*The Malicious Myth of “Democratic” Socialism* *---*
*The Key to Bernie Sanders's Appeal Isn't Socialism. It's Yiddish Socialism.Daniel KatzFebruary 14, 2016At a rally last October, Remaz Abdelgader — a hijab-wearing Muslim, a senior at George Mason University and the daughter of Sudanese immigrants — stood to ask Bernie Sanders a question.She started by referring to the Islamophobic bigotry of many of the Republican candidates. As she continued, calling herself “an American Muslim student who aspires to change the world,” Sanders interrupted her to invite her up to the stage and embrace her, and then, respectfully, he gave her the opportunity to finish her question onstage on equal footing. How would Sanders respond, Abdelgadar asked, to the Islamophobia spouted by the Republicans and amplified by the media? Sanders gently took her hand and stood next to her at the lectern as he responded.Had this scene been scripted, it would have been a remarkable tableau vivant. It was not rehearsed, but neither was it accidental. Sanders’s response to her question gave us a rich insight into the Socialist worldview that underpinned the Jewish and multicultural Brooklyn environment in which he was raised, which goes a good way toward explaining his broad and growing appeal.Sanders began by equating anti-Semitism, racism and Islamophobia. He hearkened to his own Jewish heritage and recalled the murders of his father’s family in Nazi concentration camps. Racism is not only about pent up hatred and stupidity, he explained; it is also a tool that politicians and the wealthy elite use to keep workers divided and to weaken their efforts to organize. Politicians, he said, told white workers, “Hey, you think you’re in trouble, but you’re better off than blacks, that can’t drink out of water fountains and go to your school.” By pitting black against white, men against women and straight against gay, “that’s how the rich got richer while everybody else was fighting each other.”In this brief moment, Sanders illustrated the central tenets of Yiddish Socialism, the dominant political and cultural current among the working-class Jews of Brooklyn where Sanders was born at the end of the Great Depression. In New York and elsewhere, Yiddish Socialists in the early 20th century founded and invigorated fraternal societies, newspapers, schools, athletic leagues, summer camps, theaters and, especially, unions. The immigrant generation were inspired by their experiences in the revolutionary movements in Russia, where intellectuals and militants from up to 100 ethnic groups learned to respect their own and one another’s cultures to be able to speak with and rally ordinary peasants and workers to fight the oppression of the Czarist State.In America as in Russia, employers tried to pit one group against the other, and so Jews reached out to their co-workers and neighbors across races, ethnicities and religions. In the 1920s and 1930s, Jewish unionists and their Italian anarchist allies approached the very black and Puerto Rican workers who had been hired as strike breakers to join the union. Then they created organizational structures that encouraged workers of different racial-ethnic backgrounds to explore their cultures in a militant union context. No union did so more successfully than the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union, which melded strike preparations and ferocious picket line defense training with multicultural sports tournaments and music, dance and theater festivals.Why Bernie Sanders Needs a Come-to-Jesus MomentJ.J. GoldbergFebruary 4, 2016Yiddish Socialists succeeded in organizing the men’s and women’s garments industries, among others, and created the foundation for economic security for workers of all cultures. The unions they built gained increasing influence in local and national politics and helped pass New Deal, Veterans, and Great Society legislation that established middle class living standards for millions of American workers. Working with the Roosevelt, Truman and Johnson administrations, they fought for and won labor rights, social security, minimum wages and housing subsidy legislation, though not for everyone.But the McCarthyist Red Scare of the late 1940s and 1950s suppressed much Jewish Leftist activism, and by the time a radical critique of American and Western society reemerged in the 1960s, many Jewish leaders, intellectuals and activists saw themselves as having a seat at the table.Following World War II, these Jews — the children and grandchildren of the refugees from Czarist Russia — had begun to transition from Yiddish Socialism to Jewish Liberalism. Their critiques of capitalism softened and their solutions to social problems were more about reforms than radical systemic transformations.But even many liberal Jews retained a sensibility about the importance of racial-ethnic cultural diversity to a healthy democratic and economically stable society. Radical and liberal Jews alike overwhelmingly supported the Black Freedom Struggle and Johnson’s Great Society programs.It was in this environment in the early 1960s that Sanders joined the Young People’s Socialist League and organized for the Congress on Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.Bernie Sanders Should Embrace