DSA is a political party. Socialism is a means of producing and distributing goods.
They are not the same thing but plenty of people will try to equate them. Social security is socialism. For profit insurance is capitalism. See the difference?
Having social services is not socialism. I'm President of a volunteer fire department. A social service, that can't get socialists to do. We rely on the citizens for members and funds, the more socialist this state becomes, the less volunteers we get.
No references or footnotes -- where are you getting this info?
Having been familiar with the DSA platform for several years, I think you've construed the DSA platform through an extreme lens. Here are a few examples of far more accurate interpretations of the DSA platform:
"Defund the police" is an easily misconstrued (and, therefore, terribly counterproductive) slogan. What it actually means is to de-militarize police departments in terms of equipment obtained from the US military and using more resources ($) to fund prevention resources and programs in schools, parks and recreation, community centers, etc.
Police unions supported Trump in the 2024 election. They've been known to function more like a mafia, including intimidating police, including retired police, who support movements such as "Occupy Wall Street" and who are for a community policing approach. However, DSA is very pro-union/organized labor/collective barganing rights and all of the benefits -- worker safety, living wage, good benefits including defined benefit pension plans for all member workers.
Maryland, like every state in the US, has a privatized correctional system that's profit-driven. DSA's platform is to return correctional systems -- jails and prisons -- to be far more government funded and government-staffed to remove the profit incentive that has resulted in a skewed justice system that, due to the profit-incentive, disproportionately incarcerates people, especially Black and Hispanic people -- essentially replicating the commoditization of people (i.e., slavery), including labor at far less than mininum wage with profit-driven services (e.g., calls to family, commissary) exploiting prisoners. The conditions at some of the state correctional faciilities are inhumane.
DSA advocates for restorative justice rather than a punitive and exploitative justice system.
I was an unknowing participant at one of their meeting in the spring. These people live in fantasyland. They think govt. should rule everyone. After their meeting was over, I huddled them up and told them The worst sentence you'll ever hear is "I'm from the government and I'm here to help". They are all just clueless.
"I'm from the government and I'm here to help," is a line President Reagan used to make people think government is bad. I've yet to find anyone regardless of party affiliation or none who wishes to give up their/their family members' Social Security or Medicare.
Congress doesn't want to raise taxes becuase members want to get re-elected. So, yes, Congress has borrowed from the Social Security trust fund and paid that money back, with interest.
Medicare Advantage Plans have privatized a lot of Medicare -- extracting money from Medicare that doesn't go to pay for healthcare but, instead, enriches stockholders of the insurance companies that provide Medicare Advantage plans. They should be called Medicare Disadvantage Plans.
Protecting sustainable Social Security and Medicare are the one issue that establishment/centrist/corporate Democrats and progressive Democrats 100% agree on.
Republicans have been trying to elminate Social Security since the New Deal created Social Security and LBJ created Medicare.
People are living longer than when those programs were first created, thanks to advancements in medicine (via research funded by government) and because those two programs have lifted many of the people who receive those benefits and their families out of poverty. At the same time, birth rates have declined resulting in fewer younger workers contributing. Unemployment stats only count people seeking employment and collecting unemployment benefits. Ange, wages have not kept up with inflation. All of that means less money going to find those two programs.
The cap on contributing FICA to fund both programs hasn't increased for way too long. Congress has procrastinated making the necessary changes to keep Social Security and Medicare solvent long-term.
Also, the 401(k) was originally designed as a tax break for executives, not as a replacement for defined benefit pension plans. When unions lost ground, so did workers' capacities to retire. That's another reason why DSA is pro-union.
We don't need more f*cking taxes. We need less waste. Full Stop!!! So over you damn leftists that want to tax the shit out of those that work to give our money to those that wont.
Supporting genocide and apartheid is not "a measured, responsible foreign policy." The media and right wing writers like you are labeling the wrong people as at fault.
I don't just think it -- his perspective re: Netanyahu's Israel is right-wing. The rest of the world has recognized Netanyahu as a war criminal and what Israel has done to the Palestinian people in Gaza as a genocide.
