Democratic Socialists of America

I recently received my quarterly news letter from DSA in the mail; I am still working on it. I did get my bi-weekly e-letter regarding their upcoming national meeting. Of course, DSA is a 3rd party. This means they will never elect a member to the White House. However, as we have seen with other 3rd party candidates, there is hope in the House, Senate, and as Governor. DSA has a great mission in that they see eradicate poverty, sexism, racism, and classism. I like all of those isms.

Here is what I received the other day; I have been meaning to share this with all of my hard-core Republican friends. All 3 of them.

We Want YOU to Attend the National Convention – Register Now!

Join us at the 15th biennial convention of Democratic Socialists of America, November 11-13 in the Washington D.C. suburb of Vienna, Va. Register now.

We are the alternative to the tea party conservatives, the Republicans whose only program is to say no, the Democrats who have forgotten what progressive politics really are and the progressives who think that they can stand apart from the left.

It’s time to use plain language. Despite the GOP’s talking points to the contrary, Warren Buffett was right when he said “there’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

Now is the time to focus on some critical questions:

1) How do we respond to the Right’s relentless and extreme assaults on working people and their institutions?

2) How do we build a response that rebuilds our economy, provides equitable access to education for young people, and provides jobs and security for workers, the retired and the near-retired in the aftermath of the Great Recession?

3) How do we set a political agenda that strengthens progressive forces and inspires rather than disillusions activists and voters?
Over the last two years, we have continued renewing and revitalizing our organization to meet the challenge of making the socialist tradition relevant to 21st century America. Membership has grown, new DSA locals and YDS chapters have organized and I have become the new National Director.

We must keep building DSA.  Never has the United States been in greater need of the contributions of democratic socialists to rebuild the American Dream.

In the words of Michael Moore, “America is not broke!”

Attend the convention to:

·         Get to know fellow DSA and YDSers from around the country, share activism best-practices, and build democratic socialist community

·         Discuss and debate our political strategy and elect our national leadership for the next two years

·         Develop organizing skills like recruiting new members and getting our message into the media

·         Participate in workshops and other convention sessions about: defending public services, a socialist-feminist response to the recession, dealing with the jobs crisis, progressive taxation, cutting the bloated military budget and much more!

Convention Registration

Register online and make hotel reservations now.

·         Convention delegates are elected by DSA local organizations. Members not in locals may run as at-large delegates to the convention. YDS (youth section) members attend as delegates with their local or as at-large delegates. There is also an option to attend as an Observer.

·         Or call the national office to register and get more information: (212) 727-8610.

·         The advanced convention fee of $195 covers all materials as well as coffee breaks and a Saturday banquet dinner. The week-of convention fee is $220, but we need to plan ahead so please register as soon as possible. Limited financial aid will be available for members in need. Child care can be provided. Roommates can be arranged to decrease hotel costs.

·         As soon as you register, delegates will be added to a special email listserve for pre-convention discussion and a list to receive further convention information.

·         The convention will be held at the Sheraton Premiere at Tysons Corner, 8661 Leesburg Pike, Vienna, VA 22182, in a suburb of Washington, DC.

·         Hotel Reservations: To reserve a room and receive the special convention rate of $109 (for a single or a double room) per night plus tax, call (703) 448-1234 and reference the DSA convention, or register online here. The rooms and the special discount will be held only until the beginning of October, so make your reservations now. Your credit card will not be charged until you arrive at the hotel.

Our convention is the opportunity to improve your organizing skills, share ideas with other DSA activists, and decide the direction of our organization for the next two years.

A corporate dominated political system will move in a progressive direction only if powerful democratic social movements force it to do so. Your participation is important.

If not now, when?  Register today.

In solidarity,

 

Maria Svart

National Director

PS: From time to time, I will let you know about events organized by other organizations or articles written by DSA notables which provide helpful analyses for DSA activists to consider.  One such event is this Thursday, September 22nd at 1pm EST/10am PST: “Race and the Federal Budget Debate,” a free webinar presented by the Applied Research Center.  Click here to learn more and register.

 

Socialism and the Masses

Earlier this year, Room for Debate examined how the word “socialism” is used as shorthand and epithet in current politics and in other eras of American history. Many of President Obama’s opponents, like those at the demonstration in Washington earlier in the year during the health care discussion, insist that he’s a socialist.

