The New Socialists
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Why the pitch from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders resonates in 2018.
That may be changing. Public support for socialism is growing. Self-identified socialists like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib are making inroads into the Democratic Party, which the political analyst Kevin Phillips once called the “second-most enthusiastic capitalist party” in the world. Membership in the Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist organization in the country, is skyrocketing , especially among young people.
What explains this irruption? And what do we mean, in 2018, when we talk about “socialism”?
Some part of the story is pure accident. In 2016, Mr. Sanders made a strong bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. Far from hurting his candidacy, the “socialism” label helped it. Mr. Sanders wasn’t a liberal, a progressive or even a Democrat. He was untainted by all the words and ways of politics as usual. Ironically, the fact that socialism was so long in exile now shields it from the toxic familiarities of American politics.
Another part of the story is less accidental. Since the 1970s, American liberals have taken a right turn on the economy. They used to champion workers and unions, high taxes, redistribution, regulation and public services. Now they lionize billionaires like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, deregulate wherever possible, steer clear of unions except at election time and at least until recently, fight over how much to cut most people’s taxes.
Liberals, of course, argue that they are merely using market-friendly tools like tax cuts and deregulation to achieve things like equitable growth, expanded health care and social justice — the same ends they always have pursued. For decades, left-leaning voters have gone along with that answer, even if they didn’t like the results, for lack of an alternative.
It took Mr. Sanders to convince them that if tax credits and insurance exchanges are the best liberals have to offer to men and women struggling to make stagnating wages pay for bills that skyrocket and debt that never dissipates, maybe socialism is worth a try.
Socialism means different things to different people. For some, it conjures the Soviet Union and the gulag; for others, Scandinavia and guaranteed income. But neither is the true vision of socialism. What the socialist seeks is freedom.
Under capitalism, we’re forced to enter the market just to live. The libertarian sees the market as synonymous with freedom. But socialists hear “the market” and think of the anxious parent, desperate not to offend the insurance representative on the phone, lest he decree that the policy she paid for doesn’t cover her child’s appendectomy. Under capitalism, we’re forced to submit to the boss. Terrified of getting on his bad side, we bow and scrape, flatter and flirt, or worse — just to get that raise or make sure we don’t get fired.
The socialist argument against capitalism isn’t that it makes us poor. It’s that it makes us unfree. When my well-being depends upon your whim, when the basic needs of life compel submission to the market and subjugation at work, we live not in freedom but in domination. Socialists want to end that domination: to establish freedom from rule by the boss, from the need to smile for the sake of a sale, from the obligation to sell for the sake of survival.
Listen to today’s socialists, and you’ll hear less the language of poverty than of power. Mr. Sanders invokes the 1 percent. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez speaks to and for the “working class” — not “working people” or “working families,” homey phrases meant to soften and soothe. The 1 percent and the working class are not economic descriptors. They’re political accusations. They split society in two, declaring one side the illegitimate ruler of the other; one side the taker of the other’s freedom, power and promise.
Walk the streets of Bushwick with a canvasser for Julia Salazar, the socialist candidate running to represent North Brooklyn in the New York State Senate. What you’ll hear is that unlike her opponent, Ms. Salazar doesn’t take money from real estate developers. It’s not just that she wants to declare her independence from rich donors. It’s that in her district of cash-strapped renters, landlords are the enemy.
Compare that position to the pitch that Shomik Dutta, a Democratic Party fund-raiser, gave to the Obama campaign in 2008: “The Clinton network is going to take all the establishment” donors. What the campaign needed was someone who understands “the less established donors, the real-estate-developer folks.” If that was “yes, we can,” the socialist answer is “no, we won’t.”
One of the reasons candidates like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Ms. Salazar speak the language of class so fluently is that it’s central to their identities. Al Gore, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton struggled to cobble together a credible self out of the many selves they’d presented over the years, trying to find a personal story to fit the political moment. Today’s young candidates of the left tell a story of personal struggle that meshes with their political vision. Mr. Obama did that — but where his story reinforced a myth of national identity and inclusion, the socialists’ story is one of capitalism and exclusion: how, as millennials struggling with low wages and high rents and looming debt, they and their generation are denied the promise of freedom.
