The Rise of a Socialist Left

One of the major reasons that the political window in the United States has slowly shifted to the right for the last 60+ years is because the country lacked an organized and coherent political philosophy on the left. There's been environmentalist groups, feminist groups, LBGT groups, labor groups, etc, but no left-wing ideology that encompasses all of those values.
Those days are coming to an end.

dsa.PNG

Nearly 1,000 socialists from around the country have gathered in Chicago for the Democratic Socialists of America’s biannual conference....Most of the attendees seem to be under the age of 35 with a smaller but large contingent of old-timers who’ve been with the organization for many years. There are young, scruffy, and often bearded men aplenty who fit the BernieBro stereotype. But according to the DSA’s figures on delegates in attendance, 40 percent of the Chicago crowd are women, and 20 percent are people of color.

The massive influx of young people makes this revival so relevant. This trend is reflected in American society in general.

The average age of DSA members has since 2015 dropped from 64 to about 30, according to an organizer. A May 2016 Gallup poll, conducted after most of the Democratic primaries, found just that 35 percent of Americans viewed socialism favorably. Among voters under 30, that number rose to 55 percent.

As you might imagine, two groups feel threatened by this trend: neoliberal Democrats and the entire right-wing.
For conservatives, this is like a zombie nightmare.

In a McCarthyite screed that appeared in the pages of National Review last March, the CEO of the Christian Legal Society, David Nammo, ominously warned the conservative publication’s readership about the growing popularity of socialism, and how this apparent shift in opinion is “threatening America’s future.”
...“Many Americans,” continues Nammo with a melodramatic intensity, “have forgotten the lessons of the Cold War and the disasters witnessed in the crumbling economies and failed polities of Communist and socialist countries in the 1990s … Americans who believe in limited government, welfare reform, and states’ rights should look over their shoulder and realize that a dangerous ideology is gaining ground.”

Comparing democratic socialism to totalitarian communism is laughable. Yet, it worked during the Cold War, in the same way that conservatives believed smoking pot was equal to shooting heroin during the Drug War.
The expiration dates of both fallacies have long since expired.

Alas, intellectual honesty is not typically associated with anti-socialist diatribes found in a magazine whose senior editor is the author of a book titled “Liberal Fascism.”
Nevertheless, while Nammo’s theory of why socialism is on the rise may be way off the mark, there is no doubt that socialism is on the rise in America — and that staunch conservatives like him have every right to be concerned.
...A conservative like Nammo would obviously take this to mean that our colleges and universities are indoctrinating the impressionable youth with socialist dogma, but there is a much more sensible and persuasive explanation for this socialist appeal. It goes something like this: Millennials are drawn to socialism because they have been royally screwed by the capitalist economy and the corporate state.

"From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs. Please donate to ensure that everyone who needs a drink gets one."
- sign at DSA Conveniton

Yet it is neoliberal Democrats that have the most to fear because they are much closer to the source.
The DSA is not an actual political party. It's more of an independent coalition, loosely tied to the Democratic Party.
Because the Democratic leadership is still dominated by neoliberals, means this rising Socialist movement is on a collision course with the mainstream political leadership.

It is tempting for liberals to see Sanders, DSA and their ilk as the enemy, rather than the vanguard, in the ongoing trials over the future of American liberalism. Yet the alternative is to fight for the status quo: endorse and line up behind other neoliberal Democrats like Sen. Cory Booker, N.J., Sen Kamala Harris, Calif., defeated Georgia congressional candidate John Ossoff, and perhaps even Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Yet this impulse will surely lead to ruin. Indeed, the Democrats lost their way in 2016 by capitulating to Clinton’s stale, empty vision of the future. Indeed, in a July 2017 poll, 52 percent of voters polled said that the Democratic Party stood for nothing aside from being “anti-Trump.”

The advantage of a rising socialist movement is that there exists a comprehensive and coherent ideology, combined with an energetic, organized political movement.
To give you an idea of what this looks like, consider the religious right and libertarians/anarcho-capitalists that have dominated political thought for generations. They weren't a majority, but they seemed like it because they were organized.
So what does the DSA believe?

