13 centrist Democrats sign "Promise to America" - capitalism, fiscal discipline, strong borders and pride in US

[snot]

145. Enough with the labels;

as soon as we come up with a label or phrase that people think they like, it gets appropriated and distorted by those who want to pretend they want the same things but do nothing to bring them about.

I agree that most Americans want many if not most of the things these "centrist" Dems purport to want; but how do we get there? How do we get there when centrist Dems have not only failed to resist or even speak out against Wall St. deregulation, the evisceration of antitrust and labor law, media ownership consolidation, mass surveillance, fruitless wars, and the decision to leave health care up to Big Medical and Big Pharma, but have actively supported them?

The last 50 years have proved that unfettered capitalism does not work. It's time to grow up and recognize that we need a thoughtful mixture of capitalism, to the extent that self-interest and meaningful competition can spur needed innovation and productivity, and socialism, to the extent that self-interest and "competition" do more harm than good (such as with respect to essential goods and services, e.g. health care or utilities) because the required infrastructures are too expensive to duplicate, evaluation of the goods or services require special expertise that's beyond what most of the rest of us can muster, or the providers otherwise have the rest of us at a serious disadvantage.

We also need to remember that there have been plenty of capitalist system run by tyrants and plenty of socialist systems run by tyrants. Whether a government is tyrannical is about how democratic it is – whether it honors fundamental human rights such as those of free speech, privacy, and due process, and whether it is truly representative – and has little or nothing to do with what economic system the nation has.

We are going to see a ton of McCarthy-istic labels tossed around during the next couple of years or more. Unfortunately, we can't discuss politics without using labels, words; but it's imperative that we keep our focus on the particular, concrete problems we face and particular, concrete solutions that might be considered, as well as on candidates' actual records for taking particular, concrete, and effective actions to bring about the results they claim to want.