Where are they now?
The 2016 heralded resurgence of Bernie Sanders and his post-election bust is just eerily reminiscent of the earlier massive protests of socialist-left movements in America. After all, “Bernie or bust” slogan turned out to be a litany of a jaded and fatigued movement that cowered in fear of continuous reforms instead of a utopian revolution.
The Vietnam War protests did not prevent the re-election of one of the most corrupt presidents in US history in the midst of one of the most unpopular war in modern history. And the ill-fated occupy movement tried to represent the bottom 99% but fell apart miserably at the seams. It was the epitome of hypocrisy, when top 1% multi-millionaires like Moore and Sarandon joined the fray. That movement which was once a temporary expedient is now history.
By comparison, any social or environmental movements that went beyond banal hooliganism and gathered grassroots support culminated in landmark legislations, like the 1964 Civil Rights Act or the 1970 establishment of the EPA, and some were protected by the US Supreme Court like Roe v. Wade, etc. All gained unassailable advantage through decades of popular activism.
Conversely, every time the left leaned toward utopian socialism with no definition but with all forms of equality demands either crumbled or sabotaged an election. The latest analysis by Political Wire has finally determined how Sander’s self-proclaimed socialist voters switched allegiance to sway the 2016 election results. The socialist left has always demonstrated a knack for suicidal turns and taken the society along down to its inherent abyss of darkness and despair.
At the time of unprecedented social and racial unrests, the colonel has pushed his chickens into the coop, where they belong.
The electoral system in the US has to be overhauled, baba... As long as candidates are forced to beg for money from private donors and corporations no real change will ever happen... And... since when has Democratic party in US been the face and sound of "real left"?... It's an amusement park at its best. The kinda socialism which is propagated by Dems in the Corporate-sponsored American establishment is not that finger-looking good to the genuine lefties.
Please ignore my spelling and grammar errors.
Genuine lefties are busy celebrating the many achievements of Bolivarian Socialism, baba
Sanctions today, as well as arms race yesterday are the causes of your achievements /celebrations.
btw, make it finger-licking good. Sorry
Historically, everything and everywhere they touched turned into crap across the world...not one single exception...
Baba jaan, the Mollah Regime was under much stricter sanctions than the Glorious Bolivarian Republic (which remained one of the primary sources of oil imports for the US even under Hugo Chavez), and even the IRI has done better than Venezuela (e.g. no shortage of aftabehs that parallel the dearth of toilet paper down there).
I know True Believers will love till the last syllable of recorded time the virtues of central economic planning and nationalization, but the world has moved on, azizam. For supposed atheists, you Commies sure are quite devoted to your lousy religion. The problem is your stinky, filthy economic system and "philosophy". Pure and simple.
Speaking of finger-licking, this one is for you, Comrade/Pendar/Lonely/Republican/____/___:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=stink%20palm
Their economics needs coercion. That's why they keep changing constitutions to keep one blabber after another. The one in Venezuela now wants people to share toilette paper.
Well, that's why it's called a "command economy"....On the other hand, there is room for optimism of the will: the comments, asinine shared articles from various worthless sources, and "contributions" of our multiple user ID Tovaryshch could help alleviate Venezuela's TP shortage...
امروز, سوم شهریور, ۷۶ مین سالگرد هجوم نیروی اشغالگر اتحاد جماهیر سوسیالیستی شوروی به ایران و پس از چند سال, ممانعت از خروج از ایران, بال و پر گیری حزب منفور توده و فرقه دمکرات آذربایجان به رهبری مزدور خارجی جعفر پیشه وری است. به امید روزی که گورستان تاریخ پر از سوسیالیست ها, مارکسیست های اسلامی, فاشیست ها, نژاد پرست ها و پوپولیست های ترامپی شود
Occupation is bad for these guys, only if US and Israel do it. If anyone else rapes their own country, they shut the f up.
Your implied acknowledgement of occupation by filthy antisemitic Zionists is owed to the Sanders-Nader gang ;)
The last laugh belong to those who still are around and have defeated their nemeses, i.e. US and Israel.
And as for Sanders and Nader, they can wait a bit more for socialism here (like Tudeis did) and then rot in hell.
What ever happened to Ralph Nader? Is he even alive? Someone should do a "Where are they now?" segment on him....Our traitorous Commie brethren went from "Workers of the world, unite!" to constructing "Socialism in one country" to now building "Socialism in a small studio apartment somewhere in Canada"....
He is rejoicing what he see as the defeat of US, like this loser above...Another transient placebo...
The problem is you guys are associating the "left" in the West with communism as was in the "East"! There's nothing wrong with protecting the environment, not wanting religion to stick its filthy fingers into everything as it is now in America and looking out for the little guy!
