In last night's debate, he was confronted with his praise for Castro and Ortega and his preference for collectivism over individualism. In my opinion, Sanders is a full blown Socialist. He doesn't wish to reign in big business. He wants to destroy big business. His views on Castro and Ortega and his praise for their economic systems render him unelectable in a general election IMO. I don't want this Independent in my Party.

Big business was exploiting the Cuban workers and Castro stepped in when they revolted.

Right ? Sanders is not a soft Socialist.

Let's talk about union workers being assassinated and abducted in Chile. How are the worker protections working out? Maybe we should ask Hillary's bud Larry Summers who wants to export more jobs to these under polluted third world countries.

It's got nothing to do with actual freedom, which must include freedom from want if it is to mean anything.

Bernie isn't going to take anyone's freedom away.

destroy is incorrect.....regulate and control for the public good..yes...not destroy.(my opinion)

I think we witnessed a turning point last night. Hillary's campaign will cut a commercial pointing out just how Socialist Sanders really is. The Republicans must be drooling over this development of Sanders' past statements on Castro, Ortega and collectivism over individualism. This is why Sanders is an Independent. But, we'll have to wait and see how this plays out.

We the people.....

Sanders praised his system. His system did not include freedom of speech or the press. His system favored state owned businesses over free enterprise. No "we the people" to be found. Castro and Ortega's government made all the decisions for "the people".

Did the capitalists provide healthcare and education? No, they worked the uneducated workers until they died. They weren't free to talk about it either.

You don't have to be hostile to everything that has happened in Cuba to be for democratization there. The free education and healthcare programs didn't oppress everybody.

And Sandinsta Nicaragua was always far more democratic than Cuba, so it's silly to act like Ortega and Castro are identicaL

You just want a Cuba run by the rich...even though nothing progressive or humane could ever happen in that kind of Cuba.

Either I missed that part or you're imagining it.

“In 1959 […] everybody was totally convinced that Castro was the worst guy in the world and all of the Cuban people were going to rise up in rebellion against Fidel Castro,” said Sanders. “They forgot that he educated their kids, gave their kids healthcare, totally transformed the society.”

Do you think educating kids and giving them healthcare is collectivism?

Collectivism has been used to refer to a diverse range of political and economic positions, including nationalism, direct democracy, representative democracy, monarchy, and communism. Collectivism does not need a government or political system to exist (another example of that would be a religious organization that stresses "group goals" within it that is not backed by a government like American or Canadian society), but it can also exist within a political system rather than simply "on the ground". Primarily, Collectivism describes how groups orient themselves naturally within a society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivism

I think someone may have stumbled into the wrong site.

doesn't want to talk about how capitalism drove Castro into power or how that individual liberty thing is working out in Chile.

He suppressed freedom of speech and the press and imprisoned those that spoke out. He delivered these things strictly through state owned collectives refusing to let free enterprise to exist.

I'm sorry, I realize you're serious but...

With a pencil and a pad..........I think you got it......

Mr. Trust Buster ...don't understand..Mr. Bernie...



Mr. Trust Buster should go away...............................

All these years Bernie had them fooled...

That's how Castro's economic system worked.

Seriously? That's what you're trying to sell us?

Here's the quote you cited when I asked you for proof:

The waterways between Cuba and the U.S. are burial grounds that testify to that great transformation.

Cuba was doing so well for the poor under the previous dictator..

I am a Democrat. Have been for 30 years. I am not a Socialist. I not only will not support this Independent that has entered my Party but, I will also decide "where I belong". Thank you.

An economic system, that theoretically removes the profit motive...but...

but......and a very important but...............no one has pure socialism.......no one......

Is Ford Motor Company a socialist company...what do you think?.....

Did you know that Ford regularly shares profits with workers?...to the tune of hundreds of dollars per worker.. (sometimes more)
There is no such thing as "pure socialism"

Democrats have always believed in certain ideas that are clearly socialistic..
A. Medicare
B. Social Security
C. Public Transit
D. Public Water
E. Public Sewage...etc.

Why?...it is in the public good, to clean the water for people to drink, and to bring it to them in public water pipes...By cleaning the water that people drink, and making sure of purity...government has saved more lives than all of medical advances in the history of the world....drinking filthy water brings dysentery and typhoid and many other awful diseases..

free healthcare and free education is not bad..is it?

is the belief that we should have free education and free healthcare ...bad?

