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2016 Postmortem
Showing Original Post only (View all)The Plot To Marginalize Bernie Sanders - Salon [View all]
The plot to marginalize Bernie Sanders: The shared agenda that links Fox News and Hillary Clinton surrogatesBoth parties are owned by plutocrats. Sanders' challenge threatens them both, and their responses are oddly similar
Sean Illing - Salon
Tuesday, Jul 14, 2015 05:00 AM PDT
<snip>
Everyone is scrambling to make sense of the Bernie Sanders phenomenon. According to recent polls, the senator from Vermont is second only to Hillary Clinton among likely Democratic voters. Part of the confusion, it seems, has to do with Sanders so-called socialism. How, the pundits ask, can a self-described socialist gain any traction in American politics today?
I expect conservatives to pound this question down the throats of their audiences, but Democrats have latched onto this trope as well. Sen. Claire McCaskill, for instance, blithely suggested that Americans will reject Sanders once they discover his socialist roots: This is somebody who can carry the torch of middle class opportunity without alienating a wide swath of voters by being, frankly, a socialist, McCaskill said in defense of Hillary Clinton.
This is becoming tedious. First, Bernie Sanders isnt a socialist at least not in the conventional sense of that term. Its true that he occasionally accepts the label, but he does so in a very nuanced way which, in my view, only adds to the confusion. But thats another problem altogether. The point is that there are no socialist candidates running for president. However elastic the term has become, socialist does not mean progressive or liberal Democrat. Socialism, at minimum, requires the abolition of private property and government ownership of the means of production.
Nothing in Bernie Sanders platform qualifies as socialist, if that term has any relation at all to its historical meaning. Obsessing over Sanders socialist leanings is an exercise in distraction. The choice today, the only choice we really have, is between different species of capitalism. Republicans are absolutists; they fetishize the free market. People like Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal want no regulation, no safety nets, and no constraints on private power. They represent the true believers, the ones who despise government and make a divinity of the market. Sanders rejects this brand of capitalist theology, but that doesnt make him a socialist.
Take a look at Sanders actual platform. Hes not calling for the elimination of private ownership of productive forces. His agenda fits neatly under a capitalist paradigm as it must. Yes, he wants to regulate commercial activities. Yes, he wants to break up too-big-to-fail banks. Yes, he supports unions. And yes, he believes healthcare and education are human rights. He is, however, a capitalist. What he and many other Americans reject is corporate welfare and monopoly capitalism and the complete financialization of the American economy. Again, that doesnt make him a socialist. Even the conservative columnist George Will has acknowledged that Sanders vision is just a diluted version of the social democracy practiced in much of Europe.
That Sanders is dubbed a Marxist or a socialist is a testament both to the corruption of language, Fox News and the insidious propaganda machine in this country. The truth is that capitalism has won; no one seriously disputes that certainly no one in government. Socialism is now an epithet, something conservatives hurl at people who challenge corporate power the term has been emptied of any real content.
Many of the people dismissing Sanders (particularly on the right) have an exaggerated sense of their own freedom. Tyranny, they assume, is something only the state does. But thats not true. Surrendering political power to corporate interests is a form of tyranny, too. This is what we have today. A political system without rule of some kind is impossible, even in a free society such as ours. The real question is who rules, to what degree, and to whose benefit? Conservatives want to eliminate government as much as possible, to let the market work its will. But weve seen the result of that. America, today, is much closer to a plutocracy than a democracy. Corporations write our laws, buy our elections, and dictate political discourse. Thats nakedly anti-democratic, and Sanders is one of the few candidates proposing to do something about it.
<snip>
More: http://www.salon.com/2015/07/14/the_plot_to_marginalize_bernie_sanders_the_shared_agenda_that_links_fox_news_and_hillary_clinton_surrogates/
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It's been worn out by all the times our TPP-eager president was called socialist. eom
Betty Karlson
Jul 2015
#144
It's just beginning. They would have done the same to E. Warren, had she run--which is probably
TwilightGardener
Jul 2015
#3
Your definition is very narrow and harsh. This one from Dictionary.com is closer to what I learned.
