Talk:Socialist Party USA

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Ingsoc

I was just noticing this. I added a trivia section which compares the Socialist Party's logo to that of Ingsoc in 1984. Just an interesting sidenote. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.64.133.187 (talk) 02:32, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Stewart Alexander link

I removed the link for Stewart Alexander as it went to a sports personality who died in 1997, not the 2008 Vice Presidential candidate. Chegitz guevara 17:37, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

"Soviet-style Communism"

I removed the line stating that the SP is "equally opposed to Soviet-style Communism as it is anti-capitalist." This is not accurately reflect the position of the Socialist Party. "Soviet-style" is first of all WAY too broad. Are we talking about the early Bolsheviks? Are we talking about Stalinism? Are we talking about the soviet (i.e. workers council) system that the Soviet Union was officially based on? If we're referring to Stalinism, we shouldn't be in the business of perpetuating the notion that Stalinism is communism or even a form of communism. We also should not be conflating Stalinism with early Bolshevism (the SP doesn't take any distinct position on the latter). SP members can certainly oppose both, but let's acknowledge that there is a fundamental difference. The "Who We Are" statement does use the language like "third force" and "equal opposition,", but it is simply an old statement, not a core document like the Statement of Principles, Platform, or Constitution. The 'Who We Are' statement also never uses the terms Soviet or Soviet-style. -Matt —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.46.30.76 (talk • contribs) 07:13, 17 November 2007 -David Schaich ^Talk/_Cont 21:26, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

See the second and third paragraphs of the SoP, reproduced below:

Socialism is not mere government ownership, a welfare state, or a repressive bureaucracy. Socialism is a new social and economic order in which workers and consumers control production and community residents control their neighborhoods, homes, and schools. The production of society is used for the benefit of all humanity, not for the private profit of a few. Socialism produces a constantly renewed future by not plundering the resources of the earth.

Under capitalist and "Communist" states, people have little control over fundamental areas of their lives. The capitalist system forces workers to sell their abilities and skills to the few who own the workplaces, profit from these workers' labor, and use the government to maintain their privileged position. Under "Communist" states, decisions are made by Communist Party officials, the bureaucracy and the military. The inevitable product of each system is a class society with gross inequality of privileges, a draining of the productive wealth and goods of the society into military purposes, environmental pollution, and war in which workers are compelled to fight other workers.

As to the distinction between "early Bolshevism" and "Stalinism" see the SoP again, (reproduced below), and note the entire history of the refounded SP has a strain of anti-vanguardism and implicit anti-bolshevism (see the language on membership in democratic centralist organizations).

No oppressed group has ever been liberated except by its own organized efforts to overthrow its oppressors. A society based on radical democracy, with power exercised through people's organizations, requires a socialist transformation from below. People's organizations cannot be created by legislation, nor can they spring into being only on the eve of a revolution.

They can grow only in the course of popular struggles, especially those of women, labor, and minority groups. The Socialist Party works to build these organizations democratically.

The process of struggle profoundly shapes the ends achieved. Our tactics in the struggle for radical democratic change reflect our ultimate goal of a society founded on principles of egalitarian, non-exploitative and non-violent relations among all people and between all peoples.

To be free we must create new patterns for our lives and live in new ways in the midst of a society that does not understand and is often hostile to new, better modes of life. Our aim is the creation of a new social order, a society in which the commanding value is the infinite preciousness of every woman, man and child.

You are correct that "Soviet-Style" is not used in party documents, but the meaning is CENTRAL to the self definition of the party, and an important point for any summary of its positions. If you can come up with an alternative to "Soviet -Style" which is used in party documents (or documents you find more relevent), please substitute that term.

Also note, Leninists interested in softening the SP's take on leninist organizing have regularly deleted this same line for this article in the past. Hence a rather quick revert. Because of the identical edits in the past which were clearly bad faith, the bar to simply remove this line is pretty high. T L Miles (talk) 14:36, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

As for the "Soviet-style", I believe I added that (linking it to "Soviet Union" as opposed to "Soviet (council)" for further clarification) to clarify the even more ambiguous "Communism", which some could interpret as Marxism/Leninism/Stalinism/Maoism/etc. but others could interpret as the ideal stateless society envisioned by various socialists. -David Schaich ^Talk/_Cont 16:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

--Re: "Soviet-style Communism"

