opposing take: communism was really bad
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Replying to @jonathanchait @HeerJeet
When did Bernie advocate for the establishment of communism?
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Replying to @EricLevitz @HeerJeet
He was not alive in 1917 but he repeatedly praised and defended communist regimes that had already been established
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I’m not calling him a communist but I am saying his “one thumbs up for communism” takes were in fact bad
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Replying to @jonathanchait @HeerJeet
That's fair. Although, I don't think it is remotely clear that the median Russian is better off now -- or was better off under Yeltsin -- than she was under Gorbachev.
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Replying to @EricLevitz @HeerJeet
Sure, but communism itself bears a big part of the blame for the difficulty of recovering from communism
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Replying to @jonathanchait @HeerJeet
I suppose. Tho I'd say the Clinton's shock therapy policies bear more proximate responsibility for how things have unfolded. Also, attributing neoliberalism's failures to communism invites the argument that communism's failures reflected the difficulty of recovering from tsarism.
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Anyhow, don't see how any of this is inconsistent with the claim "Bernie Sanders has been right about almost everything for the last 50 years." I don't think there are any politicians who did not praise an unsavory/now disreputable regime or two during that time period.
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Replying to @EricLevitz @HeerJeet
if you're shoving the communism question into the "almost" exception, sure. I would be even Bernie would not endorse some of his old positions and beliefs on that issue.
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Replying to @jonathanchait @HeerJeet
I don't think it is strange to put it into that category, unless there are statements where Bernie forthrightly endorsed communism as an economic and political model.
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There are no such statements, because Sanders is a lifelong democratic socialist, a political tradition that has been anti-communist from before 1917. Bernie's comments on USSR were all meant to rebuke Reagan's foreign policy, which he was right to do.
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