Sanders & The Terror Of Socialism, vs The Real Dangers

 

A note to those on the right:

Universal public health care is considered a basic human right in Canada, the UK, Europe, and every civilized country. It also happens to cost less than the private profit-driven US system – a lot less.

So let’s not be too dogmatic. The market is good at some things, but not everything. Does anyone remember private fire stations? No? That’s because they didn’t work, so we abandoned them.

It’s the same for private, for profit health care systems: they don’t work, they’re cruel, mean-spirited, morally bankrupt and depraved, and they furthmore cost too much. They are corporate vampirism, and they are bankrupting both the people and the Treasury of the nation.

A Green New Deal is simply necessary in order to create real jobs, restart the economy, and keep us from destroying ourselves and the planet we live on – and can easily be paid for if we tax the richest 1% more fairly and equitably, instead of laying the bulk of the tax burden on small business, the middle class and the poor, which is economically foolish as well as morally reprehensible.

As to Sanders self-described position as a democratic socialist, we should not let that frighten us. Virtually all of Europe is democratic socialist to one degree or another. They have elections, and civil liberties are more intact than they are in the new police state USA. They have mixed economies, part socialist, part market economy, and it works very well.

What you need to be worried about is not public libraries and fire departments, schools and health care, in a mixed economy as Sanders would encourage. What you need to worry about is fascism – and that is being brought in fast by the Wall Street oligarchy and their neoliberal and noeconservative prostitutes in high office.

Bernie is an FDR New Deal compromise kind of guy. Hold your nose and vote for him, because the alternative may well be civil war, or planetary death.

JTR,
March 29, 2020