What Does a Socialist Movement Look Like?

[Lodestar]

Campaigns like Clinton's don't encourage the participation of ordinary people. For most politicians, the masses of voters aren't a consideration at all, except briefly at election time.

For the first time in many years, the presidential elections are interesting -- and we have socialism to thank for that.

Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders' left-wing message -- denouncing corporate greed and widening inequality, and calling for a fairer, more just society -- is engaging a whole section of people who wouldn't have cared so passionately about an ordinary race between an ordinary Republican and Democrat.

The Sanders campaign has drawn attention to a significant audience that is moving toward left ideas. According to a New York Times/CBS News poll last November, some 56 percent of Democratic voters questioned said they felt positive about socialism as a governing philosophy, versus 29 percent who had a negative view.

Even the mainstream media are crediting Sanders with getting people interested in the election process -- an admission that the usual stuff on offer during U.S. elections is completely out of step with what many voters are thinking about.

But while the media seem to think that Sanders' critique of Corporate America has never been heard before, there were plenty of signs that people were dissatisfied with business-as-usual politics.

cont'd
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/36000-what-does-a-socialist-movement-look-like

[Merryland]

1. Hillary supporters see committed Bernie supporters

as far-left-wing freaks - whatever the hell "far left" means in this military-industrial nightmare of a national government we've had since Reagan. I am SO offended by this - not because I think there's anything wrong with being far left - it is just that it has become a slur that is persistently used. When in truth, as far as I am concerned, Hillary Clinton is not a centrist, she is far right. A Kissinger lover.

[Metric System]

2. Ordinary people are voting for Hillary. Sanders supporters can't accept that.

[My Good Babushka]

3. Well, I will never be ordinary

Good for the ordinary people, unexceptional, uninteresting people. I'm glad they've found their standard-bearer.

[bemildred]

4. And still almost six months to go. nt