Bernie Sanders: Progressive, Socialist, or just Liberal?

Is Bernie Sanders a really a Socialist or just another Liberal?

I cannot point out too many times that people tend to see specific a word as representing a specific, real object. But we all have had the experience that one word can mean many things, and that specific things may have more than one name. Words of the day: socialist and progressive.

The Democratic Party Presidential debate in New Hampshire on February 4, 2016 provided lessons in both semantics and real politics. It was a long debate. Anyone who listened to it, or who reads the transcript, might reasonably select different points to emphasizing in reporting on it. Not surprisingly, Bernie advocates believe he won the debate, while Hillary advocates believe she won the debate.

I am not concerned with who "won" the debate. I am not registered in any political party, but I certainly have a political agenda. And I have priorities. I put the environment first, international peace and justice second, and American economic & legal justice third. But I have an opinion about just about every detail of politics, society and culture.

To me the debate was an important read on Bernie Sanders' foreign policy. Hillary Clinton is too hawkish for my taste, but of course she is much closer to mainstream sentiments than I am.

Bernie harps on Clinton's vote to attack Iraq (which was a war crime, if you use the Nuremberg criteria for war crimes). But Bernie's rabble rousing speeches always fail to mention his vote to attack Afghanistan (which was a war crime, if you use the Nuremberg criteria for war crimes). When pointed out, he changes the subject, as he did in the debate. When it is pointed out to his supporters, they usually go back to the Clinton Iraq vote.

In the debate there was a second part to the question. Both Hillary and Bernie were asked, by the moderators: what would you do about the U.S. troops currently in Iraq. Hillary gave a clear answer without hesitation: she would leave the troops there, subject to the situation changing. Bernie tried to evade answering, but when pinned down said, or I should say mumbled, that he would leave the troops there.

Bernie is also for fighting ISIS, preferably with other nation's armies. It is a hypocritical position for someone who claims he has been screaming for 50 years about American job losses. Isn't killing ISIS soldiers a paid job? Why should that skilled labor go to foreigners?

Forgive me if I wax sarcastic. It's the "I'm perfect," from Bernie, "He's perfect" from his chorus of followers chanting that has become irritating. But then I'm from California, in fact northern California, where a Bernie Bot seems to be lurking in every smoke-filled room. No, not tobacco.

In short, when pushed to comment, Bernie was just as hawkish as Hillary. Too hawkish for me.

I was surprised and pleased that Hillary finally started poking at Bernie's allegedly perfect Progressive credentials. I think earlier in the campaign she and her advisors assumed she would beat Bernie easily. She did not want to alienate his followers, as she will need their support in November. But his follows drank his kool-aid, not knowing, as he himself remembers, what a bad little boy he has been these past thirty years.

Hillary pointed out that he voted to deregulate derivatives. Bernie did not deny it, he just went on to change the subject. Bernie Bots would be all over Hillary if she did something like that. They would claim it is proof that she is just a pawn for Goldman Sachs. But in all the commentary I've read today (admittedly just a fraction of what there is), I have seen no Bernie Bot criticizing Bernie for that vote. Maybe Bernie Bots don't know what a financial derivative is.

The Democratic Party is no home for Socialists. I would say the Democratic Party is socialist-influenced. Sanders bought the socialist line in college (so did I). Now, in his dotage, apparently doing something about it is on his bucket list. Great. Do something about it, if you can. I personally favor mixed systems, though I would probably argue about what specifically should be socialized and what should be left to free markets. Also I favor worker ownership of business, not the centralized government bureaucratic ownership of business that Sanders favors. Though I might make an exception in some cases, like localities owning their own utility companies.

So hurray for Bernie, but I've had enough of old white socialist male domination in my lifetime (most of my friends were fellow leftist activists). I'd like to try old white female liberal domination for 4 years, especially since the alternative is Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio.

I have watched a lot of bullying done by Bernie supporters both on the Internet and in my local area. At the comments section of the New York Times, for instance, you would think 98% of the Democratic Party voters favor Bernie. I've found that if I even hint to many voters around here that Hillary might be the better candidate, suddenly they want to talk. The rabidness of the Bernie Bullies is not something they can turn off. Most people need that personality defect to maintain a leftist stance in America. But bullying does not a Democracy make.

