Mediaboss Marketing

AMES, Iowa Cornel West has a message for those who want to cast Sen. Bernard Sanders brand of democratic socialism in a negative light: Get off the crack pipe!

Mr. West is headlining events in Iowa on behalf of Mr. Sanders and visited the campus of Iowa State University Wednesday to rally voters behind the Vermont socialist ahead of the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses.

Dont let anybody tell you, Oh my God, he is a democratic socialist, America is going to look like the Soviet Union in four years. No you tell them: Get off the crack pipe! Mr. West said, drawing a mixture of laughter and applause from the dozens that turned out to hear him and Sanders co-chair Nina Turner speak.

Mr. West said democratic socialists have helped shape the nation, rattling off the names of John Dewey, Helen Keller, Albert Einstein and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Do those folks scare you? he said. No! Not at all because they are measured by the same thing we are measured by, which is integrity, honesty, decency, courage, and empathy with the week and solidarity with those who are suffering.

That is what we are talking about in this campaign, he said.

See the rest here:
Cornel West to foes of Sanders' democratic socialism: 'Get off the crack pipe!' - Washington Times

Mark Levin (Getty Images/Saul Loeb)

Just because you're a Republican doesn't mean you're not a socialist, nationally-syndicated conservative talk show host Mark Levin said in an interview on The Dan Bongino Show Saturday.

Warning against the far-left policies being pushed by politicians on both sides of the aisle, Levin told Host Dan Bongino that, while Democrats seek true socialism, some Republicans are beholden to a less severe form of it.

The Republican Party is committed to a lite socialism, lets just be honest about it. Even these so-called populist nationalists: they want a lot of government intervention, Levine said in response to a question about fiscal responsibility.

"They [Republicans] want government intervention for things that they support and they want government intervention to stop things they oppose," Levin said.

If you let the government in constantly to be referee, the government will devour you and the government will devour our liberty, Levin warned.

Levine said that the government cannot be trusted to run the personal lives of Americans, because Republicans and Democrats alike are simply knuckleheads who arent smart enough to do so:

We know that most of the people in Congress maybe, not all, but most - are truly knuckleheads, and yet we want to confer all this authority and power on them to make decisions about our health care, immigration, and on and on and on, he said.

And, its not just Congress that Americans should be wary of, Levin said, warning that many judges are also manipulating the Constitution to advance their personal ideologies.

You look at these judges: many of them are playing a game. Theyre using The Constitution to advance their ideology," so Americans should be free to take responsibility for their own lives, Levin said.

Original post:
Mark Levin: 'Republican Party Is Committed to Lite SocialismThey Want a Lot of Gov't Intervention' - CNSNews.com

MIAMI The Trump campaign events keep coming.

President Donald Trump has made Florida central to his re-election, holding nine campaign rallies in the state since he was elected and zeroing in on Hispanics.

Vice President Mike Pence has also been spending an ample amount of time in Florida. He just wrapped up a rally in Kissimmee as part of the Latinos for Trump coalition, pledging to the largely Puerto Rican crowd the administration will support the island after the earthquakes and touting the strong U.S. economy.

In addition to the rallies, Trump has held numerous events in the state addressing its diverse groups, such as Venezuelans and Cuban Americans.

At one of the events, on Jan. 3, Trump launched the Evangelicals for Trump coalition from a South Florida megachurch attended by thousands of Latinos.

Mauricio Tamayo, 52, a member of the congregation, said he didn't like Trump at first.

I wasnt used to his style. I thought he was arrogant, but he grows on you, he said, as audience members raised their hands in prayer.

"He speaks what's on his mind," according to the government employee and Colombia native, who said his 401K has grown "exponentially."

Trump won Florida in 2016 by less than one percentage point and most likely needs to carry the state to win re-election. Its the state where Trump has the greatest amount of support among Latinos, at around 34 percent.

Florida is critical, Mercedes Schlapp, a Trump campaign senior adviser, said.

"Were investing resources early, were building our ground game, and we have a tremendous focus on building up our Latinos for Trump coalition, the Cuban American native of Miami said.

The efforts by Trump and Republicans to focus on Latino voters who make up over a quarter of Florida's population and over 16 percent of its electorate worry several key Democrats in the state who are concerned that their party isn't being aggressive enough.

I feel we have taken the eye off the ball of the Hispanics that are necessary to win, said former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who lost a tight gubernatorial race in 2018.

