How the Denver DSA Convinced the Local Democratic Party to Endorse Socialism in Its Platform

The Intercept ^ | 29 Mar, 2018 | Zaid Jilani

[MtnClimber]

display of grassroots power, the Denver chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA, successfully convinced the Denver Democratic Party to endorse a key tenet of democratic socialism in their party platform. The party’s official platform now includes the following plank:

We believe the economy should be democratically owned and controlled in order to serve the needs of the many, not to make profits for the few.

The construction used here is similar to “for the many not the few,” the slogan used by the U.K.’s Labour Party. That party is currently run by Jeremy Corbyn, a committed socialist, who borrowed the phrase from neoliberal politician Tony Blair, who first used it during election campaigns in the 1990s. Blair and Corbyn both owe it to Shelley, whose Masque of Anarchy Corbyn has taken to quoting:

Rise, like lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number!

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you:

Ye are many—they are few!

It even echoes in New York, where Democratic gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon has her own spin on it, promising a “New York for the many, not just the few.”

[MtnClimber]

The democRATS and socialists have been the same thing for a long time.

[BBQToadRibs]

If you listen carefully you can hear the distant thunder of small business owners stampeding out of Denver.

[WayneS]

...the economy should be democratically owned and controlled...

AKA, Fascism

AKA, National Socialism

[boycott]

“We believe the economy should be democratically owned and controlled in order to serve the needs of the many, not to make profits for the few.”

---

Why does Soros keep his business headquartered in the Caribbean? Seems a democrat pig like Soros would want to share his billions.

Same for Zuckerberg, Bezos, Buffett, etc.

They’re all sleazy nasty hypocrites.

[PIF]

Hitler's economy was run on a crony capitalist system with government approval; Russia's communist economy was nominally run by the people aka democratically owned (by the State) and controlled (by the State).

They are Communists by the definition given not fascists. Nazism applies only to that period in German history when The National Socialist German Workers' Party (NAZI) ran the country.

Fascism and Nazism are not the same. One was practiced in Germany, the other in Italy under Mussolini.

"Fascism was seen as a third way between laissez-faire capitalism and communism. Fascist thought acknowledged the roles of private property and the profit motive as legitimate incentives for productivity - provided that they did not conflict with the interests of the state."
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/Fascism.html

[WayneS]

Dubbels told The Intercept he was amazed by how easy it was to get the party to adopt this platform. “We breezed into it!” he said. “We spent more time in advance arguing about what amendment or set of amendments to present to the floor, relative to the amount of time it took us to actually collect the petition signatures and hold the vote itself. We thought we had pretty slim chances of even collecting enough signatures. So we were already pretty hyped from that. And then when it came up for a vote on the floor, we were blown away that it went through.”

This tells me that the majority of "mainstream" democrats are more ignorant, stupid, pathetic and sheep-like than at any time in the history of that party.

There actually used to be some democrats who were intelligent, thoughtful and patriotic. That apparently is no longer the case.

[SoConPubbie]

This is only going to end one of two ways, and one of them is extremely bloody.

[dhs12345]

Soon to be us (out of Colorado) as soon as our son graduates. Our state taxes were significantly higher this year and a lot higher than our federal taxes.

All of the people from CA have Californicated the State. Sad, because it used to be a nice state with right of center beliefs. Denver always dominated but now it controls the state.

[WayneS]

My mistake. You are correct. These people are definitely not nationalists.

Straight up socialist or even marxist is a much better description.

My fingers were working faster than my brain.

[Vaquero]

IMHO if you are a socialist you advocate the destruction of the constitution therefore the overthrow of the USA.

Where is Tailgunner Joe now that we need him.

[loveliberty2]

Americans, in the beginning, tried socialism. Like every other people who tried such a non-starter for providing individual incentives, individual freedom, and prosperous economy, they failed. Here is the story:

The Economic Dimension Of Liberty Protected By The Constitution

"Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are the most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise."

- Thomas Jefferson

"The enviable condition of the people of the United States is often too much ascribed to the physical advantages of their soil & climate .... But a just estimate of the happiness of our country will never overlook what belongs to the fertile activity of a free people and the benign influence of a responsible government."

