Obama ISN'T a socialist, but to succeed, we as a party need to defend "socialist" values.

[Ken Burch]

Our president has the confidence to do this. We need to stand with him.

Our party's Beltway leaders will have the natural inclination to start getting defensive and start obsessing on proving that they "aren't as bad" as the Right says they are. If they do that, we're all doomed to fail.

We need to defend, person by person, argument by argument, over and over again, the values that Republicans call

"socialist" (and Jesus, contrary to Mike Huckabee's delusions, would've called HIS own):

That no one should be left out in the cold in this country;

That those who have little should NOT have to suffer because of the mistakes of those who have much;

That no one should be exempt from the consequences of their blunders simply because they control a big chunk of the economy;

That no one should be encouraged to be arrogant and selfish simply because she or he ended up with a lot of money;

That people have value beyond there ability to make money;

This is OUR time, and we will have to keep up the fight day after day.

The chance of defending the people's victory of '08 and of expanding it as far as it needs to go hinges on all of us showing the confidence and strength to never let right-wing slurs, lies, and memestorms go unchallenged. The louder we are on this, the more calcium we will add to our Congressional leadership's spinal columns.

[Exilednight]

1. My aregument is pretty simple ..........

Republicans have instituted more socialist values than Democrats could ever dream of doing. Bush began the engineering of nationalizing our banks, spying on Americans with the help of telecommunication companies, holding people in jail without trial, and using the Constitution as a tool to apply pressure to its own population.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. Only one of those fits, imo.

Nationalizing our banks-Socialist
Spying on Americans with the help of telecommunication companies-Fascist
Holding people in jail without trial-Fascist
Using the Constitution as a tool to apply pressure to its own population-Fascist

[Ken Burch]

4. Exiled is making the usual "any form of socialism has to be Stalinism" mistake.

n/t.

[Exilednight]

8. That's not what I am saying at all ..........

The OP never advocated a certain type of socialism. Like all ideologies, socialism has good and bad elements. Capitalism is not the worst thing in the world either, but I am not convinced it is the best ideology.

At some point you need mix, and take the good of both.

Socialism, by its very nature, - hence the word social - takes away privacy rights while using the excuse that privacy does nothing to advance the good of man. On one hand, I could argue that this is true, and on the other it would be completely false.

It is true that privacy for corporations and the government does nothing to advance the good of mankind, but the privacy of indivudals does.

[Ken Burch]

13. Socialists, even Marxists, aren't bound absolutely by everything Marx said.

And the aspects of the Soviet nightmare that you and I both rightly deplore were actually the responsibility of Lenin, who invented the concept of the "vanguard party" that Stalin later twisted to his own ends.

Socialism, even Marxist socialism, isn't doomed to lead to the Berlin Wall. One of the major reasons Nixon had Allende overthrown was that Allende was proving that a radical socialist state could be free of repression(as well as be economically viable).

[Exilednight]

6. Well, maybe you should .......

read the Marx manifesto. Karl Marx advocates spying on the population, holding people in jail without trail and using the government to suppress the voice of disagreement.

No tool is limited to a single ideology.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

9. Alas, Marx's socialism is not the only socialism. Nor did he found the idea.

I think you'll find those ideas anathema in the modern socialistic states, yet hold true in fascistic thought.

However, your point is taken.




Eta: Having now read your #8, I think we are more in accordance. I also prescribe mixed ideologies.

[Fire1]

10. Correct!

[Jeneral]

3. After so many recessions

People who think capitalism is the end state to reach should move aside and stay in the Fukuyama End of History.

[sandnsea]

5. The Green Party needs to rise up

and become the second party in the country. They need to be the "socialist" voice so that the regular people can see the difference, but not so far socialist that they are completely rejected. Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders need to harnass that energy.

[Ken Burch]

17. We need electoral reform so that all the voices of this country have a full and equal say

The Greens have probably now run their course(which is sad, because they had a lot to offer and Ralph probably ruined them by getting them to drink the presidential koolaid).

But the key is opening the doors to change from below. Something I believe Our President supports.

[Fovea]

7. call it what you will, this much is true

Caring for America and Americans created, and sustained a healthy middle class in the days of rampant unionization and top marginal rate in the 90% range..

It went to the moon for mankind. It created the peace corps.
When it let its fear of communism overwhelm its socialist nature, we nearly blew up the world, and fought a land war in Asia.
We elected a senile soap peddler to break a federal union and let him tell us government was the problem.
At that point the shoe went into the works of America.

[DemocracyInaction]

11. The biggest problem in selling socialism

..is that this country is programmed to immediately think that means "communism". Democracy, communism, etc. are governmental systems. Capitalism, socialism are economic systems. They have no clue what democratic socialism is and what they have been fed about it (the European model) is distorted and full of lies. We need to define what the benefits to the people are of going the Obama path rather than the piece of shit called "trickle down" that we were fed. Yup, the rich took the money and invested alright---it just was in other countries and in companies that dumped American workers and outsourced the jobs. THAT is what we need to get through their heads and, actually, the damn panic the people are in now finally makes it easier to do.

[Ken Burch]

14. We DO need to define the benefits and we also need to take the leading role in the debate

The reason the previous Democratic administration(whose program was sharply to the right of this one)ended up getting politically rolled in 1993 and 1994 was that its leader essentially accepted the right-wing argument that, because he hadn't won a majority of the popular vote, he had no right to set the agenda and didn't even have the right to defend his own party's core values. The results: The dead zone that was American politics between 1994 and 2006 and the rise of Ralph.

[EraOfResponsibility]

12. Shit, the more I learn about Socialism, the more I like it

lol

[KingFlorez]

15. We need to defend common sense

Much of what is deemed socialism by the right-wing is sheer common sense. What they frame as socialism are the solutions that are needed.

[Ken Burch]

16. It is common sense, but we need to defend it even when that common sense is called "socialism".

It's in trimming and giving in that we lose.

[Orsino]

18. He's going to have to become a little more of a socialist before he's done.

Yes, the social safety net needs some major repair, and the wingers have squandered most of the resources that could have accomplished this.