“Under capitalism we are supposed to take for granted that a small, largely unaccountable group of corporate executives should make all fundamental decisions about the management of a company comprised of thousands of people,” Resistance Rising reads. “This group has the power to determine how most of us spend the lion’s share of our waking hours, as well as the right to fire anyone for basically any reason, no matter how arbitrary. Under democratic socialism, this authoritarian system would be replaced with economic democracy.”
That means, literally, the democratic governance of all firms by employees and local communities and the subjection of certain large industries—such as utilities, health care, and housing—to government planning and decommodification. Firms in most other industries, while “worker-owned and -operated,” would remain subject to market forces.
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ZimInSeattle's picture

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"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020

Song of the lark's picture

I'm not much for "isms" and given the lack of a viable "green" party, I'm willing to try whatever.

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Steven D's picture

@Song of the lark make that a double ditto.

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

divineorder's picture

Been rolled out?

Thanks for the news.

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

WoodsDweller's picture

and cut the legs out of the burgeoning leftist movements by offering up the New Deal. Give the people something, or lose it all. The ownership class is still seething about it to this day.
Capitalism only works for capitalists, and you have to ask then you ain't in the club.
Obama put the final nail in the coffin labeled "Hope". The younger generation won't be fooled again. They don't get their information from television, but sift it from the silt of the net like panning for gold. The propaganda machine has hit diminishing returns. "Fake news" is all about discrediting the other guys' propaganda. Here's the big secret kids, it's all fake all the time, and always has been. The young generation isn't going to start voting differently when they roll over a certain age.
People aren't afraid of socialism, they're afraid of the word "socialism". At least old people are. The young people think it's worth a shot.
The older generation is aging out (aka "dying"). The ancient Republican voters and the slightly less ancient Clintonesque voters. Trump is desperately trying to inflame the core Klansmen of the far right to stabilize his numbers. The DNC is chasing non-existent moderate swing voters that firmly chose up sides a decade ago and spending all their energy fighting an increasingly recalcitrant left.
Two great zombie parties without a future, and a microscopic DSA that has tripled in a year. And the Arctic is melting.
Tick-tock.

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

k9disc's picture

parts of rising corporate fascism and ensconced them in the body politic, just as FDR did with the Left.

We're all Goldwater girls now. Wink

@WoodsDweller

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

thanatokephaloides's picture

@k9disc

We're all Goldwater girls now.

I don't think so! Diablo

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

thanatokephaloides's picture

tk-rosa-luxemburg-socialism-or-barbarism.jpg

Truer today than even in Rosa Luxemburg's own times!

Rosa Luxemburg 5 March 1871 – 15 January 1919. Nihil umquam in oblivione est!

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

and by extension - Bernie.

I am a member of DSA. They are pretty much an educational organization with somewhat autonomous chapters that create local action items and work on organizational initiatives. DSA is not forming a political party, which still leaves a huge hole in advancing DS ideals in our country. Hopefully, they can throw their weight behind a new organized political party which to date, doesn't really exist yet on a national level. This is pointed out in the article I linked.

I think that members of DSA are NOT traditional socialists. This is a distinction fully understood by people in other countries but not by most people here in the states. The Socialists view the DSA as the worst possible org, because they are Dem Party sell outs. But even Christopher Hitchens recognized the futility of being a socialist.

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@Blueslide

The Socialists view the DSA as the worst possible org, because they are Dem Party sell outs.

That they endorse Dems is a check against them.

But even Christopher Hitchens recognized the futility of being a socialist.

Pre-2008 I would agree with you.

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k9disc's picture

I mean, that was a pretty cataclysmic event in global politics. In an afternoon they brought the largest economy in the world and in human history to their knees and yoked the people with responsibility and accountability for the limited liability of capitalists.

It's the shit that was done to the 3rd world back in the day; It happened here.
@gjohnsit

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

@k9disc

Whatever is acceptable when done to any one group will become acceptable when done to any.

