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First off, I have been trying to remain neutral during this Primary. I have a list of pros and cons on nearly every candidate. There is something to like about each of them.
I will vote for any candidate that is nominated to run against Trump.
Nothing is more important to me, than making the corrupt Trump Mal-administration a failed 4-year experiment, never to be rerun again in our lifetimes.
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That said, I think all the hand-wringing about Bernie Sanders being a “democratic socialist” — is a bit overwrought. Trump will come up with distorted labels and try to destroy any candidate, that the Democratic Party runs against him — even “Little Mike.”
Trump is a lying, corrupt bully, who does not fight fair. Untrue over-the-top attacks by Donald Trump are a given — as the last 3 years demonstrated nearly every week.
But all the hype that a “socialist” can’t win, is just that — Hype. Distorting stereotypes.
Let me boil it down for you:
Was FDR’s New Deal popular with average Americans? You can bet the farm it was.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected 4 times to prove it.
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According to Sanders himself, FDR’s legacy is the one he wants to build on.
Completing FDR’s legacy with economic guarantees for every American, is what Senator Sanders means by “democratic socialism.”
Here’s that keystone speech explaining Sanders’ economic-equality vision …
Read: Bernie Sanders defines his vision for democratic socialism in the United States
by Tara Golshan Vox.com — Jun 12, 2019
On Wednesday afternoon, Bernie Sanders gave a speech defining democratic socialism at George Washington University. [...]
A lot, however, hasn’t changed. The Vermont senator’s definition of democratic socialism remains the fight for economic freedom — one that ensures health care, a living wage, a full education, housing, and a clean environment.
“Over 80 years ago, Franklin Delano Roosevelt helped create a government that made transformative progress in protecting the needs of working families. Today, in the second decade of the 21st century, we must take up the unfinished business of the New Deal and carry it to completion,” he said. “This is the unfinished business of the Democratic Party and the vision we must accomplish.”
Below is a transcript of Sanders’s remarks, courtesy of his presidential campaign.
Excerpts from Bernie Sanders’ GWU speech on last June, on the label of “democratic socialism”:
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When we talk about oligarchy, let us be clear about what we mean. Right now, in the United States of America, three families control more wealth than the bottom half of our country, some 160 million Americans. The top 1% own more wealth than the bottom 92% and 49% of all new income generated today goes to the top 1%. In fact, income and wealth inequality today in the United States is greater than at any time since the 1920s.
And when we talk about oligarchy, it is not just that the very rich are getting much richer. It is that tens of millions of working-class people, in the wealthiest country on earth, are suffering under incredible economic hardship, desperately trying to survive.
Today, nearly 40 million Americans live in poverty and tonight, 500,000 people will be sleeping out on the streets. About half of the country lives paycheck to paycheck as tens of millions of our people are an accident, a divorce, a sickness or a layoff away from economic devastation.
While many public schools throughout the country lack the resources to adequately educate our young people, we are the most heavily incarcerated nation on earth.
After decades of policies that have encouraged and subsidized unbridled corporate greed, we now have an economy that is fundamentally broken and grotesquely unfair.
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These leaders meld corporatist economics with xenophobia and authoritarianism. They redirect popular anger about inequality and declining economic conditions into violent rage against minorities — whether they are immigrants, racial minorities, religious minorities or the LGBT community. And to suppress dissent, they are cracking down on democracy and human rights.
In the United States, of course, we have our own version of this movement – which is being led by President Trump and many of his Republican allies who are attempting to divide our country up and attack these same communities. How sad it is that President Trump sees these authoritarian leaders as friends and allies.
This authoritarian playbook is not new. The challenge we confront today as a nation, and as a world, is in many ways not different from the one we faced a little less than a century ago, during and after the Great Depression in the 1930s. Then, as now, deeply-rooted and seemingly intractable economic and social disparities led to the rise of right-wing nationalist forces all over the world.
