ESSENTIAL: It took me a second listening to realize the truth of what Sanders is asking of us.He has asked us to continue to campaign for him in the primaries. He wants to bring the highest number of delegates to the Democratic Convention. Yes, he has discontinued his campaign, But the more delegates Sanders has at the Convention, the more influence we can have on the Party Platform to defeat Donald Trump, This is critical,
So Yes I am still going to vote for Bernie Sanders in the New York Primary, I hope you will do the same where ever there are Primaries yet to be held. Remember it is we come together,, we can make the change,
I don't want to ta;k about Biden ort he role the DNC played right now, These are important issues,
But now I want to tell all of you who have supported Bernie, please do not give up, CHANGE WILL COME .. We will continue to fight for change that will make a future possible for the next generation and fight to save the planet from the ravages of climate change,
We need to make the Democratic platform reflect what we believe in " Medicare for All, cancel Student debt, a sane, compassionate immigration policy, responsible gun control, voting rights for all Ameican, defense of a woman's right to choose, the separation of church and state, a fair tax policy which makes each citizen responsible for funding Democracy, end of the prison -industrial complex, (nonprofit making prisons), a justice driven foreign policy, These are just a few of the issue we need to go to the Convention with delegates ready to fight for the Sanders agenda,
We need to fight for the most progressive VP candidate,
We NEED TO GET RID OF TRUMP AND ALL HIS CRONIES, Lets put aside the candidate until after the Convention.
It is critical we don't give up.
Please listen to Sanders statement a second or third time, THE COMPLETE STATEMENT, not the edited one media like the New York times distributes, After the Primary we can talk about what we all will do next,
Be safe please,,, we still have a lot of work to do. This is the full speech Sanders gave.
PLEASE LISTEN A SECOND TIME TO WHAT SANDERS HAS TO SAY ABOUT. WHT HE IS SESPENNDIN G HIS CAMPAIGN AND WHAT HE WANTS HIS SUPPORTERS TO DO!
HILLARY CLINTON with her arrogant dishonest CNN interview with Anderson Cooper.
She and Bernie do not share the same politics ....no matter how she wants to spin it The fact that she has not moved one inch to talk to Sanders supporters shows not only her arrogance but also her blindness . WAKE UP . There is not one poll paid for by Clinton that has put defeating Trump. A number of polls have Sanders beating Trump why are you talking about novemeber in May? I am concerned with getting Sanders as many delegates as possible for the platfrom fight at the convention As to nomination, despite what Team Hilarey and copoirate media spins it is NOT over .. I talk not out of fear or parionoa ..both emotions are saturating Giani rant. He has been telling us continually he doesn't care about the election and than posts a picture TEAM HILARY has been spreading/ of Sanders suggesting he is madman. Yes he is mad for very good treason. I am too .We wil have time after the converntionto to have a discsuuion on who to vote for in November. watch the whole Cooper/Clinton interview may 4th 2016
REALITY CHECK : In the interest of being realistic
A new, better groomed and manufactured Trump wilL not mask nor obscure the bully instinct that will continue to jump out and terrorizes ore group of people or another.
No, Clinton is not the answer. Her glossed over with feminist sheen of actual practice that reveals her war hawk, pro Israeli administration practice , her romance at a price with wall street bankers and hedge fund cowboys can not be masked by insincere words that contradict her actual political practice history .
The REAL question is: IS IT TIME FOR A NATIONAL THIRD PARTY not dependent on the two party system.
Registered Democrats make up 26% of the voters .. Republicans 24%. The rest of potential voters are unaligned. What if Bernie Sanders doesn't win the nomination and opps out of endorsing Clinton as did Zephyr Teachout after running a surprisingly strong primary race lost to Governor Cuomo In New York State. Teachout did not endorse anyone and let her supporters make their own choices .
Yes the Green Party is a choice ...but is it with its fractured chapters and aging bourgeois hippies base actually attractive to the millennials and disenfranchised seniors who are supporting Sanders ?
Questions to think about as we move forward,
I continue to support Bernie Sanders and call on all like minded people to not give up or into the manipulative call for unity.
Remember we outnumber both parties and need to continue to assert our values within and outside the established political parties/
Anyone want to join me for COFFEE to discuss our political options in this critical period in US history ?
