http://www.debatepolitics.com/blogs/thedemsocialist/ Non-biased and non-partisan political forums. Debate topics may include breaking news today, media bias, abortion, warfare, conspiracy theories, economics, climate change and health care discussion. en Sat, 18 May 2013 13:51:00 GMT vBulletin 60 http://images.debatepolitics.com/misc/rss.jpg http://www.debatepolitics.com/blogs/thedemsocialist/ http://www.debatepolitics.com/blogs/thedemsocialist/469-if-obama-were-socialist.html Sun, 20 Nov 2011 19:49:16 GMT If Obama were a socialist, he would: Nationalize the banks and insurance companies under democratic workers control and management, and compose the board of directors so that 1/3rd would be elected by bank workers, 1/3rd by the trade unions, and 1/3rd from the government. He would provide... If Obama were a socialist, he would:

Nationalize the banks and insurance companies under democratic workers control and management, and compose the board of directors so that 1/3rd would be elected by bank workers, 1/3rd by the trade unions, and 1/3rd from the government. He would provide compensation for banks and other companies only in cases of proven need to pension funds, 401k funds (and similar retirement funds), workers and retired workers.

He would make factories under democratic workers control and management all idle factories and those under threat of being closed!

He would immediately end exorbitant bonuses.

He would immediately reduce interest rates to the necessary costs of banking operations, and make cheap credit available to small businesses and workers buying homes, not the bankers.

He'd open empty homes to those without shelter, and create an immediate construction program of affordable public housing, schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, public transportation networks and other infrastructure to improve quality of life and create millions of jobs at union wages and benefits.

He would make legislation/laws to have paid vacations for all workers.

He would unconditionally legalize all undocumented immigrants and end all racist immigration and asylum controls. He's ensure the right to residency and dual citizenship, and end "guest worker" programs, raids, and deportations.

He would gather the trade unions, co-operatives and consumer associations together to work out the real index of the cost of living in place of the official COLA index, which does not reflect the real state of affairs. He'd also set up committees of workers, homemakers, small businesses and the unemployed to control price increases.

A socialist Obama would abolish all indirect and regressive taxation and introduce a heavily progressive system of direct taxation on the rich.

He would nationalize energy companies, which would enable us to impose price controls on gas and electricity.

He'd push the right of all workers to join a union, strike, picket and demonstrate and for an end to Taft-Hartley and all similar anti-union laws, compulsory arbitration, no-strike clauses, and other measures intended to restrict the scope of action of the unions.

He'd abolish private health insurance and HMOs, and nationalize the pharmaceuticals.


He'd immediately withdraw all troops and military contractors from Iraq and Afghanistan. He'd slash the military budget, massively increase social spending, and provide full civil rights for soldiers, including the right to join unions and the right to strike. He'd end imperialist interference with Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Latin America, the Middle East and the world!

If Obama were a Socialist... ]]> TheDemSocialist http://www.debatepolitics.com/blogs/thedemsocialist/469-if-obama-were-socialist.html http://www.debatepolitics.com/blogs/thedemsocialist/417-we-made-hell-wake-up.html Tue, 27 Sep 2011 01:35:59 GMT http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BnkV8f8SGo Our media is controlled by corporations. Extremely powerful organizations, far more powerful than one person, but with none of the culpability. Our government is controlled by corporations. Organizations with a lot of money, whose only aim is to make... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BnkV8f8SGo

