Bernie Defends Democratic Socialism

Although I will support Bernie Sanders, as long as he is in the race,  I consider him an extreme long shot, because American voters are so unsophisticated that they confuse it with Soviet  socialist dictatorship.  In fact, the US political spectrum has shifted so far to the right that Bernie is no more socialist than Dwight Eisenhower.  Yesterday Bernie explained what Democratic Socialism is.

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont aggressively confronted voter concerns about his electability as president on Thursday, making a rare formal address to explain his left-wing ideology of democratic socialism and argue that its principles reflected mainstream American values like fairness and equality.

Mr. Sanders, who is hugely popular with liberals but is struggling to attract more voters to his Democratic presidential bid against Hillary Rodham Clinton, made blunt overtures to the party faithful by presenting himself as the heir to the policies and ideals of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Invoking the two men several times, Mr. Sanders said that democratic socialism was reflected in Roosevelt’s priorities like Social Security and in Dr. King’s call for social and economic justice, contrasting them to “socialist-communist” caricatures of his thinking put forward by Republicans to tar the Democratic field.

“I don’t believe government should take over the grocery store down the street or own the means of production,” Mr. Sanders said in an hourlong [sic] speech before a friendly audience of college students at Georgetown University in Washington. “But I do believe that the middle class and the working families of this country, who produce the wealth of this country, deserve a decent standard of living and that their incomes should go up, not down.”

Tapping into Democratic anger over income inequality and the power of big banks, Mr. Sanders also argued that the government bailouts of Wall Street firms during the Great Recession — and the lack of any prosecutions of industry executives — were a form of state-driven socialism in which a central government propped up and protected the wealthy.

Poor and middle-class Americans, by contrast, struggle financially without meaningful government help and end up being arrested on minor drug offenses, Mr. Sanders said, denouncing such fates by quoting Dr. King: “This country has socialism for the rich, and rugged individualism for the poor.”… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

The next video is the first ten minutes of Bernie’s speech for people in a hurry.

The next video is Bernie’s entire speech, plus a half hour of Q & A.

Or if you prefer a transcript, click here.

I have long said that only America’s poor and middle classes practice free enterprise, while the super-rich bask in socialism.  Bernie did an excellent job.  Sadly the television media are all but ignoring him.  Daesh fear mongering for their Republican allies sells more soap.