Some readers wrote in to say that the use of the label is disturbing and incendiary. Others argued there’s more truth than exaggeration to that description. Here are excerpts from some of their comments. Because some folks think that I am the resident expert on socialism here, I am routinely inundated with questions regarding socialism, communism, anarchism, etc…. I am more than happy to educate a population of people who get too much incorrect information from T.V. I fear the death of books has arrived.

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A Real Socialist State

As a Norwegian, looking at the U.S. health care debate from the outside, I cannot help but laugh sometimes. It seems like the word “socialism” has become a swear word. In Norway, we just re-elected a “socialist” government. That does not mean that we live in a communist state. We have full-fledged capitalism over here, and we are just about the richest country in the world, per capita. But we have chosen to let the state supply world-class health care to all inhabitants.

To allow private insurance companies to let private profit maximizing decisions get in between a patient and a doctor is close to unethical for us. In Norway, you get the same care no matter if you are a homeless drunk or the C.E.O. of one of the biggest companies. And that’s how it should be. They say that the measure of a country’s success lies in how it treats its most unfortunate citizens.

— Gjert Myrestrand

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The Protesters’ Point

Conservatives may not use the term “socialist” according to its precise definition, but maybe they do have a point. Protesters are not necessarily racist or ignorant. Some are people who have worked hard their whole lives–in college and graduate programs, then in their careers. These are people who achieved the American dream and are afraid to lose the fruits of their labors. Obama is not a socialist, per se.

However, many of his policies — health care included — will “redistribute the wealth.” Our economy has always fallen somewhere between pure capitalism and socialism. Obama’s policies will push us further from capitalism, even if they are not “socialist” in the strictest sense of the word. Is Obama a socialist? No. But he’s sure as heck not a capitalist, either. I think this is what has a lot of people worried.

— Jenny

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Eisenhower: Closet Socialist?

I believe that Republicans once turned on their own (President Eisenhower) when they accused the T.V.A. of being “creeping socialism.” And, of course, it was this same “socialist” who helped inspire the interstate highway system.

But where else, besides highways and hydroelectric dams, might the paranoid look to find successful examples of “socialism” in the U.S.? The list should probably include: public schools and universities; public libraries; local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies; both full-time and volunteer fire departments; public hospitals; the military (comprising several branches, complete with a standing army); etc. And this list doesn’t even include corporate welfare which, prior to the recent bail-outs, has subsidized almost every “private” economic activity in the country: farming, housing, small business, oil exploration, space exploration, computers, nuclear reactors, pharmaceuticals, etc.

So, you see, when the money goes to advance corporate interests, it is called “progress.” When it goes to help individual citizens in need, it is called “socialism.”

— CraigB

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Big Government, Less Freedom

Regardless of how you define it Socialism is Big Government. And Big Government, means less freedom. The government has been getting bigger, and Bigger, and BIGGER, and our problems are getting bigger, and Bigger, and BIGGER! Big Government is NOT the solution it’s the problem!

— Al

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Blame Digital Media

I guess the answer to the question, “What is Socialism in 2009?” is that it means whatever you want it to mean. In a digital era, I guess we should expect that individual things, like words, will become less and less significant in themselves. As people are increasingly able to adjust their sources of information according to their worldview, we can count on them to define words like “socialism” to be in line with what’s most convenient to them. I’m not saying this uproar has anything to do with the Internet specifically, just that the Tea Baggers have their own sources that seem meaningful to them even if they are completely bogus.

As long as there is something to be gained from playing on past fears, words like “socialist,” “fascist,” and “communist” will persist as an easy label for something inconvenient. That may be nothing new, but I notice that all these labels are intermingled today with no apparent regard for their original textbook meanings. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that today information itself has become relative.

— Chris

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A Condition by Any Other Name

Socialism in 2009 means that I work, and a large part of the fruit of my labor gets taken from me and given to other people (with a healthy rake-off for the bureaucrats doing the taking). I buy a house — not a McMansion, but a modest place well within my means — with 20 percent down and a fixed-rate mortgage, and then see my tax money going to bail out not only the individual fools who bought into those exotic loans, but the corporate fools who sold them.

I drive (as I always have) a small used car that gets good gas mileage, and I see my tax money going to reward those who bought oversized gas guzzlers. I exercise, eat sensibly, and otherwise work at maintaining my health, and now they want to take more of my tax money to pay for “insurance” to treat all the self-inflicted medical problems of people who don’t care for their own health.

The basic idea really hasn’t changed much, whatever the label people choose to apply. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” — or according to how effective the lobbyists his interest group hires are, because after all “some pigs are more equal than others.”

— James

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Who’s Winning Now?

