Yes — that's exactly what I said:
Nowhere on that page does it say that Bernie Sanders said those words.
It even says "By: Valley News Editorial Board" under the title.
sorry. 
Bombs sent to Obama, Clintons & CNN
- Thread starter XeNoN89
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Yes — that's exactly what I said:
Nowhere on that page does it say that Bernie Sanders said those words.
It even says "By: Valley News Editorial Board" under the title.
sorry. 
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You've literally linked to the article which states: Valley News Editorial board....
https://www.vnews.com/Opinion/Editorials
Bernie Saunders was not "The man who said it" as you claimed above.
Soldato
Denmark is not Socialist (even had a Danish Minister come out and tell Sanders it was not).
Sweden is not socialist either. It has large Socialist economic policies that stem from a somewhat remarkable capitalist base. Without Capitalism, Socialism would only exist at the point of a sword.
Equally, my only query on Democratic Socialism is what happens when people don't want it? How is the means of production recaptured from an entity that uses people with guns to do their bidding?
I'm well aware of that.
Well, I guess with like elections and stuff… you know, like we do in this country.
You do realise 'democratic socialism' isn't socialism/communism writ large, don't you?
Bernie Sanders just wants to make the US more like the democracies/economies of Western Europe — as @FortuitousFluke has already pointed out.
Its posted on his political website without clarification or further comment.
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Did he say it? Yes or no?
He intentionally and explicitly endorsed it but didn't say it directly happy with that compromise?
Citation needed.
Unless you're assuming because it's on the website then it gets is full endorsement and backing?
People also seem to be focusing on, quite conveniently, that last paragraph and ignoring the other 90% of the article which raised legitimate points which is probably why it's on there in the first place.
Focusing on wealth disparity is one of silliest things Socialists do.
If Trump's political website hosted an article endorsing an actually facistic country as being a good example of good governance I doubt you would have any compunction assigning it to him.
Soooo he hasn't endorsed it then? Ok, we're on the same page then.
Nice try deflecting though with the 'BUT WHAT ABOUT IF TRUMP DID IT' line
Soooo he hasn't endorsed it then? Ok, we're on the same page then.
Nice try deflecting though with the 'BUT WHAT ABOUT IF TRUMP DID IT' line
Posting an political article, without comment, on your political website isn't an endorsement?
Strange old world.
People who think that a wealth gap is a problem are small minded and stupid, it doesn't matter if you have £1,000,000,000 if I have £1,000,000. Focus on bringing the bottom up and not on bringing the top down. Communism is evil and does not work.
Soldato
In order to do that you need to redistribute or grow to some extent. You can't just make everyone a millionaire. And if you're going to grow you also need to make sure that the proportion of that growth going to those below the top rung of the ladder is reasonable, in order to do that you need to legislate for it, which means forcing companies to pay their staff a reasonable wage, which in turn means reducing profits for those at the top.
Nobody on here is advocating communism.
Redistribution is Communism. You don't get it. You don't need to force companies to pay a minimum to staff, in a healthy job market there is competition for labour which drives wages up. You get to that point by making it easy for new companies to form by removing barriers to entry such as excessive regulation. Competition and lower regulation is what makes a healthy economy, taking a companies profits and a private citizens wages to be redistributed to less productive labour leads to less competition, why strive for success and work harder/more efficiently than my colleagues if I can just receive hand outs? That's how you collapse an economy, when suddenly too many people are doing that.
Soldato
Okay this is nonsense. First off, redistribution is not communism, every benefit currently in force in this Country is a form of redistribution, as is the minimum wage. There is a vast swathe of ideology to the left of free market capitalism before you get to Stalinist purges.
Your example of how a magnificent free market economy will lead to prosperity for all is also completely flawed. Trickle down economics is a myth. It's a myth because it requires companies to act outside of their own self interest. In order for an unregulated free market to achieve what you outlined you need to be assured that the market will support it's workforce to a sufficient level of it's own free will. That doesn't happen. Even with the regulation we have in place now you have organisations relying on 0 hour contracts to drive down costs in order to increase profits, you have companies offshoring manufacturing to 3rd world countries because it allows them to circumvent laws designed to protect labourers and therefore reduces costs.
