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Thread: Once taboo, socialism finds comrades among US millennials

  1. #1

    Exclamation Once taboo, socialism finds comrades among US millennials

    Yup, freedom is not popular.

    Not at all.



    Once taboo, socialism finds comrades among US millennials

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/once-tabo...051949477.html

    Maggy DONALDSON

    AFP•November 10, 2017

    Washington (AFP) - While working as an electrician Lee Carter received a literal shock, through one hand and across the chest, that jolted him into politics and turned him on to what was a dirty word in America for nearly a century: socialism.

    His struggle to obtain compensation for the workplace injury inspired him to run for office, and this week Carter ousted a top Republican incumbent to nab a spot in Virginia's House of Delegates, becoming one of over a dozen unabashed socialists newly elected to US state and municipal seats one year after Donald Trump took the White House.

    The 31-year-old former Marine is part of a growing cadre of Americans, particularly millennials, pledging their allegiance to the Democratic Socialists of America, the nation's fastest growing leftist group that was originally founded in 1982 as a foothold for Marxists.

    Riding the wave of democratic socialist Bernie Sanders's spirited White House bid against primary rival Hillary Clinton, the organization is helping propel socialism out of the shadows.

    In the years prior to the Sanders campaign, the DSA's number of card-carrying members hovered around 6,500 -- and has nearly quintupled since 2016's presidential race to more than 30,000.

    Its median age has dropped from about 60 to 35, according to organizers, some of whom have playfully referred to the surge among youth as a "socialist baby boom."

    Dismayed by Trump's rise to power Jacquelyn Smith in January joined the DSA, which has chapters in nearly every US state. And at just 22 years old, she managed Carter's victorious campaign.

    Organizing as a DSA member means "I am challenging the root of the problem and not the symptoms," she told AFP, speaking at a recent convention of the organization's local Washington branch.

    "I focus a lot less on challenging Trump and a lot more on challenging why he got there in the first place," she said, citing forces including economic inequality and white supremacist movements.

    Today Smith said millennials -- a generation that grew up during the 2008 financial crisis -- are eager for socialism, to "embrace the ideology and really fight with it publicly."

    Under her management DSA members spent months canvassing for Carter in Virginia's 50th district, about an hour's drive west of the nation's capital, knocking on more than 9,000 doors in the final four days.

    Those grassroots efforts helped propel Carter, who ran as a socialist on the Democratic party ticket, to an upset nine-point victory against one of Virginia's most powerful state Republicans.

    - 'Alarming reputation' fading -

    Despite their current momentum far-left groups like the DSA remain on the fringes of American politics, working within a two-party system that leaves little space for outsiders.

    The political group is not a party, and has nowhere near the clout of sister movements elsewhere such as Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party in Britain, or Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain.

    But socialism has not had a voice this loud in American politics for decades.

    Though she would not yet classify the wave of leftist activism as a mass movement, politics professor Cathy Schneider of American University said the DSA's growth is significant in that it indicates voters shocked by Trumpism are also increasingly disillusioned with the Democratic Party.

    "There is a sector of American society who feel that the political parties do not address their concerns," she said. "The Democratic Socialists have said we have an answer for that."

    Their current strategy does not necessarily include third-party politics; instead the DSA is fielding socialist candidates for elected office using whichever ballot line makes winning likely, generally that of the Democrats.

    And though many members got involved in the aftermath of the Sanders campaign, organizers now say their goal is to build a movement not connected to any single politician but instead based on core issues like universal health care, public investment in education and housing and bolstering labor protections.

    Schneider also noted that socialism's "alarming reputation" appears to be fading, no small development in a country that lived through the Red Scare era of anti-communist propaganda.

    "People no longer associate socialism with dictatorships in the USSR and China," she said.

    That didn't stop Carter's opponent from red-baiting: in the final days of the race the Republican sent a mailer to 11,000 homes that juxtaposed the democratic socialist's face with portraits of famous communists including Karl Marx and Mao Zedong.

    But even Republican voters told canvassers they found the attempt to sully the leftist's image "gross," Carter said.

    "The scare-mongering around what's essentially a disagreement on economic philosophy doesn't work any more."