While Obama is far more centrist than socialist, what would be so wrong with a little more socialism in this country? I lived in France for part of a year and was a recipient of their health care, even as a non-resident. What’s wrong with prompt, affordable health care available to all? What’s wrong with an entire month of paid vacation for every working adult? What’s wrong with free education for every child from age 2 and 1/2 through university?

The countries that provide job security, health care, and education to all their citizens certainly put a crimp in the unequal “meritocracy” we seem to be so frightened to lose. Look around, people. Who’s collecting all the goodies?

— Susanna W.

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It’s What I Live On

I’m 89 and loving it with my Social Security check of $2,065 every month and my Medicare medical insurance allowing me to go to my doctor knowing the prices are set by Uncle Sam and who I can visit without another doctor’s referral. I know it’s corny to say it, but give me this sort of Socialism anytime.

— morris

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What Hayek Really Said

I recently read “The Road to Serfdom” by F.A. Hayek for the first time, long knowing that it was a seminal work of free market economics and a denunciation of socialism.

The most surprising thing to me was the fact that Hayek’s critique of socialism is explicitly directed only to the strict definition of ’socialism’ as Hayward notes above (i.e., “central economic planning and public ownership of the means of production”), and allowed for the creation of limited social safety nets like welfare and unemployment insurance.

After digesting that the great treatise against socialism defined it such narrow terms, it occurred to me that in our modern usage, ’socialism’ has really come to mean “any act of government at all, particularly ones with which I disagree.” Just like ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’, we have watered down the terms of our political discourse to mean absolutely nothing at all, and we are reaping the bitter fruit thereof.

— Othar Hugh Manati

Black Communist and the 1930s

I recently watched Denzel Washington in The Great Debaters, an excellent film that depicted ideology, race, class, and Jim Crow in the American South. There are a number of  great clips to show in an American History course.  Washington, a great actor that personified the typical black academic circa 1930, played Melvin B. Tolson, a poet and professor during the decade. In the movie, Tolson’s character was that of an energetic professor at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas who organized the school’s debate team, which went on to debate white colleges, to a mostly undefeated season where they won a 1935 debate against the reigning national champion, USC — not Harvard. Although there are historical problems with this feel good film, the same cannot be said about the historical accuracy of what the movie is really about: lynchings, KKK, poverty, racism, economic inequality, communism, and capitalism.

Tolson, being both an academic and a communist, saw the significance in ending class and racial conflict in America, as he attempted to unify poor black and white sharecroppers against the feudal construct that controlled their wages. Such a union was a threat to both white supremacy and capitalism. The government, along with the bosses, were completely against any form of union that would help sharecroppers receive better wages and better working conditions. Moreover, a great fear among white supremacists was racial harmony. Rooted back in the days of the Populist Party, racial unification among the working class might destroy the feudal order of share cropping.

The late Richard Hofstadter, one of my favorite scholars, thought very little of the Populist. He noted in his 1955 work, The Age of Reform, that they rested on a romanticized and obsolete vision of the role of farmers in American society, and was permeated with bigotry and ignorance. Thus, their inability to unify beyond the condition of race and ideology allowed capitalists to manipulate them, and the dominance of progressive period politics to end their platform for rural reform.

As I have noted on a previous post regarding this historical topic: The problem that unfolded, however, was the marriage of democracy, racism, and slavery. These three components can be viewed as a product of capitalism. Many black intellectuals were Marxist. Better yet, many were card-carrying members of the Communist Party. Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, W.E.B. DuBois, and Zora Neale Hurston wrote about the failure of American democracy. According to some, they saw a better world in the red regime of Cold War Eastern Europe. Because of the failure of American democracy, the communists had some natural advantages. Marxist ideology was insistently nonracislist; the various non-European nationalities in the former Soviet Union were, on paper at least, equal under the law; and blacks from the west that visited Russia could be entertained in a manner that seemed to demonstrate a total absence of color prejudice.

As noted on my CV, I delivered a conference paper a few years back  entitled The Atlantic-Market Thesis. In this paper I stated that in my courses,  I teach that the term “racism” was transformed at the same point in which the term “slavery” was transformed via the 16th century Atlantic market (denoting the Atlantic Ocean and World). The Atlantic market gave rise to a newly created North American state that used racial exploitation as a labor base to develop its economic market. I do realize that this attitude was one of region and geography; regardless, it fostered an American identity that  linked Max Webber’s work ethic of inherent Calvinism to capitalism, slavery, and racism. Though,  the very nature of slavery was anti-climatic to the term free-market capitalism.

