As part of an official delegation to a new sister city. It's like calling me a Hamas or Fatah sympathizer because I played for Palestinian audiences in the West Bank.
This logic doesn't follow. It's saying that because he a socialist, at his core he must be a communist. That simply isn't true.
Youtube clip looks like a college station interview. By itself, not a big deal (though if it really was 1985 Bernie was an old looking 43 year old and just as grumpy as today). Foreign policy will be a vulnerability for him. He ranges from idealism, isolationism, to no policy at all. GOP will hammer this, and, depending how he does Tuesday, Hillary may touch on this too. Maybe even dust off the old 3am wake up call ad?
The only thing more frightening than a true socialist is a democratic socialist. A socialist trusts that some group of angels can be trusted with distributing the wealth of nations to the people to the benefit of all. A democratic socialist believes the people can be trusted to distribute the wealth of nations to the people to the benefit of all. yikes!
What's more frightening is a mass of voters who have been indoctrinated into thinking that anything less than complete disdain for the commons is a Stalinist plot.
Actually the people elect representatives that vote on legislation, you know, the US system of government before it was bought and paid for to only represent corporate interests; back when the people chose to build the Interstate System, go to the Moon, and end pervasive senior poverty. The only things it doesn't do is underwrite losses by financial institutions, allow offshoring of profits by companies that benefit from the US system, allow the desecration of the environment for profit and extend welfare to profitable enterprises. Do you even listen to yourself? You are advocating autocracy.
I can see why you seem to be a Hillary supporter-- a fan of declaring a context free "fact" that is at best only arguably true in part-- with the purpose to mislead and essentially lie. see now her oft repeated statement that Bernie oppose the auto bailout fron David AXLEROD Obama's campaign advisor. David Axelrod
Did you miss the part in which Hillary jumped in to extend and support the Castro complaint against Bernie? She will use it the more desperate she gets.
So true and if you want to put a 5% tax on inheritances above a billion dollars for the mental health of indigents that is immoral "theft" and just one step from the Gulag.
His 50 years of steady progressive thoughts and actions? He is like the rightest person in politics for leading the movements society embraces over time. Right now, he is trying to move the pendulum back to democracy from corporate control, how is that bad?
Look, my normal instinct is to give him the benefit of doubt. But when I read things such as him defending bread lines as a good thing and saying that we don't need to have 23 different brands of sneakers because some people don't have enough food to eat -- dude, you're scaring me. I'm all for addressing income inequality - it is a major problem in America. The richest need to be taxed a lot more than they are, and social services should be improved. But suddenly I have to ask - is Sanders' ultimate vision the nationalization of major corporations and public ownership of the means of production? I haven't seen evidence that makes me confident in a "no" answer. That is worrisome.
People act like you have to have massive sweeping reforms to "redistribute" wealth. Here's a really, really simple idea. So the top 50% of income earners in the US pay about 97% of the taxes. That top 50% level is around 35k a year. Drop the federal income tax rate for anyone (yes I know you have to adjust it for marital status and household size) below this top 50% line to 0%. Change the dividend tax rate and long term capital gains tax rate to the regular income tax rate. Boom! How hard is that? It kills two birds with one stone. You cut out the "loopholes" the rich take advantage of and you put money back in the pockets of the bottom 50%. This idea stems from Bernie's love of Denmark and their taxes. However, for some reason he can't put two and two together and start championing this idea for the US.
Except that was a question from the moderator and not something that she brought up. Of course you probably believe that the Univsion is in the pocket of the Clinton camp.
This is purely speculative but I think in Sanders' heart he does believe in a Socialist ideal and his rhetoric clearly echoes the ideas of Karl Marx of labor as a commodity and class struggle. I think that he is smart to enough to recognize the reality that such an ideal can't actually exist and that a well regulated free market system is the best that can be achieved.
Putting aside the dubious merits of part of your plan. For instance how does officially lowering the tax rate of the lower 50% who according to you pay only 3% of the tax serve as your main redistribution technique. How about doing things like putting in a speculation tax on Wall Street trading to claw back the extra say 8% of the GDP devoted to the financial sector with virtually no societal benefit, lowering the sales tax, greatly increasing luxury taxes, restart inheritance taxes, have at least a 70% top marginal tax rate on very high incomes, all aspects of the tax code back in the day when we were not trickling money up to the top .1%. How hard is that? Are you kidding? You only have to unwash the brains of virtually anyone who has had a biz oriented econ 101 course or read the business press for the last 40 years; Overcome the mainstream media which spreads the best spin that billionaire financed "think" tanks with extensive focus group testing can come up to fool the majority into voting for tax breaks for the think tank funders. Overcome thousands of well paid "Christian" businessmen/preachers who preach to the flocks that Jesus wants them to vote Repbublican because of abortion and homos.. Not to mention booting out a couple of hundred corporate bought members of Congress etc. etc.
So are you saying that Hillary was somehow forced to do that, rather than eagerly trying to squeeze that comment in before the time expired? Of course you probably believe that the large corporate press must be right and would never support a status quo candidate who would somehow help their bottom line. Are you aware how frequently you defend your positions by essentially claiming that your ideas are mainstream and popular? See any circularity there?
