A rose by any other name...

I was accused today of being a Berniac, plainly a creature of uncertain pedigree and ill repute. It left me wondering:

Is one who supports reducing the work week to 30 hours and expanding paid leave; providing guaranteed jobs at a living wage to all;

providing a decent standard of living to everyone; establishing a national child care system; reestablishing the right of all workers to join unions; providing affordable universal health care and free universal public education; and restoring the infrastructure while keeping it in public hands; and opposes the national security state, militarism, empire and endless war, is such a person a Berniac or a lifelong Democrat who wants to see the Democratic Party return to basic principles?

Extra credit:
A wage floor is an effective way to fight poverty -- and it would reduce government spending and intrusion: The Conservative Case for a Guaranteed Basic Income Creating by Noah Gordon (The Atlantic)
Giving everyone a job is the best way to democratize the economy and give workers leverage in the workplace: Why We Need a Federal Job Guarantee by Mark Paul, William Darity Jr and Darrick Hamilton (The Jacobin)
Working moms can have it all -- in France: Trapped by European-style Socialism -- And I Love It! by Claire Lundberg (Slate)
In 1971, a national day-care bill almost became law. Therein lies a story: Why America Never Had Universal Child Care by Nancy L. Cohen (New Republic)
The weakness of labor hurts all employees in every sector: The Decline of Unions Is Your Problem Too by Eric Liu (TIME)
A growing number of Americans support Medicare for All: A Canadian Doctor Explains How Her Country's Single-Payer Health Care System Works by Michel Martin and Denise Guerra (All Things Considered/NPR)
The US earns a D+. It is, in a word, a mess. It's Time to Fix America's Infrastructure. Here's Where to Start by Jordan Golson (Wired)
“Infrastructure is such a dull word. But it’s really an issue that touches almost everything.”: System Overload by James Surowiecki (The New Yorker)
A lack of transparency and oversight has led to abuses time and again, in every era: Why Does Anyone Trust the National-Security State? by Conor Friedersdorf (The Atlantic)
The military's evolving role in U.S. foreign policy decision-making: The Politics of American Militarism by Joshua Foust (The Atlantic)
Untangling truth and fiction in an age of perpetual war: American Imperium by Andrew J. Bacevich (Harper's Magazine)
Imagining the World in 2025: Empire of Madness by Tom Engelhardt (Truthdig)

Attention, voters.

'Over and over again, America's seniors are being
told they must foot the bill for fiscal failures which
have already left them facing a weakened and
tenuous retirement. In Detroit, a bankruptcy judge
has ruled the city can cut pension payments to
thousands of retirees, despite a state law stating
otherwise. In Washington, the latest Congressional
budget deal targets retirees with $12 billion in
pension changes, including cutting pensions for
military personnel who retire in 2015 and requiring
new federal workers to contribute more to their
retirement. All of this couldn't come at a worse time.
Three decades of stagnant middle-class incomes,
disappearing pensions, limited ability to start and
maintain personal savings, and the failure of the
401K experiment lay the foundation for a retirement
crisis that could further threaten millions of older
Americans and their families.' -- Max Richtman,
President and CEO, National Committee to Preserve
Social Security and Medicare Social Security and Medicare

In a nutshell, you should pardon the expression,

... what today's conservatives believe:

"Let it be understood that we cannot go outside of this alternative: Liberty, inequality, survival of the fittest; not-liberty, equality, survival of the unfittest. The former carries society forward and favors all its best members; the latter carries society downwards and favors all its worst members." -- Professor William Graham Sumner ("What Social Classes Owe to Each Other," 1883).