The "S" word...

Socialism, a word that encompasses a political philosophy that is sometimes hard to quantify except for in one manner, in the United States, calling yourself a Socialist is practically a guarantee that you will LOSE an election, regardless as to how good your ideas actually are. Is it any surprise that out of the 535 people in Congress, only ONE is a self proclaimed Democratic Socialist, and that's the guy on the left, Bernie Sanders, Senator of Vermont.

So what makes Bernie different? That's a good question, and, to be honest, I don't think I can answer it, only the people of Vermont can answer it, they elected him, Gods bless them.

It could be simply a part of the iconoclastic character of the state of Vermont, which seems to me to like to buck trends and be a trend setter themselves(I hope).

However, on the national stage, being a Socialist can cost you an election. This is because of a combination of misinformation and accusations that date back to the Cold War and even before the war. "Red Scares" and accusations of Communism were enough to wreck lives and suppress political activism in all areas of life. The erroneous association of Socialism with Communism, which are related, but also different, political philosophies, lead to electoral and personal failures of many Socialists in the country.

The irony is that while Americans generally don't like the word "Socialism" itself, the policies of Socialists or ideas of Socialism itself aren't nearly as strongly opposed. A classic example is that of Upton Sinclair, who was an author in the first half of the 20th century, and was also a political candidate in California for Senator, Congressman, and Governor. He was a Socialist, and when he ran under that label, he lost, however, on his Governor run, he ran under the Democratic Party, and, while he still lost, didn't lose by nearly as large a margin, the Republicans smeared him as a "Communist" during his run.

"The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label. I certainly proved it in the case of EPIC. Running on the Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes, and running on the slogan to 'End Poverty in California' I got 879,000. I think we simply have to recognize the fact that our enemies have succeeded in spreading the Big Lie. There is no use attacking it by a front attack, it is much better to out-flank them."--Upton Sinclair

He was right, of course, the American people like the policies of Socialism, at least to a limited extent. Most Americans prefer Socialism in small doses, if not in one solid platform, and they prefer solutions to problems that work, regardless of what political party or philosophy those solutions sprung from.

Socialism for the 21st century.

One of the biggest misconceptions about socialism, especially in the United States, is that we want the State to control ALL aspects of the market, abolish all private property, and/or recreate the Soviet system in the United States or elsewhere. To be honest, this couldn't be further from the truth, most Socialists are realistic in our goals, and we really don't want a widget factory to be owned and run by some centralized government. To be blunt, that would be inefficient and a waste of government resources.

What we DO care about, however, is that the workers at the widget factory earn a living wage, work under safe conditions, and has strong representation, either through a Union, or the factory itself can be owned by them, as a Co-op. We also want to minimize the damage that such a factory would cause to the community it resides in, and make sure the factory owners PAY for any problems that the factory causes, such as environmental damage, and are properly taxed.

Most Socialists can actually be quite conservative, at least in a traditional way, we generally oppose privatization of public utilities, which seems to be a great experiment for local governments lately. Most people in the United States has at least 2 utilities that are publicly owned, and are therefore "Socialist". Most likely these are your gas and water utilities, the reason why they are public is because they are "natural" monopolies, in other words, competition cannot take place in the same community they serve due to safety and physical constraints.

Deregulation of these utilities and privatization, contracting out the utility to some private entity, usually ends up backfiring on the community. Rates go up, because this is a for-profit enterprise, all of the sudden, and service decreases, because public oversight is diminished. Its odd, but in a case like this, Socialists are among the most "conservative" people to oppose such measures.

Many Socialists believe the Energy infrastructure should be under national control, the reason seems obvious, its an interconnected grid, most of it crisscrossing state and national borders, and is vital to the national economic system. It should be regulated and run similarly to the National Highway System. In addition, we are advocates for a Universal Health care system as well, we consider both to be necessary for the citizenry to function.

As Socialists facing the challenges of the 21st century, we need to try to find the optimum balance between the needs of the citizenry and the existence of a private run market. We need to preserve the commons, the open spaces, public utilities, and open government for the people, and also allow for some flexibility to allow for innovation and to reward that innovation properly.

What's in a label? Why I call myself a Socialist.

Probably the simplest reason why is because I agree with the Party platform of Socialist Party of the United States, not all of it, but the large majority of it. I could point out disagreements here and there, but largely, I'm a Democratic Socialist at heart, of the party of Eugene V. Debs.

However, I'm also a realistic political animal in this country, and realize that to most folks in this country, with the possible exception of Vermont, an openly Socialist candidate would never get elected to a federal office, Bernie Sanders being the sole exception of course. As such, with the field of candidates being so limited in my area and the nation at large, I vote for Democratic Party candidates more than any other party.

Being pragmatic isn't easy, I can never claim to absolutely agree with any Democratic candidate, however, I do believe that leftists such as myself need to influence the party both in and out of the party itself. Others have taken up the call to influence the Party from within, I choose to try to do it from the outside. I would never advocate for third parties to act as spoilers only, but rather they should give the larger two parties something to think about, and influence them that way. Basically this is a general position I hold that is similar to the Democratic Socialist of America, the link is at the right.