That  historical epoch which shaped my interest in Oceans as a historical marker (see post here) are directly linked to the rise of black communist in American society. The Atlantic market gave birth to the notion of king cotton, slavery, and the inevitable rise of sharecropping. Note this recent book review offers much perspective on what the film is really about.  In Robin D.G. Kelley’s book, Hammer and Hoe, the author constructs an anthropological, historical, and sociological book about the organizing work of Black Communists in the South in which the stereotype about communists are debunked.

The Alabama Communist Party was built from scratch by working people who had no Euro-American radical political tradition. It was composed largely of poor blacks, most of whom were semiliterate and devoutly religious, but it also attracted a handful of whites, including unemployed industrial workers, iconoclastic youth, and renegade liberals. Kelley shows that the cultural identities of these people from Alabama’s farms, factories, mines, kitchens, and city streets shaped the development of the Party. The result was a remarkably resilient movement forged in a racist world that had little tolerance for radicals. In the South race pervaded virtually every aspect of Communist activity. And because the Party’s call for voting rights, racial equality, equal wages for women, and land for landless farmers represented a fundamental challenge to the society and economy of the South, it is not surprising that Party organizers faced a constant wave of violence.

Kelley’s analysis ranges broadly, examining such topics as the Party’s challenge to black middle-class leadership; the social, ideological, and cultural roots of black working-class radicalism; Communist efforts to build alliances with Southern liberals; and the emergence of a left-wing, interracial youth movement. He closes with a discussion of the Alabama Communist Party’s demise and its legacy for future civil rights activism.

Liberation Theology

It was great talking to a former student who is working on finding an academic teaching position at an independent school; I have no doubt that she will be in high demand as she seeks a history post; she shared with me her teaching philosophy as it relates to historical analysis; it was great talking to a former student that has a similar academic philosophy as I do. Her philosophy relates to mine in that it espouses the notion of social justice vis-a-vis liberation theology. My views reflect the importance of liberation theology as it too, though to a greater extent, promulgates both Christ and Marx. As I have stated here on my web page:

My teaching philosophy is shaped by the tenets of  Pragmatism and Reconstructionism.  It was my reading of Cornel West’s and W.E.B. Du Bois’s works as a high school, undergraduate, and graduate student that shaped my sense of intellectual and practical purpose. West’s synthesis of Christianity and pragmatism promulgated my construction of theodicy that finds its premise in the writings and thought processes of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and John Dewey. My courses look to inculcate the point of view of the oppressed and alienated class, as it is this class that has traditionally been neglected among the privileged and in the literature of study. I find the teachings of Christ and Marx to be synonymous in that both look to eradicate social vice and poverty, racism and hate, as well as greed and materialism.

The writings of Karl Marx, who focused on human oppression and alienation via the effects of capitalism, attracted the attention of academic theologians that shared similar concerns. Thus, both groups saw a combined relationship between Marxism and Christianity. Liberation theology can be outlined as such:

Liberation theologians base their social action upon the Bible scriptures describing the mission of Jesus Christ, as but bringing a sword (social unrest), e.g. Isaiah 61:1, Matthew 10:34, Luke 22:35-38 Matthew 26:51-52 — and not as bringing peace (social order). This Biblical interpretation is a call to action against poverty, and the sin engendering it, and as a call to arms, to effect Jesus Christ’s mission of justice in this world. In practice, the Theology includes the Marxist concept of perpetual class struggle, thus emphasizing the person’s individual self-actualization as part of God’s divine purpose for mankind.

• The church should be concerned with poverty.
• The church should be concerned with political repression.
• The church should be concerned with economic repression.
• Priests should become actively involved in trying to solve these problems.
• Priests should move beyond general activity to: a.) Direct political action b.) and direct involvement in attempts to change political and economic systems, even by actual participation in revolutionary activity.
• The establishment of a religious community to help guide such political and economic units. (Contemporary Political Ideologies by Lyman Tower Sargent, pg. 212, 7th edition)

My former student and I concluded that if academics and religious “folk” came to term on reaching a conclusion on how to help the poor and the oppressed, there might not be a need for true liberalism, hence, a large government. However, the reality is that in order to achieve social justice, one must depend on the federal government — as seen in the American south circa 1960 during the reign of Jim Crow.

