Socialist and Marxist criticism of Senator Sanders

[FrodosPet]

Based on many of the reasons they are opposed to him, I am starting to warm up to Sen. Sanders.

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Bernie Sanders Isn’t Socialist Enough for Many Socialists

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-10-13/bernie-sanders-isn-t-socialist-enough-for-many-socialists

David Freedlander
October 13, 2015 — 5:00 AM EDT

~ snip ~

“He isn’t an anti-capitalist! He is for reforming capitalism, not changing capitalism. He is really a lot closer in ideology to Hillary Clinton than he is to me,” said Stephen Durham, the 2012 presidential nominee of the Freedom Socialist Party. “His is the politics of a lesser evil among some very bad choices.”

“He is a progressive on the home front, but he is pretty reactionary when it comes to foreign policy,” says Gloria La Riva, the 2016 presidential nominee for the Party of Socialism and Liberation. “He supported the Israeli war against Gaza. He supports the drone bombing campaigns in other countries, which is a war crime. He has said that Cuba needs to be a democracy, but we believe Cuba already truly is a system for the people there.”

La Riva, a perennial vice-presidential candidate for the Workers World Party in the 1980s and ’90s (the PSL split from the WWP for reasons that remain largely unclear, even to its most committed partisans) said that even if Sanders won the Democratic nomination, she would continue to seek the presidency.
“I don’t think he is a socialist. He ignores socialist countries,” she said. “We agree with him that the rich should be taxed more heavily, and that the minimum wage should be higher, but we are calling for the seizure of the banks, the seizure of the health care system, the seizure of the pharmaceutical companies. We are calling for full immigrant rights, dismantling the Pentagon, bringing all of our troops home and reparations for victims of U.S. imperialism.”

~ snip ~

Most Marxists opposed to this current Sanders run say that he is “sheepdogging” for the Democratic Party, which is using Sanders to “corral a resurgent left,” as Ashley Smith, a member of the editorial board of the Internationalist Socialist Review, put it at the panel.

~ snip ~

[JackInGreen]

1. Certainly sets the contrast between the fear and the fact

Don't it?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. I think that last snip is way off the mark.

I don't think most of Sanders new support is from people whose votes will 'transfer' if he doesn't get the nomination. The people who might roll over are ones who were always simply going to vote for a Dem in the general.

But those attacks from the left are good for Sanders. We need people pointing out that he's not the incredible radical that people will try to paint him to make him acceptable to the bulk of voters.

[potone]

3. Dismantle the Pentagon?

What planet is she on?

[FrodosPet]

4. I believe he should emphasize his differences with radical socialists

Own the points below with pride. He is a DEMOCRATIC Socialist, not Marxist, not Castro north. He wants the people on the bottom lifted out of poverty, with accountability from free market entities, not Chavista style nationalization.

[beam me up scottie]

5. "He is an ardent Zionist who would prefer Israeli war crimes to Palestinian liberation"?

Someone's been drinking the koolaid.

[FrodosPet]

6. I read it more like...

...he is a sane man, not in a rush for war, but who will defend our nation and our allies.

[AOR]

8. And you obviously don't get it in the slightest...

but you're very clear that you will throw the actual leftists under the bus to defend "saneness." Your own little form of marginalization and derision. Leftists are "insane" because they fight against capitalism and U.S Imperialism.

If Sanders was running as or was an actual leftist... he wouldn't have to kowtow to the whims of a thoroughly corrupted party that serves at the alter of big capital from top to bottom. The new talking point memos are out. The herding of a few leftist ideas that Sanders offers are already being co-opted back into the Democratic Party machine through "Hillary Clinton's astonishing move to the left."

"You see... Hillary is a leftist too..."we" have fine candidates all around...something for everyone to get excited about "

The liberal/progressive wing of the Democratic Party will be used and abused again and the majority will fall right in line when Clinton wins the nomination.

Some time ago Will Pitt had an article at Truthout sending a message to the Democratic Party activists and promoting Sanders while rallying for a Progressive platform and ideas using a Truman quote --" How many times do you have to get hit over the head until you figure out who's hitting you?"

Unfortunately Will won't take his own advice and neither will the majority of the liberal/progressive wing of the Democratic Party. They will fall right in line with Hillary Clinton and get corralled back into holding their nose and supporting the machine that is grinding the working class into the dust.

"How many times do you have to get hit over the head until you figure out who's hitting you indeed" A question for all of the liberal/progressive wing of the Democratic Party to ask themselves when the business as usual sycophants tell em "they got nowhere else to go."

[FrodosPet]

9. It is true that I do not want radical, authoritarian socialism in America

Guilty as charged. Without shame. I'm a Keynesian. I believe the government has a proper role, and that it should provide public safety and economic stabilization. But I don't want to see a full blown socialist system in America.

[AOR]

10. Honesty is a good thing...

it cuts through the chase on which side people stand on. Not many (who claim to be on the side of the working class) are willing to admit they stand with business as usual and the authoritarian capitalist dictatorship in which we live.

Although... using the term "radical authoritarian socialism in America" is quite dishonest and borders on McCarthy like propaganda to defend capitalism at all costs and marginalize any discussion of it's devastating effects on workers and the poor. It is a caricature and a scary boogieman created and most often used by reactionaries to defend the status quo.

Capitalism and U.S. Imperialism are responsible - directly and indirectly - for the deaths of untold millions of people - here and elsewhere and it gets worse every day. That is reality.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. As a Socialist, I have differences with Bernie. But, he's well within my nose holding threshold.