The discussion about socialism needs to take place now, not later.
This becomes more relevant by the day as we go from crises to crises which has become the way of life as this capitalist system crumbles creating misery for millions of people here in this country and around the world while Mother Nature rebels in her own way to mistreatment and abuse through climate change.
The working class creates all wealth but has no say in the decision-making process at any level in our country.
There are only two sources of wealth: Labor and Mother Nature.
Any society which systematically exploits labor and rapes Mother Nature can only be a very troubled society.
We need to get away from this idea that socialism is about what this or that politician thinks it is in order to promote their own selfish agenda and begin to bring into the public square the kind of discussions which will contribute to building massive militant united people’s movements determined to solve our problems... and this includes building a new working class based people’s party that is both anti-monopoly and anti-imperialist with the goal and objective of beating swords into plowshare so we can use the resulting peace dividend to finance real solutions to our problems while challenging Wall Street for both political and economic power while advancing the socialist alternative to capitalism.
We aren’t talking about real socialism unless we are addressing the “ownership question” as I previously described below...
In my conversations with the “socialist”Bernie Sanders, he says he does not advocate nationalization through public takeover and public ownership of the mines, mills, factories, banks and the energy complex.
Wouldn't movements like Standing Rock gain more strength if we were to advocate for the nationalization of the energy complex?
As a longtime socialist I don't see how we can escape this "ownership question" unless we are going to have to keep fighting these battles over and over again.
We don't need all of these pipelines; but decisions on whether or not to build these pipelines are not based on need as determined through public planning. Rather, these decisions are based solely on corporate bottom lines.
Socialist solutions to our problems must be advanced... if we as socialists do not get our views out the all important "ownership" question (private versus public) will never be mentioned because there are no foundation-funded outfits who will take up this struggle.
People often ask me what socialists want to bring under public ownership. I tell them to pick up the Wall Street Journal and look at the corporations listed in the stock exchanges... nationalize them all under public ownership with democratic decision-making and control.
I previously contributed these thoughts about global warming and climate change which have never been answered by Noam Chomsky or any of the foundation-funded outfits fronting for the Democratic Party which serve to prevent grassroots activism and movements from maturing to their full potential:
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/climate-change-and-the-military-industrial-complex1