May 3, 2019

"Inside Bernie Sanders’s 1988 10-day ‘honeymoon’ in the Soviet Union."

Was there any collusion? Let's read this WaPo (hit?) piece:
The just-married socialist mayor from Vermont was on what he called “a very strange honeymoon,” an official 10-day visit to the communist country, and he was enthralled with the hospitality and the lessons that could be brought home....
As he stood on Soviet soil, Sanders, then 46 years old, criticized the cost of housing and health care in the United States, while lauding the lower prices — but not the quality — of that available in the Soviet Union. Then, at a banquet attended by about 100 people, Sanders blasted the way the United States had intervened in other countries....

Sanders... said Americans dismissed socialist and communist regimes because they didn’t understand the poverty faced by many in Third World countries. “The American people, many of us, are intellectually lazy,” Sanders said in a 1985 interview with a Burlington television station....

Throughout the trip, local officials took aside members of Sanders’s entourage, telling them that the Soviet system was near collapse.... On one of the last days of the trip, officials in Yaroslavl took the Vermonters to a workers’ retreat at an oil refinery for a classic Russian celebration: a trip to the sauna and a bath in cold water. Wrapping themselves in towels and then putting on toga-style sheets, Sanders and his colleagues gathered around a table lined with vodka bottles. A video of the event shows Sanders, bare-chested, listening in delight to Russian folk songs. In response, Sanders and other Americans sang the Woody Guthrie ballad “This Land Is Your Land.”...

Returning to Vermont, Sanders held an hour-long news conference in which he extolled Russian policies on housing and health care, while criticizing the cost of both in the United States — and boasted that he was willing to criticize his homeland. “The fact that we were willing to be critical of the United States . . . I think that made them maybe more appreciative of our criticisms we made of their own society,” Sanders said then. “We were saying, ‘Yeah, in our country, we also have a housing crisis. Our housing in general is better than yours, but people are paying 40 percent of their income for housing. The quality of your housing is not good, but we appreciate the fact that people are paying 5 percent. The quality of your health care is not good, but in the United States, believe me, we have enormous problems in terms of our health-care system.’”
IN THE COMMENT: buwaya said:
Everything happens for a reason.

And nothing gets broadcast/published without being approved, or ordered, from at least three layers up the corporate hierarchy from the writers.

Start with those when you speculate about the behavior of the MSM.

120 comments:

exhelodrvr1 said...

And but for cheating by Hillary et al, he would have been the 2016 Democratic nominee

tommyesq said...

Intellectually lazy might be the best description of Sanders I have ever heard.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

It's insane why so many lazy morons would support an old tired dried up communist like Bernie.

But that is the reality now. Communism's long march thru our American institutions is paying dividends.

traditionalguy said...

What a deluded fool. His connection to reality does not exist. Why the fools from our destroyed schools admire him is a complete mystery, unless it is a suicide pack following an evil pied piper.

Bay Area Guy said...
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Bay Area Guy said...

If you're hanging with the Soviets, while the Berlin Wall remains up, well, you are on the wrong side of history, my friend.

Funny how the WaPo discovers this 30 years after the fact.

tim in vermont said...

I think that the easiest explanation is that there is a “War Room” somewhere and decisions to write pieces like this are made and they dial. up the WaPo or the NYT and lo and behold, so let it be written, so let it be done.

Curious George said...

"The quality of your housing is not good, but we appreciate the fact that people are paying 5 percent. "

Says the commie with three houses.

robother said...

Bay Area Guy: "Funny how the WaPo discovers this 30 years after the fact."

They were just biden their time, waiting for the opportune moment.

Amadeus 48 said...

The good news is that he was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago. The bad news is that he never went to class.

Honestly, what can you say about this story and this man? That he is disconnected from reality? That bad housing and bad medical care that are cheap are not a good deal? That he had no idea what he was seeing in the last days of the Soviet Union?

Did he ever have any exposure to commercial problems and how markets solve them? Does he have any idea other than take that away from them and give it to them?

This is a vicious man with horrible, impractical ideas.

Michael said...


Bernie is as American as apple pie!

Unfortunately. He is an American doofus.

They're even telling him how pathetic the USSR is and he can't hear it? It collapses as soon as he leaves and he can't get the picture? Too funny, too sad, let's make him President quick!!