Socialism in American Political History

Very interesting discussion taking place of late in the New York Times about how we define socialism. See below…

It seems that whatever President Obama talks about — whether it’s overhauling health care, or regulating Wall Street, or telling schoolchildren to study hard — his opponents have called him a socialist. “Socialism” was an epithet on many placards at protests in Washington over the weekend. What does the word mean today, nearly 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall? What role has the label played in American political history?

• Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor, The Nation
• Patrick Allitt, professor of American history
• Steven F. Hayward, scholar, American Enterprise Institute
• Andrew Hartman, historian
• Terence Ball, political scientist
• Charles Dunn, professor of government
• Matthew Dallek, historian
• Jefferson Cowie and Nick Salvatore, Cornell University

Communist Obama Display

Above: Pictures of communists associated with Obama in a negative way by right wingers. Karl Marx, Frank Marshall Davis, Obama, Bill Ayers, and Che Guevara

Two days ago a few students approached me wondering if I saw the VERY large anti-Obama banner displayed down the road from campus; I really thought they were joking until I and a group of my students took a field trip off campus to take pictures — and to mock the sign; as a liberal, I support the rights of people to protest and showcase their political and ideological leanings; if I did not I would be the biggest hypocrite and agent of anti-intellectualism on campus. Still, I find it interesting that Americans want to associate Obama with communism. Better yet, I find it most interesting that people who protest him and the others on that banner — but have not read nor discussed their work. I have blogged before on the topic of Marxism as an academic method of study here and here. Thus, most people really do not understand this topic nor have they read about it; I realize I sound like a snob, but I do suspect I am right.

As noted before ,Obama is not a communist…. Though I am sure his race and academic training influenced him. It was during the course of the 20th century in which the emergence of Marxism as an academic philosophy in higher education set forth a new wave of examining American culture. It was during the Cold War and its sub conflicts (Vietnam), as well as the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s that promulgated many academics to make an ideological shift to the far left. With social and political instability taking place in the United States, Marxist academics were training young students of history, political science, economics, etc., for an intellectual war; this conflict was set to transform the thought process in classes, lecture halls, professional meetings, and published works.

Above: Carson in front of Houston’s firewood business anti-Obama display.

Above: HCHS students who visited the conservative shrine located off of Beltway 8 next to Baseball USA.

The American Socialist Tradition

Above: Recent Issue of Time. Obama as FDR.

In Obama’s The Audacity of Hope, he noted his philosophical contention by addressing his favor for FDR’s New Deal — the birth of American Socialism and the death of America’s puritanical notion of Rugged Individualism. Modern sociologists and economic theorist Max Weber wrote in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, that the entrepreneurial spirit and advancement of capitalism were directly linked to religion and not the material stages promulgated by Karl Marx. Hence, it was the teachings of religious values and ideals that allowed capitalism to flourish. It was Republican president Herbert Hoover that first used this phraseology in his efforts to keep the American economy from emulating the socialist economies of Europe; in essence, he as well as the conservative nature of American society saw a BEST society as one that was extrapolated from the premise of the individual: Hard work allowed the formation and the spirit of a capitalistic democratic society to advance. Moreover, this state of order juxtaposed to Weber’s Thesis permited the moral and responsible behavior of a society.

However, the falsity of the work ethic notion and capitalism as viewed by society was that individuals sin; individuals sought wealth and material goods feared by Marx and the utilitarians of the 19th century. Both witnessed the progress of the industrial bourgeoisie in industrial states where governments elected to be absent. In 19th century America, according to Democratic Socialist of America (DSA):

Several hundred thousand American workers of the Knights of Labor, the American Federation of Labor, and socialist and anarchist groups all demonstrated for the Eight Hour Day. It was the center of a world-wide movement for shorter working hours. Even the song lyrics of the American movement, “Eight hours for work/eight hours for sleep/eight hours for what we will,” argued for a “natural” pace of life in tune with the seasons, rather than the long hours and miserable conditions imposed by the capitalists.

Tension escalated well before the panic of 1929; America allowed rugged individualism and a conservatism to shape a culture with little remorse. Thanks to John Maynard Keynes’ Keynesian policy, the United States became a transformative state and permitted government injections (or stimulus) to move the economy. This gave birth to our modern economic system. Sure, it was Alexander Hamilton’s policies in the establishment of our economic system that created our current system; but in essence, the United States evolved into a hybrid state of capitalism and socialism. One does not function without the other. This is why Obama must continue the New Deal of FDR: American Socialism.

