Bernie Sanders barnstorms Bay Area with socialist populist message

[proverbialwisdom]

Source: By Josh Richman, San Jose Mercury News

POSTED: 03/30/2015 04:36:21 PM PDT

SAN FRANCISCO -- There are few places in the nation where a democratic socialist independent who's mulling a presidential run would have more rock-star status than the Bay Area.

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Sanders on Monday rained fire down once again upon Republicans' budget proposal, noting that it would kick 27 million Americans out of health care coverage by abolishing the nation's health-care insurance law and scaling back Medicaid; make college education harder to afford; and do nothing to help 40 million Americans living below the poverty line.

The GOP has been "brilliant" about "convincing middle-class Americans that Wall Street and greed are good for you but Medicaid and Social Security are bad for you," he said, mostly at the behest of a "billionaire class who want more and more for themselves and less and less for working families."

Sanders said his current favorite statistic comes from Forbes' list of the nation's richest people: America's 14 richest individuals have expanded their wealth by $157 billion in the past two years -- more than is held by the bottom 40 percent of Americans, many of whom now work longer hours for lower wages. "I don't think anyone thinks that's acceptable."


Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_27816532/bernie-sanders-barnstorms-bay-area-socialist-populist-message

[Joe Chi Minh]

1. ....and some of you people don't want to believe in hell?

[Jackpine Radical]

11. This is obviously one of the Buddhist hell-worlds.

[Stevepol]

2. Redistribution?

One of the last comments about Sanders in the linked article said that Sanders' rhetoric harked back to the Russian revolution in preaching "redistribution" of wealth. But this is nonsense parading as logic.

What needs to be clearly understood is that ALL GOVERNMENT TAXATION INVOLVES REDISTRIBUTION. THAT'S WHAT TAXATION IS. The problem now is that the money is being redistributed from the poor to the rich. Sanders just wants to turn that around.

[Vinca]

3. Redistribution from the poor to the rich has been happening for decades.

[appalachiablue]

5. +1

[jwirr]

6. This comment is not the only part meant to be negative in this article. The title is supposed to

make people afraid. The Commies are coming. It would be interesting to know if this writer and paper are always right leaning.

[KingCharlemagne]

7. It's probably a small matter of interest only to real Marxists, but Sanders is hardly a 'Socialist'

anyway, at least as far as the term has been used historically. Socialists generally believe in the public ownership of the means of production and, AFAIK, Sanders favors reforms to a system of private ownership of the means of production, i.e., capitalism.

At most, Sanders is a 'Social Democrat,' cut from the European mold of the same name. That he can be called a 'Socialist' (and even label himself such) is proof of how degraded American political discourse has become in the past 50 years.

[jwirr]

8. I know but a lot of people do not and the article title uses it for that reason.

[KingCharlemagne]

9. If Sanders and his staff had some real cojones and\or a sense of humor, he (and they) would

respond by threatening to 'nationalize' the print and broadcast media (expropriate their assets with no compensation to prior owners)! I'd gladly pay one week's salary just to watch the fun and hilarity that would ensue, were some real Socialism on the table!

[jwirr]

10. LOL

[Larry Engels]

13. Right. He's not a socialist. He supports welfare-state capitalism.

I wonder why he calls himself a socialist. It can't have been an asset to his political career.

[KingCharlemagne]

14. Maybe in his heart of hearts, Sanders considers himself a true 'Socialist' but is reluctant

to lay out what such a label would really mean for fear of scaring off Vermont's comfortably bourgeois electorate. I mean I really can't see Ben & Jerry marching to the barricades with ice cream for the proletariat and sans culottes.

Maybe it's a 'branding' thing at root, if Dems in Vermont are anything like the Democratic National Party --think Terry McAuliffe or Rahm -- and he's staking out the 'Social Democrat' niche.

[MissDeeds]

4. Run, Bernie, run!

[cosmicone]

12. Bernie Sanders = Ralph Nader or 2016 n/t

[raven mad]

15. I live in hell.

I'd vote for Bernie in a heartbeat.