MikeR said...

"Our housing in general is better than yours, but people are paying 40 percent of their income for housing. The quality of your housing is not good, but we appreciate the fact that people are paying 5 percent." Awesome description of why the free market system is better.
Ooh, I have a great idea: "let's have housing of our quality, but only pay 5 percent of our income for it!" - Democratic Party platform.

buwaya said...

Everything happens for a reason.
And nothing gets broadcast/published without being approved, or ordered, from at least three layers up the corporate hierarchy from the writers.

Start with those when you speculate about the behavior of the MSM.

iowan2 said...

When Bernie wins the nomination its going to be easy so get a warrant to capture all of his communications. National security dontchyaknow

gilbar said...

a classic Russian celebration: a trip to the sauna and a bath in cold water. Wrapping themselves in towels and then putting on toga-style sheets; Sanders and his colleagues gathered around a table lined with vodka bottles. A video of the event shows Sanders, bare-chested, listening in delight

So, it is TRUE that the Russians have Video of Bernie drunkenly pissing on a bed?
This explains A LOT!

Big Mike said...

It's insane why so many lazy morons would support an old tired dried up communist like Bernie.

@Bleach Bit, you should ask Cookie, not us.

Fernandinande said...

“The American people are intellectually lazy”

Bernie can't find Potemkin Village on a map.

iowan2 said...

Ooh, I have a great idea: "let's have housing of our quality, but only pay 5 percent of our income for it!" - Democratic Party platform.

That will not be a goal, it will be the law. Income goes down? So does your quality of housing.

Seeing Red said...

Sanders... said Americans dismissed socialist and communist regimes because they didn’t understand the poverty faced by many in Third World countries.

We surpassed the world — which was Europe— in living standards around 1900.

Americans dismiss Bernie because most of us never got a chance to run a college into the ground like his wife did. I’d love those hundreds of millions at my disposal, too, without any accountability.

So Bernie’s solution is to wipe away all our gains and be “poor?”

Fernandinande said...

Bernie drunkenly pissing on a bed?

Probably everyone except Trump has done that - it's only a problem if you do it when you're NOT drunk.

SGT Ted said...

Sanders... said Americans dismissed socialist and communist regimes because they didn’t understand the poverty faced by many in Third World countries. “The American people, many of us, are intellectually lazy,”

Typical Communist moron. There's not much mental energy that has to be expended to see Communist failures to halt poverty and make peoples lives better. Even dumb rednecks know that Communist and Socialist governments make people poorer overall and hurt the working poor the most.

The people who are intellectually lazy are those that think Communist slogans about making peoples lives better actually mean anything.

gilbar said...

THINK What FUN SNL could have with Bernie, if they wanted to be funny?

Throughout the trip, local officials took aside members of Sanders’s entourage, telling them that the Soviet system was near collapse.
Sanders and his colleagues gathered around a table lined with vodka bottles


The jokes write themselves

AllenS said...

The scariest thing about Bernie, is the fact that millions of people in this country think he has all of the answers.

rcocean said...

The USSR was a repressive dictatorship that killed people and threw them in the Gulag. Bernie wasn't too concerned because they were murdered and imprisoned for the "Right" reasons. Never understood the double standard toward dictatorships, even conservatives can't get upset at the evil of Communist tyranny. But Hitler Mussolini or evern Franco, "well that's different...."

There was a big difference between the USSR and the USA and economics was only part of it.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Visiting the Soviet Union for your honeymoon doesn't make you a commie.

Breaking into a spontaneous rendition of This Land is Your Land, on the other hand...

rcocean said...

I'm sure if you look hard enough, you can probably find a picture or maybe some video of Bernie waving a NVA flag in 1968 and calling US troops "baby killers". But of course, now he's just "Good ol' Bernie".

rcocean said...

Visiting the USSR to praise them, and being a life long socialist does make you a Commie. Or pretty close to it.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Government whores do quiet nicely on the financial front inside the bureaucracy.

Original Mike said...

"Sanders... said Americans dismissed socialist and communist regimes because they didn’t understand the poverty faced by many in Third World countries. “The American people, many of us, are intellectually lazy,” Sanders said in a 1985 interview"

Good Lord, Mr. Intellectually Vigorous can't put two and two together and draw the connection between poverty and socialism?