I’ve been an outspoken critic of Israel for 22 years—ever since I returned from Tehran with a peace offer that was flatly rejected. I believe Benjamin Netanyahu should stand trial for potential war crimes. While I won't declare him guilty prior to a trial, he deserves his day in court. At the same time, I firmly reject the blatant antisemitism coming from the far left—a faction I view as an idiotic collection of privileged kids living off their parents, convinced they can redesign society to suit their whims because they received participation trophies in T-ball. I hold the DSA and far-left progressives in disdain bordering on contempt. They are bad for America, and they are a curse upon the Democratic Party. But that’s just my opinion. I realize others may disagree—though I suspect even their mothers, while loving them publicly, quietly agree they’re idiots in private.
You far left retards think anyone that is right of Bernie Sanders is right wing. If we don't think just like you we're "far right". So yes, you're an idiot.. Weak minded. You have no understanding that we all have more in common than not, because you can't see past trivial crap. The TV and Social Media have brainwashed you. They keep people like you hating everyone. So damn tolerant you are.
I've been against communism and socialism for a long time. Back in the mid '80s I got asked by the Reagan White House to help out with the arming and supply of our brave Freedom fighters in Nicaragua fighting the Communist anti-semitic dictatorship. It's a long-standing family tradition. My mother's father was one of the troops that at the end of World War I instead of going home he got sent in a special unit revolutionary Russia to try and take back arms from the Communists. He spent his time preparing log and trench fortresses where American troops armed with Lewis machine guns would be hit day after day by waves of communist fighters. Was so cold and so relentless that they would end up stacking up the bodies like cord wood cuz the ground was too hard to bury them.
Dear Barry, Your interpretation of DSA is not up to date. DSA has altered some of its positions and perhaps you should interview them for accuracy. Also, the current people who make decisions for the Democratic Party are so disconnected from the needs of working people and elder Americans, that similar criticism can be made about the mainstream party. I think there is too much outsize money from groups representing foreign government interests and corporations that there is no longer a real American foreign policy or true prioritizing of American interests and needs.
Health care funds and food subsidies are going to build monuments and renovate air ports. Really!!!! Our tax dollars are going to several racist foreign governments for bombs and war. Our tax dollars first and foremost should help the American people, but that is not happening.
DSA is a political party. Socialism is a means of producing and distributing goods.
They are not the same thing but plenty of people will try to equate them. Social security is socialism. For profit insurance is capitalism. See the difference?
Having social services is not socialism. I'm President of a volunteer fire department. A social service, that can't get socialists to do. We rely on the citizens for members and funds, the more socialist this state becomes, the less volunteers we get.
No references or footnotes -- where are you getting this info?
Having been familiar with the DSA platform for several years, I think you've construed the DSA platform through an extreme lens. Here are a few examples of far more accurate interpretations of the DSA platform:
"Defund the police" is an easily misconstrued (and, therefore, terribly counterproductive) slogan. What it actually means is to de-militarize police departments in terms of equipment obtained from the US military and using more resources ($) to fund prevention resources and programs in schools, parks and recreation, community centers, etc.
Police unions supported Trump in the 2024 election. They've been known to function more like a mafia, including intimidating police, including retired police, who support movements such as "Occupy Wall Street" and who are for a community policing approach. However, DSA is very pro-union/organized labor/collective barganing rights and all of the benefits -- worker safety, living wage, good benefits including defined benefit pension plans for all member workers.
Maryland, like every state in the US, has a privatized correctional system that's profit-driven. DSA's platform is to return correctional systems -- jails and prisons -- to be far more government funded and government-staffed to remove the profit incentive that has resulted in a skewed justice system that, due to the profit-incentive, disproportionately incarcerates people, especially Black and Hispanic people -- essentially replicating the commoditization of people (i.e., slavery), including labor at far less than mininum wage with profit-driven services (e.g., calls to family, commissary) exploiting prisoners. The conditions at some of the state correctional faciilities are inhumane.
DSA advocates for restorative justice rather than a punitive and exploitative justice system.
https://www.dsausa.org/working-groups/abolition-working-group/
I was an unknowing participant at one of their meeting in the spring. These people live in fantasyland. They think govt. should rule everyone. After their meeting was over, I huddled them up and told them The worst sentence you'll ever hear is "I'm from the government and I'm here to help". They are all just clueless.
"I'm from the government and I'm here to help," is a line President Reagan used to make people think government is bad. I've yet to find anyone regardless of party affiliation or none who wishes to give up their/their family members' Social Security or Medicare.
And yet the Govt has raided both of those. And by the time we retire, there will be none of it. Too much govt. is real bad.
