Welcome to the official website of the Social Democrats, USA, current as of 2011. The old website, still availible at www.socialdemocrats.org, is also archived here, under "About Us". The information posted at the old website does not represent Social Democrats, USA, now under new, democratic management. For our current offical positions, see our Statement of Principles and Constitution.
If you are a Social Democrat living in the United States who belongs to a Social Democratic or Labour Party in your native country and you are in touch with the home politics, please see this blog!.
We turned 1 year old on May 3rd. And look what Glenn Beck has to say about us:
We have no intention of ceding our heritage to self-styled anarchists and revolutionaries. The Social Democrats, USA kept the name Socialist Party for our political arm because we are the party of Eugene Debs, Mother Jones, Helen Keller, Carl Sandburg, Norman Thomas, A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, and thousands of people who worked to build the civil rights and trade union movements in this country. Many good folks gave their lives in these movements.
The Socialist Party, USA, in 1956, chose to stop running candidates of its own, except on rare occasion. During the 1960's, we began to work in the Democratic Party. This is where our allies in the civil rights and trade union movement worked and continue to work politically. We are proud of what we helped accomplish within the Democratic Party, particularly the civil rights legislation and anti-poverty programs of the the 1960's. The struggle continues. The U.S. is woefully behind the rest of the world in providing low cost health care to all its citizens. As a society, we pay the cost. Health statistics make the USA look like a third world country. We have only the 47th highest life expectancy among nations. What country can be called a super power and not defend its citizens from preventable disease? We fail our young people by making higher education affordable only to the lucky. Perhaps most grievously, we fail our veterans and our senior citizens. Those who gave us so much are faced with cuts in the programs upon which they rely for survival.
When the banks and the auto industry were in chaos, they demanded and got a bailout. The Republican Party and the "Blue Dog" Democrats argue the cost of aiding the average family with health care, tuition, and housing is too expensive. It is Democratic legislators that we must influence, not to waste the stimulus monies, but to make a plan that rebuilds our public infrastructure, creates ecologically friendly ways to travel, and provides health care for every American. Our movement has been involved in the left wing of the Democratic Party since 1947. Socialist Party members helped found Americans for Democratic Action. ADA is this country's premiere "anti-Communist, liberal" organization. We are proud of our long relationships with Eleanor Roosevelt, Hubert Humphrey, and others. We look forward to forging a good working relationship with our fellow pro-labor, anti-totalitarian, left Democrats.
The right wing accuses us of boring from within. They like the Norman Thomas' quote "The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened." When Thomas said this, liberals self-identified very publicly. Hubert Humphrey, for instance, wore the label proudly and worked closely with members of the Socialist Party. American liberalism is much akin to social democracy in protecting the most vulnerable and expanding opportunity. The political upheaval over the Vietnam war shattered the old liberal coalition in the Democratic Party into isolated single interest groups with no long range vision. America was the bulwark against both Fascism and Communism, those pretend socialists. Socialism seemed anti-American.
How American is socialism? Consider "The Pledge of Allegiance". The Pledge was written by the Rev. Francis Bellamy, a Christian pastor and Socialist Party member. Bellamy did not mention the Creator, because as a minister, he believed that blasphemous. He wrote the rest of the Pledge as we say it today.
The members of the Social Democrats, USA are proud of "our flag and the republic for which it stands." We are also internationalists. We work with democratic socialist, social democratic, and labor parties around the world.
"Political party" means something different to people outside this country. Our political parties are huge catch-all electoral coalitions. Socialist author and Democratic Party activist, Michael Harrington, was fond of saying, "The Democratic Party contains some of the worst and most of the best people in American politics." He also pointed out that small left wing sects, like the Socialist Workers' Party, have more people on national staff than the Democratic Party does in non-presidential election years. In other countries, members of a political party are required to express substantial agreement with the party's programme, pay dues, and participate in electoral campaigns. The British Labour Party, one of the parties with which we work, has less than 200,000 members. Yet, it governs a nation of more than 80 million. The Social Democrats, USA insists that its members agree with our statement of principles, pay dues, and participate in the life of the organization. In this way, we remain a "socialist party."
The SD,USA does not generally favor third party candidacies. American politics makes the "two party system" a fixture. There are exceptions, but these are usually regional and temporary. We have learned from our allies in organized labor and the civil rights movement that we need to effect change now. Workers, the poor, and the victims of discrimination can't wait. We are not hiding in the Democratic Party. You will know us by the far reaching proposals we put forward for both the short and long term change. Despite what the right wing pundits say, the liberal movement has become tiny in America. The old liberal, pro-labor coalition needs reviving. We are working with our allies to do just that. You will find Social Democrats building unions and community groups. You may be working with us supporting excellent local candidates for public office. The economic elites want to either own our economy or let it be destroyed and the United States with it. Perhaps you love America enough to join us in extending democracy to our economy.
