Hillary Clinton
Related: About this forumBernie Sanders’s Forty-Year-Old Idea. The New Yorker (HRC GROUP)
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/bernie-sanderss-forty-year-old-ideaLast paragraphs:
Sanders sometimes refers specifically to Europes Social Democratic parties, but just as often he calls himself a democratic socialist, which is something else entirely. As an old lefty, he surely knows the difference. The manipulation of leftist terminology allows him to pick and choose elements that suit a given moment on the campaign trail. Socialism is an ideology of dramatic change; young people respond to the rhetoric of revolution, and arent scared away by socialism in itself (though they arent nearly as excited about the idea of redistribution of wealth). Yet Sanders has no intention of trying to engineer a state takeover of the means of production. What he seems to want is a return to the era of his own youth, when his ideas were shaped by Europes Social Democrats in their heyday, politicians who dreamed of a society that was both egalitarian and capitalistic, and who erected vast social-welfare states. In Europe itself, those days are gone, while rampant inequality in the heartland of capitalism has fuelled Sanderss run. Says Cas Mudde: I think its ironic that the last real Social Democrat would be in the United States.
Her Sister
(6,444 posts)Follow
Passionate4 Hillary
?@puppymnkey
@DAvallone @Amy_Siskind you'll like this article. Bernie is misleading them about Europe too.
https://twitter.com/puppymnkey/status/729010484016521216
Walk away
(9,494 posts)and rant about politics while playing chess or reading Socialist newspapers. Apparently, they didn't have actual jobs because they were free to sit around and complain all day.
misterhighwasted
(9,148 posts)"and rant about politics while playing chess or reading Socialist newspapers. Apparently, they didn't have actual jobs because they were free to sit around and complain all day."
Ahh, the days of solving all the ills of the world in a cozy afternoon of armchair quaterback politics.
Her Sister
(6,444 posts)Colleges she "worked" at. Very intellectual people gathering am sure. Like that Sachs guy that invited them to the Vatican.
misterhighwasted
(9,148 posts)They serve themselves first.
Her Sister
(6,444 posts)and rant-ing about politics while playing chess or reading Socialist newspapers. Apparently, they didn't have actual jobs because they were free to sit around and complain all day.
Walk away
(9,494 posts)intellectuals! Smarter than everyone else. They believed that anyone who owned a business was an Oligarch. Blab, blab every day.
Bernie would have fit right in if he never left NYC and was about 40 years younger. That's the interesting thing about Bernie he is a complete throwback but he seems new to a bunch of kids.
Henhouse
(646 posts)"What he seems to want is a return to the era of his own youth, when his ideas were shaped by Europes Social Democrats in their heyday, politicians who dreamed of a society that was both egalitarian and capitalistic, and who erected vast social-welfare states."
Blue Idaho
(5,052 posts)I have little doubt that he was deeply moved by the ideas of forty years ago. What bothers me is the yawning chasm of his political career. What exactly did all the fire and enthusiasm of his youthful ideas ever produce - other than the naming of a couple of Post Offices? Nothing much really.
Bernie's new found love of the good old days seems more like the kind of nostalgia brought about by rediscovering old bell bottoms languishing in a trunk with the mothballs rather than a life long career energized into action by deeply held core values. Sadly it's long on style but short on substance.
As much as I like tribute acts this one is both hollow and shallow.
SharonClark
(10,014 posts)Sanders is correct that income inequality and the concentration of wealth are important issues that threaten the US and the world. However, his stump speech, that I'm sure even all Hillary supports can recite verbatim, doesn't offer any workable solutions to how to eliminate those problems.
It's sad. Sanders needs to update his reading list for the 21st century and quit living in the past.
BlueMTexpat
(15,370 posts)K & R! :donkey