Health Care and Rudy

As many of you know, I subscribe to and receive a number of academic and political e-news letters. Below Frank Llewellyn addresses the issue of health care and the inability of Republicans and Democrats to address this problem.  We all know that a third party will never take charge of the White House. That is not their agenda….There job is to influence the major parties.  I will say this, if you are  over the age of 60, I would think twice before voting Republican. Of course if you are rich, you might not care. Since I am not, I hope you have to pay more in taxes so that those with no health care can get it from the government. So what if you have to sacrifice that lake house. ~EC~

“Rudy Giuliani wouldn’t know ‘socialism’ from ‘social skills,’” said the Democratic Socialist of America’s (DSA) Frank Llewellyn. “He must be angling to join Hillary Clinton at the feeding frenzy courtesy of ‘Big Pharma’ and the Insurance Companies,” the DSA national director added.  The socialist leader was referring to the contributions the senator receives from the pharmaceutical industry and her abandonment of any pretense at offering health care for the millions of uninsured.  “Giuliani wants some insurance chum, too,” Llewellyn said, responding to Giuliani’s charge that the health care programs pushed by the Democratic frontrunners reflected un-American and socialist values. “Giuliani is wrong in so many ways that you could generate two top ten lists of crank comments from his press release.”

“First off, he tarnishes the socialist idea by associating it with the Democratic Party,” Llewellyn said, arguing that the Democrats are—with the exception of the G.O.P.—the most pro-capitalist and pro-corporate party in the world, and far more subservient to corporate needs than even the avowedly conservative French and German governments.  More important, argued Llewellyn socialized medicine has little in common with either a private or a public insurance system. Socialized medicine means that everybody has access to health care and all health care resources are allocated democratically to increase the public health. The application of such principles in the United States would be terrific, resulting in vast increases in public health especially in minority communities that have been starved of health care resources and have disproportionately high child mortality rates, he said.  In contradistinction, Giuliani’s approach, largely borrowed from President Bush, would vastly increase the number of Americans without insurance and subsidize the already well off with tax credits of up to $15,000.

 The European healthcare systems that Giuliani criticizes achieve better health outcomes for more people, and especially for children, than does the U.S. health care system, and at less cost. “It is a tragedy that 45 million Americans have no access to health insurance and that almost an equal number has access to health insurance only episodically. It is criminal that few politicians are serious about solving that problem, and just bizarre that the former New York mayor would lump the plans of his opponents with socialist measures,” Llewellyn said. That’s because none of the major Democrats are advancing a plan even remotely resembling socialized healthcare, in Llewellyn’s opinion.  Neither are they challenging the insurance industry. All of the proposed Democratic plans (with the notable exception of Dennis Kucinich’s) leave the private insurance system intact. Socialists argue that the insurance industry with its bloated administrative and marketing costs and its constant effort to dodge paying the cost of providing health care—especially to those most in need—is the chief barrier to increased access to health care and better health for most Americans.

It was insurance company profits that funded the massive advertising and lobbying efforts that defeated the Clinton Administration’s early attempt to improve health care and access to insurance for Americans. Since the Clinton plan—itself barely adequate but an improvement over anything that followed—was defeated, insurance companies have gotten richer and those Americans without insurance have increased by at least a third. Socialists in the United States, for the most part, do support a single-payer approach to health insurance as embodied in the legislation (HR 676) introduced by Representative John Conyers and 74 co-sponsors; most people who support a single payer approach to healthcare or the Conyers bill are not socialists and the bill is definitely not socialized medicine. “Socialists continue to support socialized medicine, but we also support a politically viable plan that meets the needs of the uninsured.” Llewellyn said

  “If Giuliani would like to debate some real socialists about the health care crisis facing the United States, instead of positioning himself in the Republican primary as an alternative to the equally feckless Mitt Romney, we will gladly take him on. Democratic Socialists of America, the largest democratic socialist organization in the United States is engaged in a national dialogue on economic justice that includes support for a single payer health care system. Giuliani just postures while the nation’s poor and uninsured remain at risk.”

On The Rights of Undocumented Immigrants (From my DSA E-News Letter)

Democratic Socialists of America favors granting immediate permanent resident status to all undocumented workers and establishing an expeditious and non-punitive road to citizenship for these workers and their families. We oppose guest worker programs that would help exploit these workers and undercut all workers’ rights to organize and to secure humane wages and working conditions, especially low-wage workers, many of whom are relegated to the bottom-rung of the economy by institutional racism. The burgeoning immigrant rights movement represents a crucial movement for social justice and brings to the forefront of public debate issues central to a democratic and just society.
Legalizing the status of all immigrant workers and their families, as well as providing for a transparent and expeditious road to citizenship, embodies basic democratic socialist principles. First, those who are governed by the laws of a thorough-going democratic society would have a say in making such laws.

