Posted on 07/10/2014 8:16:19 AM PDT by Theoria
As members of Congress continue hammering out a bill to improve the Department of Veterans Affairs' beleaguered health care system, attention has focused on one man leading the charge: Bernie Sanders, Independent senator from Vermont and a self-described socialist.
Sanders barely got 2 percent of the vote when he first tried breaking into Vermont politics in the 1970s, but now there's buzz that the man known simply as "Bernie" may be a presidential candidate in 2016.
"The cost of war is huge," the 72-year-old said recently during lunch at Henry's Diner in Burlington, Vt., where he rose to become an immensely popular mayor in the 1980s. "It's not just tanks and guns and planes. It's what happens to people's lives."
Sanders' frizzy hair may have gotten whiter since his mayoral days, but it could still use a comb. And when he opens his mouth, you don't hear New England — you hear Brooklyn.
He's also not one for idle chitchat. Even the most casual conversation relentlessly returns to the central idea that animates him: the wide gulf between rich and poor in this country.
"What is part of my DNA — something I never will forget — is just the stress in the family over money. Of my mother, you know, feeling that we just never had enough money to do what she wanted to do," Sanders said, referring to his childhood years in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
During his time as mayor, he created more affordable housing in Burlington, and stopped development on the waterfront to make it more accessible.
"That's what Democratic socialism is. It is essentially — bottom line — making government work for all of the people," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
NPR thinks that by posing this as a rhetorical question they can disguise the fact that they are PROMOTING Sanders. Nobody really believes that a 72-year-old fruitbat from Vermont has a snowball’s chance at the White House. But NPR would sure like to plant that seed.
Does it matter if they are Nazis or Marxists?
What does it say about the Republican Party that most of its its candidates cannot even sell liberty, free markets and the Constitution to American voters.
Don’t even ask Bernie Sanders what he thinks about people who both own guns & defend the 2nd Amendment.
Look up Amitai Etzioni for a partial answer.
Put simply, gun ownership is a huge obstacle to socialists imposing their agenda upon the masses.
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