CFP: Democratic Socialism: Not My America - Not on My Watch! by JB Williams , 10/03/07
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Taken directly from the Democratic Socialist of America web sitePowered by ScribeFire.
Democratic Socialists believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically--to meet public needs.
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. Resources are used to make money for capitalists rather than to meet human needs. Social ownership could take many forms, such as worker-owned cooperatives or publicly owned enterprises managed by workers and consumer representatives.
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.
Most of all, socialists look to unions to make private business more responsible.
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.
We are not a separate party from the Democratic Party. Like our friends and allies in the feminist, labor, civil rights, religious, and community organizing movements, many of us have been active in the Democratic Party. We work with those movements to strengthen the party’s left wing, represented by the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Although capitalism will be with us for a long time, reforms we win now--raising the minimum wage, securing a national health plan, and demanding passage of right-to-strike legislation--can bring us closer to socialism. Many democratic socialists actively work in the single-issue organizations that advocate for those reforms. We are visible in the reproductive freedom movement, the fight for student aid, gay and lesbian organizations, anti-racist groups, and the labor movement.
Schools, Colleges and Universities are important to American political culture. They are the places where ideas are formulated and policy discussed and developed. Being an active part of that discussion is a critical job for young socialists. We have to work hard to change people’s misconceptions about socialism.
We call ourselves socialists because we are proud of what we are. 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.
2 Comments:
Do these buffoons and morons really believe by slapping in a few "democratic" shots into this that I'm dumb enough to miss that this is Socialism 101?
I guess that is one of the tenents of Socialism, a belief that the masses are nothing but posts.
In case these hayseeds need a re-learning, you either live with Socialism or you live with Capitalism. A union-run company is a socialist company and the reason you don't find any is because they lose more money than they make, causing layoffs and eventual collapse of the country. But hey, for you "democratic" socialists, I guess a company run by the union for 1 year is better than a capitalisitc company in business (and offering jobs to 5,000) for 100 years.
Chances are real good that 90% of the people involved in this movement are government workers, teachers or professors.
Hey, oe, where have you been?
Don't you love the cognitive dissonance?
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