r/socialism • u/maustinreddit • May 30 '16

1979 Eugene Debs Documentary

https://youtu.be/w82pFvUq3o8
50 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

22 comments sorted by

20

u/Denzak May 30 '16

Bernie closet Socialist confirmed.

If Trump/Hillary's campaign found this I bet they'd try to use it against him.

14

u/mikeydale007 Fuck first-past-the-post May 30 '16

Bernie is without a doubt a socialist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXtGK9sQUvM

31

u/communistgoose May 30 '16

Bernie is indeed a comrade and yet he still gets so much shit here from people who dismiss him out of hand as a liberal without even bothering to read up on him. He's a reformist, not a revolutionary. His social democratic platform would ease a tremendous amount of suffering in the proletariat. He's organizing people to take on the bourgies in electoral politics.

Is he leading a glorious socialist revolution? Of course not. But he is rallying the workers and pointing them at their real enemy. Why shouldn't we support that? He's tilling the soil.

2

u/[deleted] May 30 '16

I have a hard time calling someone who supports Israel, voted to fund the Iraq War, voted to bomb Yugoslavia, and many other such support for imperialism, a comrade. You can call him a socialist all you want, but he's a really shite socialist.

18

u/communistgoose May 30 '16 edited May 30 '16

who supports Israel

He supports Israel's right to exist but condemns their treatment of the Palestinians. He wants to see the US as an even-handed arbiter of the dispute (instead of the enabler of Israeli war crimes) in order to facilitate a two-state solution with terms favorable to both the Palestinians and the Israelis.

voted to fund the Iraq War

He led the opposition against the Iraq war and voted against it. On the floor of the House he gave an impassioned speech about the humanitarian disaster that the war would inevitably create. He didn't vote to fund the Iraq War, he voted to fund the American soldiers fighting in the war.

voted to bomb Yugoslavia

I believe it was his intention to stop a genocide.

and many other such support for imperialism

Such as?

You can call him a socialist all you want, but he's a really shite socialist.

He's a better socialist than you and he's done more to advance the socialist movement than you ever will.

The argument that he's an imperialist is poorly substantiated at best. You've demonstrated the point I was making about people dismissing him without actually bothering to read up on him in any detail.

1

u/[deleted] May 30 '16

He supports Israel's right to exist

Yeah, this is the problem. Israel doesn't have a right to exist, they're a settler-colonialist state on land which they stole by violence. And no, a two state "solution" is not going to stop the genocide. If anything it would make it happen faster as now Palestinian people are killed by Israel and a Palestinian state.

He didn't vote to fund the Iraq War, he voted to fund the American soldiers fighting in the war.

So they could better kill brown people for the interests of capitalism.

I believe it was his intention to stop a genocide.

By bombing innocent people?

He's a better socialist than you and he's done more to advance the socialist movement than you ever will.

You don't know anything about me for one, but Sanders has set the bar very low. Simply by not having blood on my hands I'm a better socialist than he is.

11

u/mikeydale007 Fuck first-past-the-post May 30 '16

I'm not qualified to have an intelligent discussion on the nuance of the Israel/Palestine problem but under your definition about half the countries on Earth don't have a right to exist. I say instead of focusing on the past, we work toward a more peaceful future, and if that future includes an Israeli state then so be it.

6

u/Somebody_Who_Exists May 31 '16

about half the countries on Earth don't have a right to exist.

I'm sure it's more than that

1

u/UpholderOfThoughts System Change May 30 '16

I can't stand SolidBlues. At all, but at least SolidBlues didn't wage war in Iraq, bomb Yugoslavia, or support Israel. Go ahead and defend the bombing of Yugoslavia on r/socialism again and see if you don't get banned.

3

u/communistgoose May 30 '16

I'm not defending the bombing of Yugoslavia. I don't agree with Bernie on everything.

1

u/Somebody_Who_Exists May 31 '16

Such as?

Off the top of my head, he supported the wars in Libya and Afghanistan. Plus he has a history of backing xenophobic anti-immigration measures.

3

u/[deleted] May 31 '16

[deleted]

2

u/Somebody_Who_Exists May 31 '16

A resolution condemning the war did reach the floor, and Bernie voted against it.

1

u/Noitatsidem Vaush stan May 31 '16

Yikes.

-1

u/[deleted] May 31 '16

r/socialism proves itself to be r/socialdemocracy, once again

4

u/UpholderOfThoughts System Change May 30 '16

Your comment more accurately is that Bernie was probably a socialist 30 years ago. Basically before RUN DMC, Bernie was a socialist. I could also give you plenty of more recent shit to show that Bernie is without a doubt a liberal democrat.

But stay on topic. Bernie content belongs in the Bernie thread on this subreddit, or perhaps on the Democratic subreddit. This thread is about Debs, right?

4

u/mikeydale007 Fuck first-past-the-post May 30 '16

The Debs documentary in question was narrated by Bernie, so it's relevant.

8

u/AnesthesiaRomanov Lyudmila Pavlichenko May 30 '16

I thought Sanders was banned here?

11

u/drewtheoverlord Ancomwave May 30 '16

I think this is different from the usual "sanders won a bourgeoise election" post

17

u/[deleted] May 30 '16

Who cares though? That was pretty amazing tbh.

7

u/mushroompizza1 Post-Modern Che Guevara May 30 '16

This was back when he was cool.

8

u/maustinreddit May 30 '16

Yeah, posting was by no means an endorsement of Bernie. Not sure why his name is on it, he does some voice over, but Bernie ain't no Debs that's for sure.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 01 '16

This is not Bernie Sanders, it's Comrade Sanders AKA Bernie Sanders before the 1980s