Electing a Democratic Socialist President

[Bravus]

...would be the best thing that ever happened to America.

Forget all these allegations of various peripheral links between Obama and various socialists (even those where were opposing vicious and violent leaders who rigged elections). If Obama himself is a democratic socialist - that is, someone who believes that government has a role in improving the lives of citizens - then electing him is one of the few things that might save the American economy and get American society back on track as a place of opportunity.

[olger]

Don't you have some evoloutionary thesis to espouse?

[Bravus]

- non-responsive, counsellor

[Dr. Shane]

I am not sure Obama is any sort of socialist nor do I grasp how socialism would save the American economy.

[John317]

If America wants a socialist president, I wouldn't agree that it is best, but I would accept the choice of Americans. However, the only thing that I am concerned about right now is that Americans understand what each man is about.

I know that Obama has campaigned for socialist candidates before, something that I do not believe any other Democratic or Republican candidate for the presidency has ever done before. One usually campaigns for candidates that represent one's own views.

Has McCain ever campaigned for a socialist? I am sure not.

My own belief is Americans will never elect a socialist president if they know beforehand that he is a socialist.

[Bravus]

I don't think he's a socialist either. But John317's obsessive posting of every conceivable link between him and socialists just broke me down, and I decided to take it head on - what's the worst that could happen? Even if he turns out to be some sort of secret socialist mole, so what? All the links are irrelevant: the only question is what are his policies and can he do that job.

How would it save the economy? Because the current mess in the economy was caused by a completely laissez-faire, hands-off, deregulation policy on the part of the Clinton and Bush administrations. The removal of government oversight that could have, as just one example, made it illegal to give out mortgages of property to people who could show no evidence that they could repay them, and who could not repay them, could have averted this entire crisis. A democratic socialist president would move the country back toward a sensible, viable but not excessive level of regulation in the national interest.

[Woody]

Quote:

the only question is what are his policies

Policies have little to do with it ...

READ MY LIPS

[John317]

I don't see the US ever going socialist or nationalizing its industries or having a managed economy.

Why would we?

[Bravus]

Quote:

READ MY LIPS

that was one of yours

And John, you're smart enough to know I wasn't talking about that kind of socialism. I was talking about the kind we have in Australia and Canada and lots of other successful western democracies.

And there's no reason why you would ever go socialist, particularly given America's irrational fear of socialism. And that's fine.

[John317]

Here's some information about a man named Sam Graham-Felsen, Obama's official campaign blogger, former writer for the Leftist Nation. He contributes to the Socialist Viewpoint.

Quote:

April 23, 2008

Who They Are: Sam Graham-Felsen

Obama certainly attracts a colorful bunch of supporters. One is his official campaign blogger Sam Graham-Felsen, who has written for publications like The Nation and Socialist Viewpoint; the latter helpfully offers a page explaining Who We Are:

The Socialist Workers Organization was formed to advance the revolutionary Marxist political program in the United States. Our members are long time active participants in the socialist and labor movements. We agree with Karl Marx that society is divided into social classes whose interests are irreconcilable.

The capitalist ruling class of the United States exercises a virtual dictatorship not only over American society, but also over the entire world. This capitalist class rule is the basic cause of the poverty, wars, and the degradation of the natural environment. […]

To break the stranglehold of the capitalist minority over all of society, workers need their own political institutions. Workers and their unions need to break definitively with Democrats, Republicans, and other capitalist parties, all of which are dedicated to preserving and advancing the capitalist system of social, economic and political injustice.

Socialism, the ownership and democratic control of the means of production by the working class, and the removal of profit from the system of production, is the aim of Socialist Viewpoint, which reflects the political views of the Socialist Workers Organization.

This ideology has been tried more than once. Governments based on it killed over 100,000,000 of their own people in the course of the twentieth century, enslaving those who survived.

There's no need for Graham-Felsen to follow the part about breaking with the Democrat Party — not now that it is on the verge of being overrun by Marxists.

Graham-Felsen has also written for the Harvard Crimson, where he encouraged ultra-left anti-American zealot Noam Chomsky to tone down his repugnant rhetoric enough to gain wider acceptance. You can see why he would affix himself to Obama, who follows the strategy of smoothly saying nothing while surreptitiously advancing the same ideology our nuclear arsenal was built to keep at bay.

[John317]

Quote:

READ MY LIPS

that was one of yours

I didn't say "read my lips."