The stories of these candidates are socialist for another reason: They break with the nation-state. The geographic references of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez — or Ms. Tlaib, who is running to represent Michigan’s 13th District in Congress — are local rather than national, invoking the memory and outposts of American and European colonialism rather than the promise of the American dream.
Ms. Tlaib speaks of her Palestinian heritage and the cause of Palestine by way of the African-American struggle for civil rights in Detroit, while Ms. Ocasio-Cortez draws circuits of debt linking Puerto Rico, where her mother was born, and the Bronx, where she lives. Mr. Obama’s story also had its Hawaiian (as well as Indonesian and Kenyan) chapters. But where his ended on a note of incorporation, the cosmopolitan wanderer coming home to America, Ms. Tlaib and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez aren’t interested in that resolution. That refusal is also part of the socialist heritage.
Arguably the biggest boundary today’s socialists are willing to cross is the two-party system. In their campaigns, the message is clear: It’s not enough to criticize Donald Trump or the Republicans; the Democrats are also complicit in the rot of American life. And here the socialism of our moment meets up with the deepest currents of the American past.
Like the great transformative presidents, today’s socialist candidates reach beyond the parties to target a malignant social form: for Abraham Lincoln, it was the slavocracy; for Franklin Roosevelt, it was the economic royalists. The great realigners understood that any transformation of society requires a confrontation not just with the opposition but also with the political economy that underpins both parties. That’s why realigners so often opt for a language that neither party speaks. For Lincoln in the 1850s, confronting the Whigs and the Democrats, that language was free labor. For leftists in the 2010s, confronting the Republicans and the Democrats, it’s socialism.
To critics in the mainstream and further to the left, that language can seem slippery. With their talk of Medicare for All or increasing the minimum wage, these socialist candidates sound like New Deal or Great Society liberals. There’s not much discussion, yet, of classic socialist tenets like worker control or collective ownership of the means of production.
And of course, there’s overlap between what liberals and socialists call for. But even if liberals come to support single-payer health care, free college, more unions and higher wages, the divide between the two will remain. For liberals, these are policies to alleviate economic misery. For socialists, these are measures of emancipation, liberating men and women from the tyranny of the market and autocracy at work. Back in the 1930s, it was said that liberalism was freedom plus groceries. The socialist, by contrast, believes that making things free makes people free.
It’s also important to remember that the traffic between socialism and liberalism has always been wide. The 10-point program of Marx and Engels’s “Communist Manifesto” included demands that are now boilerplate: universal public education, abolition of child labor and a progressive income tax. It can take a lot of socialists to get a little liberalism: It was socialists in Europe, after all, who won the right to vote, freedom of speech and parliamentary democracy. Given how timid and tepid American liberalism has become — when was the last time a Democratic president even called himself a liberal — it’s not surprising that a more arresting term helps get the conversation going. Sometimes nudges need a nudge.
Still, today’s socialism is just getting started. It took Lincoln a decade — plus a civil war, and the decision of black slaves to defy their masters, rushing to join advancing Union troops — to come to the position that free labor meant immediate abolition.
In magazines and on websites, in reading groups and party chapters, socialists are debating the next steps: state ownership of certain industries, worker councils and economic cooperatives, sovereign wealth funds. Once upon a time, such conversations were the subject of academic satire and science fiction. Now they’re getting out the vote and driving campaigns. It’s too soon to tell whether they’ll spill over into Congress, but events have a way of converting barroom chatter into legislative debate.
What ultimately gives shape to socialist desire is less the specific policies in a politician’s head than the men and women marching with their feet. That’s why the two most important utterances of today’s socialists are Ms. Salazar’s demand that New York abolish the law prohibiting strikes of government workers and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s call “to occupy all of it.” Both statements reveal what socialists have always understood: Mass action — sometimes illegal, always confrontational — will determine socialism’s final form.
Socialism is not journalists, intellectuals or politicians armed with a policy agenda. As Marx and Engels understood — this was one of their core insights, what distinguished them from other socialist thinkers, ever ready with their blueprints — it is workers who get us there, who decide what and where “there” is.