Our media is controlled by corporations. Extremely powerful organizations, far more powerful than one person, but with none of the culpability. Our government is controlled by corporations. Organizations with a lot of money, whose only aim is to make more, little people be damned. And we wonder why our government is broken. We’re mad as hell – nothing is working. We can’t find a decent job, hell, any job at all. So who’s fault is that? Surprise. It isn’t the poor, or the illegal immigrants, or even the government’s. Our government is far from innocent in all this, but not the cause. It’s those corporations, those organizations that are turning record profits and record layoffs. Those greedy bastards that messed up the economy to begin with, and then rewarded themselves with huge bonuses. Yeah, we’re mad as hell, but this country has been running around like a chicken with its head cut off. We’re blaming a hundred different people, but not the guilty. Why? Because it’s un-American? We’ve been taught that capitalism is the purest form of freedom. If you’re smart enough, and work hard enough, you can accomplish anything. The American dream. You can do anything you set your mind to. But we’re slowly learning that’s not true. That the poor, the unemployed, the disenfranchised aren’t lazy like we’ve been told. That no matter how hard you’re willing to work, there just isn’t a job out there. So everyday Americans become poorer, and the rich become richer. But hey, that’s freedom. Well no, it’s not. That’s screwing over most Americans and masquerading it as patriotism. If your criticize capitalism, that’s anti-American. Since when has silence in the face of injustice been American? If you want “your America back”, then take it. Take it back from those greedy bastards who get millions and billions of dollars while you can’t find a decent job. Take it from those jerks that ran the economy into the ground and rewarded themselves. They don’t define what being an American is. You do, the people. But being American, to me at least, meaning standing up for what’s right, it means equality and justice for everyone. Not just those who can afford it.
The media is owned by corporations. GE, Walt Disney, Viacom, News Corp., Time Warner. And for some reason, these news organizations are telling us that the corporations are not the problem. That these job creators who make 185 times that of the average person they employ aren’t the cause of the problems in Washington. They send lobbyists down there to make sure that the get what they want out of the laws, and then contribute unlimited amounts of money to their campaigns. These media outlets control what news gets reported and what doesn’t. media outlets controlled by major corporations promoting their own agenda. The media’s as bought and paid for as those assholes in government. That’s not freedom of the press. That’s not American.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BnkV8f8SGo ]]> TheDemSocialist http://www.debatepolitics.com/blogs/thedemsocialist/417-we-made-hell-wake-up.html http://www.debatepolitics.com/blogs/thedemsocialist/368-cuba-again-still-forever.html Sun, 31 Jul 2011 22:30:37 GMT Cuba. Again. Still. Forever.


William Blum, Anti-Empire Report, USA, 6 January 2009

More than 50 years now it is. The propaganda and hypocrisy of the American mainstream media seems endless and unwavering. They can not accept the fact that Cuban leaders are humane or rational. Here's the Washington Post of December 13 writing about an American arrested in Cuba:

"The Cuban government has arrested an American citizen working on contract for the U.S. Agency for International Development who was distributing cellphones and laptop computers to Cuban activists. ... Under Cuban law ... a Cuban citizen or a foreign visitor can be arrested for nearly anything under the claim of 'dangerousness'."

That sounds just awful, doesn't it? Imagine being subject to arrest for whatever someone may choose to label "dangerousness". But the exact same thing has happened repeatedly in the United States since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. We don't use the word "dangerousness". We speak of "national security". Or, more recently, "terrorism". Or "providing material support to terrorism".

The arrested American works for Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), a US government contractor that provides services to the State Department, the Pentagon and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). In 2008, DAI was funded by the US Congress to "promote transition to democracy" in Cuba. Yes, Oh Happy Day!, we're bringing democracy to Cuba just as we're bringing it to Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2002, DAI was contracted by USAID to work in Venezuela and proceeded to fund the same groups that a few months earlier had worked to stage a coup — temporarily successful — against President Hugo Chávez. DAI performed other subversive work in Venezuela and has also been active in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other hotspots. "Subversive" is what Washington would label an organization like DAI if they behaved in the same way in the United States in behalf of a foreign government.6

The American mainstream media never makes its readers aware of the following (so I do so repeatedly): The United States is to the Cuban government like al-Qaeda is to the government in Washington, only much more powerful and much closer. Since the Cuban revolution, the United States and anti-Castro Cuban exiles in the US have inflicted upon Cuba greater damage and greater loss of life than what happened in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. Cuban dissidents typically have had very close, indeed intimate, political and financial connections to American government agents. Would the US government ignore a group of Americans receiving funds or communication equipment from al-Qaeda and/or engaging in repeated meetings with known leaders of that organization? In the past few years, the American government has arrested a great many people in the US and abroad solely on the basis of alleged ties to al-Qaeda, with a lot less evidence to go by than Cuba has had with its dissidents' ties to the United States, evidence usually gathered by Cuban double agents. Virtually all of Cuba's "political prisoners" are such dissidents.

The Washington Post story continued:

"The Cuban government granted ordinary citizens the right to buy cellphones just last year."

Period.

