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cal04

(41,505 posts)
Thu Dec 31, 2015, 12:55 AM Dec 2015

Something Extraordinary

On the next to last day of 2015, Bernie Sanders campaigned Wednesday through southeastern Iowa.

His packed schedule had him crisscrossing a corner of the state where precinct caucuses one month from now will kick off the presidential nominating process. A blip on the political radar when his campaign began last April 30, Sanders eight months lateris now closing in on Hillary Clinton in Iowa. He is leading in New Hampshire, where the first primary election will be held. And he has growing support in national polls, including many that show him faring better than any Democratic candidate against real estate tycoon Donald Trump and other Republican White House hopefuls.

Sanders began the day in Davenport at a meeting with editors of the Quad-City Times. He then headed to a campaign field office in Burlington, where he was greeted by the mayor and four of his predecessors. Sanders, whose own public service career began as a mayor in the 1980s, invited his counterparts to visit his hometown of Burlington, Vermont. LaterWednesday, at a middle school in Keokuk, the senator spoke to about 500 people. And as the short winter day turned to nighttime, more than 800 supporters turned out to hear Sanders speak Wednesday night at the Bridge View Center in Ottumwa.

At the last stop, he talked about health care and why he supports a Medicare-for-all system to provide better care at less cost to all Americans.

On his way into the speech, a headline in a newspaper left sitting on a table caught his eye. The story about Joseph Cyrus, a 77-year-old man from Missouri. Cyrus had turned himself in to police a few days after the robbery. He pleaded guilty on Nov. 10, according to the Springfield News-Leader. The reason he committed the crime, he told the court at his sentencing hearing, was to get access to health care in the federal prison system.

At Ottumwa and other stops during a three-day campaign swing, Sanders also called for creating millions of good-paying jobs rebuilding roads and bridges, raising the minimum wage, pay equity for women, strengthened Social Security, better health care, lower prices for prescription drugs, trade policies that benefit working families and closing tax loopholes that let profitable corporations avoid taxes. Sanders also called for a new tax on Wall Street speculation to make public colleges and universities tuition-free.

“I don’t represent corporate America. I don’t represent the billionaire class. We’re not going to have a super PAC,” Sanders said in Ottumwa. “So what the political revolution has already accomplished is that we can run a winning campaign without being dependent on big-money interests,” Sanders said, “and that is extraordinary.”

https://berniesanders.com/something-extraordinary/



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Something Extraordinary (Original Post) cal04 Dec 2015 OP
we each need to devote the same kind of energy TO HIM grasswire Dec 2015 #1
Bernie is a great inspiration! Enthusiast Dec 2015 #3
Great thread start! daybranch Dec 2015 #2
Huge +1! Enthusiast Dec 2015 #4

daybranch

(1,309 posts)
2. Great thread start!
Thu Dec 31, 2015, 04:58 AM
Dec 2015

I believe that there is one key to winning the primaries for Bernie. I also believe the general election will be easier than the primaries for Bernie! I can explain the logic behing those views- in the primaries the Oligarchy of the rich and corporations served by main stream media and white republican and democratic establishments who work for them for donations are all working hard for Hillary. They are doing it in many ways, focusing on issues they believe help Hillary and I deserve this , it is time for a woman, therefore I am best qualified and get even for past and present sexism by voting for me although both O Malley and Sanders seem to be more strongly for women and family issues. I could go on about the myth created about her competence on foreign affairs and military intervention but the picture of her cozying up to that great American traitor Kissinger says it all to me. The democratic establishment too in the form of the DNC has definitely supported Hillary over her challengers with its attempt to assure as few voters as possible see the democrat debates. I say democrat but there is little evidence of democracy in the DNC. Hillary herself who appears to believe this election is about negotiations to serve her donor class by holding down the people's anger and resultant problems for her donors profits continues to play to untruths and fears based on disproved but now widely disseminated opinions and theories.

But most importantly we need to win the primaries and we can do this with the votes of millennials. Yes, they are being criticized for past lack of turnout etc, but we older people could have instilled that value in them and we must work with them to ensure they recognize that they need to vote for Bernie in the primaries and how about our lack of turnout and our lack of fighting hard enough for the country we want and the millennials and their children so desperately need. Our children learn from example every day. I suggest we now turn our message to millennials and independents saying something like this

Any democratic candidate can beat any republican due to demographics with an average or greater turnout in the general election and the way our electoral college works now

In effect the primary is the general election and the event that determines the next President.

To independents we say join us, The views of many independent parties (the largest being the Green Party) are held by the Sanders campaign and your complaints of being unrecognized in the primary process is invalid with a candidate , Bernie Sanders, long recognized as an independent, and expressing those views moving the democratic party more strongly to your own positions, So you too have a champion, the question is are you going to cling tightly to the an independent party affiliation or are you going to take this more practical step and help move the country to the positions you strongly support?

To everyone, we say that Bernie first and foremost believes in democracy and the rights and ability of the people to govern their country. It is this belief we all should hold sacrosanct, There are many things that Bernie supports as inevitable in a democratic society. but that depends on what the people decide, he supports them, he does not promise them although he lays out viable , non-painful steps to finance them.

To those supporters of smaller government, conservatives, consitutionist, and many liberals too, we say Bernie sanders wants a government big enough to protect individual liberty and ethical business competition, not one that bows to a ruling oligarchy and its corporations unbridled need for greed and foreign wars. Our revolution was fought by my and many of your ancestors against the same threat, a ruling oligarchy of the economic elites/royalty and their corporations who were wrongly restricting and impoverishing our ancestors. We owe this to all those who have fought because of their beliefs in liberty and democracy before us and now, in uniform or in other ways. Hitler, Mussolini, and Emperor Hirohito could not take our liberty and democracy by armed aggression, we must not allow it to be continually purchase Congressional influence everyday by donations and favors funneled through lobbyists for benefit of oligarchy to satisfy their undying greed for power and money to try unsuccessfully to satisfy egos gone wild.

So we proudly proclaim to all, the most important duty we all have to support our people, our world, and our democracy and democracies and fighters for democracy and peace in the USA and around the world is to vote for Bernie Sanders in the democratic primaries. Join we can do this great thing if we work together!























































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