things, it's probably counter intuitive. We've learned a lot over the last few years. I remember the excitement in 1992 when Clinton was elected. That was a really fresh hopeful feeling. But how could we know what harm could be done by deregulating. We learned from each thing. But like the Fairness Doctrine, that kind of thing takes 20 years to see. It's pretty obvious now.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

22. I learned about Reagan stopping the free college in California

from Thom Hartmann's radio show, when they had him and Al Franken and Rachel Maddow on Air America, which I got on XM radio. Hartmann must have a history degree or something because he seems to know a lot of history.

He now has a TV show as well, on RT, five nights a week, at 6 pm Central time.

[2banon]

47. Hear! Here! Yes, we witnessed all of this and more.

too many to detail, and Billo certainly didn't help reverse a single one of these atrocious policies either.

In fact he put the nail in the coffin on a number of public policy/legislative (FDR( roll backs all to favor the 1%, taking us right back to the gilded age.

This is why I never want to see Hillary as our first "Woman" president. I've had quite enough of Bill Clinton's policy shenanigans I never want to see his face or hear his voice on my screens or radio ever again.

We know what to expect from the Repukes, but there's nothing worse than the poison of betrayal by our own party leadership.

[AOR]

6. Just stand with the demands of labor and the working class over private capital in all things...

Taking a stand with those who do - across all demographics - is all we need. Fuck the labels. Call it a start-up for a new and improved human condition if no isms fit the mold.

[PowerToThePeople]

8. I am a "means of production owned by the workers" Socialist

But, I accept that it will be some time before we get there. Hopefully my descendants will see that day.

[hill2016]

11. why don't they just buy shares in their company?

[elias49]

12. $$$ they don;t have to spend??

[hill2016]

55. so they want the owners

of the companies to give them shares in the company just by being hired?

[elias49]

57. I didn't say that. It was you who proposed that they

" just buy shares ' in the company. And I said, they might not be able to afford it.
"Buying shares" does not compare to union benefits.

[Alittleliberal]

63. That's not what anyone said.

But even if that absurd interpretation of the comment was what was said. Do you think that's a bad thing? Why?

[TBF]

53. Whooooooshhhhhhh ....

[noiretextatique]

60. so...you a think a walmart employee

who makes minimum wage and works part-time can afford to buy walmart stock?

[brooklynite]

9. But it DOESN'T MEAN THAT...and that's the problem

You could just as easily say "if the definition of oligarch is the reasonable but assertive liberalism of Bernie Sanders, then to hell with it. I'm an oligarch too."

Words have meaning. You don't change them arbitrarily.

SOCIALISM means: "a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies"

DEMOCRATIC Socialism means "a political ideology advocating a democratic political system alongside a socialist economic system, involving a combination of political democracy with social ownership of the means of production."

Because Sanders insists on retaining his own definition, he risks a huge Republican onslaught when they tar him as a Socialist, which the average voter doesn't define the way he does.

[Armstead]

15. Conservatuive Democrats are branding everything to the left of center-right as socialism

They are using Socialism as a bogeyman to imply that Sanders wants to nationalize all industry, and make Mom and Pop work for the State. Which is Bullshit.

There are many variations and flavors of socialism, from the National Socialism of Nazi Germany to Communism to the more moderate and benign forms of it. There are many mixtures and combinations.

There are many capitalist economies that have many Socialist aspects to them. Scandinavia, Germany, France et. al. are certainly capitalist and have their big corporations, mid sized and small businesses that are privately owned. Some also have state run enterprises (or used to until Global Capital and "free trade" forced privatization) for certain services.

Hell the US is a Corporate Socialist State if you want to define it in the scarier sense of a fusion of State and Corporate Power, through Crony Capitalism, Corporate Subsidies, Private Access to Public Resources, Privatized Public Services, etc.

But more to the point, the centrist Democrats want to jump on the GOP bandwagon and brand liberal activism as socialist. So I';ll go along.

