Last edited Thu Mar 24, 2016, 02:37 AM - Edit history (1)

between her and Trump. She needs to get her ass in gear if she expects to get votes from Bernie supporters.

One of the problems of our democracy is that too many young people don't vote. Bernie will draw a lot of them in. Hillary will not.

The Party needs drastic reform for sure.

unless people like the Clinton's go back to the party to which they belong.

Where did Dean go? Oh, he is a lobbyist now.

Sanders won't sell us out like Dean did.

I thought he joined just to run?

He's a uniter and a deal maker. That's why no one hears about him. We hear about the Ted Cruz type that want to make a name for themselves and say stupid things so they can run for president.

But I don't think he'll "blend back in...and do nothing". What a total insult. The Revolution has started. People are awakening. The Establishment is in decline. Bernie has led the charge, and you can't put the genie back in the bottle...thank goodness. Maybe we'll even still have a democracy rather than a kleptocracy.

Vermont loves him so much they gave him every single pledged delegate they have to give. He also has the highest rating of any U.S. Congressperson in office.

Mostly white. Think Sarah Palin in Alaska. Big deal if a bunch of Repubs loved her. They don't represent the broader more diverse demographics.

Here is the only demographic that matters for the future of the Democratic Party: Bernie Sanders is winning all younger voters by ridiculous margins. Clinton's supporters will, mostly, be dead and buried in a decade.

all the Clinton supporters will be dead and buried. He will win hands down, for sure.

Jury, I only typed "dead and buried" in response to a previous post which stated that. Thank you.

That not one person who works with him in the Senate has gone forward to say he'd make a good President.

This is what so many people don't understand. Hillary Clinton is running with certain positions on her platform. Bernie Sanders wants to do an overhaul...to create a movement that is large enough and strong enough to be able to stand up and do battle against the forces that are stealing our rights, our jobs, our ability to make a decent wage. We are being threatened with losing SS, Medicare. We are being threatened with endless wars. Our voting system needs complete reform

Bernie Sanders gets this unlike Hillary Clinton. She will fight for certain issues, does not talk about a movement or a revolution. Why? Because she is not living in our world. Bernie Sanders has lived in our world. He hasn't become wealthy in D.C. That was not his intention nor was he lured to it.

He is a rare chance for us to actually make the change that just about everybody talks about wanting yet so many people are choosing the establishment.

Last edited Wed Mar 23, 2016, 09:55 PM - Edit history (1)

revolution by now and been organizing for people to start local, go thru the states into federal. Instead of starting with one man at the top. A failed revolution before a whisper.

In a way that disturbs them and causes them to make the move for change. Isn't that what elections are about? Finding candidates that represent us? The Democratic Party has had some dramatic change and we are losing the what this party is supposed to stand for. We need a candidate like a BS to come in and make a bold move like this to jumpstart what we need to do. This is the best way to get the most people on board to bring the Democratic Party back to it's roots...so that it will work for everybody.

that. You are right. Starting at the top is exactly wrong. Hence the point of my post. My bad. I am sorry for the confusion

It's called OWS. Bernie just harnessed that message and blasted it onto the national stage, and put a whole lot of energy behind the revolution that was already started.

He is letting them know that it will take a movement ...revolution to be able to give the Democratic Party it's soul back. He is trying to lead the way for us. He isn't the end game, he is the beginning.

But not necessarily locally. Depends on what sort of revolution is needed, and who decides to get on board.

at least in America.

If he can't unite the country and get his message across, then there is no 'revolution'.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Precision and concision. That's the game.[/center][/font][hr]

Two year ago, his candidacy was unthinkable. A year ago, laughed at. It grew into a threat, and remains at least an irritant to the Establishment.

We'll see in the fall how broad the hunger for change is.

We didn't take it over for nothing...

Bernie needs our help. If we don't do it, someone who sees things from the almighty dollar's POV will.

Bernie wants another 27 of yours. He's got to pay Tad Devine his half-million monthly check.
Feel the Burn

Get those multinational campaign $$$?

True woman of the people ya got there.

"Time and time again, by innuendo, by insinuation, there is this attack that he is putting forth which really comes down to, you know, anybody who ever took donations or speaking fees from any interest group has to be bought. And I just absolutely reject that, senator, and I really don't think these kinds of attacks by insinuation are worthy of you. And enough is enough," Clinton said.

