The Foreign Travels of Bernie Sanders

[Uncle Joe]

For decades, Bernie Sanders has traveled the world, pursuing an unconventional approach to diplomacy. American politicians often visit other countries to project influence abroad and strengthen existing alliances. Foreign travel can also be leisurely, allowing elected officials to play tourist and spend time in luxury hotels. Of course, not everyone sticks to the same script. Sanders has charted a different course, traveling abroad to dissent against his own government, and critique the way America wields power on a global stage. He has risked controversy by extending an olive branch to left-leaning governments shunned by the American political establishment. Along the way, Sanders has demonstrated a deep interest in foreign policy, and a desire to shape the way the world views the United States.

As a member of Congress, Sanders has visited at least 41 countries, including Mexico, China, Israel, Vietnam, and South Africa, over the course of more than two dozen government-sponsored and privately-funded trips. His travels have taken him to the Middle East to visit a refugee camp in Jordan, discuss the Syrian conflict with diplomats in Turkey, and meet U.S. military officials in Afghanistan. Sanders has traveled to Central America to warn against the dangers of flawed trade policy, and spent a considerable amount of time visiting Nordic nations that he now holds up as models for America to emulate.

(snip)

Throughout his travels, Sanders has articulated the idea that domestic and foreign priorities are inextricably linked. He has consistently railed against corporate power and advocated for workers’ rights, applying the same lens to foreign policy that he uses to diagnose many of the problems he sees in American society. That’s the picture that emerges from an examination of public travel records and media coverage of his trips; Sanders’s memoir; a partial list of countries he has visited provided by his Senate office; and Legistorm, a database that tracks privately financed congressional travel.

(snip)

In expressing dissent, Sanders outlined a vision for U.S. conduct on the global stage, arguing that America is at its best when it engages with the rest of the world on an equal footing, and not on the basis of brute force. “We want our nation to be bold and brave, but not with guns, and not with machine guns, and not with Napalm,” Sanders said in a speech during his trip to Nicaragua. Instead, Sanders argued, America should “work out problems based on mutual respect” with other nations. The message signaled his concern with America’s image abroad. Sanders seemed determined to put forward an alternative to the foreign policy ideals envisioned by the U.S. political establishment, to show that he and like-minded Americans were sympathetic to the concerns of citizens of other countries who might mistrust American foreign policy and military intervention.

(snip)

That idea underpinned Sanders’s efforts to strengthen ties between the U.S. and far-left governments that many Americans viewed with deep distrust. When asked to explain why he hoped to see a thaw in U.S.-Soviet relations before departing for his trip to the USSR in 1988, Sanders suggested that hostility between the two global powers had cost Americans dearly. “These people have been our ‘enemies,’ and in the name of that rivalry, we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars that in my view should be spent on health care and housing,” Sanders said, according to a report in The Boston Globe.

(snip)

A review of Sanders’s foreign travel paints a picture of a politician with a set of remarkably consistent ideological convictions that have acted as a driving force for both his domestic and foreign policy agenda. Even as he has engaged with the rest of the world, he has remained unafraid to criticize U.S. policies he felt were flawed. As Sanders engages anew with foreign-policy debates in the midst of his presidential run, he’ll be drawing on these experiences that gave shape to his views on America’s role in the world.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/bernie-sanders-foreign-policy/470019/

This is a good read.

The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a barrier that divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989.[1] Constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany), starting on 13 August 1961, the Wall completely cut off (by land) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989.[2] Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in 1992.[3] The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls,[4] which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the "death strip&quot that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc claimed that the Wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a socialist state in East Germany. In practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that had marked East Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall

Maybe it was just a cosmic coincidence or maybe Bernie making ripples in the pond just before the Berlin came down had positive effect as well.

[beam me up scottie]

1. So the people claiming he's never been anywhere but Israel and Russia are liars?

One even said he wouldn't be able to find Myanmar on a map.

Good read, thanks Uncle Joe!

[Uncle Joe]

3. Well it isn't the first time, beam me up scottie, kind of like shooting fish in a barrel.

[beam me up scottie]

6. You do realize they will try to spin this, right?

Let's see, will the meme be Bernie regularly visited communist countries or Bernie lived the life of an elite globe trotting eco-tourist?

[Uncle Joe]

7. Let them try.

[MuseRider]

4. Still throwing stuff

against the wall to see what will stick. It is sad really. Pull something out of your ass, post it and see how many people you can get to rethink their choice based on a lie that you made up. What a country.

So he went to Israel because he is a Jew and he went to Russia (on his honeymoon) to what? Earn his hammer and sickle sticker?

Really besides the lying this is simply offensive on many levels.

[beam me up scottie]

8. Nailed it.

They don't care, they want to win at any cost even if it means tearing down an intelligent, compassionate man who fought for the little guy his whole career.

When it's all over they'll have to live with themselves.

[tk2kewl]

2. he even did it on his "infamous" honeymoon

can't the guy take a week off from trying to make the world better just to enjoy himself?

[Uncle Joe]

5. And a year later the U.S. and Soviet Union joined in on their own honeymoon.

[beam me up scottie]

9. Kick!

For the evening crowd!