The Big Reasons for Bernie

Last edited Mon Apr 4, 2016, 04:54 PM - Edit history (1)

Like in every presidential election I suppose, there are many issues in play this year when it comes to deciding who to support for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016. Both Hillary and Bernie have long records of public service. Far as I'm concerned, at the very least, each of them more or less agrees with me on most of the major issues at least most of the time. Granted, that leaves a lot of wiggle room, but that's how it's always been for me when it came to presidential politics so far. I look for the Democrat with the best record of those who have a decent chance of winning, knowing she or he will have many flaws, knowing she or he will still serve my interests more than will any Republican in the race. A lot of people who I know are fed up with that type of decision making process, and I get it. I am fed up with it too, though I still use it when I have to. I'm glad that this year I don't have to.

It's easy to get lost in the granular detail of competing policy proposals when they all speak toward promoting similar laudable goals, just via different means. The devil it, is said, lies in the details. Well, while the people who generally say such things have a good record of usually being right, for the sake of discussion here I'm going to differ. I think vision, motivation, and conviction mean a whole lot more than the details. Ultimately details matter of course. If the final blueprints get it wrong than a structure can collapse. But blueprints can and usually do change. Just like this essay that you're reading, my first draft used many different words than these.

That's almost always the case with legislation introduced in Congress. Coming and going it almost never looks the same. There are these things called hearings, and the amendment process. There is horse trading. And pig trading. Hillary Clinton has proposals to achieve goals that I support. Bernie Sanders has proposals to achieve goals that I support. Between proposals and final legislation a whole lot of other people will have their say in it too. The Obamacare we ended up with is different than how it started. Bernie and Hillary both understand how it works, neither of them are exactly rookies at this.

But before any blueprint comes the vision, and I'll take that one step further. Before the vision comes the visionary. One can only see what one is open to seeing. The eye picks up more data than the mind can ever use, so the latter screens out most of it. Put it another way. If the eye takes information in that fails to fit with preconceived notions the mind tends to sort it until it does. By and large our government views reality through the mind of the status quo. The leader who we need now, at this point in our history, needs to view things differently. The status quo is failing almost all of us.

I believe it is true to say that today we must see the forest far more than the trees. There are two huge issues plaguing the world we know, and each fundamentally impacts almost every problem facing us: Climate change and income inequality. They may not always be the root of all our social ills, but when not they exasperate them. National Security? What threats are we protecting ourselves from, loss of life and limb? Cancer from a polluted environment and diabetes from poor nutrition are invading us, taking that toll already. Greed and concentrated capital are driving both of those, when decisions that benefit the few take precedence over the many. When those at the top hoard resources needed by all, famines and wars tend to occur, triggered directly or indirectly by the inability or disinterest of governments to ensure all citizens receive the essentials of life.

Even wars in distant lands cascade across borders now effecting us here in America when the global village convulses. As our climate warms catastrophic weather events multiply, destabilizing whole regions and threatening all coast lines. Floods of refuges come on the heels of tidal surges. Only a tiny fraction of one percent of humanity profits from the practices that cause all this, and they keep pushing fossil fuels.

The hyper wealthy cross all national lines. They can outsource their wealth as easily as they can outsource our jobs. Right wing paranoids have it all wrong. The one world government they fear is seated in the international banking system, overseen by interlocking corporate boards. They are a law onto themselves and increasingly governments exist primarily to serve them. Today we fight to preserve the original mission of the government we are poised to elect the President of. That is what the Democratic primary fight comes down to for me. Who is embedded in the status quo and who is not?

The massive leak of the Panama Papers is only just starting to play out, but they only reveal details of a pattern we already know to be true. We are about to elect a president, we need one who is not only free from the tentacles of world wide concentrated wealth, but one with a dedicated life long record of fiercely opposing it. We don't have the luxury to wait any longer for that.

And in regards to the climate? The New York Times published a story today called ‘Fractivists’ Increase Pressure on Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in New York.

Here is a small exert from it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/us/politics/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-climate-change.html?ref=politics&_r=0

“Since the start of the campaign, Mrs. Clinton has moved strikingly to the left on climate issues, including opposing the Keystone XL pipeline, offshore drilling and, indeed, most forms of fracking, a drilling technique also known as hydraulic fracturing.

In a debate last month in Flint, Mich., she said she would severely regulate fracking.
“By the time we get through all of my conditions,” she said, “I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place.”

But Mr. Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, had a snappy retort: “My answer is a lot shorter. No, I do not support fracking.”

The absolutism of Mr. Sanders’s position on this and other climate issues — as well as the fact that Mrs. Clinton arrived at her views under pressure from the left — has made many activists mistrustful of her and supportive of Mr. Sanders.”

You can count me among them. On climate. On income inequality. On the future of America.