So Bernie, how you doing?

Aristotleded24 wrote:

montgomery wrote:

But after all, Bernie is only an American and will not stand against any of the US's future wars. And there's even less to be optimistic about Elizabeth and Tulsi for that matter.

Tulsi actually came out with a much stronger denouncement of Trump's actions in Venezuela than Bernie. And as for politicians, Jill Stein came out clearly against any regime change wars and in favour of Palestinian rights, and she is much stronger on those issues than Bernie ever was.

Aristotled, I would like to share your faith in some of the others too, but we've been burnded too often with that approach. You need to understand one basic fact: [b]All American politicians are going to support their party's wars.[/b]

A good example of how it works was the 99 Serbia war in which the parties swapped sides. The R's screamed bloody murder about Clinton's war and the Dems turned into cheerleaders! 

And anyway, if Elizabeth or Tulsi even tried to oppose Russia and China hate propaganda, she wouldn't get to first base in any election. 

Not that Bernie isn't just another American too, but he does have a track record of opposing Hillary until they hijacked his campaign. 

Anyway, it's not something I have a great deal of feeling to argue about. Just accept that the US is the US and their politicians all have their flag up their asses.

WWWTT wrote:

Thanks for the link Mobo 2000!

Bernie is a typical of what I like to call a “progressive imperialist”

Almost all western politicians who call themselves progressive are really still imperialists 

 

Well, Bernie’s not one of them.  Neither is Ro Khanna.  But I realize to the purists, unless you read from their prepared script, you’re just another imperialist.

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/1/28/regime_change_is_not_the_answer

@josh

I suspect (actually know)that communism and greater socialism would have spread across south Central America long ago if it wasn’t for US imperialism. 

The US suffers from self inflicted political intolerance. Bernie is a little less political intolerant, but still is. 

@Sean in Ottawa 

Basically you’re asking a what came first, chicken or the egg question. 

All of the Western Hemisphere were are under imperialism. British Spanish Portuguese French and I believe Dutch. Hundreds of years before 19-20 century politics. So what came first? US imperialism?

Bernie 2020 Campaign Has Corporate Democrats Running Scared

With a launch of the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign on the near horizon, efforts to block his trajectory to the Democratic presidential nomination are intensifying. The lines of attack are already aggressive — and often contradictory.

One media meme says that Bernie has made so much headway in moving the Democratic Party leftward that he’s no longer anything special. We’re supposed to believe that candidates who’ve adjusted their sails to the latest political wind are just as good as the candidate who generated the wind in the first place.

Bloomberg News supplied the typical spin in a Feb. 8 article headlined “Sanders Risks Getting Crowded Out in 2020 Field of Progressives.” The piece laid out the narrative: “Sanders may find himself a victim of his own success in driving the party to the left with his 2016 run. The field of Democratic presidential hopefuls includes at least a half-dozen candidates who’ve adopted in whole or in part the platform that helped Sanders build a loyal following . . .”

Yet Bernie is also being targeted as too marginal. The same Bloomberg article quoted Howard Dean, a long-ago liberal favorite who has become a hawkish lobbyist and corporate mouthpiece: “There will be hardcore, hard left progressives who will have nobody but Bernie, but there won’t be many.”

So, is Bernie now too much like other Democratic presidential candidates, or is he too much of an outlier? In the mass media, both seem to be true. In the real world, neither are true.

Last week, Business Insider reported on new polling about Bernie’s proposal “to increase the estate tax, the tax paid by heirs on assets passed down by the deceased. Sanders’ idea would lower the threshold to qualify for the tax to $3.5 million in assets, down from the current $11 million. The plan would also introduce a graduating scale of tax rates for the estates of wealthier Americans, eventually reaching a 77 percent marginal rate for assets over $1 billion.”

Here are the poll results: “When presented with the details of the proposal, 37 percent of respondents supported Sanders’ policy while 26 percent opposed, according to Insider’s survey.” (The rest had no opinion.)

That kind of response from the public is a far cry from claims that Sanders is somehow fringe. In fact, the ferocity of media attacks on him often indicates that corporate power brokers are afraid his strong progressive populism is giving effective voice to majority views of the public....

Six Thoughts on Bernie 2020

https://t.co/AycHS4gpNF

"Bernie Sanders has announced his 2020 Democratic primary run for president of the United States to predictable sighs of relief from supporters and equally vitriolic shrieking from Democratic Party centrists. I've been asked by my readers to give some thoughts on the matter, so here they are in no particular order...

1. The DNC can still rig its primaries.  2. Sanders would be better than Trump.  3. He would also be far from perfect.  4. I won't object to his candidacy.  5. Your fantasy Bernie-Tulsi ticket isn't going to happen. 6. Sanders is more interesting as a phenomenon than as a candidate..."

A prof of mine said that anyone, even on the left, who runs for the US presidency is accepting by that very fact to fall in line with militarism and imperialism.

That said, I do like Bernie (almost a homie for us). The one question is, why are so many of the candidates very old - not only Bernie; Trump and even Clinton are seniors. As are the two prominent women candidates from New England...

