Once again, your choice to remain ignorant of different terminologies is just that --- your choice.
>> Bernie Sanders identifies as a democratic socialist and has a longstanding commitment to the policies and movements of the anti-imperialist Left. It is therefore unsurprising that his views on Venezuela would attract interest and concern during the 2016 Presidential Election cycle and beyond. However, a comprehensive search of Sandersās congressional records, speeches, newspaper articles, books, and the weight of opposition research against him, offers a rather different picture to that painted by his political opponents. The condemnation of his apparent praise of the Venezuelan regime, it turns out, is based on unfounded claims, unexamined sources, conclusion-jumping, intellectual laziness, and some pretty shoddy journalism.
During
the presidential primaries, Sanders insisted that āWhen I talk about democratic socialism, Iām not looking at Venezuela. Iām not looking at Cuba. Iām looking at countries like Denmark and Sweden.ā This declaration was met with scepticism by critics such as libertarian economist William L. Anderson, an associate scholar of The Mises Institute. In September 2015 Anderson wrote an article which
concluded that, āWhile many people believe that instituting the Sanders economic agenda would help turn the USA into another Sweden or Denmark, the more likely outcome would be turning this country into another Venezuela.ā The renowned economist Thomas Sowell, meanwhile,
has linked Sanders with Venezuela as part of a more general critique of socialism and its resurgent popularity among young voters.
Whether one agrees with it or not, criticism that postulates an alarming gap between the aspirations of Sandersās policies and their likely outcomes is surely fair enough. But the accusation that Sanders is actually ideologically committed to the Bolivarian socialist model is considerably more dubious. It is true that Hugo Chavezās successor, Nicolas Maduro,
did publicly call Sanders āour revolutionary friendā and praised his candidacy ā an endorsement neither sought nor welcomed by Sanders or his campaign. In September 2015, Sanders
explicitly disavowed any ideological sympathy with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, whom he described as a ādead communist dictatorā in an email to campaign supporters. Sandersās disavowal was scorned by Venezuelan state media and dismayed Chavezās remaining defenders in the West.
...The words attributed to Sanders are traceable to a single online source:
an article posted on his official website on 5 August, 2011 in the āNewsroomā section and categorised as a āMust Read.ā It is entitled āClose the Gaps: Disparities That Threaten America,ā and, as the link below the headline indicates, it originally appeared in the 4 August edition of
Valley News, a New England regional newspaper. The link to the
Valley News website now goes to a downed ā404ā page, but an
archived version shows the article as it appeared on the site. No by-line exists and the author of the article is unclear.
So did Sanders write it? This mystery was resolved with a single email to the
Valley News Editorial Board. An editor named Ernie Kohlsaat replied:
The Aug. 4, 2011, piece you are referring to, headlined āClose the Gaps: Disparities That Threaten America,ā was an editorial, not a news article. It was written by a member of the Valley News Editorial Board and as such reflects the opinion of the newspaper. The version on Sen. Sandersā website appears to be an accurate rendition of the editorial as published on Page A8 of the Valley News on that date.
Sandersās critics would doubtless reply that cross-posting the article without clarification or caveat amounts to an endorsement. But an endorsement of what? The article is not about Venezuela or Bolivarianism (or Equador or Argentina, for that matter) but American inequalities, poverty, and lack of opportunities. The āGaps that Threaten Americaā are domestic inequality, āthe wealth gap,ā āthe jobs gap,ā and racial disparities in property ownership. The only mention of Venezuela in the 600 word editorial comes in the endlessly circulated final two lines. It ought to be obvious to fair-minded people that, in the context of the article, this final rhetorical flourish was intended to shame America for failing to live up to its promise.
... The Congressional Record yields
no results which quote Sanders praising or even discussing Venezuela in any context besides incidental references. Searches of the use of the word āVenezuelaā during proceedings and debates where Sanders was present yield none in which Sanders names the country, its economic system, or its government. The majority of instances of Sandersās name coinciding with mentions of Venezuela are in House and Senate debates on free trade deals, US energy dependence, and funding bills for federal domestic programs; the word āVenezuelaā is always spoken by another member. The closest link found between Sanders and Venezuela in the Congressional Record relates to heating-oil programs. Sanders sponsored an unsuccessful Congressional bill,
S.3186 (110th), to fund the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), in which āVenezuelaā was
mentioned by another member in reference to US energy dependence and the need to expand domestic drilling.<<
(Much more at the source link:
The Falsity of the Sanders-Venezuela Meme)
Yes Virginia, I'm afraid the world isn't some simplistic little meme you can post on a message board. Who knew --- it's deeper than that. And who knew there were those unscrupulous enough to misrepresent other people's words for their own agendas.
You live a sheltered life. Count your lucky stars that you have me here to correct your errant path because you're not going to get through life with your head stuck in the sand where it is now.