Nicko wrote:

Byron wrote:It's not about Sanders now: the worry's that assumptions like those above will see yet another limousine liberal roll into the 2020 nom, get thrashed, and usher in two-term Trumpery.

willhud9 wrote:I will ask this:

What is the cause of fear?

Racial tensions? Already have those.
Militarization of the police? Already had that.
Overabundance of police shootings? Already covered.
Discrimination against different faith groups? Been around for awhile now.
Disrespect for women? Rape culture wasn't born the 8th of November.
World War III? Plenty of level headed world leaders elsewhere in the world.

I mean a Trump Presidency is probably going to suck, but its not going to cause me to lose sleep over fear. Its just another wave of awful politics which can have adverse affect on my life.

See what I am more afraid of is:

SNAP benefits reduced for my mother.
Her benefits from the VA reduced because she is a widow of a veteran and not a veteran herself.
Her SSI reduced.

Those kind of fears directly play into my future and can become a reality with a GOP controlled government.

The stuff above have been happening for a long time now. If you're now just becoming afraid of those things than you have been living under a rock.

Corneel wrote:

Teague wrote:Here's a link with quotes from Sanders himself,

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/1 ... ism-120265

From your link:

[...]
5. In a speech he gave at the National Committee for Independent Political Action in New York City on June 22, 1989, reprinted in the December 1989 issue of the socialist publication Monthly Review: “In Vermont, everybody knows that I am a socialist and that many people in our movement, not all, are socialists. And as often as not — and this is an interesting point that is the honest-to-God truth — what people will say is, ‘I don’t really know what socialism is, but if you’re not a Democrat or a Republican, you’re OK with me.’ That’s true. And I think there has been too much of a reluctance on the part of progressives and radicals to use the word ‘socialism.’”
[...]
8. In the book he wrote with Huck Gutman, Outsider in the House, published in 1997: “Bill Clinton is a moderate Democrat. I’m a democratic socialist.”
[...]
10. In an interview with The Washington Post in November 2006. “I wouldn’t deny it. Not for one second. I’m a democratic socialist. … In Norway, parents get a paid year to care for infants. Finland and Sweden have national health care, free college, affordable housing and a higher standard of living. … . Why shouldn’t that appeal to our disappearing middle class?”
[...]

And with that I clonclude that any further discussion with you is futile, at least until you show you're capable of discussing at level above that of a hormone-adled teenager.

Willie71 wrote:

Corneel wrote:

Teague wrote:Here's a link with quotes from Sanders himself,

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/1 ... ism-120265

From your link:

[...]
5. In a speech he gave at the National Committee for Independent Political Action in New York City on June 22, 1989, reprinted in the December 1989 issue of the socialist publication Monthly Review: “In Vermont, everybody knows that I am a socialist and that many people in our movement, not all, are socialists. And as often as not — and this is an interesting point that is the honest-to-God truth — what people will say is, ‘I don’t really know what socialism is, but if you’re not a Democrat or a Republican, you’re OK with me.’ That’s true. And I think there has been too much of a reluctance on the part of progressives and radicals to use the word ‘socialism.’”
[...]
8. In the book he wrote with Huck Gutman, Outsider in the House, published in 1997: “Bill Clinton is a moderate Democrat. I’m a democratic socialist.”
[...]
10. In an interview with The Washington Post in November 2006. “I wouldn’t deny it. Not for one second. I’m a democratic socialist. … In Norway, parents get a paid year to care for infants. Finland and Sweden have national health care, free college, affordable housing and a higher standard of living. … . Why shouldn’t that appeal to our disappearing middle class?”
[...]

And with that I clonclude that any further discussion with you is futile, at least until you show you're capable of discussing at level above that of a hormone-adled teenager.

This isn't my argument, but it is one I've had many times myself. You seem to be providing evidence to support Teague's position. A democratic socialist is different from a Cold War socialist.

We are stuck with a double standard. We point out the stupidity of the American general populace (Trumpery should be the trump card here,) and get jumped on, but if we expect them to have a few brain cells, and understand the difference between two terms, we are told they are too stupid to get it. It's very frustrating.

felltoearth wrote:

Nicko wrote:

Byron wrote:It's not about Sanders now: the worry's that assumptions like those above will see yet another limousine liberal roll into the 2020 nom, get thrashed, and usher in two-term Trumpery.

Indeed. And ironically, Will has just shown why Hillary wasn't a viable candidate in another thread

willhud9 @ President Trump Watch.

willhud9 wrote:I will ask this:

What is the cause of fear?