His Kibbutz Past — Not Shrink From ItA. Daniel RothFebruary 8, 2016For some, Sanders’s call for revolution is mild. Medicare for all and increased taxes on the top 1% won’t change the economic, political and social structures. Perhaps. Sanders has for more than 50 years embraced a form of socialism that is both radical in its critique of social injustice and pragmatic in offering solutions. But his vision is also deeper and more complex than most commentators understand. His “political revolution,” steeped in a specific tradition, time and place, does not privilege class warfare over identity politics, or vice versa. This is the key to his growing appeal.Sanders is giving voice to an emerging current among those who occupied Wall Street, declared they are undocumented and unafraid, and insisted that black lives matter. He understands all oppression as an ecosystem. An injury to one is an injury to all. And the solutions have to be broad and interconnected. Throughout American history, too many movements for social justice have ignored, ridiculed or barred some other group. Sanders’s call to unite poor people, people of color, women, LGBT people, students, immigrants, people of all faiths and no faith, and others, is inspired by an emerging movement of inclusion that may prove to be longer lasting, more effective and more powerful than we have seen before in this country.Daniel Katz is the author of “All Together Different: Yiddish Socialists, Garment Workers, and the Labor Roots of Multiculturalism” (NYU Press, 2013).Read more: http://forward.com/opinion/333489/the-key-to-bernie-sanderss-appeal-isnt-socialism-its-yiddish-socialism/#ixzz4AF7EFDO6* On Monday, May 30, 2016 at 8:45:33 AM UTC-5, MJ wrote: > > > > *Meanwhile, in the U.S. hordes of “millennials,” the first PC generation, > a generation that has been indoctrinated since kindergarten in the alleged > evils of capitalism and taught to worship Big Government as their savior, > are wildly cheering a 74-year-old communist who wants to be president on > the promise of making America the next Venezuela. *May 30, 2016 > > *Bernie Sanders’ Sick Utopia: The Malicious Myth of “Democratic” Socialism > *By Thomas DiLorenzo > > In my forthcoming (July 18) book, *The Problem with Socialism* > <http://www.amazon.com/dp/1621575896/ref=as_sl_pc_tf_lc?tag=lewrockwell&camp=213381&creative=390973&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=1621575896&adid=1QSSHFD6FMDZSE6EQGP4&&ref-refURL=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lewrockwell.com%2F%3Fpost_type%3Darticle%26p%3D590558%26preview%3Dtrue>, > > I describe how socialism is always and everywhere an economic poison > regardless of the form of government. Socialism is socialism. As Frederic > Bastiat explained in his classic, *The Law* > <http://www.amazon.com/dp/1612930123/ref=as_sl_pc_tf_lc?tag=lewrockwell&camp=213381&creative=390973&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=1612930123&adid=03Z30PMZ8T8934CG2GE1&&ref-refURL=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lewrockwell.com%2F%3Fpost_type%3Darticle%26p%3D590558%26preview%3Dtrue>, > > the imposition of one social “plan” or set of “plans” on all of the society > – a defining characteristic of all varieties of socialism will have the > same effects whether it is instituted by democracy or by a dictatorship. > Obamacare is Obamacare regardless of whether it was imposed by democracy or > by a dictator. > > All of history has proven that the effects of socialism are always and > everywhere mass impoverishment; the destruction of civil liberties; > tyrannical government; a population dependent on the state for survival; > and the enrichment of the ruling class. Everyone is equally impoverished > while the political elite live high on the hog, whether it is the Soviet > Union, African socialism, Latin American socialism, or any other kind of > socialism. > > At best, socialism turns people into spoiled children constantly demanding > more and more freebies at the expense of . . . . who knows? At worst, it > becomes a totalitarian nightmare where dissenters are mass murdered by the > millions, as was the case with twentieth-century socialism all over the > world. > > The latest display of the effects of the malicious myth of “democratic” > socialism is the economic implosion of oil-rich Venezuela. When the proud > socialist Hugo Chavez became president he nationalized industries; > redistributed land and businesses to political cronies; imposed pervasive, > government-imposed price controls; and made himself popular by giving away > lots of free stuff – even houses. He was a Latin American Bernie Sanders, > in other words. The entire socialist world spoke of the new “socialist > paradise” of Venezuela. > > But socialism is always and everywhere economic poison because of several > fundamental reasons. It destroys work incentives for one thing. It is > also guided by the false pretense that a few politicians can somehow do a > better job of possessing and utilizing the detailed knowledge that millions > of consumers, entrepreneurs, workers, business managers, investors, and > market participants who make real market economies work possess. And it > foolishly asserts that rational economic decisions can be made without