There is a group which refers to itself as "revolutionary socialist" which uses the name "Socialist Party of the United States of America". This organization was formed by people who left the old Socialist Party, USA when the later group changed its name to Social Democrats, USA to focus solely on working in the Democratic Party. The Social Democrats, USA never gave up the use of the name Socialist Party, USA and old leadership made this clear. Since 1995, the website banner read: "SD, USA is the successor to the Socialist Party, USA, the Party of Eugene Debs, Norman Thomas, and Bayard Rustin and is a member of the Socialist International". The older website is mirrored here, on the About Us page.
Dispite the fact that their constitutions dropped the name Socialist Party, USA in 1979 and that Party leadership sought to legally trademark the name "Socialist Party of the United States of America" in 2007, this group uses the initials SP, USA. Most members connected to the real Socialist Party, USA have passed away or resigned. It is a conceit for this group to claim any connection to the Party of Debs and Thomas. A political party is not an inheritence. The SP of the USA relies more on the ideas of Leon Trotsky than of Eugene Debs.
Recently, in an effort to become more like Daniel De Leon, the SP of the USA began expelling anyone suspected of having membership in SD,USA. This included the entire state of Pennsylvania, membership of more than one hundred. While having no formal ban on dual membership with this "party", whose national membership is less than 1,000, we have strong disagreements with them, particularly on the nature of democracy.
Many of us have strong personal ties with SP of the USA members. We endorsed SP of the USA, 2008 presidential candidate, Brian Moore, as "the best candidate running with no hope of influencing the outcome." The SD,USA is sad to see "that other Socialist Party" has become just another psuedo-party, anti-American, left wing sect. Such groups abuse the word socialism every bit as much as the right wing pundits, Fascists, and Communists do.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Eugene V. Debs ran for president four times as a member of the Socialist Party of America.
20% of the American public believes that socialism is superior to capitalism, says a poll by Rasmussen Reports released on Thursday, April 9.
Asked the question "Which is a better system - capitalism or socialism?", 53% of those polled found capitalism the better system, 20% preferred socialism, and 27% were unsure. The survey did not define either capitalism or socialism, but Rasmussen also cites a December 2008 result saying that 15% of Americans prefer a government-managed economy.
Analysis of the poll's data by website FiveThirtyEight.com furthermore found that support for capitalism was closely correlated with income; respondents earning under $20,000 a year having an eight percentage point preference for capitalism, while those earning more than $100,000 a year expressed a fifty-seven percentage point preference for capitalism. Rasmussen noted that socialism had much broader support among people under 30, where 33% support socialism and 37% support capitalism, than among any other age group.
Socialism has found support in several countries, with member parties of the Socialist International in government in over 50 countries around the world and with several other regimes describing themselves as socialist or communist; the 20% result Rasmussen finds is comparable to the electoral support for the New Democratic Party in Canada. Support for an independent socialist movement in the United States, however, has historically been limited. Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs won 6.1% of the popular vote in 1912, and two members of the Socialist Party, Victor L. Berger and Meyer London, were elected to the United States Congress before the Great Depression. This brief flirtation with socialism is contrasted against the times during and following the First World War and Second World War, which were marked by "Red scares" periods of pronounced anti-communism in the United States.
Currently, only a single member of the United States Congress describes himself as a socialist: Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The Social Democrats USA (SD USA), one of the successors of the Socialist Party of America, has expressed solidarity with the 76-member Congressional Progressive Caucus, which Sanders founded in 1991. It supports positions such as a living wage, universal health care, and the right of workers to form trade unions and engage in collective bargaining.