That, too, is a kind of freedom. Socialist freedom.
By Corey Robin, a professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate Center.
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If only that were true.
The current socialist argument against capitalism is "other people have money and I don't....so the teacher should make them share".
Then tell those bitches in the South to stop sucking away my tax dollars. I'd love for "real America" to stop mooching off me.
Happily. But I don't think it will help. Too many northerners can't help their "feelings"
Agreed.
This is the characterizing quote:
If every individual is free to define socialism however s/he wishes then the label is meaningless. Better to not even use the label 'socialism' and have discussion on good and bad practices in a socio-economic/political system. A discussion that starts with: 'what should be the objectives of our future socio-economic/political system?' might go somewhere.
Oops. Comment 5 should have been nested before this one. When I'm Replying to the last Comment on a page, I often make the mistake of using the Comment box just below, instead of hitting the Reply button.
As we've already observed in the first Comments and Replies, there are no references to the seed. It may have been read or not. No matter, because the word "socialism" provokes an automatic Reply about freedom, regardless of the content of the article.
That's why Dr Robin addresses the "freedom question" as first priority.
The folks who Reply by reflex will never be persuaded of anything, of course. I think Dr Robin is in fact hoping to underscore the difference between his own careful reasoning, and his adversaries' bumper-sticker slogans, for the benefit of any "undecided".
Considering the author's pedigree, I'd bet that he knows the definition.
This article isn't Socialism101. It's a head-on against the usual stupid arguments. You can see how it works. I quote the key phrase "The socialist argument against capitalism isn’t that it makes us poor. It’s that it makes us unfree." which is blithely ignored by the very next Comment.
As the intrinsically authoritarian character of capitalism becomes clearer and clearer, more and more Americans, especially the young, are thinking, "Well hey! I can see the crap that capitalism is dumping on all of us. Maybe it's time to look at the alternative"
It is still a vaguely defined dream. I have not met a "democratic Socialist" yet that can define what they want to do with what programs and especially how to pay for them. I don't think we need a fact checker to know Cortez's claim "funeral expenses" will pay for it is BS. It is a BS Utopian pipe dream and that is why they don't just move to a Socialist country. They have to try to destroy ours.
This is one of the reasons I try to get people to get beyond labels. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can call herself whatever she wishes. Does not matter. What matters are her plans. Per her website we have this :
Medicare For All
Improved and Expanded Medicare for All is the ethical, logical, and affordable path to ensuring no person goes without dignified healthcare. Medicare for All will reduce the existing costs of healthcare (and make Medicare cheaper, too!) by allowing all people in the US to buy into a universal healthcare system. What’s even better is that Improved and Expanded Medicare for All includes full vision, dental, and mental healthcare - because we know that true healthcare is about the whole self, not just your yearly physical.Almost every other developed nation in the world has universal healthcare. It’s time the United States catch up to the rest of the world in ensuring all people have real healthcare coverage that doesn’t break the bank. This is very different than universal “access” to healthcare, which is lobbyist talk for more for-profit plans.
Housing As a Human Right
Alexandria believes that housing is a right, and that Congress must tip the balance away from housing as a gambling chip for Wall Street banks and fight for accessible housing that’s actually within working families’ reach. Congress has allowed most of our existing housing investments to go towards benefiting the wealthy. Alexandria supports extending tax benefits to working and middle-class homeowners, expanding the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, housing (not sheltering) the homeless, and permanently funding the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
A Peace Economy
America should not be in the business of destabilizing countries. While we may see ourselves as liberators, the world increasingly views us as occupiers and aggressors. Alexandria believes that we must end the "forever war" by bringing our troops home, and ending the air strikes that perpetuate the cycle of terrorism throughout the world.
A Federal Jobs Guarantee
Alexandria endorses a Federal Jobs Guarantee, because anyone who is willing and able to work shouldn’t struggle to find employment.
A Federal Jobs Guarantee would create a baseline standard for employment that includes a $15 minimum wage (pegged to inflation), full healthcare, and child and sick leave for all. This proposal would dramatically upgrade the quality of employment in the United States, by providing training and experience to workers while bringing much-needed public services to our communities in areas such as parks service, childcare and environmental conservation.
