Bernie Sanders

[Woodsman]

Matt Taibbi is positively gushing over Bernie Sanders.

But Sanders genuinely, sincerely, does not care about optics. He is the rarest of Washington animals, a completely honest person. If he's motivated by anything other than a desire to use his influence to protect people who can't protect themselves, I've never seen it. Bernie Sanders is the kind of person who goes to bed at night thinking about how to increase the heating-oil aid program for the poor... His concept of "Democratic Socialism" as I've come to understand it over the years is that an elected government should occasionally step in and offer an objection or two toward our progress to undisguised oligarchy...



Give 'Em Hell, Bernie

[lektrode]

Re: Bernie Sanders

Matt Taibbi is positively gushing over Bernie Sanders.

Give 'Em Hell, Bernie

+1

just shows to go ya how screwed up the whole 'system' has got...
(when guys like me get to thinkin - uh oh - the 'ultimate ticket' at this point would be bernie+liz - not necessarily in that order - or to put it another way: ANYBODY BUT hitlery... ;)

[shiny!]

Re: Bernie Sanders

Sanders is interesting. I took a quiz to see what candidates were most closely aligned with my thinking. Bernie came up #1 and, to my embarrassment, Cruz was #2, probably for his promise to eliminate the IRS. What are my chances of a Sanders-Cruz ticket for '16?

[vt]

Re: Bernie Sanders

Under Obama, the poor have lost ground, while the rich have become richer.

Bernie would bring more equality: the poor get a little poorer, the rich a lot poorer.

[don]

Re: Bernie Sanders

how it works . . .

What the Democrats really want is the left’s silence. The left, as disorganized as it is, is the source of ideas, energy and passion for a party that is an empty vessel of corporate sloganeering. The left spawns the movements and ideas that both form and motivate the Democratic base. That’s where the Democrats draw their votes from, but the party needs money from corporations and plutocrats to run its machinery and to play its part in what is projected to be a $5 billion presidential campaign. More than that, the Democrats are one wing of the party of Wall Street, so they will never fulfill any social-justice demands without a powerful push from below.

In the general election, the Democrats need the left to be silent about how bankrupt and corrupt the party is so it can gloss its rush to the right in a veneer of progressive rhetoric. The role of Progressives for Obamain 2008 was to push as many leftists into the campaign as possible and then attack those disinclined to support a candidate who supported more war, bailouts with no accountability for Wall Street, and wanted to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to pay for the financial catastrophe.

After Sanders tossed his hat in the ring for the Democratic presidential nominee, there was the predictable Sanders-is-the-real-progressive-in-this-race column from the usual quarters. And there is already “The People for Bernie Sanders” working to corral the left into the Democratic Party. It’s easy to forecast how this will end.

In July 2016, at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, after Sanders’ team meets with Hillary Clinton’s senior strategists but not the nominee herself, his campaign manager speaks to the media: “We are proud of all we accomplished, the millions of Americans who cast their votes for the Sanders 2016 campaign, and the issues we raised about economic inequality, the struggling middle class, and an economy rigged for the benefit of a few billionaires. Senator Sanders may not be the nominee in 2016, but the concerns he championed are front and center.”

When asked about the closed-door meeting and Clinton’s $2 billion in campaign contributions from Wall Street and wealthy donors, Sanders’ manager says, “What we got from the Clinton campaign was a commitment to begin the process to talk about reducing income inequality. We’ve moved. They’ve moved. It’s truly unity in that sense. We are fully behind Hillary Clinton as our party’s presidential nominee for 2016, and are our only focus for the next 100 days is to make sure she is elected to that office. Thank you.”

I’m not making this up. The above quote is paraphrased from the Dennis Kucinich 2004 campaign. He ran on opposition to the Iraq War, but by the convention Kucinich backed the nominee, John Kerry, whose position was to escalate the war, in exchange for vague promises.

Every time a progressive challenges the mainstream Democratic candidates, such as Kucinich, Jerry Brown in 1992, Jesse Jackson in 1988, Ted Kennedy in 1980, there is a pattern. If the insurgent campaign catches fire, it raises progressive hopes that the Democrats might finally have a presidential nominee more on the level of the party’s grassroots than C-suite executives. But the campaign is overwhelmed by money pouring into the coffers of whichever Wall Street Democrat clinches the nomination. Because the progressive standard-bearer ran in a process that is impossible for a real left-wing candidate to win, they were defeated before they ever began.