Bundling Immigration, the Economy, and the Environment

A few personal notes before getting onto the topic of the day:

I am now getting abusive email from a neo-Nazi who objects to my America: Republic or Democracy? essay. He favors republics over democracies. And presumably dictatorships over republics. I am sure conservatives who prefer a republic with minority rule by the rich are really glad to have neo-Nazi protection of their flanks on this issue.

Volunteers collected enough signatures to put me on the ballot for the state assembly race as the Green Party candidate (1st Assembly District, California), but not enough that I could be on without paying a filing fee, and not as many as I said I would require to show that it was worth running. The incumbent Democratic Party guy raises hundreds of thousands of dollars every cycle. If I had governed California as bad as he had I would fall on my sword, but this guy just has staff members collect his signatures and pay his filing fee. Even if I coughed up the filing fee, the expense (time and energy as well as money) of running a campaign is not the best use of me this year. On the other hand I have until March 12 to make a final decision.

My spring garden is well underway. Fava bean plants are about 4 inches high, radish sprouts are visible, and the earliest apple and plum trees have already started blooming. My tea plants were devastated by a rabbit or other rodent a few weeks ago, so I put wire cages around them and am hoping for a recovery.

I did a lot of good thinking about an Assembly campaign. How would I answer a question on immigration? Immigration is a great example of bundling issues, and the problems that causes.

The left, including the centrists who call themselves liberals, like to be pro-immigrant. The right is mainly anti-immigrant.

But the left also tends to be environmentalist, and most environmentalists will admit that we have an unsustainable global population. The population of the U.S. is too large too. My district is traditionally forested, so we could probably convert more forests to food production and sustain a larger local population, but lefty environmentalists are against that. You would think environmentalists would be against immigration, even legal immigration. It not only raises the population (and stress on the environment) in the short run, but immigrants tend to have a lot of children, so it leads to even more stress in the long run.

For many conservatives the bottom line is not "unborn babies," but the economy. That is why taxes are so important to them. They want economic expansion, the environment be damned. Low taxes are a priority. So you would think they would favor unlimited immigration, at least for middle-class to rich immigrants. Think how fast housing stock would be dried up if anyone who would buy a house would be allowed to immigrate legally and immediately.

So why is pro-immigration sentiment bundled with contradictory leftist views, and anti-immigrant sentiment bundled with contradictory rightist views?

Emotionally leftists can identify with immigrants; conservatives see immigrants are foreign in a scary way. Other issues feed into these basic emotions. Liberals and conservatives both say they care about human rights, but the rights they care about differ in subtle ways. I think the liberal-left feeling is that you really need to treat all individuals equally, so if someone is physically present in the U.S., even after illegal entry, they should be treated like citizens, who are citizens precisely because they are phyiscally present.

Conservatives feel no similar obligation. Human rights are largely property rights, and property rights have a history for each individual. To the extent citizenship is a property right, you can't just get it by standing on American soil. You need to establish title.

Would it be possible to change the bundling? I have seen it tried several times. I have seen environmentalists argue against illegal immigration (trying to get large organization like the Siera Club to take a sensible position). They get screamed at as being racist neo-nazis for even trying to discuss the subject. On the other hand I have seen many attempts by Republican business men to try to get fellow Republicans to show some sense about the business benefits of immigration. Even former President George W. Bush tried to make this argument. The only result was that Republican politicians learned to keep any pro-business, pro-immigration ideas out of their campaign rhetoric. The rank-and-file will not stand for it.

Locally (Humboldt County and Mendocino County, California) the talk is usually in terms of development. Liberals and environmentalists are usually anti-development but pro-immigrant, which is contradictory. Conservative are pro-development and anti-immigrant. Also contradictory.

I would like to see the immigration issue unbundled from the liberal v. conservative fight so that we can talk about it rationally. There are economic benefits to high level of immigration, and there are environmental consequences to immigration. There are also legitimate human rights issues involved.