Pushing back on Pence's visit, the Florida Democratic Party unveiled a bilingual billboard this week in the largely Puerto Rican area of Kissimmee, in Central Florida, showing a large image of Trump throwing paper towels at Puerto Ricans after the destruction of Hurricane Maria. The billboards say "Never forget" and in Spanish, "Prohibido olvidar" the lyrics of an old salsa song some voters may recognize.

Last week, Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Prez held a roundtable discussion with local leaders in Miami on the administrations efforts against Obamacare and its impact on Latinos. Florida has the nation's highest number of Affordable Care Act enrollments and nationally, Latinos made the highest gains in coverage under Obamacare.

The Morning Rundown

Get a head start on the morning's top stories.

In contrast to Trumps and Pence's massive rallies, the event was small and held in a conference room at the Borinquen Medical Center, which serves the community.

When asked if he was worried about the Republicans Latino outreach in Florida, Prez said, Talk is cheap his silence in the aftermath of the earthquakes (in Puerto Rico) has been deafening. This is a president who said, 'Im going to help you Venezuelans.' If he cared about the Venezuelan people, he could enact Temporary Protected Status tomorrow."

Juan Pealosa, executive director of the Florida Democratic Party, said the party has learned lessons from Trumps Florida win in 2016 and the state's midterm losses.

I dont think we did our job taking the election seriously. I think that has changed drastically, he said.

Pealosa recently told NBC News the party had hired the largest staff of any Democratic state party in the country, with more than 91 employees. They have completed 37,096 volunteer shifts in 2019 compared to 3,023 in 2015.

In the past, he said, Democrats have lacked well-trained surrogates across the state to help carry their message in the Spanish-language media something the Republicans have been doing for years. The party now has a Hispanic communications director who is training and booking Latino Democratic surrogates to be on Florida television and radio shows. They have also put more money in Spanish-language media buys and launched a weekly Spanish-language radio show in South Florida.

The Democrats lost five of six statewide races in Florida, including the gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races.

Republican Rick Scott, the states former governor, beat Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, after nearly two decades in office. Ron DeSantis won the governors mansion after embracing Trumps message during the campaign, even releasing an ad with his daughter building a wall out of blocks. Democrats did flip two House seats, however, in heavily Latino South Florida.

But there's been frustration and anger after the losses. Part of the reason for the Republican wins was their active courtship of Latino voters.

Annette Taddeo, a Democrat and a Colombian American state senator from the Miami area, is worried Trump could be making inroads with the growing number of Latinos who register with no party affiliation. And what are we doing? Nothing, she said.

Taddeo cited Scotts extensive Latino engagement when he was running for the Senate, saying he was everywhere." Scott attended the swearing-in of Colombia's president in 2018, visited Puerto Rico numerous times after Maria and set up help for families coming to Florida. Post-election data showed Puerto Ricans in Central Florida helped Scott win office.

Eduardo Gamarra, a Florida International University political science professor, said Republicans "understand diverse groups more than anyone else Democrats are behind and they have to do a better job of identifying and targeting those groups and they have to have a message."

In Florida, that means speaking to the state's growing Puerto Rican community about the administration's sluggish response following Maria, mobilizing Cuban Americans opposed to Trump's increasingly hard-line policies against Cuba including more travel restrictions and reminding Venezuelans that Trump still has not given them TPS.

Days before Thanksgiving, Trump held a homecoming rally in South Florida after changing his residence to the Sunshine State.

Before the rally, Florida Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuez, a Cuban American from Miami who is the national co-chair for Latinos for Trump, sat with Schlapp and John Pence, the vice presidents nephew, for a conversation about socialism that was televised on a giant screen and streamed live on social media.

Trump and Republicans constantly equate Democrats with socialism, but nowhere does that message get amplified more than in Florida, where a large concentration of Latinos have fled socialist countries.

Socialism is a strong, powerful message, Nuez told NBC News. She said that every time Trump says at a rally that America will never be a socialist country, thats the line that gets the most applause, its the one that gets the most reaction.

Democratic lawmakers, especially in Florida, have been very vocal about their opposition to Venezuela's government.

But Taddeo said there are candidates that are not doing us any favors with some of their comments, tweets and inexperience when it comes to Latin America, and Bolivia is a perfect example.

Recently, presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., drew criticism from some for tweeting that he was concerned that Bolivias former socialist president Evo Morales, who was pressured to resign in the wake of massive protests over a disputed election, may have been the victim of a coup.

Gillum, who was branded a socialist by Republicans during his campaign, warned that on issues like Venezuela, Democrats have to speak out forcefully against these types of authoritarian regimes or I fear it does a disservice to give Republicans something to hit us over the head about.