Do unto others as you would be done by.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

WoodsDweller's picture

@Blueslide
From the PFJ

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Blueslide

I noticed the "real socialists" hate DSA and by extension - Bernie.

The "World Socialist Web Site" is, in my humble opinion, far and away too friendly to the Lenin-Stalinist concept of Socialism which demonstrably set the Socialist cause back a full century or more. The utter lack of any sort of governance which was egalitarian even in name only in Russian history resulted in the very sort of barbarism under Soviet and Soviet-inspired regimes that capitalist advocates have used ever since to make people fear any movement towards Socialism at all. The Russians merely replaced Mongol Khans with Tsars, and then replaced the Tsars with Commisars who were little else save Commie Tsars, ruling in much the same totalitarian manner as their supposedly non-Communist predecessors.

On the other hand, places where Socialism actually works, where it banishes barbarism as Rosa Luxemburg said it would, organize their governance and economies along the very democratic socialist lines that DSA and Socialist Alternative advocate (the Scandinavian nations are great examples of this).

There's more to Socialism than totalitarian Lenin-Stalinism. A lot more. Including nearly all the "good parts".

"So there!" -- Marty Leipzig, FidoNet HOLYSMOKE Echo

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@thanatokephaloides I think it's notable that hardcore Leninist orgs like WSWS are largely not attacked by the RW and Dem Establishments, while the DSA, Bernie, etc. are under a constant barrage.

It's like the establishment wants the only 'brand' of socialism to be the extreme version. Funny, that.

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@nosleep4u

I think it's notable that hardcore Leninist orgs like WSWS are largely not attacked by the RW and Dem Establishments, while the DSA, Bernie, etc. are under a constant barrage.

It's like the establishment wants the only 'brand' of socialism to be the extreme version. Funny, that.

I noticed that, too!

The oligarchs loooove their Leninist straw man!

Gak!!

Diablo

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Meteor Man's picture

@thanatokephaloides We had them at Occupy L.A. and in addition to being whack jobs they talk funny. You can't have a genuine conversation with somebody who ever uses the word "dialectic" in a sentence.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Meteor Man

"Real" American Socialists?

Yeah, you know, folks who recognize that unless an economy is operated for the good of all, it doesn't work at all.

Most of the folks involved with Occupy qualify under this concept. I realize there are others; but the working democratic socialist nations of Earth operate under that selfsame concept.

"Real" American Socialists?

@thanatokephaloides We had them at Occupy L.A. and in addition to being whack jobs they talk funny. You can't have a genuine conversation with somebody who ever uses the word "dialectic" in a sentence.

Sounds like hardcore Leninist-Stalinist Communists to me. As I pointed out, that's only a tiny minority of Socialist thought.

And isn't a dialectic the insulator between the plates of a capacitor? Oh, wait a minute, that's a dielectric, not a dialectic! Smile

But seriously, your complaint is one I've had with hardcore Marxist-Leninist types myself. They crawl far too far into their theory books, and forget that the core of the word "Socialism" is the same as the core of the word "society". The Latin term socius means "friend"; and the whole point to Socialism is to get the human world to be more friendly to all its members!

Again, there are lots of American Socialists who know better than to advocate for some sort of Soviet hell. Instead, we want the kind of society that is friendly to all its members. The kind that numerous nations weaker and poorer than us have managed to create with reasonable ease. Most participants in Occupy maintain this vision of our future, even if they haven't yet figured out that this makes them Socialists.

But you still get the Leninist whack-jobs here and there from time to time. No help for that, at least none I know about.......

Wink

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Meteor Man's picture

@thanatokephaloides

But seriously, your complaint is one I've had with hardcore Marxist-Leninist types myself. They crawl far too far into their theory books, and forget that the core of the word "Socialism" is the same as the core of the word "society". The Latin term socius means "friend"; and the whole point to Socialism is to get the human world to be more friendly to all its members!

If you want to persuade people you have to talk plain English. The Occupy Hard Left Socialists had a very annoying contingent that also tried to baffle and or impress folks with their Marxist dialectic, counter dialectic, Hegelian doubletalk.