I raise these questions in the interest of an informed and not simply emotional reaction. What do we do next is an important question for all of us regardless of which "side" we are on . I have by intention mixed up the people tagged to supporters of the major candidates
Please be respectful and please do let me know your thoughts
Once again the Washington Post, like the New York Times, has attack the Sanders campaign. This time with the more subtle voice of the smart Jonathan Capehart . My response is:
Can we leave this discussion to after the convention please. It will be in order then. I find the the use of fear by Clinton supporters muffles debate over the real ideas both Clinton and Saunders are raising. this debate is healthy and engaging . The Clinton camp made its first big mistake by refusing to expand the number of formal debates and by laying down such strict rules by DWS at the DNC. If the Clinton camp at this stage turns to fear as a tactic it will only exacerbate the mistrust many millennials and many seniors have of the Clinton campaign already. Let both candidates debate their positions so each voter in the primary can make an informed choice. How this is played now will be key to how voters on either side will vote in November. Clinton has great skills as a debater and should stop with the snide personal swipes at Sanders and do as Sanders does and keep to issue based debate. Clinton sends messages in her debate persona to her supporters. Corporate media appears to be in the Hilary camp. The attacks on Sanders are in my view on their pages in particular the Washington Post only serve to harden the Sanders camp. I have chosen at this point to keep my focus on the Primary and the issues raised by each candidate.. And defend either candidate when attacked unfairly. First things first I say. Note: I have respect for the out person of color commetator JC ... Which allows me to think about what he writes and to decided for myself if I agree or not... I think that is called democracy https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/02/01/a-warning-to-warring-democrats-in-the-clinton-sanders-race/
Please read this very honest and educational rant from my friend Gianni on being honest about American political history and Bernie Sanders politics. Underneath the self-righteous anger is a very very smart history lesson ... pass it on
HEY BERNIE SUPPORTERS: there is a certain type of Bernie supporter who I think may be doing more harm than good. I mean, in the long run. It is getting really infuriating to hear these people hysterically insist that Bernie was "never REALLY a socialist" or "well that word really doesn't mean anything" or "well, it's really not what people think"... Fuck off. Fuck off you timid uneducated unevolved parochial Cold War Philistines You fucking craven fellow travelers of Post-Soviet Market Triumphalism You are the passive accomplices and collusionists in all of the atrocities perpetrated through the brute Turbo-Capitalism of the Global Lootocracy. You, you, you who can't bring yourself to utter the "s" word, and wish to erase it from the entire narrative. How fucking dare you! Are you so deficient that you were unaware of the term Social Democrat? Are you unaware of the profoundly important role the Social Democracy current in Europe played for generations? Do you not know of France's Parti Socialiste? Of the esteemed Mitterrand? Of Germany's famed SPD, and of the august Willy Brandt, who resisted both the Nazis, and later, as mayor of Berlin, the Stalinists? Whose foreign policies won him a Nobel prize---and domestically kept the capitalist "miracle" alive in W Germany during a world recession? Do you know anything of our own history, of Norman Thomas, of Eugene Debs? Or of the myriad independent tendencies and constellations of beliefs that define themselves as "socialist" ? STOP COMPARING BERNIE TO OBAMA OBAMA WAS/IS A RIGHT-CENTER WALL STREET LIBERAL Right-wing liberal? Huh? Yes. There is such a thing, especially in these polarized, atomized days. Bernie is a social democrat, or if you prefer, a small "s", independent socialist. And has been for most of his 50 year career. Hillary and Bill were pure, unabashed, pro-business centrists. If they looked liberal at all, it was only in comparison to the unbelievably reactionary turn their opponents had taken. Ted Kennedy was a classic liberal. Jimmy Carter, was not. Jimmy Carter, 40 years ago, was viewed as a pro -business centrist who was to the right of President Ford, and definitively to the right of Senator Jacob Javits, NYC Republican liberal. Carter sluggishly moved toward the left when the corporate grandees found a much more dynamic proponent in Ronald Reagan. Eugene McCarthy, and Bobby Kennedy, were classic liberals, both, in spite of the later hagiography painting Bobby as some kind of genteel radical populist. JFK was a centrist surrounded by Arch-Cold War Liberals. He was a younger, fresher, seemingly open-minded presence in the highest echelons of power and on the world stage, but au fond, his core planks were not vastly different than Eisenhower's---but he was "newer" than the general, and "newer" than the truly liberal Adlai Stevenson.... George McGovern was about as far to the left as a liberal could go. Ramsey Clark was also an extreme left liberal. So was Rep Donald Fraser, and perhaps Bella Abzug, although she was often more of a pragmatist. Nelson Rockefeller was a liberal centrist. Daniel Moynihan was a conservative right-centrist Democrat who was also pro-Labor, which some felt redeemed him
Today, as far as it goes, Robert Reich would be your classic liberal, he only seems far left because people like the Clintons pulled the Democratic party so far to the right, which doesn't really seem "far to the right", again, because by comparison, the party looks liberalish and moderate next to the retrograde, Tea Partistaincipient- fascist currents that have become so pronounced in the GOP. The economist Paul Krugman is a brilliant left-liberal, Barbara Ehrenreich, one of the best people on Earth, is a social democrat, and was famously associated with the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, for years. This was the foremost social democratic group in this country. Both Krugman and Ehrenreich are prolific writers whose work I feel is indispensable for navigating the tenebrous fog shrouding contemporary political economy, but Krugman is a bit formidable, and can be a little off-putting. Ehrenreich writes for everybody---or I should say, the smart everybody ( you know who you are)....I urge you to get "Nickel and Dimed", and "Bait and Switch" and you MUST read "Smile or Die: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America"...
sing along with Jill Soble !!!!