Democrats also have to boost their voter turnout, says Gillum, who has been focusing on this through "Forward Florida Action," his political action committee.

Prez said that when it comes to Trump, "people are smart, and you can't gloss it over with a few rallies here and there."

But Gamarra notes that Trump has the advantage of incumbency in resources and money, and the Republicans know the election outcome "is going to be less than 2 percent."

"The Democrats should be doing a lot more in Florida," Gamarra said.

Follow NBC Latino on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Here is the original post:
Trump and Republicans are courting Florida's Latinos. Democrats in the state are worried. - NBC News

A customer browses imported Soviet-era books at a store in Golpark, India, in 2017. | Anuradha Sengupta / The Hindu via Twitter

After the triumph of the Bolshevik Revolution, John Reed, famed author of Ten Days that Shook the World, wrote, The thirst for education, so long thwarted, burst with the Revolution into a frenzy of expression. From Smolny Institute alone, the first six months, went out everyday tons, car-loads, train-loads of literature, saturating the land. Russia absorbed reading matter like hot sand drinks water, insatiable.

According to Vijay Prashad in his introduction to the collection of short essays that constitute The East Was Read: Socialist Culture in The Third World, The literacy campaign was not conducted in Russian alone, but in the languages of the many nationalities of the USSR. Thirty years later, despite the ravages of two world wars, it was announced that all [Soviet] citizens could read and write. This was a considerable feat.

The East Was Read isnt just about literacy or the production, distribution, and consumption of books in the Soviet Union, though. Its goal is considerably more ambitious, despite being only 153 pages.

The goal of The East Was Read is two-fold: to [pay] homage to the lost world ofSoviet books, their impact across the globe, and to highlight socialist culture in the Third World.

As Prashad notes, Generations in the Global South grew up with Soviet books on our shelves. If we could afford books, they would be lavishly illustrated Soviet childrens books, then a volume or two of Tolstoy, and then, finally, perhaps a few volumes of Lenins writings. It is these books, from novels to primers in mathematics, that flooded the continents of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, providing precious knowledge to places that did not have the capacity to publish such a range of what became world literature.

The Indian author, Pankaj Mishra, recalled the impact the magazine Soviet Life had on him as a young boy. When a new issue slipped through the mail slot, I would smell its glossy pages and run my fingers across them. I lingered longest over the pages with pictures of Young Pioneers, the communist childrens organization, perhaps envisioning adventure and comradery with other youth across the world.

For millions of young readers in the Third World, Soviet and Eastern European literature was an inexpensive window into a world largely beyond reach.

But it wasnt just Soviet-produced books, magazines, journals, and newspapers that Mishra recalls. The Soviet Union had [also] helped set up and then subsidize publishing houses and bookshops across much of what was then known as the developing world, a contribution to literacy, education, and revolution largely lost with the demise of socialism in Eastern Europe.

Another essay, by Rossen Djagalov, an Assistant Professor of Russian at New York University, briefly touches on the history of Progress Publishers, based in Moscow. According to Djagalov, In the history of publishing, there has probably never been a press so linguistically ambitious as Progress.

By 1991, Progress Publishers was a behemoth publishing yearly close to 2,000 new titles with a print run approaching 30 million copies, in every language imaginable. Many around the world fondly remember Progresss cheap, high quality editions of otherwise unavailable Marxist literature, Djagalov concluded.

In The East Was Read, you will not only learn about Soviet domestic literacy campaigns and Progress Publishers; youll also read about the Foreign Language Publishing House, the first Soviet press to publish works for the non-Soviet world. But most importantly, you will get a sense of what the cheap, high quality books and magazines meant to the millions of people across the globe who were inspired by them.

Another contributor to the collection added, in a time when foreign was really distant and thus especially exotic, these books brought the tundra home, eliminating several emotional, political, social, and physical geographies.

The East Was Read, though, isnt just about books; it is about culture geared towards liberation. Another chapter discusses the early 1968 Cultural Congress of Havana, a colossal event, considered of pivotal importance not only for Cuba, but for the Third World project as a whole. There are also chapters on Socialist Cinema and poetry.

As a short book, The East Was Read is a huge accomplishment. The individual chapters consumed as a whole succeed to painting a unique pictureof nostalgia, yes, but also of the possibilities inherent in the human capacity to grow, evolve, and build solidarity across continents and generations, all towards the goal of constructing a literate, educated, socialist community of nations, a project that has unfortunately largely been forgotten with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European states.

The East Was Read reminds us of the possibilities of another time and place and thereby provides hope for the future as well. It is highly recommended.