As is, the "Right" in the US has a huge problem on its hands now called the Trump Factor with the so called Nationalists slivating over a government take over where they can practice fascisim in the open in the name of reclaiming their country as if it it was handed over to them with a smile and a bowl of cherries by the natives right when John Smith set foot on North American soil some 400 years ago!
I can't make the link on the phone; google "The split between Asian and Western socialism" by David J. Sapos
That's because you're an old "Eastern style" leftist. Did you a lot of good, didn't it?
And that's why we called that socialist left, not just left. BTW, the environment was plundered under the socialists both in the Soviets and China...
US has a legitimate left movement that was mentioned above, achieving landmark environmental and humanitarian legislation.
AS a passionate educator, I believe that Colonel Sanders sudden conversion to "Common sense" at his very old age should be a lesson to our own local "Obama brown nose brigade" that it is never too late to learn!! That Hussein Obama is gone to WiKiki for good! That President Trump and his very capeable team, including my current hero Miss Nikki Haley are now running the show round here for another seven years or so to come!!
I agree with colonel's chicken analogy as a secondary explanation in connection with frustration of Americans with cultural dilution. But collapse of democracy in general under pressure of crony capitalism is a better explanation of what has been and is happening than Sanders' socialistic fans converting to Trumpism.
As corporate juggernaut tightens its stranglehold on our lives and culturs(s) the will of people is at whim of those best able to manipulate it.
Trumps alternative truths powered by most sopisticated digital and social "political" campaign ever run was the manifestation of misinformation that American intelligencia itself had forecasted as a useful tool more than 40 years ago and even a more fundamental shift is conduct of then the absolutely most powerful and influential nation on earth 7 decades ago... http://iroon.com/irtn/blog/7528/
The blog does not really address crony capitalism or corporate tyranny, rather delves into the dynamicx of the fraudulent socialism that is no longer able to contribute to the advancement of the society.
The trail of debris of death and destruction of lives and economies in the past century leaves no doubt that radical socialists are only transient alternatives on the streets of "capitalist" societies.
You know dear Mehrdad, my father says that during the glorious 1979 Devolution, the leftist revolutionaries who were cheering Khomeini and were demonstrating in the streets everyday called the then Albania and the role model nation. They wanted the Devolutio to succeed so that they can take over and turn Iran into Albania. Iran, a nation floating on an ocean of natural has and oil, modeled after one the piss poorest country on the planet--not to mention one of the cruelest. But that's how these people were / are. At their core, they're an anti-Iranian, sadistic, and colossally stupid and reckless bunch.
AO....the Iranian lefties supportingAlbania, however small in number, were pretty stupid too. Albania used ponies as a means of personal transportation. That's how poor they were. The Soviet and Mao fans were more fascinated with the ruthlessness of both regime to serve proletariat...
Sorry. Meant to say they called Albania their role model nation. Damn spellchecker on my phone.
There's an Albanian shopkeeper here in town that I've known for a long time. He's in his 50s. He was telling me a story about the communist times, when he was doing his mandatory military service. Apparently, his family had a small farm, but they were prohibited from selling their farm products. They did it in secret. One day his mother had apparently packed him two boiled eggs for him to take for lunch. This is when he was in service. He was assigned as a guard at some facility in his hometown. Around noon time he opened his lunchbox and started eating the eggs. His commander saw that he had two eggs instead of one. He was pulled aside and questioned about where he got the extra egg. And then he was reprimanded for having it! They said he could only have one and two was excessive! And these Iranian Nimrods wanted to turn Iran into that country!
Iranians are also always fanatical and kassyeh daghtar as aash about ideology. The leftist liberation movements came about inn The 1960s and 70s. Most countries had those groups. But it was mostly a trend, and they just went away. The Iranians, however, as usual, became fanatical and obsessed with it, and took it to another level, destroying their country in the process. Not surprising though. Iranians have a habit of getting worked up over ideology. Just see what they do for Islam, with beating themselves up, and creating and "Islamic Republic." Or their obsession with Palestine, which is stronger than any Arab nation, or even the mainstream Palestinians themselves. Same thing with anti-colonial philosophy. Iranians are more obsessed with it that people who were actually colonized, like India or Kenya, which is kind of hilarious. I call Iranians "cause heads." I borrowed it from a 1990s movie, PCU.
Those days, the leftists of the civilized world has shaken off Leniniam, whereas the retarded Iranian commies, to this day, refer to the 1905 Russian uprising...sad rahmat be olagh!
Noam Chomsky on Bernie Sanders!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OuechMvT3-g
I did not realize that I had to follow a prescribed path in expressing my view. My bad.
To suggest socialism is the problem is as simplistic as suggesting capitalism is inherently bad. The most advanced, peaceful and civilized nations in the world are typically focused on greater common good of society through means that the people have understood to be for their own personal and common good. Education, health... whether you call it socialism, common sense, moderate capitalism or just common humanity.
Socialism is not the problem; the way some resort to it can be.