What does one make of such a statement without further information? How could the Cuban government have been so insensitive to people's needs for so many years? Well, that must be just the way a "totalitarian" state behaves. But the fact is that because of the disintegration of the Soviet bloc, with a major loss to Cuba of its foreign trade, combined with the relentless US economic aggression, the Caribbean island was hit by a great energy shortage beginning in the 1990s, which caused repeated blackouts. Cuban authorities had no choice but to limit the sale of energy-hogging electrical devices such as cell phones; but once the country returned to energy sufficiency the restrictions were revoked.

"Cubans who want to log on [to the Internet] often have to give their names to the government."

What does that mean? Americans, thank God, can log onto the Internet without giving their names to the government. Their Internet Service Provider does it for them, furnishing their names to the government, along with their emails, when requested.

"Access to some Web sites is restricted."

Which ones? Why? More importantly, what information might a Cuban discover on the Internet that the government would not want him to know about? I can't imagine. Cubans are in constant touch with relatives in the US, by mail and in person. They get US television programs from Miami. International conferences on all manner of political, economic and social subjects are held regularly in Cuba. What does the American media think is the great secret being kept from the Cuban people by the nasty commie government?

"Cuba has a nascent blogging community, led by the popular commentator Yoani Sánchez, who often writes about how she and her husband are followed and harassed by government agents because of her Web posts. Sánchez has repeatedly applied for permission to leave the country to accept journalism awards, so far unsuccessfully."

According to a well-documented account7, Sánchez's tale of government abuse appears rather exaggerated. Moreover, she moved to Switzerland in 2002, lived there for two years, and then voluntarily returned to Cuba. On the other hand, in January 2006 I was invited to attend a book fair in Cuba, where one of my books, newly translated into Spanish, was being presented. However, the government of the United States would not give me permission to go. My application to travel to Cuba had also been rejected in 1998 by the Clinton administration.

"'Counterrevolutionary activities', which include mild protests and critical writings, carry the risk of censure or arrest. Anti-government graffiti and speech are considered serious crimes."

Raise your hand if you or someone you know of was ever arrested in the United States for taking part in a protest. And substitute "pro al-Qaeda" for "counterrevolutionary" and for "anti-government" and think of the thousands imprisoned the past eight years by the United States all over the world for ... for what? In most cases there's no clear answer. Or the answer is clear: (a) being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or (b) being turned in to collect a bounty offered by the United States, or (c) thought crimes. And whatever the reason for the imprisonment, they were likely tortured. Even the most fanatical anti-Castroites don't accuse Cuba of that. In the period of the Cuban revolution, since 1959, Cuba has had one of the very best records on human rights in the hemisphere. See my essay: "The United States, Cuba and this thing called Democracy".8

There's no case of anyone arrested in Cuba that compares in injustice and cruelty to the arrest in 1998 by the United States government of those who came to be known as the "Cuban Five", sentenced in Florida to exceedingly long prison terms for trying to stem terrorist acts against Cuba emanating from the US.9 It would be lovely if the Cuban government could trade their DAI prisoner for the five. Cuba, on several occasions, has proposed to Washington the exchange of a number of what the US regards as "political prisoners" in Cuba for the five Cubans held in the United States. So far the United States has not agreed to do so.


William Blum is the author of:

• Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
• Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
• West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
• Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire ]]> TheDemSocialist http://www.debatepolitics.com/blogs/thedemsocialist/368-cuba-again-still-forever.html http://www.debatepolitics.com/blogs/thedemsocialist/354-nafta-and-immigration.html Thu, 14 Jul 2011 07:33:26 GMT Immigration Flood Unleashed by NAFTA's Disastrous Impact on Mexican Economy
by Roger Bybee and Carolyn Winter

