Socialism? You mean like in Sweden?

[TexasTowelie]

IT IS taboo for mainstream politicians in the U.S. to look beyond our borders to find inspiration about how to better run our own society. When comparisons between the U.S. and other countries are made, Democrats as well as Republicans recite the exceptionalist myth that "the United States is the greatest country on earth, period."

In the first debate of the Democratic primaries in October, Bernie Sanders broke with this stifling tradition. He argued that there is a great deal we can learn from countries such as Sweden, Norway and Denmark. As he put it:

{W}hen you look around the world, you see every other major country providing health care to all people as a right, except the United States. You see every other major country saying to moms that, when you have a baby, we're not going to separate you from your newborn baby, because we are going to have medical and family paid leave.

According to Sanders, being a "democratic socialist" means fighting for progressive measures like these. However, in a more recent speech aimed at explaining to a mass audience what "democratic socialism" means, Sanders reverted to the more U.S.-centric approach. Rather than Scandinavia, his reference points were Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.

Sanders stated that programs such as Social Security and Medicare illustrate what socialism means to him. The only difference between the U.S. and Scandinavia, then, becomes a matter of degree--whereas the welfare state in the U.S. is anemic and limited, it's robust and expansive in countries like Sweden.

Read more: http://socialistworker.org/2015/11/24/you-mean-socialism-like-in-sweden

[daleanime]

1. K&R.....