Like today, the quest for transformative change was opposed by big business, Wall Street, the political establishment, by the Republican Party and by the conservative wing of FDR’s own Democratic Party. And he faced the same scare tactics then that we experience today — red baiting, xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism.
In a famous 1936 campaign speech Roosevelt stated, “We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace–business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
“They had begun to consider the government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob.
“Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.”
Despite that opposition, by rallying the American people, FDR and his progressive coalition created the New Deal, won four terms, and created an economy that worked for all and not just the few.
Today, New Deal initiatives like Social Security, unemployment compensation, the right to form a union, the minimum wage, protection for farmers, regulation of Wall Street and massive infrastructure improvements are considered pillars of American society.
But, while he stood up for the working families of our country, we can never forget that President Roosevelt was reviled by the oligarchs of his time, who berated these extremely popular programs as “socialism.”
Similarly, in the 1960s, when Lyndon Johnson brought about Medicare, Medicaid and other extremely popular programs, he was also viciously attacked by the ruling class of this country.
And here is the point. It is no exaggeration to state, that not only did FDR’s agenda improve the lives of millions of Americans, but the New Deal was enormously popular politically and helped defeat far-right extremism.
For a time.
Today, America and the world are once again moving towards authoritarianism — and the same right-wing forces of oligarchy, corporatism, nationalism, racism and xenophobia are on the march, pushing us to make the apocalyptically wrong choice that Europe made in the last century.
Today, we now see a handful of billionaires with unprecedented wealth and power.
We see huge private monopolies — operating outside of any real democratic oversight and often subsidized by taxpayers – with the power to control almost every aspect of our lives.
They are the profit-taking gatekeepers of our health care, our technology, our finance system, our food supply and almost all of the other basic necessities of life. They are Wall Street, the insurance companies, the drug companies, the fossil fuel industry, the military industrial complex, the prison industrial complex and giant agri-businesses.
They are the entities with unlimited wealth who surround our nation’s capitol with thousands of well-paid lobbyists, who to a significant degree write the laws that we live under.
Today, we have a demagogue in the White House who, for cheap political gain, is attempting to deflect the attention of the American people away from the real crises that we face and, instead, is doing what demagogues always do — and that is divide people up and legislate hatred. This is a president who supports brutal family separations, border walls, Muslim bans, anti-LGBT policies, deportations and voter suppression.
It is my very strong belief that the United States must reject that path of hatred and divisiveness — and instead find the moral conviction to choose a different path, a higher path, a path of compassion, justice and love.
It is the path that I call democratic socialism.
Over eighty years ago Franklin Delano Roosevelt helped create a government that made transformative progress in protecting the needs of working families. Today, in the second decade of the 21st century, we must take up the unfinished business of the New Deal and carry it to completion.
This is the unfinished business of the Democratic Party and the vision we must accomplish.
In order to accomplish that goal, it means committing ourselves to protecting political rights, to protecting civil rights – and to protect economic rights of all people in this country.
As FDR stated in his 1944 State of the Union address: “We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.”
Today, our Bill of Rights guarantees the American people a number of important constitutionally protected political rights. And while we understand that these rights have not always been respected and we have so much more work to do, we are proud that our constitution guarantees freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, a free press and other rights because we understand that we can never have true American freedom unless we are free from authoritarian tyranny.
Now, we must take the next step forward and guarantee every man, woman and child in our country basic economic rights – the right to quality health care, the right to as much education as one needs to succeed in our society, the right to a good job that pays a living wage, the right to affordable housing, the right to a secure retirement, and the right to live in a clean environment.
We must recognize that in the 21st century, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, economic rights are human rights.
That is what I mean by democratic socialism.
As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all of God’s children.”
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May the best candidate who is looking out for our interests win.
May the long-suffering working people of this country, be given the time and space, to actually choose that candidate.
The punditocracy wound be wise to just let the people vote. To let the chips fall where they may.
Assuming they want to keep any remnants of an audience (that their corporate advertisers expect).
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