Racial tensions? Already have those.
Militarization of the police? Already had that.
Overabundance of police shootings? Already covered.
Discrimination against different faith groups? Been around for awhile now.
Disrespect for women? Rape culture wasn't born the 8th of November.
World War III? Plenty of level headed world leaders elsewhere in the world.

I mean a Trump Presidency is probably going to suck, but its not going to cause me to lose sleep over fear. Its just another wave of awful politics which can have adverse affect on my life.

See what I am more afraid of is:

SNAP benefits reduced for my mother.
Her benefits from the VA reduced because she is a widow of a veteran and not a veteran herself.
Her SSI reduced.

Those kind of fears directly play into my future and can become a reality with a GOP controlled government.

The stuff above have been happening for a long time now. If you're now just becoming afraid of those things than you have been living under a rock.

Hillary needed to let people know that they would do better under her than Trump. Her track record made people doubtful of this. She at best represented the staus quo which was fucking a lot of people over (at least in their perception).

Teague wrote:

Corneel wrote:

Teague wrote:Here's a link with quotes from Sanders himself,

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/1 ... ism-120265

From your link:

[...]
5. In a speech he gave at the National Committee for Independent Political Action in New York City on June 22, 1989, reprinted in the December 1989 issue of the socialist publication Monthly Review: “In Vermont, everybody knows that I am a socialist and that many people in our movement, not all, are socialists. And as often as not — and this is an interesting point that is the honest-to-God truth — what people will say is, ‘I don’t really know what socialism is, but if you’re not a Democrat or a Republican, you’re OK with me.’ That’s true. And I think there has been too much of a reluctance on the part of progressives and radicals to use the word ‘socialism.’”
[...]
8. In the book he wrote with Huck Gutman, Outsider in the House, published in 1997: “Bill Clinton is a moderate Democrat. I’m a democratic socialist.”
[...]
10. In an interview with The Washington Post in November 2006. “I wouldn’t deny it. Not for one second. I’m a democratic socialist. … In Norway, parents get a paid year to care for infants. Finland and Sweden have national health care, free college, affordable housing and a higher standard of living. … . Why shouldn’t that appeal to our disappearing middle class?”
[...]

And with that I clonclude that any further discussion with you is futile, at least until you show you're capable of discussing at level above that of a hormone-adled teenager.

I see you didn't read the entire article. You're quoting the part he said in 1989 FFS - try the later quotes. YOU linked the wiki page showing he's a DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST so how me showing you're wrong makes me a teenager I don't know but then if you think it makes you right then I'm happy for your ignorance to remain exactly where it is.

Willie71 wrote:Your post above. My comments weren't directed at you, and the member I posted my comment in response to isn't even American. It was a general comment about the understanding of the terms democratic socialist vs. socialist.

The_Metatron wrote:I always thought that socialism is a form of government under which the government controls the means of production. Does anyone think this is what Bernie has in mind?

The_Metatron wrote:I always thought that socialism is a form of government under which the government controls the means of production. Does anyone think this is what Bernie has in mind?

purplerat wrote:

The_Metatron wrote:I always thought that socialism is a form of government under which the government controls the means of production. Does anyone think this is what Bernie has in mind?

I think a great deal many people do think exactly that. Whether it's true or not isn't exactly relevant to the conversation at hand.

Corneel wrote:

The_Metatron wrote:I always thought that socialism is a form of government under which the government controls the means of production. Does anyone think this is what Bernie has in mind?

Whether Bernie Sanders can be called a socialist under this or that definition, or not is utterly unimportant in view of the fact that he called himself socialist. You have a guy that basically said: "I, Bernie Sanders, am a socialist and not ashamed of it" and any discussion about whether he really is or not and what definition to use, distracts from the fact that the Republicans would have milked those statements like a fat-uddered Holstein for all their worth.

IOW, when your opponent says "I'm a socialist", and you know that socialism is considered a negative by a large part of the electorate, you don't care whether he's right or not, whether he satisfies all 666 criteria for being a good socialist, no, you pull those teats and milk, milk, milk.

Oldskeptic wrote:
Those are just a few of the things that Trump could have said about Bernie Sanders at rallies and speeches on air and off. Then take in the medias' "obligation" to report on what candidates are saying and all you have to do is put "Trump says" in front of them and imagine the on air lead ins and headlines. And once more, remember that they don't have to be true, just repeated often enough.

According to the data, Donald Trump would have been soundly defeated by Bernie Sanders last night had the Vermont senator been the one to face him.