SD USA executive director Gabriel McClosky-Ross offered Wikinews an exclusive statement on the Rasmussen poll result:
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I joined the Socialist Party, USA in 1972, when I was 16. That was seven months before the name change to Social Democrats, USA. I was a subscriber to the Party's publication, New America for four years by that point. I grew up in a Catholic working class neighborhood. Many of my neighbors read the Catholic Worker. However, I would not meet another self described social democrat or democratic socialist who was close to my age until I completed college and entered the seminary when I was 21. That was not for a lack of my attempts at persuasion. Now when I speak on behalf of the Social Democrats, I meet many people who call themselves socialists or they are considering doing so. Two things have changed. First, Stalinism in the Soviet Union finally and thankfully collapsed and The Peoples' Republic of China is a transparently "state capitalist" regime. Second, the propaganda machine that equated private ownership of productive property with democracy is spurting under onslaught of facts that indicate just the opposite. There were two presidential elections in a row where the count looked fishy and the money trail lead to the top of Republican Party. Then the banks collapsed and it was apparent that the largest financial institutions in the world were involved in sub-prime mortgage ponzi schemes. I am not sure whether to celebrate or lament becoming an economist and union organizer instead of a priest given the current crisis. As my mentor, Michael Harrington, was fond of saying there are many kinds of socialism. Stalin, Hitler, and Mao, history's three greatest mass murderers, all called themselves socialists. Hopefully, America is ready for a broad social democratic movement that works with trade unions and community organizations for national health care, re-industrialization, ecologically friendly mass transit, infrastructure repair, and eventually a democratization of our economy. Building such a movement will be very hard work. The cyber-world has many benefits, but people seemed to be convinced that social change can occur by email. It is great shame, that it takes 8.2% unemployment and massive economic dislocation to push people back to real time organizing and protest. Simply that people are angry is not enough. The Bolsheviks, Fascists, and Nazis all rode waves of mass discontent to power. A peoples' movement must be militantly democratic and refuse to make common cause with even the 'mildest and friendliest totalitarians.' A truly democratic movement for social democracy must transcend the narrow special interest group politics that has made up most of political discourse since the protests against the Vietnam War. To transcend the current economic crisis we need a full employment economy and that means a movement concentrated on 'red letter' social democratic issues of democratic worker and community control of industry. |
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Gabriel McCloskey-Ross, Social Democrats USA, Executive Director |
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Anti-communism has been an important part of American politics for several decades.
While support for socialism in the United States may be growing, Rasmussen's polling finds that absolute majorities of the American public support both capitalism and free markets. Meanwhile, anti-communist sentiment remains strong in many segments of the US population, with opposition to socialism being a defining feature of Conservatism in the United States.
In an exclusive statement to Wikinews, John F. McManus, President of the anti-socialist John Birch Society, offered the John Birch Society's position on the poll result:
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If 20 percent of the American people prefer socialism, it is likely that half believe it has more to do with sociability that it has to do with an economic system that places government in control of their lives. Ask these 20 percent what socialism truly is and the response will rarely point to the great hero of all socialists, Karl Marx. The John Birch Society believes that everyone is a capitalist. If one starts out defining capital as the means of production (which is its definition), then everyone from the primitive fisherman to the corporate executive uses capital and is a capitalist. The distinction that most don't make is who owns and controls the capital. Does each individual have the right to own his means of production even a fishing pole? Or does the government own and/or control all the means of production? When each individual has the right to own capital (property), there is freedom up to the point where no one is permitted to impede someone else's similar right. Where socialism reigns, the government dominates, either completely a la communism or essentially a la fascism (Nazi-style or Mussolini-style). Most Americans are victims of an absolutely horrible educational system. Too many have been persuaded that government should take care of them. We tell such fools that, if that's what they want, they should turn themselves in at the local prison where they will be cared for 24 hours a day. We ask them to stop advocating converting our entire nation into what effectively will be a coast-to-coast prison. The proper role of government can never be more than the protection of the lives, liberty and property of the people who pay for it. The improper role of government is to take care of the people which it always does poorly and does so almost always as a grab for power rather than a supposedly noble concern for the downtrodden. |
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John F. McManus, John Birch Society, President |
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Americans currently most often cite the economy as their number one concern in polls, ahead of terrorism. In December 2008, workers at the Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago staged a union-backed factory occupation in a fight against company management a return to tactics of direct action from the historically more subdued American organized labor movement.
On April 10 2009, Alabama representative Spencer Bachus (R-Alabama) told the Birmingham News that seventeen members of the US House of Representatives are socialists. He did not specify which members
Socialism for the Rich / Free Enterprise for the Rest of Us?
The Congress has indebted each American and his or her grandchildren for three thousand dollars to aid the interests of the Wall Street, i.e. the wealthiest people in the land. The "Banksters"; have engineered the largest wealth transfer in history. Working families will spend generations paying off the greed of the world's unscrupulous lenders. Like the Bolsheviks before them, they talk of the common good while assuring their exalted status by "socializing"; the cost of doing business. That means the workers pay the cost, do the work, suffer the shortages, and the ruling class gets even wealthier.
Back in 1990, after the fall of the Communist states in Eastern Europe, there was much rethinking and new thinking about the meaning of socialism and whether it had been discredited. Jewish Currents, a progressive secular magazine that evolved from a Communist Party line publication to democratic socialism, asked its major contributors whether these events had changed their own view of socialism and whether they still considered themselves to be socialist now. . . Read More
Social Democrats, U.S.A.
checks payable to: Social Democrats, USA
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Office hours are open ended M-F from 1:30pm until 5:30pm EST and part time on Saturday from noon until three pm, but never on Sunday.
Our goal is to engage in winnable electoral politics and improve America's engagement with the global socialist movement through the Socialist International.
The national phone conferences are held every Sunday at 2 PM EST. If you are not a member, but would like to be, then consider Joining Us.