You know, it's funny, sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is
because: ‘People are lining up for food.’
That's a good thing.
In other countries, people don't line up for food.
The rich get the food and the poor starve to death.
The distribution of wealth in this country
is one of the most unfair and distorted in the entire world
I think you change it through tax law,
I think you change it through public ownership of significant parts of the economy.
Everybody was totally convinced that Castro was the worst guy in the world.
They forgot that he educated their kids, gave them healthcare,
totally transformed their society.
Throughout his career,
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has explained away the inevitable downsides
of massively increasing the power of the state over the individual.
It's a dictatorship.
It's a poor economy.
We want changes.
But have some good things been done in Cuba?
Yes.
Sanders once identified as a “radical socialist”
who admired the achievements of Cuba under Fidel,
of Nicaragua under the Sandinistas,
and of the Soviet Union right up to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Their public transportation system was the cleanest,
most effective mass transit system that I've ever seen in my life.
The stations themselves were absolutely beautiful, uh,
including many works of art, chandeliers that were beautiful.
Running for office in the 70s,
Sanders sought a top tax rate of 100%.
Saying nobody should earn more than a million dollars.
Sanders wanted to stop businesses from moving out of their original communities.
Saying the ultimate solution to protect workers was national legislation
that would “bring about the public ownership of the major means of production"
He favored “the public ownership of utilities, banks, and major industries,”
without compensation to investors and stockholders.
Face it, you don't find many socialists in elective office in this country.
And one is elected mayor of a sizeable city well that's news.
Shortly after he was elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont, in 1981,
Sanders told a room full of charity workers, “I don’t believe in charities,”
because only the government should provide social services to the needy.
Do I believe that the profit motive is fundamental to human nature?
The answer is no.
I think the spirit of cooperation, that you and I can work together better
rather than have to compete against each other and try to destroy each other.
Healthcare is a right-
Today he calls himself a “Democratic Socialist,”
and has himself become a millionaire.
I wrote a best selling book, you write a best selling book you can be a millionaire too.
He favors single-payer health care, free public college for all, and a $15 minimum wage.
We're not talking about Venezuela, we're not talking about Cuba.
So the next time that you hear me attacked as a socialist, remember this:
I don't believe government should take over, you know, the grocery store down the street,
or own the means of production.
But one thing has remained constant
as Sanders has shifted his model for U.S. policy from Nicaragua, Cuba, and the USSR
to Denmark, Finland, and Sweden:
In all of these countries, he’s misled his followers about what’s really happening.
As a socialist the word socialism does not frighten me
and I think it's probably fair to say that the Nicaraguan government
is primarily a socialist government.
The government there has the strange and unusual idea
that they should attempt to do something for the people of Nicaragua
rather than for the United States corporations.
They are now teaching poetry, not only to peasants and to workers
but in the military, in the police department.
When Sanders was the mayor of Burlington Vermont
he vowed that he would defy the Reagan administration's embargo
against Nicaragua and the Sandinistas
who had overthrown an American-backed dictator
and instituted a revolutionary socialist government.
In 1985, Sanders traveled to Nicaragua
to attend a celebration in honor of the revolution’s sixth anniversary.
I mean, it's unbelievable to say that a mayor of a city of 38,000
is now the highest ranking American to visit them during the celebration of their revolution.
I was treated in a special way.
Surrounded by reporters at the airport upon his return,
Sanders was enthusiastic about what he had seen in Nicaragua.
Many of the things that we saw were impressive,
there's a tremendous sense of energy.
Sanders praised the Sandinista leadership and president Daniel Ortega.
Ortega is an impressive guy,
Erensto Cardenal is a funny looking guy, he has gray hair,
and he really does remind you of the hippie.
They are not, to quote Ronald Reagan loony toon characters
I just went all around, stop people and ask them 'are you with the government or not?'
They kinda laugh, they don't quite understand what you're talking about.
Of course they're with the government.
Now obviously I will be attacked by every editorial writer in the free press
for being a dumb dupe.
Maybe I am.
I was impressed by their intelligence and by their sincerity
these are not political hacks.
He praised the seizure of private farms and businesses.
In terms of land reform, giving for the first time in their lives,
real land to farmers.
The people of Nicaragua, the poor people, respect that.
Rich people, needless to say who used to have the good life there
are not terribly happy.
What Sanders didn't mention was that by 1985
international watchdog groups
had exposed the Sandinistas significant human rights violations.
A 1981 report by the inter American commission on human rights
revealed mass executions and persecution of indigenous peoples.