When examining the 13 states Hillary Clinton lost twice — the states Trump won side-by-side with the states Bernie Sanders won during the Democratic primary — the similarities are striking. The GOP nominee likely saw this, and tweeted in May that he was relieved to not have to face Sanders in the general election:

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

I would rather run against Crooked Hillary Clinton than Bernie Sanders and that will happen because the books are cooked against Bernie!
6:44 AM - 4 May 2016

According to the data, Donald Trump would have been soundly defeated by Bernie Sanders last night had the Vermont senator been the one to face him.

When examining the 13 states Hillary Clinton lost twice — the states Trump won side-by-side with the states Bernie Sanders won during the Democratic primary — the similarities are striking. The GOP nominee likely saw this, and tweeted in May that he was relieved to not have to face Sanders in the general election:

In five states Sanders won where exit polling data is available — Indiana, Michigan, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Wisconsin — the demographics that helped Trump hit 270 electoral college votes were also Sen. Sanders’ key demographics that helped him defeat the former Secretary of State in multiple primaries in different regions of the country.

The numbers suggest that there may have been enough Sanders votes in those pivotal states to have swung the election in Sanders’ favor if superdelegates and restrictive closed primaries weren’t part of the Democratic primary process. Popular blog All That Is Interesting created an electoral map assuming that Sanders won white, rural rust belt voters in the traditionally blue states that Hillary Clinton lost on Tuesday night in a hypothetical Trump/Sanders general election matchup, giving Sanders with a 303-235 advantage.
http://usuncut.com/politics/bernie-sand ... hed-trump/

The_Metatron wrote:

purplerat wrote:

The_Metatron wrote:I always thought that socialism is a form of government under which the government controls the means of production. Does anyone think this is what Bernie has in mind?

I think a great deal many people do think exactly that. Whether it's true or not isn't exactly relevant to the conversation at hand.

I don't see why not.

But, I never once got the impression that Bernie has any design on controlling means of production, i.e., controlling the economy.

The_Metatron wrote:

Corneel wrote:

The_Metatron wrote:I always thought that socialism is a form of government under which the government controls the means of production. Does anyone think this is what Bernie has in mind?

Whether Bernie Sanders can be called a socialist under this or that definition, or not is utterly unimportant in view of the fact that he called himself socialist. You have a guy that basically said: "I, Bernie Sanders, am a socialist and not ashamed of it" and any discussion about whether he really is or not and what definition to use, distracts from the fact that the Republicans would have milked those statements like a fat-uddered Holstein for all their worth.

IOW, when your opponent says "I'm a socialist", and you know that socialism is considered a negative by a large part of the electorate, you don't care whether he's right or not, whether he satisfies all 666 criteria for being a good socialist, no, you pull those teats and milk, milk, milk.

Well, to act on a thing, people first have to assign meaning to that thing. The definition is everything in having a productive conversation.

I mean, in common usage, public schools, fire services, police services, postal services are socialist things. People don't seem to have a big problem with those things. Seems to me the main things Bernie wants to add to that list are medical care and higher education.

Can't see how either of those is a bad idea for a population. We'd all benefit from it.

Oldskeptic wrote:

Adrinius wrote:

Corneel wrote:But quite a few Sanders supporters seem to willfully ignore anything that could reflect negatively on their candidate.

And quite a few Clinton cultists seem to willfully ignore empirically obtained evidence.

It's not hard to ignore evidence that has never been presented. And no, assertions and innuendo are not evidence, and repeating assertions and innuendos does not amount to more evidence, and repeating assertions and innuendos even more does not amount to even more evidence.

Oh, but Hillary Clinton must be guilty because she's been investigated so many times. Ronald Reagan's Attorney General, Ed Meese, once said, "Well these people wouldn't be on trial, we wouldn't be accusing them, if they weren't guilty." when defending denying civil rights to minorities.

Everything that has been thrown at Hillary Clinton going back 35 years or more reeks of partisan conspiracy theory. Right down to using one unevidenced accusation to support another unevidenced accusation. And my favorite when it is pointed out that she's never been indicted let alone convicted for any of these myriad of accusations: That's because she's so powerful and she threatens and bribes her way out of indictments.

Really? After all these years and all these accusations and with a Republican right wing doing everything in their power to bring Clinton down for over 30 years she successfully threatened and bribed powerful partisans political enemies every time?

It's classic conspiracy theory and reminds me of Richard Pearl of Team B explaining that having no evidence that the Soviets were building sophisticated weapons systems only proved how much more sophisticated those weapons systems were than thought because they'd obviously been designed to escape detection.