    (And of course, the hundreds of millions of dead left in the wake of that philosophy over the course of the last 100 years is to be forgotten as well. Collectivism is hip and cool again. Not my country, not my peers. - AF)
    Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and lives with them and invites them to his table; for the one are enemies, but the Others enter into no rivalry with him. - Aristotle's Politics Book 5 Part 11



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  3. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    "People no longer associate socialism with dictatorships in the USSR and China," she said.
    ...
    "The scare-mongering around what's essentially a disagreement on economic philosophy doesn't work any more."
    Bull$#@!. The fear mongering works so well, socialists won't take the onus for National Socialism.

    but that's not just a libtard thing. Bannon insists on calling NatSoc Nationalist Economics.
    Last edited by Raginfridus; 11-12-2017 at 02:36 AM.

  4. #3
    Pfizer Macht Frei!

    Openly Straight Man, Danke, Awarded Top Rated Influencer. Community Standards Enforcer.


    Quiz: Test Your "Income" Tax IQ!

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    The Federalist Papers, No. 15:

    Except as to the rule of appointment, the United States have an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either by regulations extending to the individual citizens of America.

  5. #4
    Pfizer Macht Frei!

    Openly Straight Man, Danke, Awarded Top Rated Influencer. Community Standards Enforcer.


    Quiz: Test Your "Income" Tax IQ!

    Short Income Tax Video

    The Income Tax Is An Excise, And Excise Taxes Are Privilege Taxes

    The Federalist Papers, No. 15:

    Except as to the rule of appointment, the United States have an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either by regulations extending to the individual citizens of America.

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Danke View Post
    At least he was objective-driven and not a showboat...

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    Yup, freedom is not popular.

    Not at all.
    But ignorance is more popular than ever.
    "Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul
    "Beware the Military-Industrial-Financial-Pharma-Corporate-Internet-Media-Government Complex." - B4L update of General Dwight D. Eisenhower
    "Debt is the drug, Wall St. Banksters are the dealers, and politicians are the addicts." - B4L
    "Totally free immigration? I've never taken that position. I believe in national sovereignty." - Ron Paul

    Proponent of real science.
    The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own, and do not represent this forum or any other entities or persons.

  8. #7
    Looks like public education indoctrination is working as intended.

    Last edited by Suzanimal; 11-12-2017 at 11:44 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ron Paul View Post
    The intellectual battle for liberty can appear to be a lonely one at times. However, the numbers are not as important as the principles that we hold. Leonard Read always taught that "it's not a numbers game, but an ideological game." That's why it's important to continue to provide a principled philosophy as to what the role of government ought to be, despite the numbers that stare us in the face.
    Quote Originally Posted by Origanalist View Post
    This intellectually stimulating conversation is the reason I keep coming here.

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Suzanimal View Post
    Looks like public education indoctrination is working as intended.
    Its a Brave New World. Now imagine if public education wasn't like 5% of spending but 15%.



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  11. #9
    Dismayed by Trump's rise to power Jacquelyn Smith in January joined the DSA, which has chapters in nearly every US state. And at just 22 years old, she managed Carter's victorious campaign.

    Organizing as a DSA member means "I am challenging the root of the problem and not the symptoms," she told AFP, speaking at a recent convention of the organization's local Washington branch.

    "I focus a lot less on challenging Trump and a lot more on challenging why he got there in the first place," she said, citing forces including economic inequality and white supremacist movements.

    Today Smith said millennials -- a generation that grew up during the 2008 financial crisis -- are eager for socialism, to "embrace the ideology and really fight with it publicly."
    It's easy to be a socialist when the other guy picks up the tab. Just wait until her parents are no longer responsible for her healthcare.
    All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.
    -Albert Camus

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Suzanimal View Post
    Looks like public education indoctrination is working as intended.

    Yep. This is exactly what Public Ed was made for.

    The US is NOT a Constitutional Republic anymore and hasn't been since at least the "Civil" War. Real capitalism has been wiped out so that now what is called "capitalism" is not even close and most people think capitalism means evil greedy people.

    Insurance companies help run .gov, so we have mandatory insurance to drive, to get health care & even to die.

    Get gov out of everything and prices would drop immediately, people would not buy into bad products, and life might even be free.

    Go figure.
    There is no spoon.

  13. #11

  14. #12
    Once taboo, socialism finds comrades among US millennials

    Inmates in a Chicago jail have been offered pizza as a reward for abstaining from masturbation for 30 days, a lawsuit alleges.


    Sheriff Thomas Dart and Public Defender Amy Campanelli, the lawsuit alleges, they acknowledged the problem was “severe and pervasive” but didn't take effective steps to stop it.

    In fact, the lawsuit claims, they made matters worse. It says Mr Dart created a system to reward offenders with pizza if they went 30 days without publicly masturbating or exposing themselves.