But the progressive serves an important purpose. They energize the activist base and raise hopes that the Democratic Party is open to progressive ideas, even though the money, use of super-delegates and drawn-out primary limit the victors circle to establishment candidates. Sanders campaign will help divide the left and bind many of them to the Democratic Party. Over the next six months expect articles that either praise Sanders as a populist, progressive, left champion, or attack anyone who thinks his campaign is a waste of time. Pushing liberal ideas branded as socialist to a national audience may open a little ideological space, but it will cost hundreds of millions of dollars and armies of volunteers that could be far better used for independent organizing.

Short of a mile-wide asteroid smacking into the earth, Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Party nominee. She needs challengers to enliven a primary that is more coronation than contest, and she needs the sparring to keep her in fighting shape for the general election. Plus, having a left-wing candidate allows her to appear as the responsible moderate who stakes out corporate-friendly positions slathered in progressive blather.

By the time the convention is over, those progressives who hopped on board the Sanders train to nowhere will have reconciled themselves with supporting Hillary, whatever their misgivings. It’s basic psychology.

Arun Gupta

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Bernie Sanders

It's not just the United States. Apparently it works just the same way in Canada, too.

"He was the only man I ever knew who could get money from the rich and votes from the poor with the promise to protect them from each other."
- Tommy Douglas, Former Saskatchewan Premier and Leader of the Federal New Democratic Party

[Woodsman]

Re: Bernie Sanders

It's not just the United States. Apparently it works just the same way in Canada, too.

That's life in these United States of Mouseland:

It's the story of a place called Mouseland. Mouseland was a place where all the little mice lived and played, were born and died. And they lived much the same as you and I do.

They even had a Parliament. And every four years they had an election. Used to walk to the polls and cast their ballots. Some of them even got a ride to the polls. And got a ride for the next four years afterwards too. Just like you and me. And every time on election day all the little mice used to go to the ballot box and they used to elect a government. A government made up of big, fat, black cats.

Now if you think it strange that mice should elect a government made up of cats, you just look at the history of Canada for last 90 years and maybe you'll see that they weren't any stupider than we are.

Now I'm not saying anything against the cats. They were nice fellows. They conducted their government with dignity. They passed good laws--that is, laws that were good for cats. But the laws that were good for cats weren't very good for mice. One of the laws said that mouseholes had to be big enough so a cat could get his paw in. Another law said that mice could only travel at certain speeds--so that a cat could get his breakfast without too much effort.

All the laws were good laws. For cats. But, oh, they were hard on the mice. And life was getting harder and harder. And when the mice couldn't put up with it any more, they decided something had to be done about it. So they went en masse to the polls. They voted the black cats out. They put in the white cats.

Now the white cats had put up a terrific campaign. They said: "All that Mouseland needs is more vision." They said: "The trouble with Mouseland is those round mouseholes we got. If you put us in we'll establish square mouseholes." And they did. And the square mouseholes were twice as big as the round mouseholes, and now the cat could get both his paws in. And life was tougher than ever.

And when they couldn't take that anymore, they voted the white cats out and put the black ones in again. Then they went back to the white cats. Then to the black cats. They even tried half black cats and half white cats. And they called that coalition. They even got one government made up of cats with spots on them: they were cats that tried to make a noise like a mouse but ate like a cat.

You see, my friends, the trouble wasn't with the colour of the cat. The trouble was that they were cats. And because they were cats, they naturally looked after cats instead of mice.

Presently there came along one little mouse who had an idea. My friends, watch out for the little fellow with an idea. And he said to the other mice, "Look fellows, why do we keep on electing a government made up of cats? Why don't we elect a government made up of mice?" "Oh," they said, "he's a Bolshevik. Lock him up!" So they put him in jail.

But I want to remind you: that you can lock up a mouse or a man but you can't lock up an idea.

Turns out Tommy was wrong about ideas, but it's a great story nevertheless.

[lektrode]

Re: Bernie Sanders

That's life in these United States of Mouseland:...
Turns out Tommy was wrong about ideas, but it's a great story nevertheless.

+1

[vt]

Re: Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders exposes Obama's lies about unemployment:

http://freebeacon.com/politics/berni...-rate-is-10-5/

[lektrode]

Re: Bernie Sanders

Guest Post: Why Donald Trump Surged in the Polls (And Why It Matters)

[don]

Re: Bernie Sanders

mi bueno amigo

Finally, one has to wonder about the provenance of the Trump phenomenon. Seemingly coming out of nowhere, it’s been attributed to a populist upsurge against the regnant elites, who are so out of touch with the people that they never saw what was coming. The media, we are told, are biased against Trump – this is one of The Donald’s chief complaints – and now The People are rising up against the Washington-New York know-it-alls with their “big words” and pretentious airs.