Here's some news for all you ant-Hillary conspiracy theorists, far right and far left:

Hillary didn't have Vince Foster killed.

Hillary and Bill were dupes in the White Water scam not participants.

Hillary and Bill were not $100 million a year drug kingpins having people killed all over Arkansas.

That's where this ridiculous shit started, and now we have Hillary secretly selling uranium mines in some Bumfuckistan to the Russian military while she was Secretary of State for profit, and stealing the nomination, trying to steal the general election, using a private email server to hide illegal, even treasonous, activity, and supporting a military coup in Honduras, and helping US tax cheats in Panama when it was her amendment that guaranteed that that wouldn't happen, creating ISIS while fighting ISIS all her life and not winning, and causing Benghazi and every other bad thing that happened in Libya and Syria or anywhere else while she was Secretary of State and after.

Oh! And Hillary and Bill stole billions of dollars from poor Haitians after raising $30 million dollars for the Haiti relief fund, and the blood thirsty bitch was happy when told that the mass murdering terrorist fuckhead that was responsible for 254 deaths when his operatives shot down Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland was dead.

It's like Hillary's some kind of evil female Forrest Gump that instead of just being there for every important event for 40 years actually caused or had a hand in every important event for forty years that turned out bad.

Corneel wrote:

The_Metatron wrote:

Corneel wrote:

The_Metatron wrote:I always thought that socialism is a form of government under which the government controls the means of production. Does anyone think this is what Bernie has in mind?

Whether Bernie Sanders can be called a socialist under this or that definition, or not is utterly unimportant in view of the fact that he called himself socialist. You have a guy that basically said: "I, Bernie Sanders, am a socialist and not ashamed of it" and any discussion about whether he really is or not and what definition to use, distracts from the fact that the Republicans would have milked those statements like a fat-uddered Holstein for all their worth.

IOW, when your opponent says "I'm a socialist", and you know that socialism is considered a negative by a large part of the electorate, you don't care whether he's right or not, whether he satisfies all 666 criteria for being a good socialist, no, you pull those teats and milk, milk, milk.

Well, to act on a thing, people first have to assign meaning to that thing. The definition is everything in having a productive conversation.

I mean, in common usage, public schools, fire services, police services, postal services are socialist things. People don't seem to have a big problem with those things. Seems to me the main things Bernie wants to add to that list are medical care and higher education.

Can't see how either of those is a bad idea for a population. We'd all benefit from it.

Yes, but you are a reasonably informed person. And other people, enough to make the label of socialist a fairly toxic one in the US, think otherwise.

purplerat wrote:
Exactly. The same people who scream "BENGHAZI!!!!!!111" probably aren't concerned with the nuance between red-scare-commie socialism and Bernie Sanders "democratic socialism".

purplerat wrote:@willie71

These are the types of comments that get you "jumped on" when you direct them at other members:

Willie71 wrote:You see it as normal, as do a few other Americans on this site. People from elsewhere look at this and we can't believe you think it's normal.

Willie71 wrote:
American apologetics at its finest.

This is wholly different from saying that the general population lacks the political savvy to understand the difference between socialist and democratic socialist.

Briton wrote:

purplerat wrote:
Exactly. The same people who scream "BENGHAZI!!!!!!111" probably aren't concerned with the nuance between red-scare-commie socialism and Bernie Sanders "democratic socialism".

They are an irrelevance as they wouldn't vote for Sanders were he a standard establishment Democrat.

tolman wrote:

Willie71 wrote:Your post above. My comments weren't directed at you, and the member I posted my comment in response to isn't even American. It was a general comment about the understanding of the terms democratic socialist vs. socialist.

Unless someone actually thought Sanders was proposing doing away with elections, I'd have thought they would have taken him to be for 'democratic' socialism in the looser sense, and given that the definition of 'Democratic Socialism' as a thing in itself which they'd be likely to come across if they googled it seems to be fundamentally anti-capitalist, it would be easy to forgive them for just seeing Bernie as 'socialist' without any need for a qualifier if they believed his 'democratic socialist' self-description.

'Democratic Socialism' as someone would find defined on Wikipedia is somewhat 'more socialist' than almost any 'socialist' government seems to have recently been in any western democracy, and, I suspect, not something that would appeal to most Democrats or Independents.

If someone was simply for things like state-sponsored healthcare and sensible controls on businesses to stop them doing whatever they pleased and to encourage or help them to doing some things for the wider society, they'd seem to fit rather better in the 'social democrat' category.
And, indeed, that appears to be a criticism levelled at Sanders by some people - that he isn't really a democratic socialist even if he claims to be one.