She then challenged him: "If you've got something to say, say it directly, but you will not find that I ever changed a view or a vote because of any donation I ever received."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/05/politics/hillary-clinton-bill-clinton-paid-speeches/

Bernie and his campaign has helped set a revolution in motion. It is up to us to build on what he has started. The current political dialog offers a false choice between rapid impoverishment and a gradual decline into genteel poverty. We can and must change those options. Bernie's campaign is just a starting point on the road to rebuilding the middle class and taking power back from the oligarchy.

Like Paul Begala said. The message if Hillary wins: "be very afraid". In other words you have no where else to go unless you want president Trump so suck it up.

preferable.

I say hell yes. Long overdue.

Yes, we've pretty resoundingly said no.

have better coffee.

The ones who lean to the right. The ones who sell the average citizen out at every turn. The frontrunner supporters.

approves.

A party of the people, not the corporations.

That would be a very good thing.

The one who pushed many socialist plans because of the Great Depression?

They guy who wouldn't have been able to do it, if there wasn't a Great Depression?

Guess what? Revolutions only happen when things are extreme. Things have been getting a little better since Bush left. Slowly and steadily.

Lets not try to throw Obama's progress out for unicorns. Lets build on it.

privatize FDR's Social Security?

Do you know that many of the economic stats today are very much like the 1929 ones were? Especially the wealth disparity.

And I understand that President Obama kept us from another Great Depression. And that for some things are getting a little better slowly and steadily - that is a very small group that has it better today. The rest of us are still going steadily down not up.

And I am assuming you are suggesting that single payer health care is a unicorn. You should understand that before President Obama proposed the ACA the single payer program had great support around the country. We did not stop supporting the single payer program - we accepted that the ACA was all he could get.

Plus there is no reason that we cannot take what the President has managed to get passed and improve on it. Almost all of our government programs have started just that way. The reason that was given for creating the ACA was to save money on health care - that is not happening and it will not happen until we create a single payer program like Medicare for All.

You seem to think we cannot do the things that Bernie suggests. Why not? Are we such a weak country that we cannot do for our people what every other industrialized country is able to do for theirs.

I was born in 1941 and I watched all of those "socialist" programs make our lives better until 1980 when greed and selfishness took over. We are still living in that 1980 revolution's shadow. It is time we come back out into the sunshine. Not just the rich but all of us working together - that is the revolution we want.

Thanks for the thread, Gregorian.

What brass!

Our party is bigger than the far left.

And don't blackmail me with not voting I don't cower to bullies!

Ours *IS* bigger than extremists.

both claiming to be Democrats. We were here first.

The question is who are our constituents..to whom are we/our candidates accountable? That answer is a no-brainer. HRC campaigns to Boardrooms and 6 figure donors. Seldom see her on the campaign trail. Bernie is just the opposite...few Boardrooms, all over social media, rallies, strenuous campaigning and speeches.

Maybe she does think she's already earned it and if not, can go back for more until she does. That's what it looks like to me.

I am supporting Bernie is because I want my party back - my FDR Democratic Party.

The Wall Street banks and corporations joined with Bill and Hillary and others to take over our original party and move it rightward in the 90s. A lot like the Dixiecrats did in the 50s and 60s with many of the same ideology. The party is no longer working for the people and the workers.

I want to go back to the old values we espoused in the days before raygun.

Please Bernie help us rebuild our party.

Total agreement. Please, Bernie, help us make this party a party of the people, once again.

We do not need two corporate parties in this country.

The DLC/ Third Way takeover was disastrous for both the party and the people.

I think that is why he stays in. It is critical to change this destructive evolution of the democratic Party to the right.

You know, the ones who have devoted their careers to the party. Bernie? A Johnny-come-at-the-last-minute.

If you're really want to build a political revolution, this is how you do it. Good for Bernie!

Whether you put it in all caps or not, people are going to be so sick of the broken record of "Oligarch sonata in F major" or the "Billionaire prelude", Bernie fatigue will keep people home.

And I have to doubt if the Bernie-mobile is going to make it over the Rockies.

Tthe concentration of wealth among the top 1 percent and the absolute control of our politics and government may seem boring may seem boring to you, but that is the key issue that drives almost every other one

Wealth is always concentrated at the top -- even in communist countries. It has always been concentrated at the top for thousands of years.

Most rich people had and will have a marginal interest in politics. A few will have a lot - like Kochroaches and Soros.