The recent ferment on immigration policy has been so narrow that it has excluded the real issue: family-sustaining wages for workers both north and south of the border. The role of the North American Free Trade Agreement and misnamed 'free trade' has been scarcely mentioned in the increasingly bitter debate over the fate of America's 11 to 12 million illegal aliens.
NAFTA was sold to the American public as the magic formula that would improve the American economy at the same time it would raise up the impoverished Mexican economy. The time has come to look at the failures of this type of trade agreement before we engage in more and lower the economic prospects of all workers affected.
While there has been some media coverage of NAFTA's ruinous impact on US industrial communities, there has been even less media attention paid to its catastrophic effects in Mexico:
• NAFTA, by permitting heavily-subsidized US corn and other agri-business products to compete with small Mexican farmers, has driven the Mexican farmer off the land due to low-priced imports of US corn and other agricultural products. Some 2 million Mexicans have been forced out of agriculture, and many of those that remain are living in desperate poverty. These people are among those that cross the border to feed their families. (Meanwhile, corn-based tortilla prices climbed by 50%. No wonder many so Mexican peasants have called NAFTA their 'death warrant.'
• NAFTA's service-sector rules allowed big firms like Wal-Mart to enter the Mexican market and, selling low-priced goods made by ultra-cheap labor in China, to displace locally-based shoe, toy, and candy firms. An estimated 28,000 small and medium-sized Mexican businesses have been eliminated.
• Wages along the Mexican border have actually been driven down by about 25% since NAFTA, reported a Carnegie Endowment study. An over-supply of workers, combined with the crushing of union organizing drives as government policy, has resulted in sweatshop pay running sweatshops along the border where wages typically run 60 cents to $1 an hour.
So rather than improving living standards, Mexican wages have actually fallen since NAFTA. The initial growth in the number of jobs has leveled off, with China's even more repressive labor system luring US firms to locate there instead.
But Mexicans must still contend with the results of the American-owned 'maquiladora' sweatshops: subsistence-level wages, pollution, congestion, horrible living conditions (cardboard shacks and open sewers), and a lack of resources (for streetlights and police) to deal with a wave of violence against vulnerable young women working in the factories. The survival (or less) level wages coupled with harsh working conditions have not been the great answer to Mexican poverty, while they have temporarily been the answer to Corporate America's demand for low wages.
With US firms unwilling to pay even minimal taxes, NAFTA has hardly produced the promised uplift in the lives of Mexicans. Ciudad Juarez Mayor Gustavo Elizondo, whose city is crammed with US-owned low-wage plants, expressed it plainly: "We have no way to provide water, sewage, and sanitation workers. Every year, we get poorer and poorer even though we create more and more wealth."
Falling industrial wages, peasants forced off the land, small businesses liquidated, growing poverty: these are direct consequences of NAFTA. This harsh suffering explains why so many desperate Mexicans -- lured to the border area in the false hope that they could find dignity in the US-owned maquiladoras -- are willing to risk their lives to cross the border to provide for their families. There were 2.5 million Mexican illegals in 1995; 8 million have crossed the border since then. In 2005, some 400 desperate Mexicans died trying to enter the US.
NAFTA failed to curb illegal immigration precisely because it was never designed as a genuine development program crafted to promote rising living standards, health care, environmental cleanup, and worker rights in Mexico. The wholesale surge of Mexicans across the border dramatically illustrates that NAFTA was no attempt at a broad uplift of living conditions and democracy in Mexico, but a formula for government-sanctioned corporate plunder benefiting elites on both sides of the border.
NAFTA essentially annexed Mexico as a low-wage industrial suburb of the US and opened Mexican markets to heavily-subsidized US agribusiness products, blowing away local producers. Capital could flow freely across the border to low-wage factories and Wal-mart-type retailers, but the same standard of free access would be denied to Mexican workers.
Meanwhile, with the planned Central American Free Trade Agreement with five Central American nations coming up, we can anticipate even greater pressure on our borders as agricultural workers are pushed off the land without positive, alternative employment opportunities. People from Guatemala and Honduras will soon learn that they can't compete for industrial jobs with the most oppressed people in say, China, by agreeing to lowering their wages even more. Further, impoverished Central American countries don't have the resources to deal with the pollution and crime that results from moving people from rural areas to the city, often without their families.
Thus far, we have been presented with a narrow range of options to cope with the tide of illegal immigrants living fearfully in the shadows of American life. Should they simply be walled off and criminalized, as Sensenbrenner and House Republicans suggest? The Sensenbrenner option seeks to exploit the sentiment that illegal immigrants entering the US -- rather than US corporations exiting the US for Mexico and China -- are the primary cause of falling wages for most Americans.
The Bush version is only slightly different, envisioning the "illegal immigrants" as part of a vast disposable pool of cheap labor with no meaningful rights on the job or even the right to vote, to be returned to Mexico upon the whim of their employers.
Yet there is another well-known path of economic and social integration that has been ignored in the debates over immigration in the US: the one followed by the European Union and their "social charter" calling for decent wages, health care, and extensive retraining in all nations. Before then-impoverished nations like Spain, Greece and Portugal were admitted, they received massive EU investments in roads, health care, clean water, and education. The implementation of democracy, including worker rights, was an equally vital pre-condition for entry into the EU.
The underlying concept: the entire reason for trade is to provide improved lives across borders, not to exploit the cheapest labor and weakest environmental rules. We need to question the widely-held assumption that what benefits American corporations benefits Mexican workers and American workers. An authentic plan for growth and development isn't about further enriching Wall Street, major corporations, and a handful of Mexican billionaires; it is about the creation of family-supporting jobs. It is also about a healthy environment, healthy workers, good education, and ordinary people being able to achieve their dreams.
The massive tide of illegal immigration from Mexico is merely one symptom of an economic arrangement where human needs -- not maximum profits-- are not the ultimate goal but a subject of neglect. Neither a massive, shameful barrier at the border nor a disposable guest-worker program will address the problems ignited by NAFTA.
Programs providing stable, decent employment, modern transportation, clean water, and environmental cleanup are needed to take the place of the immense NAFTA failure and allow Mexicans to live decent, hopeful lives in their native land. But such an effort is imaginable only if the aim is truly mutual uplift for all citizens in both nations, instead of the NAFTA-fueled race to the bottom. ]]> TheDemSocialist http://www.debatepolitics.com/blogs/thedemsocialist/354-nafta-and-immigration.html http://www.debatepolitics.com/blogs/thedemsocialist/333-has-gop-done-workers.html Sat, 11 Jun 2011 18:00:43 GMT Came across this article and loved it.
This time i will site my source because apparently Socialists are all "thiefs". :lol:
Anyways im not a Democrat or whatever just like this article....
But Democrats in my book are the lesser of two evils tho.