- James Madison

America's Constitution did not mention freedom of enterprise per se, but it did set up a system of laws to secure individual liberty and freedom of choice in keeping with Creator-endowed natural rights. Out of these, free enterprise flourished naturally. Even though the words "free enterprise' are not in the Constitution, the concept was uppermost in the minds of the Founders, typified by the remarks of Jefferson and Madison as quoted above.

Already, in 1787, Americans were enjoying the rewards of individual enterprise and free markets. Their dedication was to securing that freedom for posterity. The learned men drafting America's Constitution understood history - mankind's struggle against poverty and government oppression. And they had studied the ideas of the great thinkers and philosophers.

They were familiar with the near starvation of the early Jamestown settlers under a communal production and distribution system and Governor Bradford's diary account of how all benefited after agreement that each family could do as it wished with the fruits of its own labors.

Later, in 1776, Adam Smith's INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF THE WEALTH OF NATIONS and Say's POLITICAL ECONOMY had come at just the right time and were perfectly compatible with the Founders' own passion for individual liberty. Jefferson said these were the best books to be had for forming governments based on principles of freedom.

They saw a free market economy as the natural result of their ideal of liberty. They feared concentrations of power and the coercion that planners can use in planning other peoples lives; and they valued freedom of choice and acceptance of responsibility of the consequences of such choice as being the very essence of liberty. They envisioned a large and prosperous republic of free people, unhampered by government interference. The Founders believed the American people, possessors of deeply rooted character and values, could prosper if left free to:

acquire and own property have access to free markets produce what they wanted

work for whom and at what they wanted travel and live where they would choose acquire goods and services which they desired

Such a free market economy was, to them, the natural result of liberty, carried out in the economic dimension of life. Their philosophy tend­ed to enlarge individual freedom - not to restrict or diminish the individual's right to make choices and to succeed or fail based on those choices. The economic role of their Constitutional government was simply to secure rights and encourage commerce. Through the Constitution, they granted their government some very limited powers to:

• assure that the ground rules were fair (a fixed standard of weights and measures)
• encourage initiative and inventiveness (copyright and patent protection laws)
• provide a system of sound currency with an established value (gold and silver coin)
• enforce free trade (free from interfering special interests)
• protect individuals from the harmful acts of others

Adam Smith called it "the system of natural liberty." James Madison referred to it as "the benign influence of a responsible government." Others have called it the free enterprise system. By whatever name it is called, the economic system envisioned by the Founders and encouraged by the Constitution allowed individual enterprise to flourish and triggered the greatest explosion of economic progress in all of history. Americans became the first people truly to realize the economic dimension of liberty.

---

Footnote: Our Ageless Constitution, W. David Stedman & La Vaughn G. Lewis, Editors (Asheboro, NC, W. David Stedman Associates, 1987) Part III: ISBN 0-937047-01-5

[Buckeye McFrog]

Only a matter of time before that makes it into the national Democrat platform.

[Pajamajan]

Keep voting in dems and they will turn the U.S.A. into Venezuela.

Democrat= The "manage the decline" party.

Democrat politician's motto: The U.S.A must be brought down so poorer nations can be lifted up (What total B.S.).

How can anyone vote for that?

[ChinaGotTheGoodsOnClinton]

Oh, joy. But on the plus side, CO has been circling the drain for awhile now.

[adorno]

...the economy should be democratically owned and controlled

That directly translates to

the economy should be GOVERNMENT owned and GOVERNMENT controlled

The people would not own anything, and they wouldn't control anything.

[rawcatslyentist]

to serve the needs of the many,

Many Americans are obese. Socialism is a sure cure for that!

[george76]

Colorado Ping ( Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from the list.)

[fieldmarshaldj]

The Democrats endorsed and embraced Socialism in 1896. They’ve long since embraced Communism-Totalitarianism.

[Retvet]

Only surprise here is that they acknowledged it. After all the communist party folded because the Demonrats stole their platform.