Furthermore, a federal jobs guarantee program would establish a floor for wages and benefits for the nation’s workforce. This program would provide a baseline minimum wage of $15 an hour and guarantee for public workers a basic benefits package, including healthcare and childcare. By investing in our own workforce, we can lift thousands of American families out of poverty.
Gun Control / Assault Weapons Ban
Ban Assault Weapons, High-Capacity Magazines, and Bump Stocks
Require Domestic Abusers and Stalkers to Surrender Their Firearms
Mandate Universal and Improved Background Checks for Firearm Purchases
Require Congresspeople to take no money from the gun lobby or private equity companies that invest in the firearms industry
Criminal Justice Reform, End Private Prisons
Alexandria believes in ending mass incarceration and the war on drugs, and closing the school-to-prison pipeline. Alexandria supports the federal legalization of marijuana, ending for-profit prisons and detention centers, the release of individuals incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses, the end of cash bail, and automatic, independent investigations each & every time an individual is killed by law enforcement. We must also fully fund the offices of public defenders, decriminalize poverty, end arbitration clauses that shield corporate abuses of everyday Americans, and provide comprehensive mental health care to both incarcerated communities and law enforcement.
Immigration Justice / Abolish ICE
It’s time to abolish ICE, clear the path to citizenship, and protect the rights of families to remain together.
Solidarity with Puerto Rico
As a Congresswoman, Alexandria intends to fight for sweeping change in the way that the United States relates to Puerto Rico, including 5 main policy priorities:
1) A Marshall Plan for Puerto Rico, helping the island not only recover from Hurricane Maria, but thrive with modern infrastructure and renewable energy systems.
2) A community-led, sustainable, and just recovery - including protections for Puerto Rico’s public education system from kindergarten to college and trade school.
3) An immediate waiver and full review of the Jones Act, which hamstrings the Puerto Rican economy with restrictions that other American communities do not have to face.
4) Cancellation of Puerto Rico’s Wall Street debt: this debt has been accrued by vulture funds using irresponsible and unjust behavior reminiscent of the 2008 financial crisis.
5) Condemnation of the PROMESA Act, which handed over the island to “La Junta,” a corporate governance board installed with the support of my opponent and his private equity donors.
Mobilizing Against Climate Change
In order to address runaway global climate change, Alexandria strongly supports transitioning the United States to a carbon-free, 100% renewable energy system and a fully modernized electrical grid by 2035. She believes renewable fuels must be produced in a way that achieves our environmental and energy security goals, so we can move beyond oil responsibly in the fight against climate change. By encouraging the electrification of vehicles, sustainable home heating, distributed rooftop solar generation, and the conversion of the power grid to zero-emissions energy sources, Alexandria believes we can be 100% free of fossil fuels by 2035.
Furthermore, Alex believes in recognizing the relationship between economic stability and environmental sustainability. It’s time to shift course and implement a Green New Deal – a transformation that implements structural changes to our political and financial systems in order to alter the trajectory of our environment.
Clean Campaign Finance
The first pledge Alexandria made to voters in this election was to commit herself to clean campaign finance. As a candidate, Alexandria recognizes the corrupting influence of corporate fundraising on legislative policy. Where she stands farthest apart from her primary opponent Joe Crowley is in her steadfast refusal to allow her campaign to be underwritten by lobbyist contributions. If elected, Alexandria vows to reform campaign finance laws that undermine democracy for the benefit of corporate interests. This is not a progressive or a conservative issue. It is an issue that should concern all Americans, regardless of their political point of view, who wish to preserve the longest standing democracy in the world, and a government that represents all of the people and not a handful of powerful and wealthy special interests.
Higher Education / Trade School for All
Roughly every 100 years, the United States expands its public education system to match its increasingly advanced economy. It’s now time to expand our national education system to include tuition-free public college and trade school. In tandem with making public colleges tuition-free, Alexandria supports a one-time policy of student debt cancellation, in which the federal government cancels the loans it holds directly and buys back the financing of privately owned loans on behalf of borrowers to liberate generations of Americans trapped in student loan debt and holding back from participating in the greater US economy.