David,

Nothing you quoted from the Statement of Principles even remotely pertains to the inaccurate line about equal opposition to Soviet-style Communism. The use of the term, "Communist" in the Statement of Principles is in quotes and quite obviously refers to Stalinism: "decisions are made by Communist Party officials, the bureaucracy and the military." If you want to say Stalinism, that would be a hell of a lot better than "Soviet-style" communism, although even that would not be entirely accurate. Language like "equal opposition" generally implies adherence to the "third camp" position and all of its implications. The SP, as a multi-tendency organization, does not fall neatly into that category either. For example, if you believe that a Stalinist state requires only a political revolution by the working class while a capitalist state requires both a political and social (i.e. class-based) revolution by the working class, the phrase "equal opposition" will not necessarily represent your view accurately. You may hold tremendous opposition to both capitalism and Stalinism (as the SP Principles do), but recognize that by successfuly abolishing capitalism, the Stalinist states do not have quite as far to go as the capitalist states. Furthermore one may hold the view that advanced capitalist states have an economic basis for imperialism while Stalinist states do not. While an SP member holding that perspective would again vehemently oppose the political systems of both capitalism and Stalinism, s/he might view Stalinist states as posing a less direct threat to international peace and the international struggles of working people than imperialist states do. This is all putting aside the fact that the third camp (i.e. "equal opposition ideology) going back to Shachtmanism, has often lead to direct support for imperialism. (Look at the origins of neoconservatism).

Your justification that "the entire history of the refounded SP has a strain of anti-vanguardism and implicit anti-bolshevism" is utter nonsense. If you mean that the SP is not a democratic centralist organization, then you're correct. But democratic centralism is an organizational structure, not a political ideology. First let's put aside the fact that the very early Bolshevik party was, in most substantive ways, just about as de-centralized as the SP is today (allowing party factions, extensive debate within party publications, and public criticism of party policy). We'll also put aside the fact that the vast majority of Leninist organizations entirely reject Stalinism. If you're going to use that argument, it essentially amounts to: 'The SP has a different internal structure than most Leninist parties. Leninist parties tend to identify with early Bolshevism. Early Bolshevism was the pre-cursor to "Soviet-style Communism." Therefore, the SP is equally opposed to capitalism and Soviet-style communism. We already make the point in the wikipedia article that the SP rejects a "Leninist" organizational model. If you feel that that fact makes it implicit that we equally oppose capitalism and "Soviet-style communism," why does the latter need to be stated in addition to the former?

Finally, your justification that the SP has a strain of implicit anti-Bolshevism makes no sense at all. As a multi-tendency organization, the SP has all sorts of strains. It has members who are very opposed to Bolshevism (however you may define it), but throughout its history, up to the present, it has always had members who identify with Bolshevism. Many of our most well know SP members, in fact, have identified themselves as Bolsheviks: Eugene Debs, Helen Keller, James Cannon, even Max Shachtman! Look at the post above from Chegitz, an SP member who identifies as a Leninist/Trotskyist. Does he in your view not subscribe to the SP's Principles because he doesn't agree with its "implicit anti-Bolshevism"?

-Matt —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.46.30.76 (talk) 02:09, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Progressive Democrats

I added progressive Democrats as someone a part of the SP wants to cooperate with, as I think it is important to convey that practically no one in SP uncritically lauds the Democratic Party, and that it's the more progressive wing that some see as tactical allies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.1.100.214 (talk • contribs) 22:52, 10 January 2008

By changing "progressive Democrats" to "progressive Democrats", you change a general amorphous group into a specific organization. Are PDA the only progressives in the Democratic Party? No. Is PDA the only Democratic group that some in the SP advocate cooperating with? No. This is what your revision implies, and it's simply incorrect. PDA is not synonymous with the "progressive wing" (which, for what it's worth, is what is specified in the original text); it is a particular organization that claims to be part of that wing. -David Schaich ^Talk/_Cont 23:17, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

David's reasoning is correct here; it's as if I changed every wikilink to a U.S. socialist into Socialist Party USA. I'm reverting the edit which conflates an ideological position with a specific organization.T L Miles (talk) 14:27, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

First Gay Candidate

Just for the record, it appears that the first gay candidate for President was P. Parker Christensen of the Farmer-Labor Party in 1920. Chronicler3 (talk) 22:38, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Be glad to correct it if you give us a cite. (Hope you don't mind my giving a wikilink to your comment.)--Orange Mike | Talk 23:54, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Christensen's article doesn't say a word about his sexual orientation, but note that this article has long specified McReynolds as the first openly gay presidential candidate. I suspect this was done in consideration of rumors about Buchanan and King, but looks like it would also take care of this as well. -David Schaich ^Talk/_Cont 05:58, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Links

