Well, there is a bit of a conflict within the Democratic Party, as the middleman (I have a good name in both camps), please let me give you a perspective that might serve as a bridge between the new radical ideological perspective, and that of Obamanism.

First of all, in the original theoretical socialist perspective, there has never been simple answers. In the beginning, in France (that is at the time when the US was founded), it was mainly a platonic ideology, mixed up with a great deal of Aristotleanism.

Since neither Plato or Aristotle are simple, the ideas of that time was neither.

At the next phase of socialism, it was neither simple. Especially Karl Marx put his mark on socialism, and was thus a conduit of the mainly French ideology of that time.

Things Change, and the ideas of Marx are not necessarily viable for today, but rather the legacy of the man will carry through in some of his ideas, but not all.

If we confront ourselves with the legacy of Marx, there are some things that did work, but is forgotten today, and some things that did not work, but still seems to be a important thing to many socialists.

Let me explain. Marx was essentially a Neoplatonist like I am. He pointed to Sparta as the ideal society, and tried to build a societal structure that reflected that of Sparta. That is why it is called communism, because that was what Sparta was, a community of soldiers meeting in the mass everyday.

At the same time, he took another thing of Plato, that of dialectism. He essentially saw the world as a development between two points of extreme arguments.

Now, Marx was right in using dialectism, but wrong in copying Sparta in the way he copied Sparta. He went against Lycurgus (the founding philosopher of Sparta), and preached open borders. According to Lycurgus, that is the one thing you cannot do, if you want a well functioning community. Any community needs borders.

So to be honest and realistic about a state that has strong communal value, you need to close the borders.

Again, this is not to argue for a closed world, it is simply to point out the inherent theoretical flaw in the ideology.

Anyway, I get lost in the theoretical discussion.

My basic point is; what we have missed lately in the socialist thinking, and what really work, is dialectism.

The view of the world, that takes into account, that we need more political perspectives in one political perspective, to make the ideas to work.

My economic philosophy is one example. That there are two factions within the business community, those who are loyal to the country, and those who are not loyal to the country. What we do to make an economy work is to support the businessmen who are loyal to the country, and criticize those who are not loyal.

See the dialectics in that?

Or my take on Islam. Here I tried to use the dialectic approach on Islam in the sense, that I deemed Muslims who are into political Islam as islamists, and Muslims who accepts and support democracy and democratic law as Muslims to be supported.

I mean, we have to fight terror, but definitely not all Muslims.

Again a dialectical approach.

Marx was, as the inherent Neoplatonist, right in this view.

I believe, that in practical political implementation, this works. The US is having an economic boom, the workers are back in jobs, and we have reached some kind of tentative peace with most of the Muslim world.

That is a prove of concept.

So for now, in the internal discussion within the Democratic Party, use that knowledge to breach the gaps, and build bridges. Try to find the extremes of your arguments, and then see the syntheses.

That will carry you all through, without that dangerous fractioning of the party.

We are not all right, but we all have a bit of the right view each of us. Through dialectism, we can find that common ground.

G-d bless the common ground we may find.