Dem Candidate Booed for Saying Socialism Isn't the Answer

[rsacamano]

[comradebillyboy]

1. He's absolutly right. Socialism isn't the answer.

[JHB]

2. But what counts as "socialism"?

Conservatives call everything they don't like "socialism", and that expansive definition, which used to be the purview of ranters in country-club bars, has been successfully pushed into the mainstream.

They called Obama "socialist". They called both Clintons "socialist".

By the definition of "socialism" as it is used in politics today, the US spend the Cold War as a "socialist" nation.

Just talking about "socialism" without directly pushing back on how expanded that term has become simply acquiesces to the Republican spin.

[comradebillyboy]

3. so·cial·ism

1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism

People misuse words all the time. Socialism has a pretty clear standard meaning.

[JHB]

4. And just who upholds that standard?

Do I need to risk violating DU's TOS by posting a whole bunch of quotes and pictures from people who don't follow that standard meaning? I'll just go with one, from the National Review, which isn't exactly on the sidelines of conservative thought:

Hillary Clinton, Socialist Still
By Deroy Murdock

October 9, 2007

With her intimidating lead in the polls, Senator Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid looks increasingly unstoppable. This may have emboldened the New York Democrat to stop masquerading as a moderate and instead flaunt her full-throated, left-wing radicalism.

With a September 27-30 ABC News/Washington Post poll showing her eclipsing Senator Barack Obama (D., Ill.) 53 percent to his 20, the ever-calculating Clinton now may feel free to peddle higher-octane liberalism.

***
Hillary Clinton is a hardened socialist, despite the mainstream media’s efforts to portray her as a “centrist” merely because she is not as over-a-cliff-Left as Michael Moore or MoveOn.org’s patron, George Soros. Worse, her ethical corner-cutting routinely attracts dodgy, cash-rich rogues like recently captured fugitive fundraiser Norman Hsu and Keith Raniere. As the October 1 New York Post explained, Raniere is an alleged pyramid-scam operator who now runs NXVIM — a reputed, Albany-based cult whose members last spring gave Clinton’s campaign $29,900.

With their worst possible nightmare lurking around the corner, Republicans urgently must coalesce around the GOP contender best prepared to shear Hillary Clinton’s blonde ambition.

We aren't talking about academic discussions in forums where people stand to damage their reputations by not sticking to conventionally-accepted meanings, we're talking about out in the wilds of American politics where the standard definition has very little to do with it.

[comradebillyboy]

6. You can make up your own definitions if you like. Just don't expect other

folks to buy your personal definitions of common words.

[JHB]

7. THEY are the ones making it up. It's not MY definition, it is THEIRS.

What you, and Hickenlooper, are doing is ignoring that.

For the record, I describe myself -- tongue mostly in cheek -- as an "Eisenhower socialist". That means I'm not, but my views get called that by people on TV. And by conservatives in every medium they use.

And I don't care for Democrats doing the same damn thing.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

9. Thank you, JHB

"Eisenhower socialist" is a badge I've worn proudly. And everyone who uses the Interstate System, should remember that was one of HIS priorities.

[IronLionZion]

5. Liberal Dems say Democratic Socialism but the Nordic Model is Social Democracy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy

None of our Dems want to seize the means of production so I don't get why they keep saying Democratic Socialism. Social Democracy would likely get lots more mainstream support.

[Celerity]

10. +10000 (and backed up by my dozens of in depth posts on this)

Bernie and others are self-ratfucking us by STUPIDLY and utterly falsely self-labelling as dem socs. It is madness to try and redo a 200 plus year old globally accepted definition and term. It aids the RW and corporatists to FALSELY paint basic social democratic programmes as socialist (and in reactionary America that directly equals to COMMIE!! for tens of millions of mouth-breathers).

It is the truly harmful legacy of Berners and the man himself.

[FiveGoodMen]

8. GOOD!

[amcgrath]

11. When a bank

screws up and its customers lose their homes, America is capitalist.

When the government takes the peoples taxes and bails out those bankers, that is socialism.

When a business considers coming to town and the town takes tax payers money and builds that company roads and discounts property taxes, that is socialism

When the business decides it would be cheaper to move its operations and quits town, it is capitalism again.

There are many occasions when the US government is very keen on socialism - grants for farming corporations, oil companies etc. but socialism is supposed to be the lucky few assisting those facing difficulty, not the the other way round