Perhaps Bernie's candidacy will allow us to breathe again [View all]
We are going to hear an awful lot about Senator Sanders being an avowed socialist and out establishmentarian media is going to do everything it can to make him sound like the reincarnation of Joseph Stalin. Let me assure everyone, the two are easily distinguishable, but don't expect that to deter the Koch Kings from slipping media moguls some extra free $peech to pay no attention to the real Bernie Sanders and smear him as a Bolshevik. Of course, the Bernie Sanders you'll hear about on FoxNews will resemble the real Bernie Sanders about as much climate change denialism resembles science.
I am not a socialist. I would be very happy to return to the economic models that worked so well for America until the election of Ronald Reagan. At the same time, I am not at all anti-socialist. There is no such thing as a "moral" economic system, as claimed by the followers of Ayn Rand. An economic system is something that works well for everyone or is in need of repair, at least some tweaking, otherwise.
Evil does not come into the world from economics, the art of producing goods and services and resolving scarcity with people's needs, but from politics, the art of gaining and maintaining power, too often only for an elite class who spend too much time creating myths about how they're better than the rest of us in order to justify their privileged positions, which is almost always undeserved.
Capitalism or socialism is neither moral nor immoral. Government by coercion of the few for the benefit of the few over the many is at the expense of the many is immoral; democracy, government by free citizens where citizenship is equal, universal and unalienable, is the only moral system of government.
Socialism is not the greatest threat to mankind at this moment. Neither is Islamic terrorism, which can be easily contained with just governments and good police work. That's right, I'm talking about the Frat Boy the Big Dick, who told us it took a war to contain Islamic terrorism. No, it didn't. It took a war to steal Iraq's natural resources.
The greatest threat is to humanity today is neoliberalism. This is the doctrine that insists that unregulated capitalism, and nothing else, will meet all of humanity's need forever. Its adherents proclaim freedom, but its only freedom for the elite. The rest of us will toil for low wages, breathe carbon fumes, drink flammable water and be wary of getting sick. Politicians will be so bought and sold that they will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
No, I am not a socialist, but I will vote for a social democrat like Bernie Sanders before I vote for another neoliberal, especially one who tries to mask his (or her) neoliberalism in unconvincing populist rhetoric. Any politician supporting the Trans-Pacific Partnership is doing a lousy job of hiding his (or her) neoliberalism.
For this reason, the candidacy of Bernie Sanders is a most welcome phenomenon.
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