Yet this analysis is lacking in one key ingredient: the facts. For the reality is that the media, far from ignoring Trump, have lavished so much attentionon him that he’s eating up coverage that would otherwise go to the rest of the crowded Republican field. And that may be a clue as to what’s really going on here….

The usual “mainstream” media tactics regarding a political outsider they hate is to ignore him or her: the example of Ron Paul should suffice to make this point. Indeed, Jon Stewart pointed this out in a memorable “Daily Show” segment, and it took Paul three runs for the White House to get their attention. Trump has suffered no such fate: quite the opposite, in fact. The Donald’s every demagogic pronouncement is faithfully recorded and broadcast far and wide. Over a hundred reporters crowded into his latest appearances in Las Vegas and Phoenix. Jeb Bush, for all the many millions stuffed into his campaign coffers, couldn’t buy that kind of exposure.

This gift to the Trump campaign is being celebrated by Democratic politicos and consultants as if it were manna from heaven. The Republican “brand,” they aver, is being sullied beyond redemption, and they’re watching this unanticipated and providential miracle from the peanut gallery with unalloyed glee.

And yet … just how unanticipated is it?

As San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders points out, Trump is not really any kind of Republican, and, what’s more, his links to the Clintons are well-documented and close:

“In 1987, Trump registered as a Republican in New York. But in 1999, he registered with the Independence Party. In 2001, he registered as a Democrat. In 2009 he was back in with the GOP.
“Hillary Rodham Clinton sat in the front row at Trump’s 2005 wedding with Melania Knauss.

“According to Politico, Trump has donated more than $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation.

“In the 2006 cycle, Trump donated $5,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, $20,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, but only $1,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

“When Trump flirted with running for president in 2012, CNN reported he had given $541,650 to federal Democratic candidates and committees since 1990 – more than the $429,450 he contributed to GOP candidates and committees.”

National Review‘s Jonah Goldberg rips the veil off Trump’s alleged nativism in a by turns anguished-and-amused plea to his fellow conservatives not to be taken in by The Donald’s act:

“You seem to think he’s an immigration hardliner, and he’s certainly pretending to be. But why can’t you see through it? He condemned Mitt Romney as an immigration hardliner in 2012 and favored comprehensive immigration reform. He told Bill O’Reilly he was in favor of a ‘path to citizenship’ for 30 million illegal immigrants:

“Trump: ‘You have to give them a path. You have 20 million, 30 million, nobody knows what it is. It used to be 11 million. Now, today I hear it’s 11, but I don’t think it’s 11. I actually heard you probably have 30 million. You have to give them a path, and you have to make it possible for them to succeed. You have to do that.’

“Question: Just how many rapists and drug dealers did Donald Trump want to give green cards to?”

Trump has been playing the media with his supposed presidential ambitions for years, but it was clear then that it was just The Donald doing what he does best – promoting himself. So why now has he suddenly turned “serious”? I give that word scare quotes because 1) Serious is not a word one associates with a clown, and 2) It’s not at all clear that, for all his megalomania, he really thinks he can win the White House. He may be a lunatic but he’s far from stupid.

And so the question jumps out at us: Why now?

Although I have no concrete proof of my theory, there’s plenty of circumstantial evidence. His ties to the Clintons, his past pronouncements which are in such blatant contradiction to his current fulminations, and the cries of joy from the Clintonian gallery and the media (or do I repeat myself) all point to a single conclusion: the Trump campaign is a Democratic wrecking operation aimed straight at the GOP’s base.

Donald Trump is a false-flag candidate. It’s all an act, one that benefits his good friend Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party that, until recently, counted the reality show star among its adherents. Indeed, Trump’s pronouncements – the open racism, the demagogic appeals, the faux-populist rhetoric – sound like something out of a Democratic political consultant’s imagination, a caricature of conservatism as performed by a master actor.

Now I realize this is a “conspiracy theory,” and, as we all know, there are no conspiracies in politics. In that noble profession, everything is completely aboveboard and on the level – right?

Like hell it is.

by Justin Raimondo • July 13, 2015

[don]

Hedges on Bernie

Bernie Sanders is the only major party candidate for President who favors a single payer national health insurance system.

What’s not to like?

That was the question Ralph Nader asked Chris Hedges on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour.