Second, all those who contribute meaningful labor to a democratic society, who care for our elderly, our children, and our disabled deserve full membership in our society.
Third, without full legal status, political rights, and a road to citizenship, immigrant workers cannot fight for rights on the job and can be ruthlessly exploited by employers. Threats of deportation for undocumented workers, as well as second-class status in guest worker programs, also restrict the capacity of workers to organize. These policies create a new form of indentured servitude and dependence.
As socialists, we know that “an injury to one is an injury to all.” Thus, the vulnerability of undocumented and guest workers leads not only to the exploitation of their labor, but to the proliferation of low-wage, unsafe, and insecure jobs for all. Employers can more easily discriminate against African-Americans, particularly young men, when there is vulnerable immigrant labor to exploit. Only strong enforcement of anti-discrimination and affirmative action laws, combined with the ability of all workers to unionize and fight for decent wage and working conditions, can yield a full employment economy. The nativist arguments of the Minutemen and others displace anxiety about declining economic opportunities onto the very low-wage workers whose rights in the workplace must be secured if all working people are to improve their livelihoods. Therefore, Democratic Socialists of America militantly opposes HR 4437, the Sensenbrenner bill already passed in the House of Representatives. The proposed legislation, if adopted by Congress, would criminalize all undocumented workers and all who help them. It would lead to mass repression and a likely futile effort to deport 12 million undocumented workers and their families. Such an effort could only be conducted through massive violations of the civil liberties of citizens and legal residents, as well as the undocumented.
DSA also opposes devoting additional resources to militarizing our border. Since the passage of the restrictive 1994 Immigration Reform Act, the federal government has spent more than $30 billion on border enforcement. This has not deterred unauthorized border crossings. It has lined the pockets of ‘coyotes’, who serve the needs of exploitative employers searching for cheap labor, and has led to the cruel, painful deaths of some 4,000 people in the deserts of the Southwest and in the holds of ships.
We also endorse the expansion of opportunities for legal immigration and family unification, and the rapid processing of the backlog of pending visa applications.
While some bills before the Senate offer a path to citizenship for considerable numbers of undocumented workers, their provisions for guest worker programs and increased militarization of our borders violate the principles outlined above.
Further, as socialists we recognize that massive migrations of exploited workers, refugees, and asylum-seekers result from an unjust global political and economic system that works for the benefit of transnational corporations and at the expense of the world’s peoples. Immigration to the United States does not only result from the “pull” of greater economic opportunity. It is also caused by the “push” of growing economic inequality and exploitation in developing societies. The economic destiny of these countries is severely constrained by the power of transnational corporations and international institutions that regulate the global economy in their interests. Much of the mass migration of the past decade from Mexico and Central America is due to NAFTA and other unjust ‘free trade’ agreements. Such agreements have enabled subsidized American agri-business to flood these societies with cheap produce, thus destroying the livelihoods of millions of small farmers. The export-oriented, often capital-intensive form of manufacturing imposed by the IMF, World Bank, and the WTO on these nations also limits the number of good jobs in the urban economy of these developing nations. The same story can be told about African migration to the nations of the European Union.
In their inexorable search for cheap, exploitable wage labor, predominantly United States-owned transnational corporations have eliminated hundreds of thousands of maquiladora jobs in Mexico and moved them to Vietnam and China, where even more repressive states make labor cheaper and more vulnerable still. Thus, the neo-liberal model of corporate globalization, which strives to maximize profitability through ruthless cost-cutting, succeeds in impoverishing labor around the world. It is that impoverishment that drives workers in developing nations to reluctantly seek marginally better life opportunities in advanced industrial nations. Third world impoverishment, and not the influx of its workers, is the problem.
The “push” for mass immigration from the developing world can only be stemmed if these economies are allowed to develop in equitable and internally integrated ways. Such development would require the national and international regulation of corporate power by free trade unions and democratic governments, as well as the democratization of international economic regulatory institutions. Only if the global economy is democratically controlled and structured in the interests of all the world’s peoples can we achieve full rights for working people in all societies.
Judging it by its goals, the immigrant rights movement is the civil rights movement of our generation. Its demand for labor rights for all points to the reality that social justice for working people around the globe can only be achieved through the extension of democratic and labor rights both at home and abroad. Only by building a truly internationalist labor and democratic political movement can we transition from a global capitalist world toward one that promotes economic and social justice. (See DSA’s view toward the war in Iraq)

War and DSA

War in Iraq: DSA Perspective

RESOLUTION ON THE OCCUPATION OF IRAQ

The prosecution of the War in Iraq and the subsequent occupation of Iraq completely validate the objections raised by those who opposed this war. Only the speedy restoration of Iraqi sovereignty to an independent and legitimate Iraqi government can end this quagmire.

