Bernie Sanders for the motha fuckin win

[the Left™]

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Hes like so awesome i just wish he wasnt a reformist

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Bernie means well. The problem is that he didn't have a radical left behind him.

Unfortunately, he's not going to run in 2012.I guess it'll have to be Jill Stein, sigh.

Not that bourgeoisie elections mean that much of course.

[Susurrus]

Is he a reformist, or does he just try to improve the conditions for the working class? I don't think he's ever gone into detail about his socialist politics.

[RedSonRising]

Is he a reformist, or does he just try to improve the conditions for the working class? I don't think he's ever gone into detail about his socialist politics.

From what I understand, he likes the Social-Democratic model of Scandinavia. Though whether that's a personal preference, or a compromise in the face of popular alienation and/or the limits of US institutions, I can't say.

He seems like a good guy.

[Drosophila]

I heard him say in an interview that capitalism is "innovative."

[Agathor]

He isn't particularly left-wing. Left-wingers aren't invited onto CNN and NBC for friendly chats.

He's regarded by the Democrat bosses as an unofficial member of their party. He caucuses with them, celebrates his victories with them, and dissuades other Independent candidates from running against them. In return, the Democrats and their AFL-CIO unions fund his campaigns, give speeches for him, and only field token candidates against him, that is, when they don't just allow him to run unopposed.

He doesn't take any positions that might discomfort his Democrat allies. He voted to enforce sanctions against Palestine when Hamas won an election, and he voted to support Israel's war against Lebanon. In response the leader of the War Resisters League sent him a letter saying, "Because of your vote of support for the Israeli actions, I would hope any friends and contacts of mine would not send you funds, nor give you their votes.” I put him well to the right of Democrats such as Dennis Kucinich and Gore Vidal.

I've never heard him utter the word "nationalization", or criticize capitalism.

“Not only am I going to vote for John Kerry, I am going to run around this country and do everything I can to dissuade people from voting for Ralph Nader... I am going to do everything I can, while I have differences with John Kerry, to make sure that he is elected.”

http://socialistworker.org/2006-2/610/610_11_BernieSanders.shtml

[Susurrus]

I heard him say in an interview that capitalism is "innovative."

So did Marx.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

So did Marx.

In the 19th century. This is the 21st. Welcome.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

"Bernie Sanders votes with the Democrats 98 percent of the time." - Howard Dean (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7924139)

Sanders has endorsed every Democratic nominee for president of the United States since 1992.

A great hero of the working class!

[A Marxist Historian]

From what I understand, he likes the Social-Democratic model of Scandinavia. Though whether that's a personal preference, or a compromise in the face of popular alienation and/or the limits of US institutions, I can't say.

He seems like a good guy.

Well of course he likes Scandinavia. When he first got elected to Congress, he ran on the Socialist Party ticket. He left the SP a decade or so ago because it's by now a phonebooth sized operation and he is after all a US Senator.

He is America's one and only oldstyle right wing Social Democratic politician, in the Norman Thomas-Michael Harrington mold. He ain't no Eugene Debs, that's for sure. He does not want class war, he wants class peace and class collaboration, with the workers treated fairly as opposed to the way they get treated now.

The world has gone so far to the right since the Soviet Union collapsed that any mainstream figure who still believes in socialism of any kind seems awful good these days. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king...

-M.H.-

[danyboy27]

Bernie sanders is a reformist, and people shouldnt kid themselves into putting their hope up for the guy. After all he have no trouble with private ownership of the means of production and he believe that the electoral process is the only way to get thing done.

there is nothing wrong in supporting some of its action, but quite frankly its too little too late.

[Obs]

He means well, but he's been running his head against the same wall since '72. If he hasn't figured it out by now, he never will.

"Saving American Democracy," what a joke.

[Drosophila]

So did Marx.

Eh... watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5rcnAWaC64

Like most social democrats, he starts off by saying that "capitalism does a lot of great things, but recently we've been getting 'unfettered, cowboy capitalism' that's shrinking the middle class" Isn't that the type of thought we're against here on revleft? Maybe I'm mislead. Anyway, I don't think Sanders is particularly harmful to the leftist cause, he's just not very helpful.

[Ned Kelly]

Bernie Sanders is a social democrat in a country without a social democratic scene...if he were in Australia he'd be a dyed in the wool Laborite..

[RadioRaheem84]

I would barely call him a social democrat in the real sense of the word.

He's great. I love the guy but even social democrats call for nationalization.

[Ostrinski]

Depends on how we measure great. I mean I'd love to kick back and have a cold one with him and talk about capitalism but he and all other bourgeois politicians are of no worth to the working class in any pragmatic sense.