Women's Rights
Alexandria believes that Women’s Rights are Human Rights, and that all women deserve equal access to workplace safety, equal pay, paid parental leave, full access to healthcare, and more. She wants to create a society in which women - which includes Black women, Native women, poor women, immigrant women, disabled women, Muslim women, lesbian queer and trans women - are free and able to care for and nurture their families in safe and healthy environments free from structural impediments.
Reproductive freedom is especially essential for all individuals of marginalized genders, including cisgender women and trans people. Alexandria does not accept any federal, state or local rollbacks, cuts or restrictions on the ability of individuals to access quality reproductive healthcare services, birth control, HIV/AIDS care and prevention, or medically accurate sexuality education. This means open access to safe, legal, affordable abortion, birth control, and family planning services, as well as access to adequate, affordable pre- and post-natal care, for all people, regardless of income, location or education.
Alexandria is a firm believer in equal pay for all genders. The pay and hiring discrimination that women, particularly mothers, women of color, Indigenous women, lesbian, queer and trans women still face each day in our nation, as well as discrimination against workers with disabilities, is atrocious and must end. Equal pay for equal work will provide families with upward mobility and boost the economy.
Alexandria is a proponent of labor legislation that reduces the discrimination and exploitation of working women. She believes we should be creating workforce opportunities for caregivers and parents; and stands in opposition to gun laws that allow those convicted of domestic abuse to have firearms and the criminalization of sex work, both of which increase violence against women. In Congress she will support legislation that promotes caregiving and basic workplace protections—including benefits like paid family leave, access to affordable childcare, sick days, healthcare, fair pay, vacation time, and healthy work environments—benefit society as a whole.
Support LGBTQIA+
Alexandria believes in the urgency of acting to safeguard the livelihoods of LGBTQIA+ people. To this end, Alex will advocate for legislation such as the Equality Act, which would expand existing civil rights law to make discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity illegal. As we advocate for Universal Healthcare, we must also do more to provide affordable healthcare coverage that is gender-affirming and conscientious of the unique medical struggles faced by LGBTQIA+ patients. The issues facing the LGBTQIA+ community are not isolated from the issues facing many of us regarding race and class. It is critical in times like these that we stand together in solidarity, to build just public policy that works for all of us, not just some of us.
Support Seniors
Alexandria is a strong supporter of Social Security, which is the most successful program for social uplift and social justice in the history of this country. She believes that everyone should be able to retire with dignity. She believes that Social Security should be expanded and that benefits should be linked to inflation. This includes raising the cap on taxable income so that everyone who makes over $250,000 a year pays the same percentage of their income into Social Security as the middle class and working families. Legislation to that effect would not only extend the solvency of Social Security for the next 50 years, but also bring in enough revenue to expand benefits by an average of $65 a month; increase cost-of-living-adjustments; and lift more seniors out of poverty by increasing the minimum benefits paid to low-income seniors. Additionally, Alexandria believes that funds borrowed from Social Security by Congress must be paid back to ensure its solvency. Without Social Security, more than 40% of seniors would have incomes below the poverty line. With this program running to full effect, only 8.8% of American seniors live in poverty, which is a number that is still too high and that Alexandria will work to reduce.
Until comprehensive universal healthcare is a reality in this country, Alexandria believes Medicaid needs expansion. It is a vital lifeline for 72 million Americans, and two-thirds of Medicaid spending supports senior citizens and the disabled. Expanding Medicaid to provide quality long term services, nursing home care, and home healthcare support is how we can best help our seniors.
Alexandria believes affordable housing should be within the means of all full-time working Americans. For the seniors who have retired, they should be able to stay in their homes without getting priced out. Seniors who are more financially secure in retirement and don’t have to contend with rising rent costs will be able to choose for themselves whether to move in with their children and families, not be forced to do so by economic realities.
Curb Wall Street Gambling: Restore Glass Steagall
Systemic risk in our banking system leads to the concentration of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands and also leads to increased risk that individuals will lose their savings due to the irresponsible decisions of bank management. We should restore Glass-Steagall to make sure our banks can’t gamble with our money. We also should make sure that no bank is allowed to become “too-big-to-fail” and that oversized banks are broken up to reduce the likelihood of a financial crash. Finally, we need to make postal banking a reality in the United States, which will revitalize the United States Postal Service, provide a low-cost source of basic banking services for disenfranchised communities, and increase competition in the banking industry.