Quote:

And John, you're smart enough to know I wasn't talking about that kind of socialism. I was talking about the kind we have in Australia and Canada and lots of other successful western democracies.

And there's no reason why you would ever go socialist, particularly given America's irrational fear of socialism. And that's fine.

You have probably studied the history of socialism in this country. There have been all kinds of parties, from Democratic Socialism to Revolutionary Socialism. None of them did very well at all, ever. They never will. They will never succeed in America. The most important thing to Americans is personal freedom.

[John317]

Are you a socialist?

[Bravus]

The 'read my lips' comment was a response to Redwood a couple of posts above - I probably should have replied to him and you in separate posts. He was talking about the worthlessness of politicians' policy platforms and I was just reminding him that those broken promises came from Bush I.

[Bravus]

I probably am a socialist, though of course the term has a massively broad coverage. I believe there are some industries where government has a role in owning companies for the common good - power and water, education, health care come to mind (incidentally, most of these were government owned in Australia but have been sold off in the past decade or so) - but in general I believe in a capitalist system but with appropriate levels of government oversight to curb the most antisocial extremes of capitalist behaviour. The example earlier in this thread of mortgages given to people who can't afford them is instructive - the market makes money, but individuals lose their homes and the economy as a whole goes into crisis (and then the taxpayers bail out those who made the money).

I don't think America will ever go socialist. And I don't believe Obama himself is a socialist, except perhaps in the very narrow sense that I am. My point was this thread was that Obama's socialist connections do not make him unfit to be President.

[John317]

If I wasn't a Seventh-day Adventist, I would definitely be a socialist, but not a Democratic socialist. I would be a Marxist-Leninist, which is what I started out to be in my twenties.

I think you are a socialist in the same way Obama is. Obama is not a Marxist in the classic sense. I'm sure that Obama would agree more with you than he would with most Americans, who are definitely not socialistic.

Have you ever heard of, or read, Eugene Debs? He was the most successful socialist in America garnering the most votes in any election. I admired him very much. He was an idealist. He was wrong but he had good motives.

http://books.google.com/books?id=42BMAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:Eugene+inauthor:Victor+inauthor:Debs#PPP1,M1

[Bravus]

I'd heard of him, and should read more.

I'm interested to know what you believe there is about SDAism that makes it incompatible with socialism.

[Jeannieb43]

I know that Obama has campaigned for socialist candidates before, something that I do not believe any other Democratic or Republican candidate for the presidency has ever done before.

Who were they?

[John317]

Originally Posted By: John317

I know that Obama has campaigned for socialist candidates before, something that I do not believe any other Democratic or Republican candidate for the presidency has ever done before.

Who were they?

Would it make any difference to you if you found out without any question that Senator Obama campaigned for socialist candidates?

I ask this because some people ask and then when they find out it is true, they say Oh well so what.

If Americans want a socialist president, fine. I just think the nation deserves to know how far to the Left he is before they go to the polls. In the same way, I want all Americans to know McCain really well before Nov.

[John317]

Originally Posted By: John317

I know that Obama has campaigned for socialist candidates before, something that I do not believe any other Democratic or Republican candidate for the presidency has ever done before.

Who were they?

1) Bernie Sanders, Socialist Senator of Vt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIlIpOkRh2A

On Sanders:

Published on Thursday, November 2, 2006 by the Guardian / UK

Vermont Poised to Elect America's First Socialist Senator

· Cantankerous campaigner strikes chord with voters

· New milestone nears after eight terms in Congress

by Julian Borger

Amid the furious debate over Iraq and the speculation that George Bush may be a lame duck after next Tuesday's mid-term elections, an extraordinary political milestone is approaching: a cantankerous 65-year-old called Bernie looks set to become the first socialist senator in US history.

2) Raila Odinga, socialist, Marxist of Kenya

Obama personally campaigned for Odinga in Kenya in 2006.

(Let me know if you require documentation of this fact.)

[John317]

I'd heard of him, and should read more.

I'm interested to know what you believe there is about SDAism that makes it incompatible with socialism.

It sounds to me like your idea of socialism is the welfare state as described below. Is this more or less what you have in mind?---

Quote:

There are three main interpretations of the idea of a welfare state:

the provision of welfare services by the state.

an ideal model in which the state assumes primary responsibility for the welfare of its citizens.