I will give Sanders credit for not being lazy. You really have to work to achieve that level of stupidity.

rcocean said...

Suddenly, the left who calls everyone fascist and Nazi is all concerned about correct definitions and upset at someone expanding the definition of the word "Commie". Gee, how surprising.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Private enterprise/capitalism is vilified, but "earning" your money off the governmetn tax payer tit is pure glory, if you're a Bernie cultist.

buwaya said...

As for Sanders, his statements seem less about making a broad value judgement than defending debating points, with whatever meager material came to hand.

That is, if one looks under his statements he is implicitly conceding his opponents arguments, but trying to save his conception of his honor.

He took up a "side", decades before, a losing side, and had to defend it for the rest of his days. Not because he believed in it, probably, but that his amor propio would not let him concede defeat. That 5% of the question at hand where he was more correct than wrong was the floating wreckage to which he clung, and let him argue that his ship had not been sunk.

He is a fundamentally dishonest person. Maybe that is his character, or his upbringing. One wonders what he would have been had he been Catholic, and accustomed to making confessions. A training in self knowledge and humility.

SGT Ted said...

"Our housing in general is better than yours, but people are paying 40 percent of their income for housing. The quality of your housing is not good, but we appreciate the fact that people are paying 5 percent."

Perfect illustration of "you get what you pay for". And that not even Government can overcome it.

But, really, this sudden reveal is simply the Democrat Establishment and their media arms trying to sink Bernie and rig the primary in favor of Biden.

tcrosse said...

I bet he brought his own toilet paper.

CWJ said...

Great timing.

tim in vermont said...
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tim in vermont said...
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Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Definitely, tho - Bernie is less of a Government Whore than Hillary. He's got that going for him.

tim in vermont said...
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mockturtle said...

Sanders... said Americans dismissed socialist and communist regimes because they didn’t understand the poverty faced by many in Third World countries.

And he wants to turn us into a Third World country just so we can understand.

Nonapod said...

WaPo has the assignment of torpedoing Bernie's campaign I guess.

Has Biden been anointed? Has the media chosen The One yet? Have they given up on Kamala?

madAsHell said...

Pandering as policy.

I really don't understand the Bernie phenomenon.

Qwinn said...

Given the established Dem property that EVERYTHING they accuse Republicans of is projection (because it always works), I wonder who it actually was who had female prostitutes in a Russian hotel room pissing on Obama's bed. My money is on Hillary, but it could've been Sanders. Heh.

tim in vermont said...

I don’t believe they have given up on Kamala. I think that Biden is at the stage of his plan where he has not yet made contact with the enemy. Wait until the primaries get closer and the love fest stops.

Bernie gets his funding from small donors, who can’t be intimidated. This scares the party that thought that Hillary should be the candidate last time.

Darrell said...

Throughout the trip, local officials took aside members of Sanders’s entourage, telling them that the Soviet system was near collapse

You can be sure Bernie reported them to Soviet minders.

Larry J said...

Communist countries were (and are) some of the most polluted places on earth but we're told that only centrally planned socialist countries can clean up the environment. It isn't about reducing poverty or cleaning up the environment, it's about handing over massive power to a bunch of unelected and unaccountable Swamp Creatures who will rule for our own good.

Caligula said...

One can probably excuse Bernie for not realizing that the USSR was on its deathbed in 1988; after all, it's not as if you'd have found many U.S.- based historians who predicted the USSR was going to collapse. The consensus view seems to have been that it would last at least for decades, and possibly centurities.

BUT Bernie still doesn't understand why it didn't work (let alone why it couldn't have worked), let alone understand why those who lived there had little but contempt for it and all its works.

He does seem to understand the theory and practice of nomenklatura all too well, however. Because some are always more equal than others, and he knows full well that he deserves to be one of these.


effinayright said...

Ignorance is Bliss said...
Visiting the Soviet Union for your honeymoon doesn't make you a commie.

Breaking into a spontaneous rendition of This Land is Your Land, on the other hand...
*************

Funny, innit, that lefties can rage against the white man purportedly committing genocide against the indigenous Amerinds as they moved westward to take over the country ---and then sing "This land is YOUR land, this land is MY land.." at the top of their lungs.