[brooklynite]

16. And progressives are branding anything to the right of "Democratic Socialism" as GOP light

[Armstead]

17. And some of it is

Maybe not all, but some of the conservative corporate policies and actions -- and non-actions - that can be attributed to Democrats IS GOP Lite. And some of it not so lite.

[Glamrock]

23. What country do you live in?

It must be terrific to live in a country where words matter. Here in America, socialist can eeeaaaasily be interchanged with: communist, facsist, marxist, leninist, stalinist, maoist (my very personal favorite), atheist, islamist,and democrat. In any combination you choose, it really doesn't matter. Mix em up and have fun! They all mean the same thing.....Democrats are coming to take your guns! Or Democrats will make you gay marry! Or, that old chestnut, Democrats want to take all your money and give it to those people on welfare! (And we all know the kind of lazy commies those people are...wink wink, nudge nudge)

Hope that helps you understand the 'Mercan language.

[Fuddnik]

41. Words have meaning.

Hillary is having no problem changing the meaning of progressive to include empire, endless war, mass incarceration welfare reform, ............

You can't just change them arbitrarily.

[toothless dragon]

42. just because you give it a name

doesn't mean it is accurate. Socialism is the natural state of human beings. It if defined by the way we grew up as a species; the mutual responsibility of members of society to provide for each other in a symbiotic society. The "Economic" meaning is very new and very limited in its scope. We are much more than an economic unit and have been since we grew big enough brains to have feeling for each other.

[DemocraticWing]

10. The more the merrier!

I've been a socialist for years. Glad to have you on board!

[wilsonbooks]

13. I have always been a proud Democrat

A progressive and a FDR socialist.

[Indepatriot]

18. Proud Social Democrat here!

I don't want to live in a country where capitalism is the goal, as opposed to a useful tool that benefits all of society. Well-regulated capitalism is great, but we haven't had that here for 30 years.

WHEN WE STAND TOGETHER THERE'S NOTHING WE CANNOT ACCOMPLISH!!!!!

[Samantha]

19. I said this same thing to some friends and family a few months ago

I hope more people do this. It is very liberating. I said I would be calling myself a Democratic Socialist until this election season is over. I will still identify with that label, but I am not sure I will be sticking with the Democratic party. I might be registering as an Independent after this election.

Sam

[closeupready]

24. Liberal capitalist here, not ashamed of it either.

But as even Adam Smith wrote, capitalism needs to be tempered by government regulation and provisions for the welfare of citizens, or else it's tyranny.

Much of what Bernie refers to as Democratic Socialism is, in some form or another, liberal capitalism, IMO. I don't really care what you call it - capitalism defeated communism; even in China, communism is dead, so there's zero threat of endorsing powers posing an existential threat; what the heck does anyone think it means when we have been referred to as the world's sole remaining superpower? Duh, it means nobody else now has the will or power to vanquish our existence. So the scary "Socialism!" boogeyman was slain decades ago.

The danger as I see it now is that we've begun creeping into textbook fascism territory, and we need to repudiate it strongly, get back to our liberal roots. Sort of a modern way of doing for us what FDR did for the US in the 20th Century. Bernie is our only hope.

[Armstead]

25. Basically the way I see it

[raouldukelives]

44. +1 Just having actual capitalism would be a good start.

Instead of our once far right but today considered centrist economic ideals.

[merrily]

26. I have posted something similar at DU and at JackpineRadicals.org so often that

that ReTooled of Jackpine Radicals made an image for me.

Sample of one of my "I am Spartacus, er I mean I am a Democratic Socialist" posts at DU. http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1280&pid=35186

The image ReTooled of JackpineRadicals did for me there. (You gotta love it.)

[Armstead]

28. Actuaklly the Spartacus analylogy occured to me while I was writing it

But I resisted the temptation

[merrily]

31. Are you implying that I went for the obvious and you were above doing what I did?

Of course you are, but I don't really care. I love you anyway. Come 'ere, you.