“Bernie Sanders wants to break up the New York banks, he wants to impose a Wall Street transaction tax, he wants to regulate drug prices, he’s for full Medicare for all — everybody in, nobody out, free choice of doctor and hospital — he wants to get rid of these corporate tax havens, he’s pushing for a $15 dollar an hour minimum wage, he wants to stronger labor unions. What’s not to like?” Nader asked Hedges.

“Because he did it within the Democratic establishment,” Hedges said. “He’s lending credibility to a party that is completely corporatized. He has agreed that he will endorse the candidate, which, unless there is some miracle, will be Hillary Clinton.”

“So what he does is he takes all of that energy, he raises all of these legitimate issues and he funnels it back into a dead political system so that by April it’s over.”

“That was the role of Van Jones in the last election,” Hedges said. “He was running around, using the language of Occupy — Occupy the Vote — and that is what Bernie has done. I don’t understand. He fought the Democratic establishment in Vermont his entire career. Now he has sold out to it.”

... they have to be outside the system. And we have to begin to build movements that are divorced from the Democratic and Republican parties. My fear is that by this time next year, Bernie Sanders is running around once again repeating this mantra of the least worst and stoking fears against whoever the Republican candidate is. And we’ve gone nowhere.”

“We’ve seen that routine before,” Nader said. “Unfortunately, Dennis Kucinich had to toe the line. He was done by April. They even kept him out of some of the debates. Yes, we have seen it before. They are done by April. And then they are forced into a loyalty oath to whoever wins the nomination. And of course, it’s invariably the corporate Democrats.”

... the party is completely captive to corporate power,” Hedges said. “And Bernie has cut a Faustian deal with the Democrats. And that’s not even speculation. I did an event with him and Bill McKibben, Naomi Klein and Kshama Sawant in New York the day before the Climate March. And Kshama Sawant ,the Socialist City Councilwoman from Seattle and I asked Sanders why he wanted to run as a Democrat. And he said — because I don’t want to end up like Nader.”

“He didn’t want to end up pushed out of the establishment,” Hedges said. “He wanted to keep his committee chairmanships, he wanted to keep his Senate seat. And he knew the forms of retribution, punishment that would be visited upon him if he applied his critique to the Democratic establishment. So he won’t.”

“The lie of omission is still a lie,” Hedges said. “Bernie’s decision to play the game within the Democratic Party and in essence lend credibility to the party and lend credibility to Hillary Clinton is very destructive.

Nader said that the retribution by the Democratic Party against their left is pretty harsh, “but not against their right.”

“Senator Joe Lieberman — he goes (in 2008) and he endorses McCain at the Republican National Convention against Obama and he comes back after Obama wins to Washington and they give him a major chair of a major Senate committee.”

[Polish_Silver]

Why is Hillary winning?

Why are democrats voting for Hillary instead of Sanders?

Why is Hillary "more electable", if that is the perception?

Though I disagree with Sanders on many things, I have been very impressed by:

A) His voting record. He opposed the Iraq war and the Patriot act. Only Ron Paul and a few others can claim that.

B) High minded campaign. Talks about issues. No negative campaigning. No phone calls with recordings. Only real people who want to talk.

Excellent TV commercials about his concern for African Americans in the criminal justice system.

If anything, it's even higher minded than Ron Paul's campaign, and that is saying a lot.


I wish we had more leaders with his level of integrity, regardless of other issues.

[Chomsky]

Re: Why is Hillary winning?

Why are democrats voting for Hillary instead of Sanders?

Why is Hillary "more electable", if that is the perception?

Though I disagree with Sanders on many things, I have been very impressed by:

A) His voting record. He opposed the Iraq war and the Patriot act. Only Ron Paul and a few others can claim that.

B) High minded campaign. Talks about issues. No negative campaigning. No phone calls with recordings. Only real people who want to talk.

Excellent TV commercials about his concern for African Americans in the criminal justice system.

If anything, it's even higher minded than Ron Paul's campaign, and that is saying a lot.


I wish we had more leaders with his level of integrity, regardless of other issues.

Also, he has no PAC or SuperPAC. Gives him the impression of being incorruptible.

Of course, the very fact that he is running as a Democrat as an obvious sheepdog -- to herd the left into voting for Hillary, whom he said at the very outset that he would endorse if he loses -- puts the lie to that perception.

[vt]

Re: Why is Hillary winning?

The best Democrat ticket for the country would be:

Mark Warner - President

Jim Webb- Vice President

The nation doesn't need a left wing or right wing wingnut. We need to be the United States of America again. That can only come from the center.

Kasich in the only GOP that comes close. But Warner - Webb is the perfect combo.