I believe genuine socialism is vital to our economic and cultural survival. We just have to explain things very clearly. The Marxist dialectic is not a persuasive argument in the year 2017.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Meteor Man

I believe genuine socialism is vital to our economic and cultural survival. We just have to explain things very clearly. The Marxist dialectic is not a persuasive argument in the year 2017.

It wasn't even in Marx's own time.

Karl Marx's remarks in your own vein are notorious:

Accusing Guesde and Lafargue of “revolutionary phrase-mongering” and of denying the value of reformist struggles, Marx made his famous remark that, if their politics represented Marxism, “ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste” (“what is certain is that I myself am not a Marxist”).

source

The complaint is essentially the same: all incomprehensible talk and denial of the value of direct action.

In other words, even Marx himself wasn't buying that crock of, well, dialectic! Smile

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

dance you monster's picture

@Blueslide

They simply point out not only the veal-pen elements of what the DSA is doing by urging us to make the Dems better, but also the DSA's leadership --

Honorary Chairs
Bogdan Denitch (1929-2016)
Barbara Ehrenreich
Dolores Huerta
Eliseo Medina
Eugene "Gus" Newport
Frances Fox Piven
Gloria Steinem
Cornel West

-- that includes some distinctly unsocialist figures in the news just last year backing the wrong side.

Count me as not joining just yet.

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lotlizard's picture

@dance you monster  
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=dolores+huerta+bernie+english&t=ffsb&ia=web

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travelerxxx's picture

@dance you monster

If any left-ish organization is deemed effective, or has the distinct possibility of popular support, it will be infiltrated. It will be sabotaged in every way possible, with infiltration by opposition forces at every level. I personally saw this fifty years ago in our anti-war organizations/protest movements.

Of course they'll infiltrate you at low levels, but it's the infiltration at higher levels - the leadership ranks - that seems the most dangerous.

I see no reason the DSA is any different than prior movements. As they gain momentum, they will be mercilessly undermined, attacked and co-opted. As it was back in the day, some of these operatives will be tremendously slick -- so slick that it might be a decade or more before it is realized that they betrayed the organization and were working against it.

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Make a small donation to the Greens monthly, as well, though I'm not as keen on them as I once was. Can't give a lot, but am doing what I can.

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is not the best moniker for any Party that aspires to national prominence. Be like a new shepherd trying to lead the flock while dressed in wolf's clothing. It's bound to spook quite a few of them.

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native

Steven D's picture

@native used to have a bad connotation. I see this as a positive that people are reclaiming the word "Socialism" from those who have used it as a substitute for "Communism" and even "Nazism."

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

@Steven D
I'm an old codger who's lived through nearly the entire Cold War, so my scepticism could be something of a conditioned response.

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native

@native
looks deceptive. I doubt it would fool people.

Plus, Bernie called himself a socialist and people didn't care. Maybe that's a lesson to learn: This isn't 1980 anymore.

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@gjohnsit My nephew told me once long ago he didn't see a problem with one world government. Of course, it could NOT be the current horrible model, but socialism doesn't have the fear response in them. Seems to me anyway. It doesn't scare me anymore and it sort of used to, very old conditioning from rabid anti-commie parents you know.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

@gjohnsit
But the word still carries a lot of baggage for a lot of people, and I'm not sure we want to be carrying all of it.

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native

WoodsDweller's picture

@native are the least likely to vote for a Socialist regardless of the label used. The old will vote for the two zombie parties (except for an enlightened handful), the young either don't care or have positive associations with Bernie.
The political right already throws "socialist" and "communist" around liberally. From Conservapedia (you knew they had their own, right?)

"MSNBC is a liberal propaganda 24-hour cable "news" channel and website aligned with the Democrat party. ... MSNBC is blatantly Communist. ... the network decided to stop hiding their blatant liberal and communist bias from viewers."

liberal/socialist/communist/nazi (National Socialist)/fascist, it's all the same to them. They won't be voting for us.

The people who care don't matter, the people who matter don't care.