Bernie can't take Ocasio-Cortez on as running mate as she is too young by US constitutional rules, unless there is some kind of loophole for Veeps that I'm unaware of.

"The antidote to old white men in power is more old white men in power."

https://twitter.com/TheEagleist/status/1098071183386394624

Hi Bec, longtime no see. I expect Bernie will reprise the same sheep-dog role he played last time to lead the discontented masses back into the big tent of which-ever corporate Dem is duly annointed to carry the crown. It certainly won't be him I wouldn't expect.

No one’s ever good enough for NDPP.  Hard to measure up to Putin.

Bernie is only going to sap the energy on the left. He was the right candidate to run against Trump last time, he is not the right candidate this time.

But in the end any President that got elected to dismantle the US military and security apparatus would not live to tell about it.

Bec.De.Corbin wrote:

NDPP wrote:

"The antidote to old white men in power is more old white men in power."

https://twitter.com/TheEagleist/status/1098071183386394624

 

Blaa blaa blaa... so all old white men get put into the same pot?

I do like his living wage policy. But I'm thinking he'll never make it to the White House for a number of reason's... being an old white man shouldn't be one of them.

Yes. The flipside of the Eagleist's logic is that if a non-white woman with right-wing views ran for something, we should at least entertain the notion that she might be a good choice, based on her skin colour and genitalia.  

Bernie Sanders Raises $6 M on First Day of Campaign...And Former Clinton Staffer Blames Russia

https://on.rt.com/9os5

A former adviser to Hillary Clinton suggested that Russia is supporting Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign. The influx of $6 million in campaign donations in the first 24 hours rang alarm bells for former Clinton staffer Adam Parkhomenko who jumped on Twitter to quip that half of the people donating to the campaign were 'named Vladimir'.

Russia is already shaping up to be a major talking point among Democrats in the 2020 election. When Kamala Harris announced her candidacy earlier this month, her supporters instantly began claiming that her critics were working for the Kremlin.

It's not the first time Clinton supporters have tried to paint Sanders as a Russian agent. During the 2016 elections, many cited the fact that he spent his honeymoon in the Soviet Union as a good reason to be suspicious of his candidacy."

As we see both in USA and here at home the pathology is well advanced...

I think Bernie has a good chance of succeeding in stealing the rich man's party. He is doing very well in fund raising, and has put together a very talented campaign team to decide how to spend all that money. It may still fail, but there is no logical reason to conclude that it is doomed to fail.

Michael Moriarity wrote:

I think Bernie has a good chance of succeeding in stealing the rich man's party. He is doing very well in fund raising, and has put together a very talented campaign team to decide how to spend all that money. It may still fail, but there is no logical reason to conclude that it is doomed to fail.

That's funny. The very idea that a non-corporate candidate has a chance to take the Democratic Party nomination even though the Democrats and Republicans take corporate donations from the same corporate interests, and where the DNC was caught so blatantly cheating last time that the former DNC chair had to step down?

We'll just have to wait and see who has it right. I'm not as certain of my prediction as you are of yours, but I still think it's a reasonably probable outcome, and I want to get it on the record now, for potential bragging rights later..

Ari, I admit you may be right that this attempt will fail. But you seem to think that nothing ever happens differently than it did last time around (or last 10 times around). Change, even dramatic change, does happen, but it's difficult to predict when it will happen. Afterwards, people who think the way you do always claim that there was no way anyone could have foreseen such an event, which is why I'm telling you now that I do foresee a good chance of it happening.

I remember all the failed examples you mention. My memory even goes back to "clean Gene McCarthy" challenging LBJ, then 4 years later George McGovern winning the nomination. That was quite a bust too. In fact, it destroyed the left of the Democratic Party for decades.

However, this is a different time, with a different electorate, different technology, different demographics, different social and economic background. I think Sanders and his team understand perfectly well that the Democratic Party nomenclatura will do everything in their power to prevent the takeover, but they are not omnipotent, and can be defeated.

Comparing the thinking of those who disagree with you to Pavlovian conditioning is pretty insulting, and you shouldn't do it. This opinion of mine may be wrong, but it is not based on ignorance, or a lack of thought, and I submit that you ought to respect that, even though you differ strenuously.

Definitely disappointing.  And he took a lot of heat on there in response.

NDPP wrote:

"The people of Venezuela are enduring a serious humanitarian crisis. The Maduro government must put the needs of its people first, allow humanitarian aid into the country, and refrain from violence against protesters."

https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1099380342018912257

Feelin the burn? Yep, Bernie is definitely presidential material...

from your link, here’s what Roger Waters replied 

Bernie, are you f-ing kidding me! if you buy the Trump, Bolton, Abrams, Rubio line, “humanitarian intervention” and collude in the destruction of Venezuela, you cannot be credible candidate for President of the USA. Or, maybe you can, maybe you’re the perfect stooge for the 1 %.