If one's life sucks and one feels helpless about it, it is an easy sell to blame it on rich people.

The lower tax rates on rich people were not created by rich people but by a Republican ideology which started with Ronald Reagan who copied it from JFK.

It is the ideology that is your enemy - not the rich people themselves.

The correct message should be that "tax cuts produce great dividends when the tax rates are very high. So going from 90% to 70% nominal worked gangbusters for JFK. However, tax cuts as a strategy follow the law of diminishing returns when the marginal tax rates are low and some people have gone way past the diminishing returns phase."

The ideology has permeated the Democratic as well as Republican Party.

Just look at how every industry has morphed from a competitive mix of large, mid-sized and small companies into a small conglomeration of massive monopolies.

And look at how shitty corporate ethics have become, how many jobs have been downsized, outsourced or eliminated, and the crappy replacement jobs.

There are endless examples of this. If you want to ignore it, be my guest. But when we really reach the tipping point....

In any given era there are great visionaries and unethical scumbags in business. Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone came from the same era as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller.

One should not point to say Koch brothers and then paint all rich people with the same paint.

Businesses move in cycles. The American business model has always been transferring today's technology to other countries, invent tomorrow's technology and monopolize it to create new jobs. The sad part is that during the GWB admin, we gave the old technology but didn't come up with anything new to keep employment high. The opportunities are there in clean energy to create millions of jobs. I doubt Bernie's protectionist model will help because with tariffs on imports, he will make screwdrivers and flashlights cost a fortune with no way to invest in the newer technologies.

The other problem is the differences between skillsets from the old economy to the new economy. That is the reality that spells doom for a lot of old world crafts like machine tools. The new economy with robots and automation requires a vastly different skillset.

I don't disagree with Bernie's portrayal of the problem but his remedies are utterly disingenuous, naive and amateurish. They sound good to eager ears but that is all.

Technology does change things. Always has. And not all successful businesspeople are bastids.

Getting to the roots of the present situation requires deep and multifaceted analysis, discussions, etc.

But keeping it on the simple level in terms of politics this is what I see (as do many others).

We started really ignoring preventable problems -- and started enabling BAD BEHAVIOR AND SHITTY COrporate MORALS AND ETHICS -- around 1980. The Reagan Revolution pushed it into hyperdrive and the GOP unapologetically endorsed and advanced it.

BUT the Democrats also utterly failed to address these problems -- either because of political cowardice and/or systemic corruption.

I am not going to pretend there was ever a utopia or a perfect Democratic Party. But I have seen the deterioration that occurred as they failed to provide an adequate counterbalance that represents average people and the disadvantaged.

Many of the situations we have today in terms of treatment of workers and consumers, monopolization of industries, concentrations of wealth and power AND BASIC ECONOMIC ETHICS would have been unthinkable 35 or 40 years ago. A time traveller from then to now would be appalled by -- for example -- the immense disparity between CEOs and top management and the average front line workers.

These were not unavoidable natural catastrophes. Nor were they "normal" trends. It has been a systematic undermining of the basic agreements that used to drive the economy -- and that used to be the basis of representative government.It is the cumulative result of a steady stream pof bad decisions and p[olicies -- and the lack of a political force to restrain the worst excesses.

We have to wake up and smell the coffee or it will continue to get worse. And -- politically -- if the Democratic party does not make a clear break from Corporation and start representing the majority again, it will be a participant in the creation of a true dystopia.

Bet the supers will just love to hear that. Really going to help him get those supers!

The movement is real and it's live.

Clinton is clearly getting more votes and is our likely nominee. How about instead of trying so urgently to convince us that Sanders is The One, why don't we let the voters decide on the issues?

It seems like that's what's happening but you don't happen to like the outcome.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Precision and concision. That's the game.[/center][/font][hr]

not just in name or campaign rhetoric only. There is a whole segment of the population that only has token representation in government and this needs to change or we don't have a participatory democracy.

Without representatives from the left, we are without labor laws, environmental laws, the Pentagon budget replaces funding for our infrastructure with plans for endless wars, and the corporations will continue ruining the country and selling off natural resources and jobs overseas. Without representation from the left we are slipping into a fucking police state.

Everyone deserves representation. We have plenty of it from the right and none from the left, and I am amazed to hear from people on DU who would like the left to just shut up, give up and go away. This is extremely disturbing and I cannot understand how we have gotten here ideologically.