Americans have been rewarded for their collective amnesia. The 40 year corporate war on our attention spans allowed history to be constantly revised, and the corruption of academia by business driven ultra-specialization created an army of expensively educated cogs who never ask questions, seek the origin of things or even feel it is relevant, and dismiss those who do as foolish, naive or disruptive. Memory is heresy, and besides, there is no fixed truth anyway.
Almost no one has taken a stand against this onslaught, has championed critical thought, the humanities, erudition and intellectual heterogeneity...No one vociferously and passionately points out the damage that has been done to our ability to think and assess: Oh wait, hasn't Hillary? ummmmmm NO NO NO I DON'T BELIEVE SO NOR DO I REMEMBER ANY OTHER PROMINENT POLITICAL FIGURES OF THE "INFORMED AND PROGRESSIVE" PARTY TAKING THIS ON...
And why would they? They are, after all, beneficiaries of this degeneration. Because if it benefits Wall Street, it benefits the Democratic Party Inc....
But an anti-Wall Street, 74 year old, Jewish independent socialist who's campaign has been so successful that even the media cant marginalize him, DOES make people think, just by virtue of what he is, and how far he has gotten. If anyone had even hypothesized about such a thing any time over the past 4 decades they would have been treated like they were brain damaged.
So Bernie's supporters need to be as scrupulously honest and direct as he is, because, after all, this is perhaps his most powerful weapon against his opponents: They are LIARS. He is not.
So do not cherry-pick, or trim the sails
, or distort, or evade...There is nothing wrong with being aggressive when it comes to the truth...Take a fucking stand...V Tach the moribund consciousnesses around you and educate them.
Regardless of the electoral outcome, the Sanders campaign will still have won a great victory if it illuminates possibilities for ordinary people to reconnect with politics. And not as a bunch of mindless, button-wearing drones who, at best, might be able to rattle off a prolix laundry-list of their candidates achievements and hazy promises, learned by rote...That is not politics. That is just brand-loyalty. Real politics demands impassioned, sophisticated, sapient participants. Not "choosy consumers"...
Let me just say that this SENIOR has been on the Sanders trail since the very beginning ... and many of us voted for Bernie in New Hampshire not because we don't realize the history that Hillary Clinton has made as a woman but because we choose to think through the politics of each candidate equally and decide to vote for CHANGE not ADJUSTMENT because CHANGE MEANS CHANGE ... and i hope my fellow engaged senior friends everywhere will do the same: Think through what has to change to bring about real change in campaign financing .... and yes I made another small Bernie donation today ! sanders and seniors
Jill Sobule gives a language definition lesson in song! essential to share
Thinking of Edward Snowden and how important his contribution to the idea of privacy and personal acts of Courage is for us as we think about issues the politicians should be speaking about in this primary season. HRC called Snowden a criminal. Snowden live tweeted this after the Democratic Presidential Primary Debate in December: "Sanders unexpectedly more credible on foreign policy than OM and Clinton, who repeat conventional wisdom that failed for a decade.#DemDebate — Edward Snowden (@Snowden) December 20, 2015
I think of Snowden as an American Hero protecting our Constitution and freedom of expression
Bernie does what a good leader will do .. go talk to the people on their own turf. Liberty University is a Christian -based College founded by noted right wing preacher and ideologue Jerry Falwell. Saunders states you have to be ABLE TO TALK TO PEOPLE WHO MAY NOT AGREE WITH YOU ... Sanders is looking sooooo Presidential .. give a listen and then check how the media covered this Sanders event. Which means ....Ok its a people's campaign ..so it means we do the grass roots approach ..so I am tagging you to watch .. you do the same
Please give a listen ..it puts into context what happened in Seattle. What have you done today to stop the Police violence against black men and women. Institution RACISM is systematic .. How do you wake a sleeping giant?
I think Sanders should speak directly to the issues the Black Lives Matters movement raises and make if clear he stands on the side of criminal justice reform and the demilitarization of police forces in the US . He also needs to speak to retraining police offices to be peace officers first and not to shoot to kill. Many things in his platform speak to the issue of equality for all minority ..His economic program addresses the disparity of income in this Country and what affect that has on minorities. Black Lives Matters activists need to know Bernie Sanders civil and minority rights record. Stopping him from speaking as if he is the enemy is simply the wrong tactic. The people who disrupted his speech and shut him down need to identify themselves and explain why he was attacked and other candidates have not been attacked
