The Activist

// The Online Magazine of the Young Democratic Socialists //

Posts Tagged ‘obama’

Obama is not a Fabergé Egg

By Adrian Bleifuss Prados • Dec 20th, 2008 • Category: U.S. Politics and Issues

The announcement that goateed turd, Rick Warren will deliver the invocation at Obama’s inauguration has sharpened the divisions in the progressive camp over what kind of relationship the left should cultivate with the new administration.
I believe this has largely split around two competing analyses of presidential power. The first holds that Obama is our agent, […]



Memo to President Obama

By YDS • Dec 8th, 2008 • Category: U.S. Politics and Issues

The impressive depth and breadth of your electoral victory, combined with Democratic gains in both the House and the Senate, provides the possibility of reversing three decades of growing inequality that is the primary cause of an impending depression. To put it simply, the world now produces more than it can consume; we now are […]



Let’s Keep This Going

By Chris Maisano • Nov 13th, 2008 • Category: Features

Watching election results by oneself in a hotel room is never a good way to spend an election day. Especially in Ohio in 2004. Unfortunately, that was the situation I found myself in four years ago. At the time, I was working as an organizer with the Service Employees International Union in Ohio. We had […]



Poorly Defined: A Personal Reflection on the Fluid Meaning of Socialism in the US Presidential Election and Beyond

By YDS • Oct 27th, 2008 • Category: Theory

By David Duhalde
In between job hunting and settling into my new apartment in Somerville, Massachusetts, I watch copious amounts of mainstream news cycles about the presidential election. While far away from my radical political circles in New York City, I still hear about socialism via attacks launched by the sinking GOP presidential ticket and […]



Hurray for the ‘S’ Word!

By Adrian Bleifuss Prados • Oct 26th, 2008 • Category: U.S. Politics and Issues

 A YDS leaflet reads:
If so many people misunderstand socialism, why continue to use the word?
First, we call ourselves socialists because we are proud of what we
are. Second, no matter what we call ourselves, conservatives will use
it against us … Liberals and progressives are routinely denounced as
socialists in order to discredit reform. Until we face, […]



A Report From the Socialist International Conspiracy

By Guest Author • Oct 22nd, 2008 • Category: Exogenous Views, Lead Story

This article originally was published on DSA member Barbara Ehrenreich’s blog.
Surely you have heard by now of the imminent socialist takeover of America, and if you find the prospect unlikely, ask yourself: How many socialists do you know who lost millions in the recent stock market crashes? Just as I thought—none—and that’s not only […]



McCain’s Compliment

By Guest Author • Oct 21st, 2008 • Category: Exogenous Views, Lead Story

“There is always a charge that socialism does not fit human nature. We’ve encountered that for a long time. Maybe that’s true. But can’t people be educated? Can’t people learn to cooperate with each other? Surely that must be our goal, because the alternative is redolent with war and poverty and all the ills of […]



Right-Wing Populism and the Economic Crisis

By Guest Author • Oct 17th, 2008 • Category: Exogenous Views

In the face of economic crises there is always a search for scapegoats. Particularly in the case of modern capitalism, there remains a certain level of disbelief that crises are built into the system, i.e., that capitalism generates crises (and always has!).
Because many of us would rather believe that capitalism is a rational system […]



60 Children Among the Massacred in Afghanistan

By Bhaskar Sunkara • Aug 26th, 2008 • Category: International Issues

A United Nations human rights team has found “convincing evidence” that at least 90 civilians — including 60 children — were killed in US air strikes on a village in western Afghanistan on Thursday night. The Afghan government estimates puts the number of killed in the incident at 95 civilians. Mohammad Iqbal Safi, […]



Biden, The Foreign Policy Expert?

By Chris Maisano • Aug 24th, 2008 • Category: U.S. Politics and Issues

We can all breathe again. Barack Obama has finally named his vice-presidential running mate, and it’s none other than Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. Media reaction to the choice has mostly revolved around Biden’s potential effect on the horserace and has predictably been rather inane. Does Biden represent the attack dog mentality that the Obama […]