What has GOP done for workers?
By Clint C. Gold

Not too long ago, my wife and I attended a TV football party in south Tulsa. With a lopsided score, the conversation turned to a livelier subject -- politics. The crowd was, of course, top-heavy with Republicans. With each point expressed their faces became more flushed, eyes bulging a little more and veins popping in their foreheads as they railed against the liberal programs.

Finally a lone, liberal voice asked: "Will you people name me one bill your party ever passed to help the working man of this country?" The question created much din and clamor, and someone sputtered, "Well, what have the Democrats done?"

The liberal responded with a few programs and was interrupted by howling and disdain. He noted that he had not promised they would like the programs and he asked to complete his statement -- a difficult task to ask of Republicans.

He spoke of Social Security; Medicare-Medicaid; Peace Corps; unemployment insurance; welfare (for the poor and corporate); civil rights; student grant and loan programs; safety laws (OSHA); environmental laws; prevailing wage laws; right to collective bargaining (which brought about paid medical insurance, paid vacations, pensions, etc.); workers' compensation; Marshall Plan; flood-disaster insurance; School Lunch Program; women's rights.

He spoke of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which established a minimum wage, instituted child labor laws, and set up time-and-a-half pay for over a 40-hour week.

He mentioned FHA-HUD with its public housing, urban renewal and 44 million residential homes (before WWII almost 70 percent of our nation were renters; by the 1970s this had been reversed).

And farm-conservation subsidies -- USDA programs, Farmers Home Administration (the bankers didn't want to make rural loans), small flood-control lakes (more than 3,000 in Oklahoma alone), rural water districts, rural electricity (REA).

The GI Bill was passed, which the Republicans at the time bitterly opposed. They were salivating over millions of returning veterans to hire as cheap labor. More than 8 million have used college benefits, creating millions of entrepreneurs; most of us had never dreamed of college. For the unemployed GI, there was $20 a week for 52 weeks to help get started (a lot of money in those days). The Veterans Administration provided more than 2 million home loans. For the bankers at the football party, it was pointed out that the liberals saved their industry with the creation of FDIC and FSLIC, insuring their deposits, and saved Wall Street with the establishment of the Securities Exchange Commission.

The oil men came on bended knees to FDR at a time when East Texas oil was 4 cents a barrel and begged him to save their industry. He did; prorationing overturned the rule of capture and the days of flush production were over. Prorating has served this great industry (and nation) well.

And the list went on and on, but of course this group didn't let him get halfway through. He noted they were weary, inattentive, so again he challenged them to offer up any Republican legislation examples.

