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A factor behind Bernie Sanders' appeal: Changing attitudes toward socialism
The Christian Science Monitor ^ | August 19, 2015 | Sara Aridi, Staff

Posted on 08/20/2015 2:26:58 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

The independent Democratic candidate has repeatedly upheld his socialist views throughout his presidential campaign.

When a New York Times reporter asked President Obama whether his domestic policies suggested that he was a socialist in 2009, the president responded with a laugh: “The answer would be no.”

After the interview, Mr. Obama called the reporter back to elaborate on his answer, saying, “It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question.”

“That socialist question” has taken on a new form these days, revolving around the only self-described socialist in the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination: Bernie Sanders.

While Obama chuckled at the thought of socialism in that interview six years ago, Mr. Sanders has repeatedly upheld his socialist views throughout his presidential campaign by largely targeting income inequality. Hillary Clinton has also made income inequality a major plank in her 2016 campaign platform. But, arguably, Sanders has a more consistent claim to the subject....

(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...


TOPICS: Vermont; Campaign News; Issues; Parties
KEYWORDS: berniesanders; obama; sanders; socialism
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

On the surface, Socialism does have some appeal...But you don’t have to dig very far......


21 posted on 08/20/2015 3:20:00 PM PDT by Iscool
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I think that a lot of demonrats privately know that Satan’s Prom Queen is a criminal, dumb as a sack of hammers, nutty as a pecan tree and boring.They just don’t want to admit it publicly.

This was true of the last time she ran as well. In a sense you can blame the mismanaged, terrible presidency of the Obamanation of Desolation on Hilary Clinton. Not even Democrats want to vote for her


22 posted on 08/20/2015 3:20:34 PM PDT by Fai Mao (Genius at Large)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Changing attitudes toward socialism

A direct result of lack of education.

Public schools are indoctrination mills, not places of education and inquiry into the truth.

23 posted on 08/20/2015 3:30:59 PM PDT by Jim W N
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Here's why the ignorant Public School educated kids think Bernie is the coolest thing since SOCIAL MEDIA!!

HELLO!! They here "SOCIALISM" and they hear "SOCIAL Media".....it's ALL they CARE ABOUT!! If it has "SOCIAL" in it, they are ALL for it!! they are IGNORANT DUMMIES.

24 posted on 08/20/2015 3:48:55 PM PDT by Ann Archy (ABORTION....... The HUMAN Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The vast majority of Democratic voters have no idea what socialism is. Most Americans don’t even know who George Washington was.

After almost fifteen years in the public spotlight most Democratic voters DO know who Hillary Clinton is, which is why she’s leading in the polls, and soon Joe Biden, whom most Democrats know from his six years as vice president, will be entering the race in opposition to Hillary for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Those two old Establishment, charisma-challenged vaudevillians will be fighting each other all over the country and the media until the Democratic Convention next year.

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders, whom only a minority of Democrats can identify, is already at 20% in the national polls and is leading in New Hampshire.

He has nowhere to go but up and is likely to make significant gains during the first Democratic debate in October, when his charismatic speaking style will be introduced to millions. At that point, few of his excited followers will care that he’s a socialist, or even that he’s Jewish.

The Democrats could likely have a three-way race, with neither Hillary, Joe, nor Bernie getting a majority of primary votes, which would mean that the nomination would have to be determined at the DNC Convention by delegates fighting it out among themselves. Oh, what a spectacle that would be. It could be the end of the Democratic party.

Something to look forward to.


25 posted on 08/20/2015 4:14:16 PM PDT by Bluestocking
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Old white guys are in now?


26 posted on 08/20/2015 4:22:19 PM PDT by Leep (Cut the crap!)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion

Yep!


27 posted on 08/20/2015 4:23:36 PM PDT by Jan_Sobieski (Sanctification)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion

To update an old mantra to today’s reality...

“Beware of the Government Education Industrial Complex” - h/t “Ike”


28 posted on 08/20/2015 4:25:44 PM PDT by newfreep ("Evil succeeds when good men do nothting" - Edmund Burke)
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To: Ann Archy

I hear you sister.


29 posted on 08/20/2015 5:01:14 PM PDT by bicyclerepair (Ft. Lauderdale FL (zombie land). TERM LIMITS ... TERM LIMITS)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Bernie Sanders is a repeat of the 1972 George McGovern campaign. It’s going nowhere. He’d be lucky to carry 10 states.


30 posted on 08/20/2015 7:01:04 PM PDT by sergeantdave
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The Republicans are Socialist. Bernie and the Democrats are just plain Communists. He and Zero would have to move way to the right just to be Socialist (no wonder Zero was pissed at the question).


31 posted on 08/21/2015 1:38:42 AM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (Resist We Much)
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To: sergeantdave

This country elected a Black Mohammadan Communist twice. Bernie is quaint by comparison.


32 posted on 08/21/2015 1:39:38 AM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (Resist We Much)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Limited to the easily indoctrinated, weak-minded, lazy, losers.


33 posted on 08/21/2015 2:33:04 AM PDT by Amagi (Lenin: "Socialized Medicine is the Keystone to the Arch of the Socialist State.")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I don’t think the vast majority of Americans are ready to live without toilet paper.


34 posted on 08/21/2015 3:39:56 AM PDT by 48th SPS Crusader (I am an American. Not a Republican or a Democrat)
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To: desertfreedom765

You don’t like your job, you don’t strike. You go in every day and do it really half-assed. That’s the American way.
—Homer J. Simpson


35 posted on 08/21/2015 3:53:36 AM PDT by Alas Babylon! (As we say in the Air Force, "You know you're over the target when you start getting flak!")
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To: Ann Archy; bicyclerepair
HELLO!! They here "SOCIALISM" and they hear "SOCIAL Media".....it's ALL they CARE ABOUT!! If it has "SOCIAL" in it, they are ALL for it!! they are IGNORANT DUMMIES.
In my experience a socialist will compulsively use the term “society” when he means nothing other than government. Back in the 1950s I even had a homework question which was framed around that very (intentional) confusion. When the teacher “corrected” my answer he said in so many words that “we like to use the words interchangeably.” I was unconvinced, and I would have just loved to have the following quotation at my fingertips:
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil . . . - Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

I was certain back then that that teacher was abusing the language. I did not then even suspect that that same abuse was already current during the Revolutionary War. I suppose you could say that George Washington considered them to be fighting words . . .

36 posted on 08/21/2015 5:30:25 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion ('Liberalism' is a conspiracy against the public by wire-service journalism.)
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