Too many external links it seems like they're trying to advertise Melab^±1 21:01, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

1984 Presidential candidate?

Did they not have or endorse one? Шизомби (talk) 15:38, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

• They didn't have one, as they chose to endorse the Citizens Party ticket. Perhaps some information should be added about that. Willa Kenoyer (1988 SPUSA Presidential candidate) was in fact a co-chair at one time of that party. It's not something the party would do now, since the Citizens Party wasn't socialist, but was more like the Greens. Shlomo411 (talk) 16:01, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Socialist Party USA/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Beginning review now. I will make small edits if I see fit, but nothing major and no content changes.

Initial reactions

Lead is unreferenced. Done

Article is well-written.

Thanks

All sources look good.

Thanks

Only image is party logo. Done

--TIAYN (talk) 16:13, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Reviewer: Gosox(55)(55) 21:23, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Successful good article nomination

I am glad to report that this article nomination for good article status has been promoted. This is how the article, as of February 13, 2010, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: Pass

2. Factually accurate?: Pass

3. Broad in coverage?: Pass

4. Neutral point of view?: Pass

5. Article stability? Pass

6. Images?: Pass

If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to Good article reassessment. Thank you to all of the editors who worked hard to bring it to this status, and congratulations.

Gosox(55)(55) 14:28, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for passing it. --TIAYN (talk) 14:49, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Party Position on Social Democracy

To settle the edit war, I noted that the SPUSA holds that social democracy is not socialism. I will try to get a citation. I'll quote the Party resolution below for now. Chegitz (talk) 18:22, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

"Party publications, especially The Socialist, should carry occasional news and analysis of social-democratic governments, explaining their essentially non-socialist politics, and their nature. In general, the term social-democratic should be applied to social-democratic formations and leaders, rather than socialist. The Party should use, more often than it does, the revolutionary-democratic sections of its Principles, in its literature, especially democratic revolution from below."

Edits/Content Reversions Made to User Trust_Is_All_You_Need's Re-Write of SPUSA Article

1. I reverted the first paragraph to its prior content.

a. The line stating that the SPUSA is the "successor of the leading U.S. political party to the left of the Democratic Party" amounts to a highly vague and opinionated claim. Certainly in the contemporary period, the Green Party is far stronger in terms of both size and electoral success.

b. It is not really accurate to claim that the SPUSA was "founded by a dissident faction of the Socialist Party of America," given both the number of SP branches and prominent SP members from before the 1958 ISL merger who recognized the SPUSA, rather than SDUSA, as legitimate heir to the SPA, and the fact that such SP members and branches did not act to constitute the SP until the contemporaneously slim-majority-holding Shachtmanite faction relinquished the party name by transforming the organization into the "Social Democrats USA," instead.

c. The fact that the SP-USA has no representatives in the U.S. House or Senate is not a sufficiently notable fact to assert in the introductory paragraph. No political party in the United States has any representatives in the U.S. House or Senate other than the two major (i.e. Democratic and Republican) parties. Furthermore, the Party's lack of representation in the U.S. House or Senate is already directly noted in the Party Infobox in the right column of the article.

d. Andrea Pason is not a man. As a socialist-feminist party, the SP also never uses the term "chairman" or "chairmen." The Party's Constitution, which establishes the position, likewise refers to it in gender-neutral language.

e. The change of the present party's name from SPA to SPUSA did not occur at the time of, or on the basis of, the Party's 1972/73 split and reconstitution (i.e. following the Shachtman faction's name-change to SDUSA). Rather, the SPA changed its name to SPUSA by Convention resolution a full decade prior in 1962. Then in 1972, the Shachtman faction which had wrested control of the Party changed the name from *SPUSA* to SDUSA. In response, the reconstituted SPUSA simply reconstituted the Party under the same very name that the Shachtman faction had just relinquished, rather than some new variation of the SPA name which had already been obsolete for over a decade at the time.