This responsibility in theory ought to be comprehensive[citation needed], because all aspects of welfare are considered and universally applied to citizens as a "right". Welfare state can also mean the creation of a "safety net" of minimum standards[citation needed] of varying forms of welfare. Here is found some confusion between a "welfare state" and a "welfare society" (see below) in common debate about the definition of the term.

the provision of welfare in society. In many "welfare states", especially in continental Europe, welfare is not actually provided by the state, but by a combination of independent, voluntary, mutualist and government services. The functional provider of benefits and services may be a central or state government, a state-sponsored company or agency, a private corporation, a charity or another form of non-profit organisation. However, this phenomenon has been more appropriately termed a "welfare society," and the term "welfare system" has been used to describe the range of welfare state and welfare society mixes that are found.

Or something along the lines of Fabianism, like the following?

Quote:

Socialism

The Fabian Society is a British intellectual socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of Social democracy via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the nineteenth century and continuing up to World War I. The society laid many of the foundations of the Labour Party and subsequently affected the policies of states emerging from the decolonisation of the British Empire, especially India. The society is still in existence today and forms a vanguard "think tank" of the centre-left New Labour movement. It is one of fifteen socialist societies affiliated to the Labour Party. Similar societies exist in Australia (the Australian Fabian Society), Canada (the Douglas-Coldwell Foundation and in past the League for Social Reconstruction) and New Zealand.

[John317]

The above are really reformism. They are attempts to keep the capitalist system and simply take the edge off the worse aspects of it. That is not true socialism. True socialism gets rid of capitalism. Trying to keep it and simply improve it is considered worse than straight capitalism. Marx and Lenin and the rest of the real socialists/Marxists would have wanted you shot. You are more dangerous from their point of view than an out and out capitalist, because in taking the edge off, you make it appear that capitalism can be made into a good thing. LOL

Quote:

The term revolutionary socialism refers to Socialist tendencies that advocate the need for fundamental social change through revolution, as a strategy to achieve a socialist society. The term is used by socialist and communist tendencies in contrast to reformism, the advocacy of the possibility of gradual change as a means of achieving socialism or of ameliorating capitalism.

[John317]

What is necessary to realize is that American socialism would not be the same-- could not be the same-- as it is in England and Australia or even Canada.

I am absolutely convinced that Americans would not give up their freedoms to socialism without a violent struggle. Americans think differently about freedom. For most Americans would rather have individual freedom and rights than security, bread or money. They would rather die than have a government telling them what to do all the time. America is an idea more than it is a place or a race or even a culture. America is FREEDOM.

The main reason I oppose socialism is that having been in the movement, I can tell you that we would eventually lose religious freedoms in this country if the socialists came into power. It was not a secret.

Also, when working in the socialist movement, it is necessary to do a lot of things a Christian can't do: distribute literature that is anti-God; favoring workers' strikes; opposing workers crossing strike lines in order to work, etc.

Remember that I was in an organization that was not simply interested in reforming capitalism and making it nice. That is not socialism. That is reformism. The Socialist movement seeks to replace capitalism. It means the nationalization of the means of production. In a word, it means revolution.

In all of the socialist organizations that I know of, working in the socialist movement means working toward the eventual overthrow of the capitalist system and its replacement by a completely different economic/political system.

Google: Socialist Workers Party; Trotsky; Fourth International.

Compare all these things with the things in the NT and in the Spirit of prophecy. Is there any harmony between them? It is hard for me to believe that anyone who knows both the Adventist message and socialism/Marxism could suggest that it would have been right to continue working as a revolutionary socialist and at the same time as a disciple of Jesus Christ and Seventh-day Adventist.

[John317]

Are you a regular reader of American socialist journals and literature?

Here's are important ones:

http://www.isreview.org/

http://www.themilitant.com/index.shtml

http://rwor.org/

http://www.cpusa.org/

http://socialistworker.org/

http://www.iww.org/

(Not trying to make a socialist out of you, but giving you info about the main movements in the US.)

You will notice that none of these are merely working to reform the capitalist system. They seek eventually to do the only thing that any self-respecting socialist would do, and that is overthrow it and get rid of it, replacing it eventually with communism, a classless society where the state itself withers away.

American socialists are driven by an ideal-- an ideal that is similar to the American ideal itself. The best way to understand this is to read the books written by American socialists/Marxists of the past 60 years.