They're not singing on behalf of the Indians, that's fer damn sure.

Amadeus 48 said...

Kamala: Oo-lala!

I am just trying it out. It has a certain je ne sais pas.

Rick said...

"The quality of your housing is not good, but we appreciate the fact that people are paying 5 percent. "

What this misses is the severe quantity shortage so that even if people had money there was no housing to purchase. The Party controlled all goods and decided who would be allowed to buy what. In this environment money meant almost nothing so Bernie's criticism completely missed the point.

But these circumstances do show us what Bernie and others (De Blasio) want: for every decision a business (or you) makes to be subject to political approval.

Laslo Spatula said...

In many ways, the Soviet Union was country-as-slave-camp: the people worked for the Masters, and had to accept whatever the Masters did or did not give them in food, housing, dignity, respect, with no personal freedom or choice.

If a candidate today had visited a modern 'Southern plantation with slaves' for his honeymoon he would be vilified, mocked and discounted.

But Bernie visits a 'Socialist plantation with slaves' and it is accepted.

Socialist politicians all think they will be the slave-owners, not the slaves. And some of them will be right.

Socialist voters all think they will be the slave-owners, not the slaves. And most of them will find themselves wrong.

I am Laslo.

Unknown said...

This is 1988.

The final volume of The Gulag Archipelago was published in 1978.

No excuses. He is either irredeemably evil, or irredeemably stupid.

Amadeus 48 said...

Larry J--Our revered intelligence agencies, on which we spend billions, certainly didn't see the collapse coming. That was when I realized for sure that bureaucracies care mostly about preserving their power, perks, and budgets. If the Soviet empire collapses, what do we need them for?

Kudos to Reagan and Schultz who applied fresh thinking to the problem.

bagoh20 said...

"“The fact that we were willing to be critical of the United States..."

They were probably more impressed that you were allowed to without being sent to a gulag in Alaska somewhere.

Rick said...

Sanders... said Americans dismissed socialist and communist regimes because they didn’t understand the poverty faced by many in Third World countries. “The American people, many of us, are intellectually lazy,

Most Americans dismiss Communism because it creates petty tyrants who reduce the general welfare in exchange for the right to control what others do. Left wingers support Communism for the same reason.

I'm always amazed people who believe if we just put everything under government control all our troubles will go away think other people are intellectually lazy.

bagoh20 said...

Bernie looked around and thought "someday I want to run a plantation like this."

Michael said...

What's the masculine for yenta?

OK, skip the masculine. He is a yenta. He has been a yenta all his life. The story of his visit to study a Vermont commune is funny -- he was apparently asked to leave because his "studying" consisted of yakking to communistas all day and preventing them from getting work done.

@Nobody -- so what on earth is the appeal of this guy, a transparent loon to so many, to the voters of Vermont? I know we're talking Vermont, but still, this I don't get.

bagoh20 said...

In a way Bernie's appeal is like Trump's, but to a completely different kind of people. He is liked becuase he rocks the boat, shakes up the elites, and promises real change just like Trump, but what he wants to replace it with is the opposite of what Trump supporters want. Trumpers want freedom, law and order, and fairness, so they can excel and succeed on their own, while Bernie supporters want it all broken up and and handed over to them, so they can get stuff free. One of these is completely unsustainable, and leads to violence and poverty every time, so one group is just stupid, lazy and selfish, in my humble opinion, and that of history.

tim in vermont said...

so what on earth is the appeal of this guy, a transparent loon to so many, to the voters of Vermont? I know we're talking Vermont, but still, this I don't get.

I blame it on the Interstate Highway system that opened up a sluice of nutcake ne’re-do-wells like Bernie himself to come pouring in here out of New York, Connecticut (But I repeat myself), New Jersey, etc.

Hey Skipper said...

With regard to traveling, I am the anti-Ann. I've been to all seven continents, and need a couple hand to count the times I've been around the world.

In 1988, I went through Checkpoint Charlie to spend an afternoon in east Berlin. In only a few hours, I could feel the will to live being sucked from my bones.

The summer of 1989 — I was living in England at the time — brought astonishing headlines with every morning.

In 1990, two years after Barmy Sanders, I visited Moscow and (then) Leningrad. By far the worst, most soul crushing, places I'd ever been. Awful well beyond my expressive powers to convey.

Vignette: I noticed none of the cars, every one of which were shambolic contraptions, had their windshield wipers installed. I asked our Intourist guide about this. "They are impossible to buy. So people keep their windshield wipers with them, otherwise, they will get stolen."

The younger women, under thirty or so, were beautiful. Beyond that, they looked like they were getting the life drained out of them. Humans are not built to stand still for long periods. If they do, Venus pooling results. Many women who should have still been in the prime of life had ulcers on their legs, because they stood in line for hours to get what should have been commonplace things. (Micheal K can tell us if I am conjuring this memory.)

Supermarkets? As if. Malodorous acres of empty shelves.

GUM department store? Better bring an umbrella when it rained, because the roof was singularly incompetent at what should have been its primary job.

The USSR was an 11 time zone shithole.



Laslo: brilliant.

tim in vermont said...

Who doesn’t like free stuff?

mccullough said...

This attack by Bezos won’t be successful. Bernie’s supporters either don't remember the Soviet Union or dont care.

Bezos isn’t getting a Corporatist Dem Nominee this time. Bernie can beat Biden.

Take all their property Bernie. Go for it. Gates, Buffett, Bezos. They deserve you.

tim in vermont said...

I don’t blame people for trying communism, but what I don’t understand is why people don’t understand that it’s a dead end. My sister is a true believer. She thinks that if we just get rid of money, everything will be great and we will be right back in the Garden of Eden. She also thinks that people are “perfectible” and that we can all be taught to be good communists. Of course, some of us have to be taught with a small packet of lead...

tim in vermont said...

Look at Ritmo, he blames Stalin on Republicans.

Pat said...

It's amusing to see the media trying desperately to kneecap Sanders while simultaneously propping up Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Look, Bernie's a socialist! Horrors! But socialism isn't that bad when AOC is proposing it.

FleetUSA said...

"official" 10-day honeymoon visit means the VT taxpayers were paying for his honeymoon.

Socialists always leech off the workers.

Ray - SoCal said...

Interesting that Obama’s biography is about to be released, after being delayed.

Plays into the timing / why now issue.

Seems to be playing onto Clinton messed up, hence no collusion.

Or am I just paranoid?

Something with the timing of this hit piece, why now?

Bay Area Guy said...

This thread is a prime reason I love Althouse and the Commentariat here.

I honestly think the Commies were as bad as the Nazis. Both were led by genocidal maniacs, Hitler and Stalin.

To this day, I am amazed at how many liberal and leftist Americans (like Bernie) still don't think the Commies were that bad. It is mind-boggling.

Jersey Fled said...

When driving along the road in Ukraine, which was part of the Soviet Union back when Bernie was visiting, we passed an industrial complex that went on for miles. There must have been 100 smokestacks belching out massive amounts of black smoke and other pollutants of various colors. Just more of the product of Communism. Our driver called the place the Donestk Environmental Park.

When teaching I had several Russian students. Ask any Russian immigrant what they thought of Communism. Their opinion is undoubtedly closer to that of my driver than of Bernie.

Francisco D said...

15-20% of modern Democrats consider themselves "moderate" and are scared that Bernie will win the nomination.

They understand the dangers of socialism, but despise Republicans. If Comrade Bernie wins the nomination, how many will vote third party (e.g., Howard Schultz)?

Darkisland said...

Sanders and Solzhenitsyn both lived in Vermont concurrently.

I wonder if they ever met?

I wonder if Sanders told Solzhenitsyn how wonderful life in the Soviet Union was?

I wonder if Bernie has ever read Marx? Specifically Capital?

In my Penguin edition, on page 4, Marx explains why socialism/communism will always depend on murder and incarceration.

Perhaps Bernie missed that part.

John Henry

Matt said...

We went to Scotland for ours. Got a place up in the Highlands. It was wonderful.

mccullough said...

Why blame Bernie for his popularity.

It’s the fault of rotting institutions like the Washington Post and universities.

Darkisland said...

Blogger Hey Skipper said...

The USSR was an 11 time zone shithole.


RACIST!!!!!

John Henry

William said...

It's just a fact of life. If you're too vocal in support of a Robert E. Lee statue or even just voice support of its supporters, you're a dark and divisive force on the American scene. If, however, you're willing to look on the bright side of Stalin's achievements, you're open minded and free of American prejudices.

mockturtle said...

My brother traveled twice to the Soviet Union. He was less than impressed. He found it depressing and repressive. And somewhat scary, as he was watched and his rooms were bugged. While he would have been categorized as a Left wing voter, he never was pro-socialist. His thing [and is his son's] was mainly enviro-fascism and animal rights. WA and OR has a lot of those. A serious conversation between my mother and my nephew:

Mother: So you believe that fishing is cruel to the fish?
Nephew: Not just the fish but also the worm.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Bernie likes to talk about “income inequality” in the USA, but it was even more extreme in the USSR. In fact, there is no place free from “income inequality” anywhere on Earth, right?

Hey Skipper said...

A short add on to my story.

When I checked into Moscow's Hotel Cosmos (In Cryllic, Kocmoc; the hotel where all tourists stayed), I couldn't help but notice two things.

Dust balls the size and number of free range wabbits.

By leagues the most prostitutes per square foot of any place I'd ever been. Which is a lot of the places. And made Kocmoc weirdly fitting.

Ann, see what you are missing by not traveling?

Oh, and no one wanted rubles.

Because socialism is super wonderful.

Darkisland said...

Current Drudge headline:


ENVY OF THE WORLD
UNEMPLOYMENT 49-YEAR LOW
WAGE HITS $27.77/HOUR
STOCK MARKET ENDLESS RALLY
TRUMP APPROVAL 50%


I wonder how many headlines like this we would be seeing under a President Sanders?

John Henry

Fen said...

Apply Fen's Law - They don't really believe collusion is bad.

If you think pointing out examples of their own collusion will accomplish anything, you are wasting your firepower. They never occupied that hill, they just pretended to because it was convenient to them at the time.

stevew said...

"Who doesn’t like free stuff?"

The intellectually lazy people that understand there is no such thing.

gilbar said...

Bernie gets his funding from small donors, who can’t be intimidated.

Bernie gets his funding from the Russian Government in small donations, which can’t be traced.
fify

walter said...

tcrosse said...I bet he brought his own toilet paper.
--
He may have offered a demo of his alternative energy invention using that: Berno

Earnest Prole said...

Reads like Tom Wolfe wrote it.

buwaya said...

People like Sanders are not socialists, as in being sincere believers in that secular faith.

They are, rather, people who cannot permit themselves to be seen as mistaken. Certainly not by conceding any point to the enemies of their caste, which forms its identity by beliefs in such secular religions. If they were to concede a point, however obvious, they would lose status.

This is not an argument about some objective truth, or some empirical question about better or worse public policies. It is about power and the perception of power. One is powerful if one can be seen as winning against the enemies of the tribe, however absurd the conflict or illogical the position.

This is besides any question of interest of course. Greater state control serves that confluence of interests in any case.

Yancey Ward said...

I think Sanders' economic ideas are sheer lunacy, but the rest of the Democratic field are parroting the same ideas- even Creepy Joe. At least, Sanders is authentic in a way the others aren't.

I don't think Sanders has a prayer of winning the nomination this time around- there are just too many alternatives to Biden, unlike 2016. If I had to guess, WaPo is targeting Sanders now because his 15-20% voters would look better being behind Harris or one of the other female candidates- as it is WaPo, maybe even Biden. I don't think this will hurt Sanders at all, though- I think WaPo's staff is just too fucking stupid to realize that it is more likely to help Sanders- it makes his pose as the outsider candidate harder to refute- he can wave the paper around and say, "I told you I am the anti-establishment candidate- even WaPo says so!" It might even allow Sanders to pick up the supporters of the other minor candidates giving him a solid 25-30% at some point.

In short, I wouldn't want the backing of WaPo or the NYTimes, even as a Democrat.

Lewis Wetzel said...


Throughout the trip, local officials took aside members of Sanders’s entourage, telling them that the Soviet system was near collapse. At one point, officials of an engine factory that employed thousands of people told Howard Seaver, an official with a Burlington business group, that orders from Moscow had fallen, and they asked whether he could help arrange business with the United States.

Sanders has a degree in political science. This was five years before the collapse.
It is dismaying how many people, who consider themselves educated and intelligent, support this buffoon - and believe that Trump is not qualified to be president.

rehajm said...