This is a plan of a social democrat / liberal - a plan of redistribution based on a highly-regulated capitalist economy. It pulls from the Nordic model and from Euro ideas implemented in Germany, U.K, France, etc. The label 'democratic socialist' does not correlate with her plan and neither did it correlate with Sanders' plan. The political 'democratic socialist' is basically a liberal / social-democrat. And this is what one would expect. Even if both these politicians genuinely sought a socialist society, there is little they would be able to do to promote it in 2018. Sanders' at least promoted workplace democracy, but even then that is just nurturing avenues for more people to get used to the idea of taking more responsibility over their economic situation - this would require several generations to start making a difference IMO. Workplace democracy is not a defining characteristic of socialism, it is simply a method to possibly start a transition in how individuals in a society think and operate.
Bottom line, if one cannot get past the labels to truly see what someone is purporting then one will never actually understand what is going on. Anyone who thinks Ocasio-Cortez has presented a socialist agenda needs to buy a vowel.
[ 96, ]
[ Everywhere ] I [ see ] you [ call or imply that Tig is a socialist, ] I [ am going to post this: ]
[ Choosing to ignore a member's position is poor form. ]
I suspect if you actually understood the concept of socialism your comment would be 'typical liberal'. Do you equate socialism with liberalism now? I thought you were in the socialism = USSR, etc. camp
That is certainly not my dream. You are very confused.
That illustrates yet again that you do not actually comprehend what I have written on this subject. Given your understanding of socialism is at the label and slogan level I suppose it is predictable that you would simply presume that someone attempting to explain the concept of socialism MUST BE a socialist. Buy a vowel.
As for paying for this stuff, I have no idea - this is not my proposal. My position is that redistribution of wealth destroys a nation from within. I went to Ocasio-Cortez' website and listed her platform to illustrate that in spite of her labels, this is not socialism. She (and Bernie) should call themselves social democrats (or even just liberals).
You replied to my comment yet did not even bother to read it. Here, read this and learn a little something:
[ 96, ]
[ Everywhere I see you call or imply that Tig is ] a [ socialist, I am going to post this: ]
[ Choosing to ignore a member's position is poor form. ]
If all you are ever going to do is label me a socialist (wrong, as you have been informed) and demand I explain how to pay for a platform I have not proposed, you are not advancing the discussion. Given you cannot bring yourself to comprehend and honestly represent my comments ( TiG @ 6.2 and TiG @ 6.2.2 ) , I am not at all surprised that your understanding of socialism is no deeper than a collection of platitudes.
[ 96, ]
[ Everywhere I see you call or imply that Tig is a socialist, I am going to post this:
[ Choosing to ignore a member's position is poor form. ]
Debating first requires that you understand what the other person wrote. Inventing your own argument and making pursuant allegations is known as a strawman argument. It is intellectually dishonest. That and offering nothing but platitudes is nothing short of trolling.
Right off the bat you go right back to your strawman. You assign a 'BS dream' to me and ask me to defend it. This is equivalent to me asking you to defend your dream of fascism.
And you step in it again. You did not read my post for comprehension (or at all). Instead you assign all of Cortez' platform to me as if I am supporting it. Read my comment again - this time actually try to understand the words - I listed a summary of Cortez' platform with a link to her website. None of that are my words. Not sure why this is not sinking in but this is your failure, not mine, since I have made this clear several times.
In summary:
T H E I T E M S L I S T E D I N TiG @ 6.2 A R E C O R T E Z ' P L A N S F R O M H E R W E B S I T E. I L I S T E D T H E M T O I L L U S T R A T E T H A T S H E I S P R O M O T I N G S O C I A L D E M O C R A C Y - N O T S O C I A L I S M.
