Democratic Socialist Questions

[DetroitProle]

I've recently been very interested in the Democratic Socialists of America.
I'm not a communist because I believe in the democratic process and some market forces.
But I don't believe in the personaification of the corporation, and companies being responsible only to stockholders. I believe the people should own and control the means of production.
They seem to fit my bill. They're also not a seperate party, which is extremely important to me. They work within the Democratic Party.
http://www.dsausa.org/dsa.html
They have a FAQ section.
Any democratic socialists here? Anyone with knowledge or experience with the organization? Detractors?

[Selatius]

1. I'm more of an anarcho-socialist, but I've worked with folks like this.

At the end of the day, I'd rather deal with a democratic socialists than a right authoritarians. Where folks like me advocate setting up worker co-ops and communes and organizing the people directly to deal with the problem at hand, democratic socialists often talk about solutions through the state first.

I'm willing to be more pragmatic in advocating a hybrid solution that mixes the two approaches, but I'm not comfortable with just solutions offered by state socialists for fear of governmental abuses of power. States have and continue to be tools of oppression of the people, and this Bush Administration only bolsters my argument. The people must be taught how to cooperate and communicate to help each other when trouble arises. This is not done at all. People are conditioned to compete and destroy each other in a race to gain control over resources. They are not taught how to cooperate for mutual survival. They are taught, instead, mutual competition, and I fear that will only lead to mutual destruction.

I am not saying the state has no role; it can play a role, but on the whole, it must be a solution that empowers the people as well as the state, not one that leaves the state with the most power. That's just the first step towards tyranny.

I can't say I have worked with this particular group of state socialists before, but then again, I haven't met very many socialists at all in this part of the country.

[deutsey]

2. I'm a member of DSA

I joined for the same reasons you mention. I wish they were larger and more of a "force" in American politics, but they come closest to capturing my political sensibilities.

[deutsey]

3. I think Bernie Sanders and Cornel West are DSA'ers, among other notables

FYI

[LostinVA]

12. And Barbara Ehrenreich

[ROakes1019]

4. Democratic Socialist

For years, I've believed the only really fair, right, good, equal and even Christian form of government is socialism. But having grown up during the McCarthy years, I've always been afraid to express my views too loudly. It seems very cowardly of me; I guess I've always thought I couldn't make a difference anyway. Yet, I do think we should have some form of national socialized health system. I think that the capitalism free trade system is what has caused many Latin American countries to embrace leftist governments. When you someone like Profi(sp)defeating Burlesconi, the former being a leftist, you have to believe that the Italian people have a preference for a left-leaning government. The Republicans, and some Democrats, are so afraid of leftist governments that our country has gone around for years deposing leftist international leaders, who many times have been for their people, all of them. I've been so afraid of having these views that right now I'm imagining someone here slamming me for being a traitor and suggesting I move to Venezuela or Italy. So I don't know that a socialist party, even a Democratic Socialist party, would have a chance in our country. Bernie Sander is a socialist, but I know of no other national politicians who are. In fact, is there a Democratic Socialist party in the US? I've looked it up on google and found only such in European countries.

[Selatius]

5. There is only enough room for two parties in the US.

Our system only supports two parties and can barely support a third. People who vote for third parties only succeed in punishing themselves as they cause unexpected consequences. Just look at 1992 and 2000 to see what happens when people vote for third parties. In both cases, nobody won a majority, but the winner of the plurality (Clinton and Bush Jr, respectively) gained office. We see that the guy who won at the end of the day never won a true majority of the vote. That's the nature of first-past-the-post voting. This is not a system of proportional representation we exist under.

As a result, you are forced to work with the Democratic Party even though most Democrats are not socialist and may even be against such an idea.

[Warpy]

7. Dumping the EC is key to any reform

and then we can work on public campaign financing. What has kept both big parties in control and shutting out all third parties is the insane winner take all electoral college. Third parties never manage to gain electoral votes, so people don't bother with them unless they are utterly disgusted with the candidates offered by the big two. Nobody even bothers to count the national totals, although state totals are reported.

Our whole system is a total mess and what it's taken for us to realize it is the theft of the system by a small and intensely cabal of rich men with Stupid as their front.

I just hope we can get it back peacefully. I'm too damn old for a violent revolution.

[Selatius]

8. Actually, you'd have to go further.

It's not the EC per se; it's "first-past-the-post" voting systems. You'd have to junk both.

In any form of representation based on single-seat districts (i.e. House seats or the seat of President), two parties become viable in most cases, especially when there are no provisions for run-off races if nobody gains a majority of the vote. This is simply Duverger's Law in effect. There are exceptions where three parties exist, but the truth is it's very difficult at all for third parties to enter in such systems.

Later political scientists have established systems based on proportional representation instead of single-seat representation to attempt to address this bottleneck, and others have established mixed systems that try to incorporate elements of both systems.

Your point about campaign finance reform still stands no matter which form of representation is selected. No system is ever truly representative if it caters to the interests of a few powerful individuals at the expense of everyone else.

[Junkdrawer]

9. I thought Michael Harrington formed DSOC as a Democratic Party...

pressure group for just that reason. "The Left of the Possible" was the motto, as I remember.

[Junkdrawer]

10. The Wiki on DSOC...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Socialist_Organizing_Committee

[Warpy]

6. Well, I'm close

but the red of my youth has been watered down to pinko by years of experience in how the world really works and has be convinced that only a mixed system can be both humane and competititve.

[LostinVA]

11. I'm a card-carrying member of the DSA