is profoundly deluded or dishonest. Any more than roads and schools are socialism because they're government products.
The European states are CAPITALIST democracies that have socialized some government services. EXACTLY like the U.S., except that currently our ONLY large socialized program is the VA. (That began in the mid 1800s as an extension of military structure.) Anyone who claims they're socialist states is lying.
Socialism MEANS seizure of production for communal ownership. Without communal ownership it's not socialism. Sanders is a long-avowed democratic socialist with strong commitment to the socialist part. As for communism not being a strong form of socialism, tell that to the founders of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
What European nations are doing has a real name of its own: they are social democracies. When Sanders claims his democratic socialism is what European nations have and really the same as what we already have, he's lying.
Most Democrats would go for much of what Europe has, and if that was what Sanders actually intended, he could be honest about it. But it's not, and Sanders apparently feels he has a better chance by trying to sell a bait-and-switch.
That's understandable since he hasn't been able to even give his socialism away in the 50 years he's been trying. That's because socialism requires great sacrifice of individual freedoms. Also because all experiments at socialist states have failed dreadfully, destroyed prosperity, and caused great suffering.
Btw, I also strongly doubt Sanders' adherence to the democratic part, judging by his attempt to illicitly take the 2016 nomination away from the voters. And also by his current well-documented explanation that as president he will create citizen uprisings to threaten and force congress to do what the president wants. Sounds to me like a continuation of the Republicans' attacks on our three-branch balance of power in favor of an out-of-control imperial presidency, only with Sanders at the top instead of Trump.
And that Sanders believes that only in that way can he achieve his revolution should be most enlightening of all.
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