Michael Moriarity wrote:

Ari, I admit you may be right that this attempt will fail. But you seem to think that nothing ever happens differently than it did last time around (or last 10 times around). Change, even dramatic change, does happen, but it's difficult to predict when it will happen. Afterwards, people who think the way you do always claim that there was no way anyone could have foreseen such an event, which is why I'm telling you now that I do foresee a good chance of it happening.

I agree, things have changed. For one, the DNC changed the rules so that they can arbitrarily stop someone they deem who has been too critical of the DNC. What happens to Bernie's campaign if the DNC all of a sudden says to Bernie, "you can't run, you've criticized us too much in the past?"

Michael Moriarity wrote:

However, this is a different time, with a different electorate, different technology, different demographics, different social and economic background. I think Sanders and his team understand perfectly well that the Democratic Party nomenclatura will do everything in their power to prevent the takeover, but they are not omnipotent, and can be defeated.

I agree that things have changed. The biggest one is that more people identify as independents than they do as Republicans or Democrats, and when you look at people under 40, the number of people who identify as Republicans or Democrats drops to near zero. Plus with new organizing technologies, now is the time for organizing political parties independent of the 2 big ones. What better way to restore American's faith in democracy than by giving them what they want? And the pathway to do that is not that hard. You can start in small states that have strong independent streaks like Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, Hawaii, and Alaska and get Senators elected. You can extend further into left-leaning districts in Minnesota, California, Oregon, and Seattle.

Michael Moriarity wrote:

Comparing the thinking of those who disagree with you to Pavlovian conditioning is pretty insulting, and you shouldn't do it. This opinion of mine may be wrong, but it is not based on ignorance, or a lack of thought, and I submit that you ought to respect that, even though you differ strenuously.

Usually I'm fine to merely disagree with people, however I do believe trying to take over the Democratic Party is naieve and plays right into the hands of the Establishment. If there is a nicer way I could have expressed that opinion I'm open to that. The Democrats are a corporatist party, and they do not represent the people. I mean, while we're at it, why don't progressives try and take over both the Republican and the Democratic parties? That would guarantee a progressive government. That idea makes just as much sense. For example, Michael Moore spent so much time begging Democratic politicians to do the right thing. Perhaps if he had put half of that energy into organizing a vible third party, there would be one in the US right now.

This naievity and hypocrisy is most evident in the new online "progressive" media. "We will lead a political revolution and take on the Establishment" is what they say. When someone suggests going the third party route, they respond by saying, "third parties cannot get elected, the only way to change politics is to go through the Establishment parties." Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is a household name, largely because progressive media made her upset victory over Joe Crowley into something much more than what it actually was. They let the Democratic Party take up all the oxygen in the room while ignoring the Green surge in California. Last year, the Greens made history by ending up on the final ballot in 3 California congressional districts. Can you name any of them? If not, then I rest my case.

The Magic Socialist

https://dissidentvoice.org/2019/02/the-magic-socialist/

"No, this time the Bernster really means it!"

Aristotleded24 wrote:

I wanted to respond to this:

Michael Moriarity wrote:

Comparing the thinking of those who disagree with you to Pavlovian conditioning is pretty insulting, and you shouldn't do it. This opinion of mine may be wrong, but it is not based on ignorance, or a lack of thought, and I submit that you ought to respect that, even though you differ strenuously.

I see that you have been watching American politics for a long time, so I respect that your view is informed by history. My issue is with some of the newer "progressive" media types jumping on the idea of taking over the Democratic Party, as if that hasn't been thought of before. Many of them tend to be younger. One thing that is true about younger generations is that they simply have not witnessed the same level of history that older generations have. I have not seen any acknowledgement of this history by these younger progressives. Often they invoke the New Deal of the Roosevelt era, however they neglected to mention that the Democrats then started working to undermine those foundations right after Roosevelt passed away. I'm happy for voices like Jimmy Dore who are calling BS on the whole thing.

Thanks for that.

..as with the last presidential election, imho, the important story will about the movements.

Bernie Sanders Kicks Off 2020 Run in Brooklyn, New York

On Saturday, independent Vermont senator and 2020 hopeful Bernie Sanders officially kicked off his presidential run in his hometown of Brooklyn, New York. Senator Sanders addressed a crowd of thousands at his alma mater, Brooklyn College.

Sen. Bernie Sanders: “Our government will be based on justice, on economic justice, on social justice, on racial justice, on environmental justice. Today, I welcome you to a campaign which tells the powerful special interests, who control so much of our economic and political life, that we will no longer tolerate the greed of corporate America and the billionaire class.”

Senator Sanders offered a more personal glimpse into his life than at previous rallies. He spoke of his father coming to the U.S. to escape anti-Semitism in Europe, where the Holocaust claimed the lives of many of his relatives, and of growing up in a working-class family in New York. Sanders also spoke out against institutional inequality and the need for criminal justice reform, and renewed calls from his 2016 campaign for a $15 minimum wage, Medicare for all and free public college tuition.

Among the Brooklyn Bernie Bros

The crowd of about thirteen thousand was mostly young and working class. Roughly half of the attendees were people of color, and roughly half were women.