Posted on 04/09/2019 3:25:54 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Socialism is cool again, and Bernie Sanders wants to reassure voters that there’s nothing to worry about. “I think what we have to do, and I will be doing it, is to do a better job maybe in explaining what we mean by socialism—democratic socialism,” Mr. Sanders said last month. He has also said that conservatives portray his brand of socialism “as authoritarianism and communism and Venezuela, and that’s nonsense.”
We’ve been reading the work of Bernie’s senior political advisers, and their words deserve more attention. Take speechwriter David Sirota, who joined the Sanders campaign in March, though he had been attacking the Vermont Senator’s Democratic opponents on Twitter for months.
Mr. Sirota wrote an op-ed for Salon in 2013 titled “Hugo Chávez’s Economic Miracle.” Mr. Sirota conceded, Chávez “was no saint” and “amassed a troubling record when it came to protecting human rights and basic democratic freedoms.” Those pesky disclaimers aside, Mr. Sirota suggested that there’s plenty to learn from Chávez.
“For example, the United States has adamantly rejected the concept of nationalization and instead pursued a bailout/subsidy strategy when it comes to rapacious banks and oil companies—and those firms have often gone on to wreak economic havoc. Are there any lessons to be learned from Venezuela’s decision to avoid that subsidization route and instead pursue full-on nationalization?” Mr. Sirota wrote. “And in a United States that has become more unequal than many Latin American nations, are there any constructive lessons to be learned from Chávez’s grand experiment with more aggressive redistribution?”
He wrote this in 2013, nearly 15 years after Chávez took power. Mr. Sirota has also opposed nearly all U.S. military actions abroad, and he blames the U.S. for inciting terrorism.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
He wrote this fifteen years ago? Surely
the Venezuelan straits have changed in that time.
And not for the better. And surely the WSJ can
find something a little more recent. I would not
want to accuse them of fake news... maybe past
its ‘sell by’ date.
My small experience with politics was a eye opener. There is a segment of the voting public who will believe any seemingly well meaning person regardless of what the facts show them. They want to believe in goodness regardless of what is logical. They tend to do whatever the earnest politician says regardless of consequences. I don’t know what they think, when what you say will happen if they listen to the earnest politician happens, as you seldom get the same group in a before/after scenario. But my guess is most lack the ability to learn from their experiences. Otherwise, there would be very few Democrats over the age of, say, thirty.
The very first paycheck stub showing tax deductions should ring a fire alarm in ones head... worked for me back in 1965.
There are people who predominately think, and others who predominately feel. Those whose actions are decided based on feelings cannot be reasoned with, as they actively reject logic and reason. And they don’t care that leftist politicians repeatedly lie to and manipulate them, because everything is about the feels.
I daydream about everyone having to pass some kind of competency test before being allowed to vote...
But these guys know how to do it correctly. Everybody else made mistakes......
Those whose actions are decided based on feelings cannot be reasoned with, as they actively reject logic and reason.
The "economic miracle" was oil at $100 per barrel. The only contribution Chavez made was not completely gutting the Venezuelan oil industry during his time in power, that had to wait for his successor.
Yes. Don't go down that road. Don't even start.
Note tagline.
And those who HATE America—ALL Democrats and RINOs—will rejoice!
Like any other entity with fabulous wealth, once Venezuela’s oil industry’s assets were seized for redistribution it took time to become hollowed out.
The same will apply here. My fear is that this country is so freakin’ fabulously wealthy that the time frame for hollowing out may run decades. Well beyond the end of my lifetime.
This will create the illusion to Millenial skulls o’ mush that socialism is actually working.
While what you post is probably true, there is not homogeneity among the states.
California is in bad trouble. Illinois is technically bankrupt and does not pay it’s bills. New York is showing financial distress. The state tax bite is no longer deductible and that is going to exacerbate the problems.
Just the other day, Bernie floored me when he stated that a welfare state was incompatible with an open border. To a RAT that must be heresy!
He's just behind the times. Bernie doesn't realize that today's radicals don't want class warfare, they want a race war.
Labor unions and other key Democrat constituents used to solidly oppose illegal immigration and mass immigration of any kind because it undercut the cost of labor, and because many of the labor union voters were culturally conservative. Since that time, the Democrats have lost any and all interest in representing the interests of working and middle class Americans (at least the white ones) and have made open borders a cornerstone of their agenda.
Saying that we can't have open borders and a welfare state has now become as toxic to Democrats as saying "All lives matter." Evidently Bernie never got the memo.
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