Socialism Is Not A Dirty Word: Bernie Sanders Really Is Changing US Democracy

[Purveyor]

ter months of expectation, US senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has at last given what might be remembered as one of the landmark speeches of the 2016 election: an explanation and defence of his position as a “democratic socialist”.

Linking his beliefs to revered figures from US history such as Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Martin Luther King Jr, he attempted to show that socialism was not just a “route to economic fairness” but also “essential to American values”.

Perhaps most importantly, it provided Sanders with another opportunity to present his socialist ideas to a national audience, something that was once almost unthinkable in modern US politics.

Long demonised in American electoral politics, “socialism” seems to be resonating with many Americans upset by the country’s deepening economic inequality and insecurity – and it has the potential to expand the limits of American democracy.

Sanders has surprised the political establishment by becoming a serious nominee for president. Most assumed that a socialist was simply “unelectable”. Even left leaning politicians who share his views, like Democratic congressman Alcee Hastings lament:

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http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/socialism-is-not-a-dirty-word-bernie-sanders-really-is-changing-us-democracy/

[MisterP]

1. for 98 years they've screamed "Commie" about everything, including *dancing* and *race-mixing*

screaming Commie, fleeing anything Commie was a terrific way to discipline and punish politics, in the 20s and again in the 50s and then in the 80s: don't want plutonium in your air and water? Commie! support that CPSU puppet Ronald Reagan? Commie! say HIV has arrived in the Americas? Commie!

when Rand Paul starts wailing about Sanders's imminent Tuol Sleng or Norilsk, or Trump says America needs to let the rich do as they please for once and everyone will have two cars, or the whispering campaign about Sanders's sinister honeymoon ... to YAROSLAVL

they're all still trapped in 1980, still thinking they have *the* key to making politics dance to their tune; but it's been three generations already, it's as outdated as screaming that someone's a cat's-paw of the Kaiser like all those disloyal Wisconsin kindergarten teachers

your Asshole Uncle's been screaming about them for generations back--now there's someone who not only doesn't flee quaking, but explains to him exactly why it'll help him with a lot of the things he's screamed about and/or blamed, like, Papuans for

[LWolf]

2. That's a great cartoon. nt

[Live and Learn]

3. K&R nt