2. a. I removed the colloquialism in the second paragraph and added reference to the exponentially greater financial clout of the two major parties, as the SP and many other minor parties consistently reference.

b. I removed the line claiming that, "The party's main principles are feminism, eco-socialism, education and the expansion of the American welfare state, which according to them, would lead to economic equality." While the SP Statement of Principles and Platform make note of the Party's strong commitment to environmental sustainability, eco-socialism is a distinct ideological sub-current of socialism to which the SP does not specifically or officially subscribe. Education is one topic among many others addressed in the Party's Principles and Platform, but it certainly cannot coherently be said to constitute a "main principle" in and of itself. The Party supports struggles to build stronger elements of a social safety net for purposes of both bringing greater relief to workers and "demonstrating the inherent limitations and injustice of the capitalist system" (quoting from the SP Platform Introduction. The SP most certainly does not believe that expanding the American welfare state "would lead to economic equality." To the unequivocal contrary, the Party's Statement of Principles (which is presently cited as the source for this claim) assert that "Socialism is not...a welfare state," and that "under welfare capitalism...the working class is divided against itself." On the whole, the party's principles are explicitly oriented to a radical and fundamental transformation of society through "social revolution from below." But such "main principles" cannot be reduced to a few categorical labels.

c. I removed the assertion that the Party is opposed to "Soviet-Style Communism." Neither the SP Statement of Principles, Platform, nor any contemporary SP resolution make any mention of "Soviet-style" anything. See the prior debate in the talk-page regarding the term "Soviet style communism" which had quite evidently since settled the dispute over this term, prior to this recent re-write of the entire article. The present wording of the Party's Statement of Principles does declare opposition to "authoritarian 'Communism,'" with the word communism in quotes in reference to the "Communist" label only applying to such authoritarian variations through their self-proclamations . Accordingly, I have changed "Soviet-Style Communism" to "authoritarian 'Communism,'" within the article. Conversely, there is no substantive reason, in this context, for the term "capitalism" to be in quotation marks.

d. It is not true that "throughout its history, it has refused to endorse any of the Democratic and Republican politicians." The SP did regularly do so during the Shachtman era, as the article already makes reference to. I replaced this assertion with reference to the SP's support if independent socialist electoral action to promote socialist ideas to the public.

e. The Party does not seek to replace the tendency of big business to be eliminated, with public ownership, as the wording of the pertaining line (whether intentionally or not) suggests prior to my present edits. Rather, as both the Party's Platform and Statement of Principles repeatedly, the Party extends to place *existing* big business under public ownership. Correspondingly, such documents also consistently make a point of coupling "public ownership" with "worker control," which I have correspondingly noted in the article.

f. The SP does not have either 1,700 or 3,000 members. The claims made in the citations are wrong. The Party has approximately 1,000 members in good standing (see the most recent membership figures that are available online in the Jan. 2009 National Committee Meeting Minutes; the SP National Office only maintains membership figures on members in good standing).

g. I merged the second and third paragraphs from the introductory section.

3. a. I restored reference to the branch-wide participation of the Illinois, New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. branches in reconstituting the Socialist Party USA in 1973, as well as the citation from the SP 100 Years statement.

b. I removed the line stating that "during the party's national convention in 1975, only 80 of the party's 500 members met up," as it is misleading. Credentials are not given to the entire national membership at SP Conventions. Rather, each state party is given a certain number of delegate seats based on its number of members (e.g. 1 delegate for every 7 members). State party memberships then elect delegates to fill these slots and represent their state party at the Convention on their behalf.

4. I removed the brief, redundant, and inaccurate "Membership" section.

5. I removed the first two paragraphs of the "Positions" section and replaced them with two paragraphs from the article prior to the recent re-write.

a. The line stating that "according to The New York Times the party's platform is based on the social democratic governments of Western Europe and not the former communist regimes of Eastern Europe," is patently false. The Socialist Party explicitly rejects social democracy and its Platform - easily accessible online - calls repeatedly for a revolutionary and fundamental transformation of the economy, while also noting that enactment of its reform-oriented planks will not bring about socialism. In every possible sense, the SP Platform is commensurate with those platforms of other (non-Stalinist) revolutionary democratic socialists and/or Marxist parties throughout the world and is thoroughly irreconcilable with modern day social democracy. This is also the reason the SP generally declines to pursue any type of association with parties belonging to the Socialist International. This highly outdated and flagrantly inaccurate assertion in the cited NY Times article clearly represents a sloppily researched attempt to provide some comparison between the SP and SWP candidates featured in the article (i.e. since the SP, unlike the SWP, does not identify as an explicitly Marxist-Leninist Party, the NY Times Writer simply attempts to label it with the other side of the preconceived dichotomy with which she's familiar). Ironically, despite its contrasting taste for the M-L label, the SP Platform takes an overwhelmingly more explicitly revolutionary socialist approach than any of the election campaign programs adopted by the SWP.

b. There is no basis for the SP's 1987 Convention or Platform remotely notable for purposes of describing its ideology today.

c. Although it could be argued that abolishing homelessness and vagrancy laws would be implicit from the general spirit of its other programmatic demands, the Platform makes no mention of either of these two positions.

