Bernie Sanders and Democratic Socialism After Super Tuesday

[polly7]

Last edited Thu Mar 3, 2016, 01:08 AM - Edit history (1)

Bernie Sanders, Democratic Socialism, and the Other America (Part Five of a Five Part Series)

Super Tuesday is not the end for democratic socialism and for greater democratic governance. Whether Bernie Sanders is the next president or not, does not matter, precisely because the movement he has created intends to destroy the rigged political system of corporate contributions and a nation controlled by the wealthiest 1% of Americans. It is, nevertheless, a formidable task to subvert the dominant ideas. It must continually be shown that these ideas do not conform to reality, especially the reality for the working class and poor. For instance, the promise of social mobility that capitalism holds out to the public is continually challenged with economic crisis (boom-bust cycle). Downturns in the economy then result in layoffs, underemployment, and financial crisis for individuals. As a result, in the richest country in the world, 1 in 7 in the United States now relies on food stamps to survive. Clearly evidence like this contradicts the theory underlying capitalism and opens the door for the possibility of revolutionary change. Addressing the structural nature of capitalism itself is the precondition for remediating an economy that will better serve the common good.

It is working class people who have had to fight to win the 8-hour workday. It is working class people who have had to fight for and continue to fight for just wages, equal pay for women, and civil rights. None of these gains were handed to working class people by some impersonal law of economic development. Nor were they handed down by some benevolent politician. So who might best be the “change agent” for this reconstruction of democratic society? Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton? For sure Trump and the Republicans will never betray their class interests. What is at stake here, on post Super Tuesday, is the much larger issue of democratic governance in politics and economics. Democratic socialism is simply a means to promote a more democratic society, and for all intents and purposes, it transcends both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. The goal in this process is to end the oligarchy and plutocracy that has undermined the fundamentals of democratic rule.

Full article: http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/03/bernie-sanders-and-democratic-socialism-after-super-tuesday/

Oops .... I might have posted this in the wrong forum by mistake, but it's still a good read.

[rusty quoin]

1. We forget about the hard fights that created the middle class.

We forget what our labor movement did for us. They fought like it was war, with their lives.

I think it is a war too. The rich can never leave it well enough alone, and greed alone has no governor.