"The U.S. Senator from Vermont has opposed NATO expansion into Eastern Europe" - See more at: http://portside.org/20…/bernie-sanders-2016-peace-candidate…-- Unless I misheard him in the Thursday night debate with HRC he favored the NATO expansion to counter Putin's "aggression.'' In fact there is contradiction between his progressive domestic policies and his reactionary views on international affairs which reflect ideas generally in line with U.S. imperial interests. He is not the dangerous hawk that HRC is but he calls Iran a center of terrorism which it spreads around the world when it is actually Saudi Arabia that is playing that role financed by the U.S.; he says we must oppose the totalitarian communists in China and other such rubbish. He appears to be supportive of the general neoliberal bi-partisan consensus that Russia is now a major threat to the peace of Europe. The Democratic Party, of which he may end up being the presidential nominee (unless the DP leadership has a plan to deadlock the convention and then draft Biden as the compromise nominee) is not friendly to the kind of progressive anti-imperialist foreign policies that socialists favor (and that make any support of HRC problematic) and it would be disastrous to insist that Sanders adopt such views at this time (first things first) since getting Sanders into office is requisite for any possible progressive change (HRC is as much a representative of the reactionary patriarchal Establishment as the ultra-right -- only less open about it as there is no contradiction between rights for women, gays, and minorities, as can be seen by former progressive leaders of the women's rights and civil rights movement now aligning themselves with the pro-imperialist HRC, and the continuance of a vicious capitalist economic system). Agitating for and supporting Sanders is the first duty now of socialists both as an opportunity to educate the masses in a progressive direction and to prepare the way for the eventual elimination of the ultra right in all its manifestations.
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