What is Democratic Socialism, American-Style?
Hey Bernie--less Denmark and Sweden, and more MLK, Jr and FDR.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/10/28/what-democratic-socialism-american-style
Now that Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign is generating lots of media attention, the word "socialism" is in the news. But few Americans know what it is or what Sanders means when he describes himself as a "democratic socialist."
In the early 1900s, socialists led the movements for women's suffrage, child labor laws, consumer protection laws and the progressive income tax. In 1916, Victor Berger, a socialist congressman from Milwaukee, sponsored the first bill to create "old age pensions." The bill didn't get very far, but two decades later, in the midst of the Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt persuaded Congress to enact Social Security. Even then, some critics denounced it as un-American. But today, most Americans, even conservatives, believe that Social Security is a good idea. What had once seemed radical has become common sense.
Much of FDR's other New Deal legislation -- the minimum wage, workers' right to form unions and public works programs to create jobs for the unemployed -- was first espoused by American socialists.
Socialists were in the forefront of the civil rights movement from the founding of the NAACP in 1909 through the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Socialists have long pushed for a universal health insurance plan, which helped create the momentum for stepping-stone measures such as Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s and Obamacare today.
In the 1890s, a socialist Baptist minister, Francis Bellamy, wrote "The Pledge of Allegiance" and a socialist poet, Katherine Lee Bates, penned "America the Beautiful." Throughout our history, some of the nation's most influential activists and thinkers, such as Jane Addams, John Dewey, Helen Keller, W.E.B. DuBois, Albert Einstein, A. Philip Randolph, Walter Reuther, Martin Luther King, Paul Robeson, Eugene V. Debs, and Gloria Steinem, embraced democratic socialism.
King believed that America needed a "radical redistribution of economic and political power." In October 1964, he called for a "gigantic Marshall Plan" for the poor -- black and white. Two months later, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, he observed that the U.S. could learn much from Scandinavian "democratic socialism." In fact, he told his staff, "There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism."
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Response to eridani (Original post)
the US has implemented democratic social programs and policies. From political and social reformers of the 18th and 19th centuries into the 20th century New Deal of FDR, progressive ideas were advanced by Democratic presidents Truman, JFK and LBJ, and Republican presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon.
During EISENHOWER'S eight year presidency (1953-1961) the GI Bill for affordable college education of war veterans was continued after WWII which aided in the growth of the large American middle class. The successful Interstate highway system was created in the 1950s, an expansion of the New Deal. In 1954, the Brown v. Board of Education landmark Supreme Court case was enforced in the fight for equal access to public education for African Americans. In 1970, under President NIXON's administration, the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency was established as another federal regulatory body for the general welfare.
American patriot THOMAS PAINE advanced early democratic and social ideals in 18th America during and after the War for Independence. Paine was a Founding Father of the United States and Father of the American Revolution who we owe much for advocating independence from monarchy and the rights of the common man, and for linking political reforms and social progress through his writings and political activism.
Born in England (1737-1809) Paine was a political philosopher, writer, revolutionary American patriot, advocate for political change and a voice for the equality of rights among all citizens. Paine's widely read publications were classic statements of the egalitarian, democratic faith in the Age of Enlightenment which helped shape many ideas in the Age of Revolution.
COMMON SENSE (1776) by Paine was the first popular pamphlet to advance American independence from England.
THE AMERICAN CRISIS published later in 1776, was used by Gen. George Washington who had the first part of the writing read to inspire soldiers in the battle against the British Army. It begins,
> These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country: but he that stands now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered, yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph.
Paine's works, THE RIGHTS OF MAN (1791) and AGRARIAN JUSTICE (1794) defended the French Revolution, called for LAND REFORM and proffered a new vision of the republican state as a promoter of the SOCIAL WELFARE. They advocated such policies as PROGRESSIVE TAXATION, RETIREMENT BENEFITS and PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT which introduced the concept of a GUARANTEED MINIMUM INCOME.
THOMAS PAINE, American Revolution, History.com
http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/thomas-paine
Wiki, THOMAS PAINE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine
