Pages

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Bernie Sanders' Campaign Manager Doesn't Like the Question of What a Socialist is

It's interesting. I wrote about this last night-that it's fair to broach the subject. On Sunday on Meet the Press, Bernie had come back with 'Well why don't you ask other candidates why they are capitalists?'

Nice tit for tat but it obscures the fact that we are a capitalist country with a capitalist not a socialist economy. So it's understandable that a socialist  will be asked for qualification. The news is not that someone is a capitalist as we all are. The news is someone who says they aren't. So does he barter for goods?

I mean Ralph Nader ran as a socialist in 2000 and his platform called for the nationalization of the Fortune 500. Now that's socialist. Does Bernie support this as either a short term or long term goal? So I wrote a post last night that Bernie says he's a socialist not a capitalist-which he stated to Chuck Todd,

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/10/bernie-says-hes-socialist-not-capitlaist.html

Right away some guy on Twitter who's always talking about McCarthyism says I'm a McCarthyite for asking the question. But these are Bernie's words not mine. I'm not putting words in his mouth.

If someone says 'I'm not a Democrat I'm a Socialist' why can't we ask what this means? Why would we elect them first and ask them after the election?

Tonight again Bernie's manager gut testy when Chris Matthews asked about it.

Bernie only wants to talk about helping people with their wages and other problems not have a debate about political philosophy. 

This is a dodge. If it doesn't matter and you see such a debate as a distraction then: stop calling yourself a Socialist. If you insist on continuing to do so don't be shocked if people have questions.

The you're not allowed to ask that response doesn't work.

On a deeper level it's shallow as well. Beyond simple policy positions there's always some sort of theory. This is what Krugman means by the accidental theorist. If you say all trade deals kill millions of jobs and destroy the American worker, you have a theory of the economy in mind, even if you can't explain it and get testy because of your inability to do so.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_3_10?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=krugman+accidental+theorist&sprefix=john+sides%2Caps%2C143

So, this gets Bernie and his CM rather peevish. Which suggests it's an issue that should be brought up again.

By the way on the question of trade I got a follower so peeved by me simply asking the question about how he knows that NAFTA has destroyed millions of jobs that he blocked me.

UPDATE. A real Marxist would not appreciate the I don't want to debate political philosophy response. Marxists see theory as important not a dodge from real issues.

No comments:

Post a Comment