Congress doesn't want to raise taxes becuase members want to get re-elected. So, yes, Congress has borrowed from the Social Security trust fund and paid that money back, with interest.
Medicare Advantage Plans have privatized a lot of Medicare -- extracting money from Medicare that doesn't go to pay for healthcare but, instead, enriches stockholders of the insurance companies that provide Medicare Advantage plans. They should be called Medicare Disadvantage Plans.
Protecting sustainable Social Security and Medicare are the one issue that establishment/centrist/corporate Democrats and progressive Democrats 100% agree on.
Republicans have been trying to elminate Social Security since the New Deal created Social Security and LBJ created Medicare.
People are living longer than when those programs were first created, thanks to advancements in medicine (via research funded by government) and because those two programs have lifted many of the people who receive those benefits and their families out of poverty. At the same time, birth rates have declined resulting in fewer younger workers contributing. Unemployment stats only count people seeking employment and collecting unemployment benefits. Ange, wages have not kept up with inflation. All of that means less money going to find those two programs.
The cap on contributing FICA to fund both programs hasn't increased for way too long. Congress has procrastinated making the necessary changes to keep Social Security and Medicare solvent long-term.
Also, the 401(k) was originally designed as a tax break for executives, not as a replacement for defined benefit pension plans. When unions lost ground, so did workers' capacities to retire. That's another reason why DSA is pro-union.
We don't need more f*cking taxes. We need less waste. Full Stop!!! So over you damn leftists that want to tax the shit out of those that work to give our money to those that wont.
Supporting genocide and apartheid is not "a measured, responsible foreign policy." The media and right wing writers like you are labeling the wrong people as at fault.
You think Barry is right wing? hahahahahahaha
I don't just think it -- his perspective re: Netanyahu's Israel is right-wing. The rest of the world has recognized Netanyahu as a war criminal and what Israel has done to the Palestinian people in Gaza as a genocide.
I’ve been an outspoken critic of Israel for 22 years—ever since I returned from Tehran with a peace offer that was flatly rejected. I believe Benjamin Netanyahu should stand trial for potential war crimes. While I won't declare him guilty prior to a trial, he deserves his day in court. At the same time, I firmly reject the blatant antisemitism coming from the far left—a faction I view as an idiotic collection of privileged kids living off their parents, convinced they can redesign society to suit their whims because they received participation trophies in T-ball. I hold the DSA and far-left progressives in disdain bordering on contempt. They are bad for America, and they are a curse upon the Democratic Party. But that’s just my opinion. I realize others may disagree—though I suspect even their mothers, while loving them publicly, quietly agree they’re idiots in private.
hahaha, you are an idiot.
Apparently, you’re right about that because clearly I just wasted my time with you.
You far left retards think anyone that is right of Bernie Sanders is right wing. If we don't think just like you we're "far right". So yes, you're an idiot.. Weak minded. You have no understanding that we all have more in common than not, because you can't see past trivial crap. The TV and Social Media have brainwashed you. They keep people like you hating everyone. So damn tolerant you are.
Damn, Barry, did you just have a come-to-Jesus moment? Hurrah for you, and let's hope these commies all go down in flames.
I've been against communism and socialism for a long time. Back in the mid '80s I got asked by the Reagan White House to help out with the arming and supply of our brave Freedom fighters in Nicaragua fighting the Communist anti-semitic dictatorship. It's a long-standing family tradition. My mother's father was one of the troops that at the end of World War I instead of going home he got sent in a special unit revolutionary Russia to try and take back arms from the Communists. He spent his time preparing log and trench fortresses where American troops armed with Lewis machine guns would be hit day after day by waves of communist fighters. Was so cold and so relentless that they would end up stacking up the bodies like cord wood cuz the ground was too hard to bury them.
Dear Barry, Your interpretation of DSA is not up to date. DSA has altered some of its positions and perhaps you should interview them for accuracy. Also, the current people who make decisions for the Democratic Party are so disconnected from the needs of working people and elder Americans, that similar criticism can be made about the mainstream party. I think there is too much outsize money from groups representing foreign government interests and corporations that there is no longer a real American foreign policy or true prioritizing of American interests and needs.
Health care funds and food subsidies are going to build monuments and renovate air ports. Really!!!! Our tax dollars are going to several racist foreign governments for bombs and war. Our tax dollars first and foremost should help the American people, but that is not happening.
L Rosado