6. I restored three paragraphs from the version of the article preceding the recent re-write under a new "Structure" section.

7. I removed the first paragraph of the "International Affairs" section, which makes no mention of the Party's actual internationally-related work and consists almost entirely of a garbled 23-year quote from one of our candidates whose no longer even associated with the Party (there is no "International Socialist Party," presumably she means the Socialist International. It may be appropriate to re-add this section at a later time with a focus on the work and international relations conducted through the SP's International Commission in the contemporary period.Mserard313 (talk) 09:49, 25 February 2010 (UTC)mserard313

Re-write, re-structure i don't really care, the only i really care about is that you should stop using first-published sources (such as the party website). Why? Because WP procedures don't allow it. You know a hell of a lot more than me on this subject, but the only way on including your knowledge to this article, is through third-published sources. --TIAYN (talk) 14:53, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I would think the Party platform and principles would be a more valid source than a newspaper article. In academic research, the former would be considered primary sources, while the latter would be a secondary source. As Comrade Erard points out, the Times article is incredibly inaccurate. The Party is a much more accurate source of information about its opinions than a ten year old newspaper article. So the two of you need to figure out some way of accurately representing the Party's history and politics. Chegitz (talk) 15:05, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

And it appears I am correct. TIAYN, please see: | Self-published and questionable sources as sources on themselves Chegitz (talk) 15:28, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves, without the requirement that they be published experts in the field, so long as:

1. the material is not unduly self-serving;
2. it does not involve claims about third parties;
3. it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject;
4. there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity;
5. the article is not based primarily on such sources.

So, given the above, can the two of you collaborate on something that is both accurate and GA? Chegitz (talk) 15:28, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, i'm sorry. I've reverted back to your version. --TIAYN (talk) 17:23, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

"First Published Sources"

The important thing is that WP articles are ACCURATE and VERIFIABLE, and that they are not unduly self-serving. A published party document, on its website or in its magazine, trumps any outside blowhard making noise via an outside source. Why? ACCURACY is more important than ritualistic following of some semi-mythical "No First Published Sources" rule. Carrite (talk) 17:39, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Social democrat vs. Democratic socialist?

Would this party be considered a social democratic party or a democratic socialist party? Toa Nidhiki05 17:41, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

A democratic socialist, they are against social democracy. Read their party program. --TIAYN (talk) 17:50, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

There is no clear distinction between the two terms. They are sometimes used interchangeably. For writers who draw a distinction between the two, democratic socialism is always more left-wing. In Klaus von Beyme's political families they are all grouped under socialism. I do not think it matters whether we call them socialist or democratic socialist, but we should only have one ideology listed. TFD (talk) 09:23, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, TFD; I propose simply putting 'Socialism' as the ideology; this would be broad enough to cover all aspects of the party. Toa Nidhiki05 01:28, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

There are so many (often authoritarian) ideologies which use the word "socialism", such as National Socialism, Arab Socialism, etc., but have no relation to the broadest range of the SPUSA's philosophies, that I think you have to put "democratic" in somewhere. From a hard-core Leninist point of view, the SPUSA is technically part of the social democracy (which is not inherently a bad or even right-wing word), but from most other points of view "democratic socialist" is more helpful and descriptive of what I understand the Party's current views and philosophy to be. So I'll put in the latter if it hasn't already been done. See the parallel discussion at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Labour Party (UK). And you'll see there that there's nothing wrong with listing more than one ideology (the Conservatives have 5 listed); however, with Greens and anarchists forming significant lines of thought within the SPUSA, listing more than one might lead to so many that an uninformed reader might be confused. —— Shakescene (talk) 01:27, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

You are obviously an American and the rest of world does not see things the way you do. Your country has two liberal parties and no one says that their ideology should be called "democratic liberalism". TFD (talk) 04:04, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

