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Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Back in 1980 Bernie Sanders and I were presidential electors for the Socialist Workers Party

[ Sanders served as an elector for the Socialist Workers Party, which was founded on the principles of Leon Trotsky.

Take his relationship with the military. During the Vietnam War, Sanders applied for conscientious objector status, which at the time required religious opposition to all wars, not just the war in question. (Sanders’ application was eventually denied, but by then he was too old for the draft.) His campaign spokesman told ABC News that he was a pacifist then but isn’t now. In the 1970s, Sanders chaired the left-libertarian Liberty Union Party and competed in two Senate campaigns and two gubernatorial campaigns under its banner. “Liberty Union calls for a reduction of the U.S. military,” said the party’s statement of principles. That’s a wholly reasonable position, but it continued, “A return to the system of local citizen militias and Coast Guard would provide our nation with ample protection and also protect us from the imperialist impulses of our leaders.” That sounds a lot like getting rid of America’s standing Army.
 
There’s more. In 1980, Sanders served as an elector for the Socialist Workers Party, which was founded on the principles of Leon Trotsky. According to the New York Times, that party called for abolishing the military budget. It also called for “solidarity” with the revolutionary regimes in Iran, Nicaragua, Grenada, and Cuba; this was in the middle of the Iranian hostage crisis.]

Tables set up by two Atlanta members of the Socialist Workers Party at a Bernie Sanders rally in North Charleston, S.C., on Saturday. (AJC/Daniel Malloy)
Was Bernie soft on Trotskyism in 1980 ?

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Ron