Will does a disservice to Sanders
Jack Pavella’s May 8 letter to the editor, “Democrats are socialists,” inspired me to immediately volunteer and send Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders a $50 contribution. The June 5 George Will column, “Despite what Sanders says, the old Socialist platform has won in America,” does Pavella one better by calling Republicans as well as Democrats socialists, excluding only Bernie Sanders. Pavella’s letter objected to an Observer-Reporter editorial citing “the more delusional among us” for believing conservative nonsense, such as Will finding Sanders’ “pose of being an ‘independent’ and ‘socialist'” a “charade.” “Actually, he is neither,” Will opines: “He is a Democrat.”
By Pavella’s reasoning and logic, this would make Democrats and Sanders not socialists, but Will has it covered: “If he is a socialist, who isn’t?” Lonely, embattled George Will, whose short history of socialism’s evolution shows it riding high: “And the socialist Sanders thinks the public sector is famished.” Here, Will correctly ignores his extensive earlier evidence of Sanders not being a socialist and, unconcerned about it himself, understates Sanders’ knowledge of hunger and poverty in America.
Jim Greenwood
Washington