Do you think that our kids.. should have free health care?

should a poor family have the same access to health care for their children as a rich one in the USA?
what do you think on that one..eh???

Castro controlled the people and their individuality. These programs were directed by Castro alone and free enterprise need not apply. I'm not going to debate this endlessly. I think Sanders' past praise for Castro and Ortega will be highlighted in political ads and prove to be a disqualifier.

I was alive during that time when Castro took over. He was a real bully. However, it is true that, under Batista, the poor people of Cuba (which was already most of the population) were suffering and not allowed to say boo about it, while a small minority enjoyed wealth and adulation and impunity under a system propped up by actual underworld gangsters and crypto-Nazis.

Castro instituted "free medical care for all"...to improve the health of people...

that is what Bernie is about....

You are also correct..nothing is free I agree with you...

So..the very wealthy who have millions, and more, and the rich stock funds and brokers etc...will pay some more, a little more in taxes ...to help pay for the health care of the rest of the country....Now...what I am going to say now is very very important...


the rich, will still be very very rich..they will not loose their rich life. they will still have millions..and excess cash to do what they want..no one is going to take away their money...they will have less...but still more than everyone else................and

that is the truth...........Tax them some more..but do not take it all...some is not all

... but you just go on believing that.

that the Red Scare is an abstraction to younger people that didn't live through the constant bombardment of anti-communist rhetoric that everyone grew up with during the Cold War.

but I also understand that the threat was overblown and nothing but a tool to feed the MIC. It was also a tool to allow us to engage in interventions across the globe and engage in "regime change" actions. It was refreshing to hear a presidential candidate speaking out against this madness.

Where have our interventions introduced Democracy and free speech?

Maybe Trust Buster can provide a list.

he is definitely a "democratic socialist". Not that the right wing (and that includes Hillary Clinton with her red-baiting) will understand this, but he is looking at a more compassionate capitalism (if there is such a thing - most of us in the socialist camp know this system has to go). He truly is an FDR-style democrat.

... in the GE, the Repukes will paint him out to be the RED MENACE!!

And, they will be successful.

There are too many low info voters out there.

This is the main reason I chose to support Hillary Clinton - electability.

How I wish for a better candidate.

"in the GE, the Repukes will paint him out to be the RED MENACE!! "

Pehaps it will not work...Perhaps enough of the young, and educated will see through it..Certainly, the Michigan results show it...

Now if it is Trump...then ....even with the so called "Red Menace"...many will not vote for Hitler...many will, but the majority will see through Trump and Cruz...but..........here is the most important point I can make...........................

it ain't today...and no one knows the future...

No one knows the future..
No one expected Bernie to get this far..

How about this one....?..please consider the following..please....

in late 2007, and early 2008...very few expected the United States of American to elected an Afro-American to the office of "President of the United States of America"

and...I will admit that I was one in late 2007 who thought that a senator of Illinois, although a good guy, good speaker, and had some good ideas....that that senator from Illinois..didn't have a snowballs chance in Egypt...(how about that one)...to become President of the United States, ever in my lifetime....

end of rant..end of my participation in this one...I got to go.................................

American conservatives and libertarians have been screaming for years that essentially any government spending for the public good is "socialism," because in the past that term was a reliable way to create fear and panic about Soviet nukes and so forth.

Socialism is supposed to be about government owning the means of production, which is actually pretty radical, and is not what Bernie Sanders is currently advocating.

What's happened I think is that the term has been so sorely abused by corporatists trying to sow fear and justify preventing government from serving the collective good in any way that it no longer means what it used to mean.

Sanders is running as a Social Democrat, advocating a mixed economy where private entrepreneurship generates most business, and government provides a healthy array of social services, infrastructure, and some kind of social welfare.

This is what happens when people dissemble and exaggerate to push extremism as American conservatives have done. People are so tired of explaining that a normal modern democracy isn't a "socialist" state that they've just decided that "socialism" as described by greedy idiots doesn't sound so bad.

I do wish Sanders would articulate all of this a little better, but people seem to be getting what he's saying anyway.

With a heavy dose of Castro and Ortega. And how bread lines are good for the people.

I can see the Republican ads now.

Didn't Bernie say that the property should be returned to the people?