To facilitate this, Democratic Socialists of America calls for the immediate withdrawal of the U.S.-British “coalition” forces from Iraq and simultaneous transfer of administration of Iraq to the United Nations, including the appointment of a UN High Commissioner. A UN-controlled peacekeeping force should maintain security during the period of UN administration while an Iraqi force is being developed and sovereignty is restored.

The Bush administration has failed to provide for even the most minimal needs of the Iraqi population. While corporations such as Halliburton and Bechtel are profiteering from no-bid contracts, U.S. citizens are paying for an old-fashioned colonial occupation in which U.S. troops—assigned to state-building duties for which they have no training—are being routinely killed. Iraqi civilians, too, are being killed in armed attacks by U.S. soldiers, by insurgents, and by common criminals taking advantage of the breakdown in social order. The Iraqi people are also suffering and dying due to their lack of sufficient clean water, electricity, and medical care. Its infrastructure destroyed, Iraq is being ravaged, and ethno-nationalist and reactionary Islamist forces are on the rise. DSA condemns the wholesale privatization of the Iraqi economy carried out unilaterally by the U.S. occupying forces. Only a sovereign and democratic Iraqi government can implement legitimate structural and economic reforms. DSA supports the efforts of organizations such as U.S. Labor Against the War that seek to protect workers’ rights and support an independent trade union movement in Iraq.

The Bush administration called for the creation of a UN-endorsed multilateral military force to join the U.S. occupation force in Iraq, to be commanded by an American and accountable to the Pentagon’s strategic control. As Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies noted, the plan did “not envision Washington even sharing authority and decision-making with the UN itself or with the governments sending international contingents, let alone ending its occupation and turning over full authority to the UN to oversee a rapid return to Iraqi independence.” We reject the administration’s arrogance.

We further demand that the U.S. and British meet their moral and legal responsibilities under international law by providing for the humanitarian costs of their unilateral intervention. Washington and London must pay the continuing costs of Iraq’s reconstruction, including much of the cost of UN humanitarian and peacekeeping deployments. The Bush administration must immediately make public a realistic estimate for the cost of reconstruction in Iraq and turn over funds to UN authority, beginning with the $87 billion dollars allegedly appropriated for reconstruction (but the majority of which is aimed at supporting the military costs of United States occupation). Reconstruction funds would be far cheaper than the costs incurred by continuing the inhumane and counter-productive United States unilateral occupation of Iraq.

Third Party Politics and 2008

I have made it clear that I will support Hillary Clinton in ’08. Of course, this means a shift from supporting the third party that I have endorsed in the past. I find it important that young people discover a particular issue that motivates their passion for politics and public service; however, not to be paradoxical in my outlook, but I do not find it necessary to always vote for the person who supports one’s greatest passion. It too is important to step back and look at the bigger picture. Case in point, I am willing to support Mrs. Clinton knowing that she supported the United States invasion of Iraq. She does support issues that I am most passionate about. For example, universal health care and the development of the welfare state. Thus, it is these two reasons plus the problem of poverty that has driven my support for DSA over the past decade. I hope that my students will find a party or a person that best represents their passions — regardless of party. Here are two questions asked of DSA members:

Q Won’t socialism be impractical because people will lose their incentive to work?
We don’t agree with the capitalist assumption that starvation or greed are the only reasons people work. People enjoy their work if it is meaningful and enhances their lives. They work out of a sense of responsibility to their community and society. Although a long-term goal of socialism is to eliminate all but the most enjoyable kinds of labor, we recognize that unappealing jobs will long remain. These tasks would be spread among as many people as possible rather than distributed on the basis of class, race, ethnicity, or gender, as they are under capitalism. And this undesirable work should be among the best, not the least, rewarded work within the economy. For now, the burden should be placed on the employer to make
work desirable by raising wages, offering benefits and improving the work environment. In short, we believe that a combination of social, economic, and moral incentives will motivate people to help other Americans improve their way of life.

Q Why are there no models of democratic socialism?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.