healthmyths
Platinum Member
- Sep 19, 2011
- 29,353
- 10,803
- 900
Sanders, 73, has been preaching socialism for nearly half a century, and he cites Eugene Debs, the five-time presidential candidate of the Socialist Party of America, as his hero.
But he hasnāt always embraced the label.
āI myself donāt use the word socialism,ā he said in 1976 in the Vermont Cynic, a student publication at the University of Vermont, ābecause people have been brainwashed into thinking socialism automatically means slave-labor camps, dictatorship and lack of freedom of speech.ā
Even when Sanders ran for mayor of Burlington in 1981, āBernie never mentioned the word āsocialistā in his campaign,ā according to Greg Guma, a longtime Sanders watcher and the author of āThe Peopleās Republic: Vermont and the Sanders Revolution.ā
āIn Vermont, everybody knows that I am a socialist and that many people in our movement, not all, are socialists. And as often as not ā and this is an interesting point that is the honest-to-God truth ā what people will say is, āI donāt really know what socialism is, but if youāre not a Democrat or a Republican, youāre OK with me.ā Thatās true. And I think there has been too much of a reluctance on the part of progressives and radicals to use the word āsocialism.āā
14 things Bernie Sanders has said about socialism
But he hasnāt always embraced the label.
āI myself donāt use the word socialism,ā he said in 1976 in the Vermont Cynic, a student publication at the University of Vermont, ābecause people have been brainwashed into thinking socialism automatically means slave-labor camps, dictatorship and lack of freedom of speech.ā
Even when Sanders ran for mayor of Burlington in 1981, āBernie never mentioned the word āsocialistā in his campaign,ā according to Greg Guma, a longtime Sanders watcher and the author of āThe Peopleās Republic: Vermont and the Sanders Revolution.ā
āIn Vermont, everybody knows that I am a socialist and that many people in our movement, not all, are socialists. And as often as not ā and this is an interesting point that is the honest-to-God truth ā what people will say is, āI donāt really know what socialism is, but if youāre not a Democrat or a Republican, youāre OK with me.ā Thatās true. And I think there has been too much of a reluctance on the part of progressives and radicals to use the word āsocialism.āā
14 things Bernie Sanders has said about socialism