And if that still is not clear, here is the framework of my post:
I started with this:
This is one of the reasons I try to get people to get beyond labels. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can call herself whatever she wishes. Does not matter. What matters are her plans. Per her website we have this :
I then listed her platform:
( her platform appears here )
I ended with this:
This is a plan of a social democrat / liberal - a plan of redistribution based on a highly-regulated capitalist economy. It pulls from the Nordic model and from Euro ideas implemented in Germany, U.K, France, etc. The label 'democratic socialist' does not correlate with her plan and neither did it correlate with Sanders' plan. The political 'democratic socialist' is basically a liberal / social-democrat. And this is what one would expect. Even if both these politicians genuinely sought a socialist society, there is little they would be able to do to promote it in 2018. Sanders' at least promoted workplace democracy, but even then that is just nurturing avenues for more people to get used to the idea of taking more responsibility over their economic situation - this would require several generations to start making a difference IMO. Workplace democracy is not a defining characteristic of socialism, it is simply a method to possibly start a transition in how individuals in a society think and operate.
Bottom line, if one cannot get past the labels to truly see what someone is purporting then one will never actually understand what is going on. Anyone who thinks Ocasio-Cortez has presented a socialist agenda needs to buy a vowel.
If you want to debate me, first get a clue as to what I have written.
[ It is me, ]
[ Everywhere I see ] you [ call or imply that Tig is ] a [ socialist, I am going to post this: ]
[ Choosing to ignore a member's position is poor form. ]
[ 96, ]
[ Everywhere I see you call or imply that Tig is ] a [ socialist, I am going to post this: ]
[ Choosing ] to [ ignore a member's position is poor form. ]
Another one.
Read my post TiG @ 6.2.
If you do so and demonstrate that you actually understand what I wrote then formulate a question or response and I might take it seriously.
[ 96, ]
[ Everywhere I see you call or imply that Tig is a socialist, I am going to post this: ]
[ Choosing to ignore a member's position is poor form. ]
Yes and:
is an oxymoron. Plain and simple.
[ It is me, ]
[ Everywhere I see you call or imply that Tig is a socialist, I am going to post this:
[ Choosing to ignore a member's position is poor form. ]
[ 96, ]
[ Everywhere I see you call or imply that ] Tig is a [ socialist, I am going to post this: ]
[ Choosing to ignore a member's position is poor form. ]
( Why do some people behave this way? )
Your (cliche) tactic is to ignore everything I write and just blindly argue from your strawman. I would be embarrassed to engage in such a pathetic display, but to each his own.
One last time. You are citing Cortez' platform. I did not propose it. This is from her website. It was an illustration to show she is not promoting socialism. Buy a vowel.
[ 96, ]
[ Everywhere I see you call or imply that Tig is a socialist, I am going to post this: ]
[ Choosing to ignore a member's position is poor form. ]
It is me:
Everywhere I see you call or imply that Tig is a socialist, I am going to post this:
Choosing to ignore a member's position is poor form.
[deleted]
[ 96, ]
[ Everywhere I see you call or imply that Tig is a socialist, I am going to post this:
[ Choosing to ignore a member's position is poor form. ]
First, that is a lie. (To see why I know this is a lie, carefully read my next point.)
Second, universal healthcare (of any form) is not a defining characteristic of socialism. Your claim is absurd. Public services / programs are a function of ALL socio-economic/political systems for significant nations. Today they are offered by nations operating with a capitalist economy. I have explained this in detail including an entire article explaining why the presence of public services does NOT mean the economic system is socialism. You should have paid attention.
Labeling me a socialist is a lie. Putting me in the Sanders / Cortez camp is a lie (worse even than labeling me a socialist).
IMO posting false allegations, repeatedly, in spite of being repeatedly corrected is about as slimy a tactic as there is. It is amazing that you think that works in your favor.
In simple terms: 96WS6 you are incessantly lying about my positions. Now is a good time to end this practice.
[ 96, ]
[ Everywhere I see ] you [ call or imply that Tig is ] a [ socialist, I am going to post this: ]
[ Choosing to ignore a member's position is poor form. ]
I see
Honestly most people, on both sides of the aisle, don't really know what socialism is. I consider myself to be a social democrat in the mold of the Scandinavian countries.
Anyone who has read a history book knows EXACTLY what Socialism is.