See also links

"Links already integrated into the body of the text are generally not repeated in a "See also" section" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:See_also#See_also_section Tie Oh Cruise (talk) 01:09, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Info box too long

Medallions and information boxes drop down too low and steal too much space and bandwidth from text already (see e.g. Syracuse mayoral election, 2009). There's no need to add more empty boxes for the SPUSA's "Senate leader" and "House leader", etc.; just say that the party has no governors, members of Congress or state legislators (we don't need to say how many the other parties have between them, e.g. 0/435 = 0/50 = 0/35,000). As for being unsupported in the text or by sources, that's equally true for the empty boxes. DSA has had members (elected on other tickets) in state legislatures (even in Congress); I'm not 100% morally certain that none of the 8,000-plus state legislators belongs to the SPUSA, and would appreciate a confirming or refuting source myself (which is why I added "citation needed" to my own text). As for standardization, the standard party info box was recently greatly expanded, but really applies in that fashion to two (or at most a dozen) American political parties; none of the others has any legislators or governors (and only two have House and Senate leaders). It's nice to fill all those boxes for parties which elect officeholders; no reason for the others when a few words (if necessary) can say the same thing. —— Shakescene (talk) 16:38, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Template needed

I'm not too proficient with Wikipedia; maybe someone would be so kind to tell me whether there already is a WP template saying "This irrelevant navel-gazing sh*t is of interest to no one but the half-dozen sorry geeks who are both real-life fans / members of the discussed topic and its only Wikipedia contributors. Just. move. on. dear. viewer."

If there already is, please apply it to the article. Might avoid lots of strained muscles of orbit from unsuspecting visitors who start rolling their eyes upon reading the first paragraphs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.181.19.161 (talk) 22:24, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

The closest I can think of is WP:IDONTLIKEIT. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:15, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

"SPA-SDF" and use of the word 'Eponymous' in Intro

Although the name "Socialist Party - Social Democratic Federation," was used interchangeably with "Socialist Party of America," between 1957 and 1962, and with "Socialist Party USA" between 1962 and 1972, the present Socialist Party USA neither politically nor referentially identifies with the reintegrated SDF wing from that period, apart from noting the SDF's involvement within SPUSA texts that are purely historical in focus. Also, given that Wikipedia divides the SPA and SDF into separate articles, it is both incongruous and confusing to readers to hyphenate them as a single organization within the intro the SPUSA entry. Furthermore, given that the combination of the two hyphenated names did not come into place until 1957, it is especially misleading to state that the combined 'SPA-SDF' was founded in 1901.

Though the Wikipedia article on the word 'eponym' has evidently now been edited to suggest that the word should only properly refer to a name's original subject, it also appears that most other dictionaries allow for the word's equal application to derived names from a preceding subject. Additionally, there is no reference provided for the claim, currently made in the 'eponym' Wikipedia article, that the word's usage in that latter context isn't equally proper. The definition of eponym presently given within Wikipedia's separate article on words containing the '-onym' suffix, also suggests that the word can be used in either of these two contexts. Mserard313 (talk) 22:19, 18 January 2011 (UTC)mserard313

Your position is unpersuasive. The wordnetweb.princeton.edu's definition for eponym does not apply in this case. And seriously, why get all hot and bothered about forcing this word into the article? The word is at best marginally appropriate, but by all normal accounts a misuse of the word "eponym". The SPUSA is not named after any person, or place. Various other references in the eponym article also contradict your assertion. Can't we agree on a version of language that doesn't include the word, or a variation of "eponym", so we don't have to argue this matter every other month? --Puellanivis (talk) 23:50, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

My main objection to words like demonym, eponym[ous] and onomastics is that they're not clear to everyone (I have a pretty broad vocabulary but had no idea what the last one meant at Victoria, so I changed it), while their meaning can be conveyed with other words (cf. George Orwell). English Wikipedia isn't the same as Simple English Wikipedia, but articles that aren't highly technical ought to be easily read (without chance of error) by intelligent high school students and non-Anglophones. [I'd think this would be particularly true of an article about socialism: it needn't read like Socialist Action or The Daily Worker, but neither should a college education be a prerequisite.] —— Shakescene (talk) 04:18, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