The East Was Read: Socialist Culture in The Third World

Edited by Vijay Prashad

LeftWord Books, 2019, 153 pages

See the original post:
How Soviet books brought literacy and socialist culture to the Third World - People's World

The pearl-clutching cry of socialism has been the cudgel used by conservatives to try and beat back every social program that has benefited Americans since the New Deal, from Social Security to unemployment insurance to Medicare.

And the Tweeter-In-Chiefs all-caps screeching of the word will only get louder as we head into a primary season with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in contention for the Democratic nomination for president.

Never in the history of human language has a word been more misused, misunderstood, weaponized and demonized than socialism, so lets stop hyperventilating for a moment and take a look at what socialism is and is not.

First off, socialism is not gulags, concentration camp or any other Fox News fever dream of left-wing totalitarianism. Sure, the Nazis called themselves the National Socialist German Workers Party, but North Korea calls itself the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, so I think we can disabuse ourselves of the notion that the words fascist dictatorships choose to describe themselves with are being used with honest intent.

The word socialism is traditionally associated with Marxist theory, but the concept of socialism actually predated Marx in classical economics, most notably by economist David Ricardo whose work influenced Marx though Marx later rejected many tenants of Ricardian Socialism.

In classical economic theory, socialism works within market processes, not as a replacement for them, as in Marxism.

In America, the question, Are you a capitalist or a socialist? is a false choice. The answer, to those who understand how our economy works, is ... both.

Our economy is a mixed economy, which is defined as a combination of private enterprise (capitalism) and public enterprise (socialism). When those two enterprises are balanced, our economy zings along at maximum freedom and efficiency. When imbalanced, we run into trouble.

The trick in a free market mixed economy is to balance the freedom of the owners with the freedom of the workers. One of the inherent flaws in capitalism is its inevitability for either a single entity or a small number of entities to gobble up every resource in its path, eventually leading to a tyranny of the private sector.

On the other hand, a heavy-handed public sector can stifle the markets and slow economic activity. At worst, the public sector can hijack the private sector altogether, leading to a tyranny of the state. Obviously, neither of those extreme outcomes jibes with a free society, which is why we need a balance between the two enterprises.

What weve been living with for the last 40 years has been a slowly growing cancer of imbalance in our mixed economy, whose capitalist side of the scale got so weighed down, it crashed the entire world economy in 2008.

Rather than rebalancing the scales after the crash, though, we doubled down on the private sector by issuing obscenely large bailouts to the banks that caused the crash in the first place an ironic use of socialism if ever there was one and the banks used those bailouts in ways that created more income inequality (which inhibits social mobility for the lower and middle classes), more market consolidation (which squashes competition and opportunity for small businesses), and allowed more power and wealth to be vacuumed up by a smaller and smaller number of people, to the point where today, the richest 1% of our population holds more wealth than the entire bottom 90%.

The president loves to brag about the stock market, but we have to stop judging the health of the economy by how well the rich people are doing. Those of us in that bottom 90% know that

our paychecks struggle to keep up with the needs of our daily lives.

Therefore, it should not come as a shock to anyone that Democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders and AOC are gaining traction. Theyre not arguing for authoritarian communism, theyre simply saying we need to rebalance the scales of our mixed economy.

Is anyone really surprised that a new generation of voters who have grown up in an America that has been at war their entire lives, whose parents lost homes and jobs in the 2008 crash, and who are entering the workforce with tens of thousands of dollars in student debt might just think, Hmm ... maybe we ought to try something different to fix this mess, cause what theyve been doing aint working?

So what would that rebalance look like? It would look like regulating the private sector in a way that values public need as much as the profit motive. It would look like making sure that everyone, regardless of class, race or gender has equal access to the same quality of resources that provide opportunities for success.

It would look like expanding and ensuring voting rights, so that every single voting age American has a say in how they are governed.

Thats not socialism its problem solving. Its common sense in a mixed economy, and its long past time we rebalance the scales.

The younger voting generations understand this, which is why a majority of Millennials and Gen Z view socialism more favorably than capitalism, in recent polling. Even a majority of my fellow Gen Xers said government needs to be more involved in solving social problems in a recent Pew Research poll.

So keep crying socialism at your own peril, GOP. The electorate will continue to pass you by.

Steve Smith is a husband, father, artist, and progressive. He serves on the Executive Board of the Forsyth County Democratic Committee, http://www.forsythdems.org. Follow Steve on Twitter @FoCoSteve.

Continued here:
Opinion: The party that cried 'socialism' - Forsyth County News Online