Bernie Sanders
Related: About this forumCan the Democratic Party be used for good?
[font color=330099]Note: This article is from socialistworker.org. I am posting this article for discussion even though I do not agree with all of the information within the article (e.g., calling Sanders supporters radicals or the characterization of the Democratic Party as a criminal enterprise). In addition, I have made any declaration as to which candidate I intend to support in the Democratic primary. If any of the hosts of this group believes that the article violates the SOP of this forum please contact me so that we can discuss whether the article should be deleted.
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Danny Katch, author of the e-book America's Got Democracy! The Making of the World's Longest-Running Reality Show, has some questions for radicals who are supporting Bernie Sanders' campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
THE PRESIDENTIAL run of Bernie Sanders poses an important question for socialists.
On the one hand, the Vermont senator's progressive populism could inspire millions of voters disenchanted with Wall Street domination and might give thousands of mostly young people their first taste of political activism--even if it's the limited electoral activism of passing out brochures and praising their candidate. The fact that Sanders calls himself a socialist and famously has a portrait of socialist leader Eugene V. Debs in his office is cool, too.
On the other hand, while Sanders is nominally a political independent, he is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, and he has long acted as a de facto member of the Democratic Party, one of the most criminal enterprises the modern world has ever known--with a rap sheet that includes, chronologically: slavery; the Trail of Tears; stealing half of Mexico; the Confederacy; Jim Crow; Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the Korean and Vietnam Wars; NAFTA; mass incarceration; mass deportations; and massively escalated drone and cyber warfare.
Yes, the Democrats also can claim credit for good things like Social Security, as well as Medicaid and Medicare--though we socialists insist the real credit belongs to the mass movements that put the "party of the people" under such pressure that it had to act. Even setting that aside, remember this: The Mafia has also been known to provide services to the neighborhood to reduce opposition to its nefarious activities.
Read more: http://socialistworker.org/2015/05/21/can-the-democratic-party-be-used-for-good
Demeter
(85,373 posts)The party structure is broken. You'd have to get the money away from the clutches of the DINOS. The brand is practically dead.
Starting a new party might be easier and more effective in the long run, if voters follow.
SusanCalvin
(6,592 posts)Man, I hate living in interesting times. Makes my early years feel like heaven.
delrem
(9,688 posts)(up front: I'm Canadian, offering a token opinion, and I know that I can't *be there*)
I think Sanders is telling it straight, and I don't see a dichotomy separating support for Sanders in this Dem primary from continuing to build other social and political structures.
Sanders is filling an opening on the left that is created by the current political situation, where the the Third-Way (under whatever more friendly name) is identical to the triangulated Republican "center", whatever that "center" is. So the term 'centrist' (along with the associated adjective 'moderate'), which Third-Way appropriates as belonging to them, to their faction, is defined by the Republican party, not by them. This is an intolerable state of affairs for many, and it has to be corrected from both within and without.
SusanCalvin
(6,592 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)power in the party. That left the Left with nowhere to go, for a while. And because of the horrors of the Bush years they were willing to 'hold their noses' a lot of the time and vote for Third Way candidates under the impression that even if they were more to the Right than they should be, the Dem Party needed a majority and anyone with a D would make that happen.
Those days are over, Bush is gone, seven years later no War Criminals have been held accountable, no Bankers jailed, SS was 'put on the Deficit Table'. The Surveillance state continues unabated, wars drone on all over the place, extra-judicial assassinations now even of US Citizens are DEFENDED in this party.
I could go on, but reality has set in for many Democrats and the truth is if Bernie had not decided to run, many Dems were ready to just opt out, many have, others have left the Party and are now Registered Independents.
MONEY is the main cause of the corrosion in both parties now.
And if the party thinks that those coming back to the party to vote for Sanders will stay and vote for their candidate should he lose, they are more out of touch with the people than we thought.
Something has to change.
Bernie is right to run as a Dem. If he did not, he would get nowhere.
All I know is people who had all but given up, are now enthusiastic about a candidate. Should we be, remembering all the other times we were disappointed?
I can't answer that until Bernie has been president for at least one year.
delrem
(9,688 posts)then pointing their fingers at their own chests saying "who? me?"
They've been acting like they have no governor.
So they're selling a TPP that looks, from what we've seen of it, exactly as if it were written by Rand Paul.
SusanCalvin
(6,592 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)that we support the current state of the nation or worse.