"I'm sure your party has authored one or two comparable bills from time to time, but I can't think of any, and apparently you can't either. What it boils down to is this: the liberals dragged you into the 20th century scratching and screaming with your heels in the mud, fighting anything that's progressive, everything that's made this country great. You Republicans have never understood that the spending power of blue-collar workers, obtained through Democrats and unions, is what really made this country great. You really believe "The Good Life" was obtained from your own endeavors. You cloak your greed in religion and patriotism, railing against any form of tax, never comprehending that these programs have benefited all of us and our country."

Well, I almost didn't make it out of the house. My wife and I didn't even get to see the end of the football game.

If Reps. Steve Largent or J.C. Watts had been there, perhaps politics would never have come up, only the game plan ... pity.

Clint C. Gold is former mayor of Moore and a retired savings and loan executive.
“Alright. Lets just imagine here, lets imagine a world without liberals; imagine this world without the civil rights movement, the equal rights movement, child labor laws, clean air and water standards, social security, birth control, school lunch programs, labor unions, rural electrification, overtime pay, women suffrage, desegregation, the peace movement, minimum safety net for the nations neediest, medicare, and medicaid, peace corps, right to collective bargaining , student loan programs, GI healthcare, workers' compensation, farm-conservation subsidies, GI Bill, do i need to say more ?”—This is a response to when conservatives always say, “Imagine a world without liberals how better it would be.” “ ]]> TheDemSocialist http://www.debatepolitics.com/blogs/thedemsocialist/333-has-gop-done-workers.html http://www.debatepolitics.com/blogs/thedemsocialist/328-democratic-socialism.html Mon, 06 Jun 2011 02:36:48 GMT Democratic socialists believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically—to meet public needs, not to make profits for a few. Democratic socialists do not want to create an all-powerful government bureaucracy. But we do not want big corporate bureaucracies to control our society... Democratic socialists believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically—to meet public needs, not to make profits for a few. Democratic socialists do not want to create an all-powerful government bureaucracy. But we do not want big corporate bureaucracies to control our society either. Rather, we believe that social and economic decisions should be made by those whom they most affect. Today, corporate executives who answer only to themselves and a few wealthy stockholders make basic economic decisions affecting millions of people. Resources are used to make money for capitalists rather than to meet human needs. We believe that the workers and consumers who are affected by economic institutions should own and control them. Social ownership could take many forms, such as worker-owned cooperatives or publicly owned enterprises managed by workers and consumer representatives. Democratic socialists favor as much decentralization as possible. While the large concentrations of capital in industries such as energy and steel may necessitate some form of state ownership, many consumer-goods industries might be best run as cooperatives. Democratic socialists have long rejected the belief that the whole economy should be centrally planned. While we believe that democratic planning can shape major social investments like mass transit, housing, and energy, market mechanisms are needed to determine the demand for many consumer goods. Democratic socialists always opposed the ruling party-states of those societies, just as we oppose the ruling classes of capitalist societies. The improvement of people’s lives requires real democracy without ethnic rivalries and/or new forms of authoritarianism. In the short term we can’t eliminate private corporations, but we can bring them under greater democratic control. The government could use regulations and tax incentives to encourage companies to act in the public interest and outlaw destructive activities such as exporting jobs to low-wage countries and polluting our environment. Public pressure can also have a critical role to play in the struggle to hold corporations accountable. Most of all, socialists look to unions make private business more accountable. Although no country has fully instituted democratic socialism, the socialist parties and labor movements of other countries have won many victories for their people. We can learn from the comprehensive welfare state maintained by the Swedes, from Canada’s national health care system, France’s nationwide childcare program, and Nicaragua’s literacy programs. Lastly, we can learn from efforts initiated right here in the US, such as the community health centers created by the government in the 1960s. They provided high quality family care, with community involvement in decision-making.
First, we call ourselves socialists because we are proud of what we are. Second, no matter what we call ourselves, conservatives will use it against us. Anti-socialism has been repeatedly used to attack reforms that shift power to working class people and away from corporate capital. In 1993, national health insurance was attacked as “socialized medicine” and defeated. Liberals are routinely denounced as socialists in order to discredit reform. Until we face, and beat, the stigma attached to the “S word,” politics in America will continue to be stifled and our options limited. We also call ourselves socialists because we are proud of the traditions upon which we are based, of the heritage of the Socialist Party of Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas, and of other struggles for change that have made America more democratic and just. Finally, we call ourselves socialists to remind everyone that we have a vision of a better world. ]]> TheDemSocialist http://www.debatepolitics.com/blogs/thedemsocialist/328-democratic-socialism.html