SMOOCH!

[Geeks On Hugs]

27. Socialism is not a dirty word

The teabaggers have made it a bit of a bogeyman in the mainstream but the word can be rehabilitated IMO. We just need to explain what it means better to the mainstream.

Socialism is the solution to the extreme and worsening inequality in the western world.

[merrily]

32. The Cold War kind of beat the Teabaggers to it by decades.

[Nyan]

29. If 3rd-way DLC dems' definition of capitalism translates as

democrats having to devote their time and resources and money and passion and votes to enriching one family and their cronies, fuck yeah. All the other democrats should define themselves as socialists.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

30. Tell people the ones who rail the loudest against socialism are anti-social.

[merrily]

34. Maybe sociopaths, too?

Just spitballing.

[sgmcenroe]

33. I prefer a "Social Democrat"

Read a wonderful piece this weekend by an American reporter who lived in Norway for 4 years. She considers their system to be working much better than ours, and they refer to it as a "social democracy" - which also does away with the "scary word" socialism.

[merrily]

35. That is better, but I fear that Sanders, and therefore his supporters, have to deal with

Democratic Socialist, even just plain socialist.

I ain't skeered of shibboleths, but some people seem either terrified by them or terribly disingenuous about being terrified by them.

[Armstead]

36. OH but it has that scary word "social" in it.

[VulgarPoet]

37. Allow me to raise my glass in solidarity with this.

After some of the fuckery I've seen on this site in the past week, it's pretty clear I'm not whatever this decade's "Democrat" is.

[daleanime]

38. Welcome comrade.....

been calling myself a Democratic Socialist for 5 or 6 years now. I love the way republican heads snap around when I say it.

[Feeling the Bern]

39. I've always said I am a social libertarian and a fiscal socialist. I'll explain.

Get government out of my private life. Don't tell me:

1: Who I can marry
2: What I can put into my body
3: How fast I can drive
4: What can I watch on TV
5: What I can see on the internet
6: What books my kids can read
7: What is obscene
8: What music and movies my kids can buy
9: You will regulate anything that is a personal decision that only affects my life

This is social libertarianism.

I am a fiscal socialist. I believe in:

1: A progressive, graduated income tax like we had under Eisenhower and Kennedy
2: The removal of the FICA cap on income to fund the Social Security trust fund
3: Taxing all income at income tax levels (royalties [which will affect me personally], cap gains, etc.)
4: A well regulated commercial and industrial sector
5: Equal pay for all
6: Single Payer Universal Health Care
7: Ending the student loan system
8: Removing tax exempt status for organizations that politic (like churches)
9: Ending right to work
10: Ending charter schools and funding education to the fullest
11: Ending the MIC's hold on the country's budget
12: Raising pay for soldiers
13: Independent oversight of LEOs
14: Free or near to free public universities for all people
15: Environmental and gun regulations that work

That is fiscal socialism.

I am proud of what I am!

[Nyan]

43. If you were to run for office on that platform,

I would totally vote for you

[Armstead]

46. I think a lot of people are that way -- me included

[Garrett78]

40. Everyone's a socialist.

The US would collapse without its many, many socialistic institutions. That people are ignorant of that reality is no reason to run from the label.

[Odin2005]

45. Welcome to the club, Comrade!

[Donkees]

49. Pete Seeger: "Solidarity Forever"

[TBF]

50. This thread makes me very happy.

[Armstead]

51. We aim to please.....(when we're not pissing people off)

[madokie]

58. I'm a democratic socialist too

and Proud fucking of it to boot

[Autumn Colors]

59. Then I hope you'll consider joining DSA, too

Democratic Socialists of America

http://www.dsausa.org/

[workinclasszero]

61. Ill alert the media

[Armstead]

62. They'd have the same reaction you do

Thank you for your interest. .....can always count on a useless contribution