Print this post.[box type=”info”] Editor’s Note: The following discussion excerpts are taken from our Facebook page. The topics include: How to reach out with radical ideas to the larger public; tactics & strategies; the promise and illusion of the Bernie Sanders candidacy; questions of class and socialism, and many related subjects. The value of this thread is that while it contains opinions from people with different types of background and expertise in politics, it always remains accessible to any intelligent person, functioning as a flexible forum. In that sense it is a good reflection of how thinking Americans are trying to comprehend the current realities and challenges presented by the rapid implosion of American society triggered by the criminality of its plutocratic government. The thread was started by Tom Baldwin. [/box]
WELL, WELL LOOK AT THIS EXHIBITION OF PRINCIPLE!
From RICK KISSELL
from the June 1 edition of “Ballot Access News”:
BERNIE SANDERS APPEARS TO JOIN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT-I). Is he for real? That is the question.
On April 28, Senator Bernie Sanders said he will seek the Democratic nomination, even though he is an independent. U.S. parties in the past have nominated non-members for President or Vice-President, and at first Sanders did not say he was giving up his independent identity. But on April 30, on his FEC report, he filled in the question “Party affiliation” as “Democratic Party.” He did this because the New Hampshire Secretary of State had said he would not let Sanders on the Democratic ballot unless Sanders became a Democrat. Sanders could have defeat this ruling, with help from the Democratic Party. In 1986 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states cannot ban parties from nominating non-members, so the party and Sanders could have sued. Also New Hampshire permits write-ins in presidential primaries, and both Lyndon Johnson in 1968 and Henry Cabot Lodge in 1964 won a New Hampshire presidential primary on write-ins.
“He who sups with the Devil should have a long spoon” — 14th Century English proverb
I see Sanders as a fascist – not a communist – because of his fondness and support for the oil and resource wars and the military industrial complex. BTW – didn’t Germany’s fascists also refer to themselves as “socialists”? – or am I mistaken about that? Wouldn’t a socialist have something to say about institutional racism, BlackLivesMatter, or the prison industrial complex; I only hear a deafening silence. Since the prison industrial complex provides the equivalent of a new slave labour force, any socialist should be committed to demolishing it as a precondition to any real hope or change.
Remember: All captions and pullquotes are furnished by the editors, NOT the author(s).
1 comment
Excellent thread. Fine debaters. We certainly need informed discussion of so many things… that to watch these people wrestling with the issues we all face has been a shot in the arm! Thanks for posting.
Javier Mardones
Jersey City