A Simple Game
Jul 2015
#58
Lucky for us then, that Republicans have been hard at work for 40 years changing the meaning
eridani
Jul 2015
#72
I just noticed the number of PPR's from that thread you linked. Including the ever so obvious
Number23
Jul 2015
#123
Could it ever be possible that Merriam Webster Dictionary is skewed? It's not written in stone.
YOHABLO
Jul 2015
#113
And right on point you are. Sen Sanders is obviously not a socialist as H. Clinton's henchperson
rhett o rick
Jul 2015
#138
Democratic socialists are not for govt ownership of the means of production, but the
merrily
Jul 2015
#155
No one has told me that communism and socialism are the same thing, nor did I tell
merrily
Jul 2015
#162
Yeah, we noticed. Does not faze us. We consider the source - these are quite familiar tactics.
djean111
Jul 2015
#7
The Hillarians keep themselves deliberately uninformed. They auto-trash threads with the word
Doctor_J
Jul 2015
#16
some of them believe there are rec squads out there pushing bernie threads to the top
roguevalley
Jul 2015
#23
My apologies-I didn't realize it was happening. I haven't seen anyone gloating about it.
jalan48
Jul 2015
#134
Bernie is only scarry becasue he is helping the GOP: With out Hillary the Dem's are done!
lewebley3
Jul 2015
#43
Sanders sat on in the Senate doing nothing, He has never been on the national stage
lewebley3
Jul 2015
#65
some of them yes. but then there exist the swarm like hornets drawn to the smell of red meat.
2banon
Jul 2015
#101
skinner: "We Hillary supporters need to be better than everyone else."
beam me up scottie
Jul 2015
#85
Oh, some more Hyperbole-R-Us. You don't do your candidate much, if any, good, with
djean111
Jul 2015
#153
So this guy is blaming Clinton for the fact that Sanders calls himself a "socialist".
DanTex
Jul 2015
#10
I guess I missed Clinton's involvement in this. Where exactly in the article does he say that?
2banon
Jul 2015
#12
Me too. I think if Bernie doesn't want to be considered a socialist, he shouldn't say
DanTex
Jul 2015
#13
I edited my previous post you responded to, where I correct myself and added my take on it..
2banon
Jul 2015
#14
Do Bernistas think anyone who is not a full-blown Sanders supporter is a troll?
Nitram
Jul 2015
#150
The analysis is a mixed bag of a certain degree of hyperbole together with on point critique of
2banon
Jul 2015
#26
I don't believe he's a socialist but he adds to the confusion by calling himself one...
DemocratSinceBirth
Jul 2015
#35
Have you ever lived in one of those counries? How do you know they aren't socialist.
JDPriestly
Jul 2015
#62
. Have you ever lived in one of those counries? How do you know they aren't socialist?
DemocratSinceBirth
Jul 2015
#69
THat is just what I thought- Social Democrats until several months ago there was either Socialist
appalachiablue
Jul 2015
#130
"Surrendering political power to corporate interests is a form of tyranny, too."
Jack Rabbit
Jul 2015
#53
Had nothing to do with the scream. He was interesting, had good things to say....
George II
Jul 2015
#139
I agree, George, the Bernie "phenomenon" is not very difficult to make sense of.
Nitram
Jul 2015
#151
He aims to be the game changer..going after the status quo which leaves very little in meaningful
Jefferson23
Jul 2015
#76
It's what they did to Smedley Butler, Robert Oppenheimer, Richard Clark, or anyone telling the Truth
orpupilofnature57
Jul 2015
#77
Plot to marginalize Bernie? Don't need to have a plot to marginalize Bernie, if he can't sell
Thinkingabout
Jul 2015
#106
Why Anything That The HRC Team Does Is Not A Surprise - Is Not A Surprise
cantbeserious
Jul 2015
#108
"Everyone is scrambling to make sense of the Bernie Sanders phenomenon..."
whereisjustice
Jul 2015
#118
Great article. But we aren't gonna let Faux 'News' and Clinton surrogates marginalize
PatrickforO
Jul 2015
#140