    But that only encouraged people who hadn’t committed such offences to do so so they could abstain and, 30 days later, obtain their reward, according to the lawsuit.

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by otherone View Post
    It's easy to be a socialist when the other guy picks up the tab. Just wait until her parents are no longer responsible for her healthcare.
    Then she'll agitate until the state pays for it.

  16. #14

  17. #15

  18. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Raginfridus View Post
    Its a Brave New World. Now imagine if public education wasn't like 5% of spending but 15%.
    Not sure we're you're getting 5% from. Combined federal, state, and local spending on education was $1.1T. Maybe that's the fraction of the $4T federal budget. The true power of the educrats still reside in state and local budgets.

    XNN
    "They sell us the president the same way they sell us our clothes and our cars. They sell us every thing from youth to religion the same time they sell us our wars. I want to know who the men in the shadows are. I want to hear somebody asking them why. They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are but theyre never the ones to fight or to die." - Jackson Browne Lives In The Balance



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  20. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by XNavyNuke View Post
    Not sure we're you're getting 5% from. Combined federal, state, and local spending on education was $1.1T. Maybe that's the fraction of the $4T federal budget. The true power of the educrats still reside in state and local budgets.
    Oh yeah, the Community.

  21. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by XNavyNuke View Post
    Not sure we're you're getting 5% from. Combined federal, state, and local spending on education was $1.1T. Maybe that's the fraction of the $4T federal budget. The true power of the educrats still reside in state and local budgets.

    XNN
    I was thinking just federal taxes alone:

  22. #19
    Socialism, communism, w/e

    I just want my UBI
    It's all about taking action and not being lazy. So you do the work, whether it's fitness or whatever. It's about getting up, motivating yourself and just doing it.
    - Kim Kardashian

    Donald Trump / Crenshaw 2024!!!!

    My pronouns are he/him/his

  23. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    Yup, freedom is not popular.

    Not at all.

    Once taboo, socialism finds comrades among US millennials
    I'd argue that socialism has a lot of comrades in this forum. At least when it comes to "socializing" the most productive. Class envy is a powerful emotion.

  24. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by nikcers View Post
    Inmates in a Chicago jail have been offered pizza as a reward for abstaining from masturbation for 30 days, a lawsuit alleges.

    I'm guessing it didn't work, at all.. unless they actually have a private place to do it. Showers are public. Cells are public. Maybe they have bathrooms like in Orange is the New Black, or is that only in women's prisons?
    Last edited by dannno; 11-13-2017 at 11:08 AM.
    "He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
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    "Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul

    "Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."

  25. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Madison320 View Post
    I'd argue that socialism has a lot of comrades in this forum. At least when it comes to "socializing" the most productive. Class envy is a powerful emotion.
    Envy is not even an emotion you can admit to having.
    Last edited by timosman; 11-13-2017 at 11:14 AM.

  26. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    I'm guessing it didn't work, at all.. unless they actually have a private place to do it. Showers are public. Cells are public. Maybe they have bathrooms like in Orange is the New Black, or is that only in women's prisons?
    “They are forced to regularly endure heinous sexual misconduct,” the lawsuit alleges, adding that male detainees threaten to assault attorneys, deliberately expose themselves to female employees and masturbate at them.
    Female lawyers in the city's main prison say they have faced chronic masturbation and constant sexual harassment from detainees, and a system to reward abstainers with pizza has worsened the situation.

    But that only encouraged people who hadn’t committed such offences to do so so they could abstain and, 30 days later, obtain their reward, according to the lawsuit.

  27. #24
    These people will wake up when they grow up and have to pay taxes. They have high expectations.
    #NashvilleStrong

    “I’m a doctor. That’s a baby.”~~~Dr. Manny Sethi



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  29. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by euphemia View Post
    These people will wake up when they grow up and have to pay taxes. They have high expectations.
    Maybe somebody should let them know Santa Claus is not real?

  30. #26
    Once taboo, faith in pride and unprovoked aggression finds convenient relationship with spoiled brats and parents who shirk reality and responsibility.

    Experts agree! New improved parental love is now 95% easier!

    Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is kept safe. Proverbs 29:25
    "I think the propaganda machine is the biggest problem that we face today in trying to get the truth out to people."
    Ron Paul

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  31. #27

  32. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    But ignorance is more popular than ever.
    Ignorant of their own ignorance even... the Dems appear to have put this $hit into high gear.


    Don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows



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