the > benefit of private property, market prices based on supply and demand, and > a market feedback mechanism that rewards those who serve their customers > well with profits while punishing those who do not with losses. By > ignoring these realities the economic implosion of Venezuela was perfectly > predictable and inevitable. > > Venezuela has become reminiscent of the old Soviet Union where there were > shortages of everything because of the economic chaos caused by the > elimination of markets based on private property and prices determined by > supply and demand. A May 21 article in *The Telegraph* by Szu Ping Chan > about how socialism turned Venezuela into “debt and hyperinflation hell” > describes how people there now routinely “queue alongside hundreds of other > Venezuelans for food, nappies, milk, and other basic goods.” Everything is > in short supply – or no supply – thanks to Chavez’s socialist price > controls. Black markets are the only thing saving the Venezuelan economy. > > A recent “yahoo” news article entitled “Venezuela: Where a Hamburger is > official $170” wrote of how stores are shuttered; restaurants are empty; > “nobody is buying anything”; there are long lines of people waiting around > stores for something – anything – that they can use to barter for things > they actually need. This again is exactly reminiscent of daily life in the > old Soviet Union. > > Venezuela has become one of the worst places in the world to do business, > ranking 186th out of 189 in a World Bank index of “business friendliness.” > Only Libya, South Sudan, and Eritrea were worse. Political corruption is > rampant; of course. No one can be in business without paying the > “appropriate” bribes to one or another political hacks and criminals. > > People in Venezuela “cannot afford to get ill because when you turn up at > the hospital there is nothing,” says one Venezuelan cited by *The > Telegraph*. Sick people are desperate for antibiotics, which are all but > non-existent. > > Explosive government spending combined with declining oil prices made > Venezuela a “debt hell” as Chavez and his successor, fellow socialist > demagogue Nicolas Maduro, refused to admit the folly of their ways and > resorted to massive money printing. Today a hamburger costs the equivalent > of $170; a night in a hotel is $6,900; and middle-class monthly salaries > savaged by inflation are worth about $35. Food prices more than tripled > just in the past month; and *the annual inflation rate is 4,505 percent*. > One Venezuelan interviewed for the *Telegraph* article said that he had > to spend more than half his monthly income just on toilet tissue. > Socialism has resulted in the Zimbabwe-ization of Venezuela. > > The Venezuelan government fails to perform what all governments claim to > be their primary responsibility: maintaining law and order in society. > Caracas is now the world’s most violent city *in the world* according to > the Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice, which computes such > rankings. > > The drinking water in Flint, Michigan is like fresh, Rocky Mountain spring > water compared to the drinking water in Venezuela, described by a May 29 *New > York Times* article about the country’s “hunger, blackouts, and > government shutdown” as “a brownish color” that makes people sick, with > many Venezuelans contracting “skin irritations from showering . . .” One > woman is quoted as saying that because she has been showering with this > government water “her body is filled with small bubbles and they sting > horribly.” > > Like all other socialist demagogues, Venezuela’s wealthy, > living-lives-of-luxury, socialist political elite blame all the disasters > they have created on various bogeymen, from “the American government’s > efforts to destabilize the country” (according to the *New York Times*), > to “a drought that has crippled Venezuela’s ability to generate > hydroelectric power.” This last reason is reminiscent of how the Soviets > blamed the results of their disastrous policy of socialized agriculture on > seventy straight years of “drought.” > > Just about anyone who is able to leave Venezuela is doing so. So far, > it’s a much easier task than leaving that other Caribbean socialist > “paradise,” Cuba. > > Venezuela has joined a very long list of countries whose economies have > been utterly destroyed by just a few years of socialism. Meanwhile, in the > U.S. hordes of “millennials,” the first PC generation, a generation that > has been indoctrinated since kindergarten in the alleged evils of > capitalism and taught to worship Big Government as their savior, are wildly > cheering a 74-year-old communist who wants to be president on the promise > of making America the next Venezuela. (Like the Soviet communists who > called their government the *U*nion of *S*oviet *S*ocialist *R*epublics, > not the Union of Soviet Communist Republics, I don’t distinguish between > “communists” and “socialists”; they’re all the same gang of looters, > frauds, demagogues, and tyrants). > > https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/05/thomas-dilorenzo/sick-utopia/ > -- -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "PoliticalForum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