I just can't get interested in the infighting amongst all these losers this cycle.

rehajm said...

Is it because the losers are extra loser? Because the moves are so old and so blatant, like a Hillary! coming out party- the third one?

walter said...

Berno's success is due to either his promise of free stuff..or his overwhelming charisma.

Bilwick said...

Just the guy we need to be Premier--I mean, President!

Antonio said...

The more things that pop up about this guy the weirder it turns out he is.

JaimeRoberto said...

My wife is from a former Eastern Block country. She has a little experience with the system that Bernie extols.

If you went to the hospital, you had to bring your own sheets and your own silverware. You had to bribe the doctor with vodka or chocolates or cigarettes to get care. When we went to Austria to deliver our son she remarked in amazement about how clean the hospital was.

If you saw a line of people in front of a shop, you got in line even if you didn't know what it was for. If you were lucky, you knew the clerk who could hide something under the counter for you. Lots of goods were cheap, but you usually couldn't find them.

Housing was hard to come by. One way to get an apartment was to get married and get pregnant, which lots of young adults did. Sounds family friendly, but it led to unstable marriages. Lots of divorced people continued to live together because they couldn't find anything else.

If you got on the government's bad side, like for being baptized, forget about going to college.

If you wanted to travel out of the country, even to another communist country, you needed permission from work (not unusual), from the bank (in order to exchange money), and from the police (so they could come search your home while you were away).

Fuck you, Bernie.

Ken B said...

DarkIsland
I bet that under Presint Sanders the headlines would eventually all — each and every one — be fawning.

tim in vermont said...

I recently picked up The Dean’s December by Saul Bellow, and it turns out that the key to getting decent medical care in the Eastern Block was to get yourself into a party hospital. Somebody should ask Bernie about that.

walter said...

His thing is to point to Scandinavian countries. That's what his supporters have been fed.

Michael K said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Michael K said...

In 1988, I went through Checkpoint Charlie to spend an afternoon in east Berlin. In only a few hours, I could feel the will to live being sucked from my bones.

Have you ever seen Billy Wilder's movie "One, Two, Three?"

Hamlet's Fool said...

"The quality of your housing is not good, but we appreciate the fact that people are paying 5 percent."

You can purchase crappy housing in the US if you only want to pay a low price. You can live in an old VW bus under an overpass if you want.

However, you could not purchase good housing in the USSR even if you wanted to pay for it. The only ones who obtained good housing were the party capos running the con - and they didn't pay 40% of their "incomes" for it.

RichardJohnson said...

From the WaPo article:
Then, at a banquet attended by about 100 people, Sanders blasted the way the United States had intervened in other countries....

Back in the 1980s, Bernie was a big fan of the Sandinistas. It turned out that the Sandinistas had the warm fuzzies for Soviet intervention.Nicaraguan Biographies/Cadre :
. With FSLN comandantes Tomas Borge, Henry Ruiz, and Humberto Ortega, Hassan attended the March 1980 signing of the party-to- party agreement between the FSLN and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Moscow. Signed less than 3 months after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the joint public statement read in part: "The Soviet Union and Nicaragua resolutely condemn the campaign that the imperialist and reactionary forces have launched of building up international tension in connection with the events of Afghanistan, a campaign aimed at subverting the inalienable right of the people of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and other peoples of the world to follow the path of progressive transformation[s]."

Bernie never made a comment about the Sandinista endorsement of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Is that because he was never aware of it, or because he was aware of it but didn't want to admit being aware of it? Fool or knave? I vote fool.

Maillard Reactionary said...

buwaya said: "... nothing gets broadcast/published without being approved, or ordered, from at least three layers up the corporate hierarchy from the writers."

Take a moment to look at this youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4f_1_r80RY

Every one of us who lives in a place where starlings live has seen this behavior in the fall. Or perhaps with another species of bird.

There is no hierarchy of decision-making, no star chamber, no secret plan among the starlings. Yet they behave in an eerily similar way to how the lefty media in the US does.

Scientists have studied (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_behaviour) this kind of swarming or schooling behavior (the same principles apply to fish). It turns out that what looks like coordinated action is actually an emergent phenomenon of the flock (or school) following a very simple rule or rules, e.g., Do what the bird ahead of you is doing.