And just two years before Sanders made his trip
Time Magazine reported that hundreds of citizens
were disappearing every month at the hands of the Sandinistas.
Many of us get depressed about what's going on in Nicaragua today
and the absolute lies that are coming out of the White House.
In fact we have a right to be very exhilarated.
Sanders accused the American government and media
of conspiring to cover up a Socialist success story.
The important story is not Nicaragua.
When you read the New York Times, the real truth is not being told
and how that's obfuscated, ok, that's what's the interesting story.
And if you get on the air and you say, 'I am sympathetic to the Sandinista government
I think it was right they made their revolution
they're trying to do the right thing, no good.
My point to Ortega is they are not getting their message
of what they are trying to do out to the American people.
It's, I just came back from a 14 hour trip so I-
The Sandinistas would remain in power for five more years after Sander's visit
and the Nicaraguan permanent commission on human rights
would go on to document over 14,000 instances of rape, torture and murder during their reign.
They really were talking about a transformation of society,
giving power to the poor people, to the working people
and that has caused the conflict, needless to say in Nicaragua
which we're seeing today.
I remember for some reason or another
being very excited when Fidel Castro made the revolution in Cuba,
I was a kid and I remember reading that.
It just seemed right and appropriate that poor people were rising up against
rather ugly rich people.
While Sanders was still mayor of Burlington
he traveled to Cuba in 1989 to seek a meeting with Fidel Castro
though he ended up settling for the mayor of Havana.
By this time, Castro had seized private farms and businesses,
imprisoned artists, created informant squads to monitor and arrest dissenters
and forced gay citizens and other undesirables into labor camps.
Everybody was totally convinced that Castro was the worst guy in the world,
that all the cuban people were going to rise up in rebellion against Fidel Castro.
They forgot that he educated their kids, gave them healthcare,
totally transformed the society, you know,
not to say that Fidel Castro or Cuba are perfect, they are certainly not.
Castro was open about his need to eliminate individual rights in order to ensure collective rights.
He understood that curbing press freedoms
was a prerequisite for the success of a socialist government.
Saying he couldn't tolerate dissidence in the mass media
because the people's cohesion is fundamental.
If you asked us if a paper could appear here against socialism
I could say honestly no it can not appear here
in that sense we do not have the freedom of the press that you possess in the US.
But Sanders disagreed with Castro,
he thought the American press was similarly compromised
because it was controlled by politicians and big money interests.
Beginning to read about the Cuban revolution
and thought what I was more impressed about
is how it was being reported in the United States Press
I mean I began to understand that you don't always hear all of the truth.
For example just last night I was watching Canadian television which we get down here,
it was a program on Cuba,
we're not allowed to see those programs here in the United States.
Just because Ronald Reagan dislikes these people
does not mean to say that the people in their own nations feel the same way.
Today the Cuban government censors the internet,
bans public displays of affection between gay couples,
and jails people for criticizing the government.
You could say there's some positive things in Cuba, there's some very negative things.
50 years after the revolution people still can't dissent with freedom,
the economy is terrible.
But, you know, it's somehow
they've decided that Cuba is the only non-democratic country in the world.
Glory to the great soviet people, the builders of communism.
The problem with the world socialism is that very often it's been equated
with what happens in the Soviet Union
with it's authoritarianism and totalitarianism.
I believe very strongly in the right of dissent.
Sanders traveled to the Soviet Union in 1988, three years before its collapse.
He'd gotten married to his second wife Jane the day before leaving
and the trip doubled as what he called, quote:
"A very strange honeymoon."
Sanders formalized its relationship with its Russian sister city Yaroslavl
and praised the communist government's social and cultural achievements.
We went to a theater in Yaroslavl which was absolutely beautiful,
had three separate stages including a puppeteer area
and of course the highest price of the ticket that you could get
was the equivalent of a dollar fifty.
En route home, a journalist confronted him again at the airport
with reporting by the Associated Press of dilapidated, unsanitary living conditions
and food shortages in Yaroslavl.
There was no hot water and no food?
Yeah.
You know I can't, none of us did an exhaust-
an exhaustive study of living conditions in Yaroslavl.
I didn't notice much deprivation, how it is that a fair statement?
Later he said he was impressed by Soviet official's transparency
in acknowledging their housing crisis.
Which he found comparable to America's.
There's a major housing crisis which they acknowledge.
But the acknowledge that not only do they not have enough housing,
the the construction and the quality of that housing is also not adequate,
and they were very free to mention that.
But you know one had isolated situations say look, socialism has failed over there,
compared to what?