You need to go beyond history books. History describes major events (from the perspective of the writers). There is a vast amount of information out there but you have to do more than simply read history to understand it. History is very important, but do not simply stop there. When Stalin or Hitler suggest that they are implementing socialism, simply taking their word for it and blindly adopting their nightmares is a failure in critical thinking.
You mean I should IGNORE history and repeat it.
Nope. I mean that informed people read more than history books. If you want to understand why the Challenger self-destructed you need to go beyond history and into the engineering. If you want to understand the economics of the Great Depression you need to go beyond historical coverage and into the economics.
Informed people tend to not be satisfied with mere labels and slogans but rather dig into the subject matter and think for themselves.
Finally, being informed requires that you first read for comprehension. When I suggested you 'go beyond history books' that does not mean 'ignore' history. It means to supplement history with other areas of knowledge.
Bed-time. Locking up.
They aren't socialists. They are Social Democrats.
"Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez"
Dumb and DUMBER was a really popular movie.
"She gave me a bunch of crap about me not listening to her, or something. I don't know, I wasn't really paying attention. "
Bernie and Alex are no dummies.
Bernie makes $174,000/yr, with full benefits and pension.
What he does to "earn" this money is..."tell liberals who are very bad at math whatever they want to hear".
Alex has seen this career path and said...."that's great work if you can get it, and I think I can get it".
Actually they are, if you look at the analysis of their proposals. The Voting Public FOR them are nothing more than "Dumb and Dumber 2".
It depends on the actual goals of those proposals.
If they are actually trying to make America better, then yes, they're idiotic.
If they're simply trying to get re-elected, they're brilliant.
There is NO "IF" about it. That's what they say their policies will do.
"Cardi B is Right".
And you believe what they say.....
Why....on earth....would you believe what they say?
It's on the internet ……. and in their speeches. Why shouldn't I believe they think that way ?
Well then it MUST be true.
Because much of what most politicians say is prevarication.
Hey, if you want free food, healthcare, housing, education, and gun control....go to prison.
Don't expect the wealthiest country in the world to be as good to its people as the average.
Not even close...
It wouldn't be the wealthiest country if it was a socialist hellhole.
No?
Why would giving people adequate health-care - like all the other developed countries - be a problem?
Why would giving people adequate education - like all the other developed countries - be a problem?
Why would giving people adequate lodgings - like all the other developed countries - be a problem?
Why would giving people what any civilized nation should give to its people... be a problem?
The US does all that you listed.
Adequate health Care for all - We got it.
Adequate Education all - We got it.
Adequate Lodging all - We got it.
Now if your really looking for:
Stupendous Health Care for all - No one has it
Stupendous Education for all - No one has it
Stupendous Lodging for all - No one has it
There are bitches about EVERY SYSTEM ON THE PLANET.
And yet, welfare spending in the US (as a percentage of GDP) has tripled in the last 50 years.
Are you implying that Americans are the least competent of all advanced nations?
In some ways, i suppose yes. For starters I think we should simply put up the shutters, take care of our own ill's first and let the world fend for itself. That would pay for much of what you're talking about.
That work for you Bob?
No.
Good
Here is the New Socialist.....
Do you know what an ad hominum fallacy is? I would link to it, to help you learn, but apparently the definition of ad hominum is a CoC violation...
oh lighten up and laugh....is the picture not true?
No.
That's the point of the ad hominum fallacy.
yes it is true.....hits the nail squarely on the head.
So in your Socialist nirvana, everyone has things like expensive smart phones, overpriced watches and coffee?
Its not a fallacy in the least. Our politicians generally operate in a different world than the people they are hired to represent. She appears to be no different. Otherwise she would have say ..... a Timex watch and McDonalds coffee.
Whats good for the goose apparently isn't good for the gander eh?
No.
No what?
You have no right to assume anything about my Socialist nirvana.
I can ask any question i wish Bob.
Care to answer it?
Of course.
Answer?
No.
That's what i thought.
99% bark, 1% bite.
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Removed for context
I heard she was upset about Uber service for her campaign after trashing them as well. Go figure.
Evidently Bob is so Paritzan he refuses to believe is own eyes.
all that bling is blinding...just trust the bureaucrats to run your life.