Take it easy, K.

Curioussteve is merely referencing Horace. (He meant, 'troll' not 'shill' - although they are basically the same thing.)

To comment on Bernie Sanders.
Just so I don't have to continually make this point in my following remarks, yes, I'm aware that Bernie Sanders is an Independent, not a Democrat, but that he caucuses with Democrats.

Bernie Sanders is indeed better than most as a Senator, however with a huge caveat.

Bernie Sanders has defended Harry Reid's use of the procedural filibuster, which in effect has extended the power of the Republicans in concert with the Conservative Democrats.

Bernie Sanders has defended such use of the procedural filibuster countless times on Thom Hartmann's Breakfast with Bernie shows on Fridays.

Bernie Sanders also, on many occasions defended, quite energetically in fact, Pelosi's decision to take "impeachment off of the table".

When it comes down to it, Bernie Sanders defers to the larger corporate construct, so to speak, of the current ethically compromised Democratic Party.

(to the career Democratic Party apologists no, I'm not by exclusion arguing that Democrats are worse than Republicans)

horace is a boring shill.

Two questions:

What is the power in saying one is for people/against corporations?

What is the value of being proud to wear a certain label?

DSA does a great job of promoting personal positions on issues, as beliefs, and in providing a label that people are proud to wear - declaring all of the correct positions on all of the issues - but then when election time rolls around they endorse the Democrats - "lesser of two evils, a strategic vote, the best we can do until the revolution comes, meanwhile we will keep working to get more people to join our team and wear our label and to change people's beliefs."

In other words, in practical political effect the DSA is absolutely no different than any other liberal group - PDA, DFA, Moveon, the Democratic party, progressives etc., etc., etc. The only differences are in professed personal individual beliefs - a completely meaningless and powerless idea that belongs in religion and not in politics - and the label, presumed to be a form of self-expression that is more akin to consumer product loyalty than it is to any genuine political stand.

There are no prizes in politics for being "right" - for having the right beliefs and wearing the right label. Politics is not about personal belief systems at all, it is not shopping and it is not religion.

The various liberal and progressive organizations are little more than fashion statements for those disengaged from he struggle and first and foremost dedicated to protecting and preserving the gentrified group of professional people called the "middle class." Whatever the professed personal beliefs may be, or the "positions on issues," the program, the agenda is to suppress the radical Left and to protect the house slaves.

The DSA says "let's not get too radical. We can put our beliefs into place by working the same old failed liberal agenda - changing people's beliefs and working within the system. Once we have converted everyone over to believe in Socialism, then we can elect Socialists and then we will have Socialism."

This causes a lot of confusion. It offers something that is very attractive to certain people - the illusion that they can keep the system and yet radically change the system - that there need be no risk, no pain, no struggle. They can keep their status and position and relative ease and conformist, yet "be for" all of the "right things." They can be radical, and bourgeois at the same time.

Obama claims to "share our values" and to "believe" in all of the right things, but then says that it is not "practical" or "realistic" to act on those values or beliefs right now, or very aggressively, presumably because not enough people share our beliefs and values. For proof of that, we are told "OMG! Look at those tea party people!!" The DSA is saying the exact same thing, and it has the exact same practical political effect. The idea that politics is about personal beliefs operates to completely separate what a person supposedly "is" from what the person actually does. "Look at my label and look at my beliefs! Don't look at what I am actually doing, what I am actually advancing!" In that way, upscale professional people are free to use the system to advance themselves and to enjoy status and privilege, yet assuage their guilt about that. They can say they "believe" in helping the poor and be done with the issue.

DSA represents the ultimate guilt relief for people, for a select and enlightened few. The more "radical" the beliefs are that people express, the smaller the faction is and will remain, the less power and relevance the faction will have. This is the trap of liberalism - the more it is applied the fewer people it has relevance for. It is not that the beliefs of the DSA are wrong, rather approaching politics as a matter of personal beliefs is itself reactionary, the most effective and powerful way to suppress the Left. Some of the most aggressive attacks on the Left online come from DSA members. That is a paradox that illustrates that politics is about conditions, not beliefs, about the struggle for resources in objective reality, not a battle over internal personal emotional states or beliefs. To see politics as internal and subjective is to side with the ruling class, to be able to take the position of the ruling class while disguising that fact.

This is not to say that any DSA members are bad or wrong, nor that there is anything wrong with the positions the DSA takes. Rather, I am questioning the power and effectiveness of the political approach being taken.

A little historical perspective for thought:

Martin Luther King, Jr. said:

"Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal."

He also said:

“In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

The Declaration of Independence states:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.