You know that in the United States of America today
the average married couple can no longer afford a home.
Sanders also appreciated the Soviets openness about other issues
and believed policymakers in the US had much to learn from the Communist system.
They are absolutely open in acknowledging that they are not a democratic society.
Their healthcare system is free
but they would be open to acknowledge that it is probably ten years
behind the United States in terms of medical technology.
We were willing to be critical of the United States,
we were there to say 'yeah, we have problems, you have problems.
there are strengths to the US system, there are strengths to our system.
our goal is to take the strengths of both systems.'
This land was made for you and me!
What I believe in has nothing to do with communism.
After a failed run for governor of Vermont in 1986,
around the fall of the Soviet Union,
Sanders set his sights on higher office.
You know we freed the slaves a long long time ago.
But in many respects the average working person today has very little rights.
He re-branded himself a democratic socialist
and won a seat in Congress in 1990.
Authoritarian communism has been a vicious political system
which, over its length of time, has resulted in the murder of many many millions of people.
As an economic system it has not succeeded and I'm delighted to see its demise.
That has nothing to do with democratic socialism.
Toiday Sanders objects to comparisons between his policies
and those of the Sandinistas or Castros.
When I talk about democratic socialism,
I'm not looking at Venezuela, I'm not looking at Cuba,
I'm looking at countries like Denmark and Sweden.
What hasn't changed is Sanders' unwillingness to acknowledge
the political and economic realities of the countries he points to as models.
Scandinavia is a bastion of free market capitalism.
In the libertarian Frasier Institute's 2018 Human Freedom Index,
Norway, Denmark and Finland ranked higher than the United States
and in 2015 the Danish prime minister directly contradicted Sanders' claims.
I know that some people in the US associate the nordic model with some sort of socialism.
Therefore I would like to make one thing clear.
Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy.
It might surprise some of you but Forbes named Denmark
the best country in the world for business.
Denmark does offer expansive social benefits,
including single payer healthcare, free education, and months of payed family leave.
What is the catch you would ask
and of course the high taxes.
The top income tax in Denmark is almost 60%.
When you think about 90% you don't think that's obviously too high?
No.
Danish citizens also pay a 25% sales tax and excise taxes on cars of up to 180%.
But tax revenue in nordic countries isn't enough to pay for their social programs
which are unsustainable in their current form.
We have no choice but to reform our society in order to preserve the welfare state
and the public support for it.
Sweden is raising its retirement age and further privatizing parts of its healthcare system.
In Finland the coalition government recently resigned
after it failed to pass reforms it viewed as crucial to averting financial ruin.
Denmark is increasing its retirement age to 73 and cutting spending and taxes.
The answer can not always be spend more money.
I want to improve our competitiveness, reduce taxes for business,
remove red tape.
Sanders also points to Norway as a model,
a country where massive oil production subsidizes the welfare benefits
of a population that's roughly 62 times smaller than in the US.
He never acknowledges fundamental differences between the nordic countries and America
or the true costs of the policies he champions.
Sanders wants to offer even more generous benefits than those in Scandinavia
and thinks that the wealthiest tax payers can simply foot the bill.
So you're saying we can pay for all this without raising taxes on anybody but the 1%?
May have to go a little bit lower than that, but not much lower.
Sanders has proposed a government takeover of the healthcare sector,
or about 18% of GDP,
At a cost of 32 trillion dollars over 10 years.
He wants to increase social security benefits, offer free public college,
and grant the state sweeping new powers to tackle climate change through the Green New Deal,
policies that would add at least another 50 trillion to the budget.
When you're dealing with the future of the planet,
I don't know how you go too far.
These are not radical, extremist ideas.
I am not coming before the American people saying 'look,
I am this radical, wild eyed socialist,
crazy ideas but listen to me.'
You have more and more growth, producing products that we do not necessarily need
I mean, you know, at the end of the day you don't necessarily need
a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants
or 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country.
It's all in keeping with his decades long pattern of ignoring the downsides of centralizing authority
and massively increasing the size of the government.
Massive investments, massive investments, massive investments, massive investments-
My vision is not just making modest changes around the edge,
it is transforming American society.
So when I use the word socialist, and I know some people aren't comfortable about it,
I say that it is imperative that we create a political revolution
and I hope you will be part of that movement
because if you are, we can in fact transform this country.
So as American voters consider whether to sign up for part 2 of Sanders' political revolution
they should consider whether this time, it really will be different.
They really were talking about a transformation of society,
healthcare in Nicaragua is now free,
it is terrible, it is very primitive compared to what we get.
But they now have it free.