Katrina vanden Heuvel: Bernie Sanders Does Small "d" Democracy

[marmar]

from The Nation:




BLOG | Posted 04/05/2008 @ 9:31pm
Bernie Sanders Does Small "d" Democracy


Last Monday, well over 300 Vermonters packed City Hall in downtown Burlington. It was standing room only with every seat on the floor and in the balcony occupied. The occasion was a town hall meeting with Senator Bernie Sanders, a forum he thoroughly enjoys and frequently hosts throughout the state because, as he said later, "it brings the government close to the people."

Ambassador Pekka Lintu of Finland was the guest speaker. Sanders invited him because he wants his constituents to know about a country that has quality universal healthcare, free childcare, free college education, employment benefits unimaginable to most American workers, virtually no childhood poverty, and one of the most competitive economies in the world. While Sanders anticipated a good turnout, the actual attendance exceeded his expectation. "It shows," he would later say, "that people are hungry to hear about alternative visions to the way we are doing things in this country."

Neither Lintu nor Sanders denied the differences between the US and Finland – in population, size, and diversity. "Yet as we acknowledge the difference we should also acknowledge that we are all human beings with very much the same DNA, the same kind of intelligence and the same human needs," Sanders said. "Is there something that we can learn from model?"

Lintu is a striking presence – tall and debonair. (One woman in the audience joked that he was "Finland's best evidence of the quality of its healthcare system.") But while Sanders has a straightforward, fearless style that his constituents have grown accustomed to, Lintu has a dry sense of humor and is soft-spoken. So much so that as he began his remarks several audience members called out for him to speak louder. Lintu finally joked, "Finns are rather non-talkative people, rather known as shy people. We say that you can know the difference between an introverted Finn and an extroverted Finn. An introverted Finn, when he talks to you, he's looking at his own shoes. An extroverted Finn, when he's talking to you, he's looking at your shoes." ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?bid=7&pid=306816

[Gold Metal Flake]

1. Um...

What about paying for all of these services? "Well, I think it would be an exaggeration to say that Finns love taxes," Lintu joked. "But taxes are not a bad word…. I think that the success of the system… what you get, a family with two kids… free daycare, free preschool, primary school, high school and university. And then healthcare." Sanders added, "I think the issue is not so much what you pay – it's what you get for what you pay."

Look, Americans LIKE paying trillions for things that get used once and destroyed. They LIKE having a malevolent, predatory empiristic foreign policy that is invisible to them as long as they can have their dirt bikes and their Hummer H2s. They LIKE handing down massive debt to their great-grandchildren. They LIKE allowing their schools to rot from neglect. They LIKE declairing that they are "the best in the world" despite all evidence to the contrary. So stop rocking the boat with your commie nonsense.













Hail Bernie! Democratic Socialism is the real future of America.