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

lotlizard's picture

@WoodsDweller  
Donna Brazile just called Russians “the Communists”, and it wasn’t an accident

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@lotlizard

Donna Brazile just called Russians “the Communists”, and it wasn’t an accident

Donna Brazile is an accident.

A train wreck.

Going somewhere to happen.

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@lotlizard @lotlizard

Top Dems just don't understand the language. As in the meanings of terms like 'reality' and 'democratic'. They need remedial help of many kinds, somewhere far, far away from actual humans or any animals they might harm.

Edit: missed a letter. Not sure if my brain, a finger or a key stuck, too early to tell this morning, lol.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@WoodsDweller

... "MSNBC is a liberal propaganda 24-hour cable "news" channel and website aligned with the Democrat party. ... MSNBC is blatantly Communist. ... the network decided to stop hiding their blatant liberal and communist bias from viewers." ...

Lol, change a few identifying words and phrases, and it sounds just like the stereotypical old (labeled) 'Communist' lines, doesn't it?

They must be using the same PR people the 'Communist' oligarchs used, toward much the same ends, of course. The People existing for the benefit of the relative few, rather than an egalitarian society.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

thanatokephaloides's picture

@native

But the word still carries a lot of baggage for a lot of people, and I'm not sure we want to be carrying all of it.

Sometimes it's necessary to reclaim one's name. Pagans and Witches have been doing this since the 1960's, an activity I myself have been part of since the 1980s.

Socialists need to do this too, in my humble opinion. And are well on their way to do so. The fact that all socialist societies on Earth aren't tyrannical, cruel, totalitarian hell-holes is helping a lot. (Thank you, Scandinavia! Thank you, Bolivia! And, of course, thank you, Bernie!)

Smile

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@native

Even though it used to be a very pro-American word. Why can't the phrase "democratic socialist" go through a similar change in the opposite direction? Granted, we have few if any billionaires creating think tanks and media corporations to change the language for us, but if we can do it ourselves with one of their prime negative words, we can bring them down.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

@gjohnsit

And Big Sister replaced Big Brother.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

@native will make haberdashery of any term these days. Try neo-christian, jewish leaning, open minded social spoon affiliated, muslim tolerant troglodyte citizen and it would have the same effect. Lol

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@QMS

the group think doctors will make haberdashery of any term these days. Try neo-christian, jewish leaning, open minded social spoon affiliated, muslim tolerant troglodyte citizen and it would have the same effect.

And all their wives and daughters are closet thespians, too! Smile

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

SparkyGump's picture

For the rich and their corporations.

It's our turn now.

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The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.

But, I don't think the DSA is the complete answer. I don't know what is.

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Americans who believe in . . . states’ rights

I love the smell of dog whistles in the morning. Smile

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To finally get us out of the stinky swamp.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

@Timmethy2.0

We must remember that there is a difference between 'not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good' and not letting the perfucked be seen as the enemy of the good it is, when it's being shoved down our throats anyway.

And that the corporate media is/corporate politicians are being recognized by a large percentage of the American people as the propagandistic liars they long have been, so that while some of the propaganda campaigns can fool some of the people some of the time, many are better aware and less susceptible to much of it.

A raise in general conditions smells sweet by any name, however smeared that name/concept of the public good may have been by those of the The Parasite Class terrified of the notion of a resurgence of the concepts of civilization they've been so greedily killing off and of the carefully divided people uniting toward the rise of a social democracy ending their destructively insatiable predation upon the systematically murdered societies and of the Earth, upon the industrial-profiteering-poisoned corpse of which they expect to feed unhindered.

No group of people will ever agree on everything, but survival and a decent life is something which all sane people can agree upon, even if some have been propagandized into following the pathological greed-driven corporate interest/billionaire view that anything anyone else (other than those who already have most anyway, of course - albeit often drained from everyone/everything else) has must have been unfairly taken from the exceptional 'you'. (Not meaning you, obviously.)

So, maybe there's hope. At least, I'm clinging to some, if rather desperately...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.