The fact of the matter is in the world as it stands you need a mixture of capitalism and regulation, you also need an element of socialism. The only thing that is up for debate is what the levels need to be set at. Coming into a thread like this and labelling all forms of socialist policy, and/or all forms of wealth distribution as communism is just absolute tripe.
I would prefer to see an increase in socialist policies to create an economy and a social structure that means people are able to enjoy a decent life in return for their work. I don't want to see a situation where even more of the power in society is handed to the mega rich few at the expense of everyone else.
I have a sneaking suspicion that you're going to read all of that and somehow believe that I'm advocating for the state to come in and confiscate all houses worth more than £1 mil so they can be handed out to the proletariat, but hey ho.
I think you actually need to read up on that terminology as most of what you've written below is hogwash and completely back to front. You don't get income redistribution in Communism because you don't have the income inequality to start with!
Seems the western modern capitalist economies seem to disagree with you, unless you think Australia, UK, America and virtually every other developed country in the world are all secretly Communist. And to have a minimum wage, we are talking about the lowest end of unskilled labour, where there's not really a driver of skill competing to raise wages just the tendency of companies to exploit workers to drive wages down.
Lower regulation also leads to more corruption and an unhealthy economy. A healthy economy needs to be a mix of regulation with free market ideals mixed with social constraints. Basically what most modern functioning economies work by. And the most functioning and happiest countries invariably tend to be the ones with the lowest income/wealth inequality and they do this by "income redistribution" and they aren't Communist.
Soldato
Good to hear, Sanders doesn't think that.
So, state controls all production one day... Then the day after election is can be bought up by wealthy people?
Yes. But the policies espoused as clearly heading that way... $15 minimum wage for example is a massive item in the US. It is an attempt to force (by Government) companies to pat to try and bring people up a level. The issue is as wages increase so drastically as to then see rent reflect the amount and food costs as the cost of food has to increase to account for the increased cost in production.
In some respects its a very very sneaky element of Marxism. If you don't know anything about it, pick up the Deat- I mean the Communist Manifesto and read:
Communism is the abolition of private property and then read the ten principles/acts that would need to be.
Where taxes are enormous. Standards of living are high/very high I quite agree but as we are starting to see social burdens are on the horizon. Its ok using the country credit card because its the tax payers picking up the tab.
Read Friedmans 4th rule of ways to spend money and you will get the idea.
Rubbish from the Democratic Socialists of America's website....
This is classic socialism 'the collective ownership of the means or production and distribution' wrapped up in fancy disengenous language to hide its true intent from fools.
Of course, like a lot of cotemporary socialists, they claim not to want a centrally planned, autocratic state preffering to offer the fantasy world where decisions are made 'democratically' by the people locally affected but any one with half a brain can realise that such an economic system would not and cannot ever work in a complicated, globalised econony in a huge country like the USA. Hence whatever their fantasy claims are the ends will always be the same.... A totalitarian mess ending in mass poverty, flight ofnthe populace and death.
If you want to see what their true aims are it's fairly simple to work out from their website
So their aim (beyond the 'short term') is to eliminate private corporations.... it's right there in their website. Europe is full of and is relatively successful due to the large number of corporations employing people and providing goods and services to pay for social programs (which are not socialism)
So don't give me this nonsence about American democratic socialism being just turning the US into a scandinavian European country.
Forced, communal ownership of buisness also destroys a lot of entrepreneurship as there is little incentive to work harder then your peers or be innovative.
And yes I am aware that Bernie isn't a paid up member of the DSA but the same isn't true of the younger wave of socialists he has inspired like DSA member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
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I started writing a response to both of these posts and then decided I was wasting my time.
You're both so wedded to the idea that anything even remotely left-wing is going to lead to the next Communist revolution that nothing I say, or anyone else on here says, is going to change your mind.
Soldato
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Its no wonder these people are so scared if this is their true beliefs.