2010 Election

I removed the claim from the History section which stated that "During the 2010 American Senate elections Dan La Botz of the Socialist Party of Ohio received 25,368 (0.68%) votes in Ohio, making it the best electoral turnout in SPUSA's history." Not only is this claim clearly false with respect to the Party's history, but it did not even represent the highest electoral turnout among SP candidates in the 2010 election. Though the 2010 La Botz campaign did break important new ground in many notable respects, its comparative vote totals were not among them, at least not in the sense asserted in this recently added claim.Mserard313 (talk) 12:35, 16 February 2011 (UTC)mserard313

Don't remove the sentence, reword it.. Question, there isn't any candidate I know of who has gathered more votes then him in SPUSA history. Could you give me one who has received more votes? But back to the point, reword not remove. --TIAYN (talk) 13:59, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

It probably depends on how you understand the term "SP Candidate." At least three (maybe four) members of the SPUSA, (two or three of whom ran openly) running openly as members of the SPUSA, received more than three times as many votes as LaBotz. Two ran on the Green Party of Michigan, but openly as SPUSA candidates, one ran a non-partisan campaign and was elected to the Soil and Water Reclamation board in Hillsborough County, in Florida. I think there was another running openly as a Socialist in Vermont, but I don't recall off the top of my head. Furthermore, SP member, Howie Hawkins got 50,000 votes running on the Green Party ticket, but he hid the fact that he was a member of the SPUSA. Chegitz (talk) 18:53, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

NYT 1972 account versus 1986 account

There is a section of statements that is sourced to a 1986 article by Heilbrunn. Many of those statements contradict the NYT acccount from (December) 1972-(January)1973.

1. "Blocking a statement opposing the Vietnam War". On the contrary, the NYT article states that Harrington's statement called for a cease-fire and immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces, obviously a big difference. The Party passed as statement condemning the bombing of North Vietnam and calling for a negotiated peace, as reported in the NYT.
2. Taken over by "the Shachtmanites". Shachtman is not mentioned by the NYT. The National Officers mentioned were Zimmerman and Rustin, neither of them Shachtman-proteges.

Harrington's caucus lost by 2-1 votes, and the Debs caucus was so small that it was ignored by the press.

Orange Mike has noted that he was there and his adherence to the Debs caucus (which had 2 of 33 votes on the National Committee in 1972-3), as he has previously disclosed this conflict of interest. Given his 40 year history with the SPUSA, has it really escaped OrangeMike's attention that this article plagiarized from the SPUSA's promotional literature?

There seem to be similar problems with COI issues. See SPUSA-Florida.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 05:24, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Heilbrunn

By 1972 Shachtman's Unity Caucus had taken control of the Socialist Party and blocked a resolution opposing the Vietnam War. In the 1972 presidential election, Shachtman's caucus initially backed hawkish Cold Warrior Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, then adopted AFL-CIO President George Meany's position of neutrality between the two candidates nominated by the major parties.

Following NYT

on the Vietnam War, the program opposed "any efforts to bomb Hanoi into submission" and to work for a peace agreement that would protect Communist political cadres in South Vietnam from further military or police reprisals. Harrington's proposal for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces was defeated. Harrington complained that, after its previous convention, the Socialist Party had endorsed George McGovern with a statement of "constructive criticism" and had not mobilized enough support for McGovern.

Choose

At most one of these accounts can be correct. I submit that the 2008 Heilbrun article is less reliable than the 1972-1973 New York Times, which cites Harrington as saying that the SP's endorsement of McGovern was too weak!

 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 05:30, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Busky's book: SPUSA officer disclosed his conflict(s) of interest

The preface to Busky's book states that he had joined SDS in 1969 and that he was the chairperson of Philadelphia SPUSA in 1978 and then the state chairperson. When he died, he was the editor of SPUSA's "Hammer and Tongs" bulletin.

I suspect that previous errors in this article were due more to WP editors than to this book, but I shall examine it more closely. Nonetheless, it is good to cite other sources for controversial claims, even if Busky got them in print. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:06, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Page 164 was blocked at Google Books. However, on page 165, Busky states that the SP became SDUSA, which shows some honesty and freedom from wishful thinking. Good for him!  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:17, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Page 164 is visible at Amazon. Busky states that the Debs caucus's views were being prevented from appearing in New America, not that all non-majority views were censored, as this article (or the SPA article) previously did (in denial of its contradictory statement that New America featured disagreement every issue, apparently between Harrington's caucus and the majority).  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:31, 9 July 2011 (UTC)