Rather like the behavior of the lefty media, is it not?

Now, newspaper editors and TV news editors are not starlings. But experience teaches me to apply Occam's Razor unless there is a sound reason for introducing explanations more complex than necessary.

I remain unconvinced that what we are seeing with the media, political, and educational swamp creatures is anything more than swarming behavior. (After all, they all got the same indoctrination in college and speak only to one another.)

As in the case of small fish subject to predation, being a member of a school of similar-moving fish has survival value for each individual. The oddly-behaving fish is identified and chased first. Roseanne Barr, Milo Yiannopoulos, and of course President Trump can attest to that evolutionary truth.

Seeing Red said...

Pointing to Scandinavian countries is white privilege. We can’t have that.

Narayanan said...

...who it actually was who had female prostitutes in a Russian hotel room pissing on Obama's bed...

Could have been Hillary after a couple of bottles of Chardonnay


Lefkadia Valley Wines 'Sauk-Dere' Chardonnay, RUSSIA

readering said...

One, Two, Three . . . I'll have to try that on Netflix.

Lewis Wetzel said...

What else about the Soviets did Sander's admire?
Their high quality washing machines? Their invention of "value-subtracted" manufacturing? (you attach a 2 ruble shoe sole to a 2 ruble shoe upper to create a shoe worth 3 rubles).

Narayanan said...

To reach back to the 80's

Left-over Lefties and left-behind lefties.
What the country offer.

October revolution is coming up for centennial..

readering said...

Don't celebrate until November . . . .

mockturtle said...

Yes, my cousin had to be hospitalized for food poisoning while in Russia [on business] and she wrote that the sheets weren't changed between patients! And other horror stories.

Darrell said...

By the way, Russia is now like America before Ted Kennedy's disastrous immigration bill. Plebty of videos on YouTube, like Real Russia (Sergey Baklykov.)

Bernie's people lost.

Lewis Wetzel said...

There are a lot of #Nevertrumpers who hate nationalism.
They simply do not understand nationalism, and the nationalist impulse.
What destroyed the USSR was not capitalism, it was suppressed nationalism.
When the shackles of the USSR were broken, when the door to that prison house of nations was opened, people did not run out and become entrepreneurs. They revitalized old nationalist ambitions, and rivalries, and enmities.
"Hey, Ivan, you are in a free country now! No more secret police! Are going to go out and start a business?"
"Fuck no, I'm going to kill that Chechen bastard who pissed on my car!"

Seeing Red said...

Bernie liked the fewer choices. And standing in line for bread.

Nichevo said...


I think that the easiest explanation is that there is a “War Room” somewhere and decisions to write pieces like this are made and they dial. up the WaPo or the NYT and lo and behold, so let it be written, so let it be done.


If only we could find that war room and hit it with a Tomahawk missile. Save the world.

Rick said...

What else about the Soviets did Sander's admire?
Their high quality washing machines? Their invention of "value-subtracted" manufacturing?



Coincidentally I read this at Reason today quoted from a move about Chernobyl.

"What's as big as a house, burns 20 meters of fuel every hour, puts out a shitload of smoke and noise, and cuts an apple into three pieces? A Soviet machine made to cut apples into four pieces."

People just choose not to understand how dysfunctional central planning is. When people aren't responsible to the customers everything goes to shit. It's Comcast customer service * 1000.

mockturtle said...

Lewis Wetzel observes: "Hey, Ivan, you are in a free country now! No more secret police! Are going to go out and start a business?"
"Fuck no, I'm going to kill that Chechen bastard who pissed on my car!"


LOL, I see you know a few Eastern Europeans, too! ;-)

DanTheMan said...

Q: How do you make a Moscow omelette?
A: First, steal two eggs....

DanTheMan said...

Q: What one Russian potato say to other Russian potato?
A: Ridiculous question! Nobody have two potato.

TJM said...

Demtard Collusion with Russia: Good!

The national media is comprised of morons, people I would fire in a nanosecond if they were working for me in the real world.

readering said...

Composed of.

TheThinMan said...

Americans are intellectually lazy = They’re a basket of deplorables

Hey Skipper said...

@Michael K: Have you ever seen Billy Wilder's movie "One, Two, Three?"

Looks like I'm going be jump starting the Netflixerizer this evening.