Common Bernie W
He should have been president.
Twice.
Honestly, even if the DNC was completely even-handed in '16, I still think he would’ve lost. In '20, it was only some clever politiking (which, I must emphasize, is not illegitimate and quite literally part of the job) and Warren doing whatever the fuck she thought she was doing that sank him.
The evidence shows the opposite of what you think. All polling at all times showed bernie beating trump by a much bigger margin than hillary.
And the country was itching for someone who would shake up the status quo. Hillary was the epitome of status quo, while trump and bernie were very much the opposite.
All evidence shows bernie would’ve done very well against trump.
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the GOP never unleashed their attacks on Bernie, so those polls don’t mean much.
Against Trump. My point is that he still would’ve lost the Dem primary.
Bernie won swing states which would be Hillary’s downfall.
There was a push by the system for Hillary. The DNC ran shit past her campaign to give her the ups and who knows what else, Bernie was grassroots.
Hey, man, I’m not disagreeing with that assessment of the general election. But unfortunately, he needed to win the Dem primary to get to that point, and in 2016, it would have taken Hillary dropping the n-bomb on live tv to get Bernie over the finish line. She had a lot of name recognition and organization, her reputation hadn’t been completely cratered by losing to America’s biggest loser at that point, and Bernie was borderline taken by surprise by his success in '16. Man had been preaching the same thing for 30 years and suddenly, almost out of nowhere, interest surged like a wave.
He was much more prepared in '20 (and had more name recognition to boot).
I don’t disagree with Clinton coming in with more weight but I don’t think she was ever that ahead of Sanders. The system in place, the DNC and other big players just preferred Hillary and that edge resulted in her win.
In a more fair race where the DNC was equally kind to Sanders or hostile to Clinton I think Sanders would’ve won it and we’d be such a different political landscape.
Clinton had a lot of shit that would’ve taken anyone out of the race but was granted extra lives by (what I see as) annoying shitty politicking bullshit.
Primary was rigged by Hillary’s friend Debbie of the DNC.
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But who gives a flying fuck about that? The primary isn’t supposed to be anything more than a means to an end. Winning the general election is the part that’s actually important!
Unless you think Bernie could’ve run as a third party candidate and won in the general election, the primary is still incredibly important in any consideration of a realistic scenario of Bernie’s candidacy.
The second half of your comment does not follow from the first half – that nonsense about Bernie running as a third-party candidate is nothing but a dishonest strawman argument.
Anyway, nothing about that abosolves the DNC of culpability for tipping the scales to run a candidate without enough across-the-aisle appeal to win the general election. They only have themselves to blame for Trump.
That goes double when you consider the fact that the people who would’ve provided Bernie’s margin of victor in the general election – those who liked him for his anti-authoritarianism, not his leftism – most likely couldn’t vote in the Democratic primary because they were too busy voting in the Republican one for somebody like Kasich in hopes of keeping Trump off the ballot in the first place.
Warren doing whatever the fuck she thought she was doing
She was making sure Bernie lost by splitting the progressive vote. That was exactly the intention.
Because Bernie was entitled to the nomination? There’s a ton of authoritarian shit coming from Bernie fans. Between this, wanting to change the rules of primaries when he lost, wanting to ignore the popular vote to make him the nominee etc.
Are you claiming that wanting to make antidemocratic rules more democratic is authoritarian? Who wanted to ignore the popular vote? And how, exactly, does the comment you replied to suggest that Bernie was entitled to the nomination? The voters are entitled to get the candidate they want.
Changing the rules after the fact is indeed anti democratic. I’m referring to all the talk during the primaries of ignoring the voters and pushing for delegates to vote for Bernie instead. Or course this wasn’t endorsed by Bernie. Rhetoric was rampant online at the time, fueled by Bernie refusing to quit after mathematically eliminated.
The voters are entitled to get the candidate they want, and in 2016 that was Hillary Clinton.
I understand why some people think that, which is why I mentioned it as the other possibility, but I honestly think it was simply a stupid mistake. People don’t get into politics unless they’re willing, to some degree, to make bets on long odds and embrace their inner ego. Sometimes, as with Warren’s refusal to drop out, that ends poorly.
Warren claims that Bernie said something sexist to her, and I’m sure that played into it. At the end of the day, the 1% were able to get their people to drop out and unify behind a single candidate and the 99% weren’t.
I never get the warren hate. Other than her native American gaff, she was a strong candidate and would have made a good president.
Hate is a strong word. It’s more that she made a decision that made no strategic sense, and was not a stand on moral principles or anything like that. It was just either a dumb choice, as we all make sometimes, or a conscious attempt to crater Bernie. It doesn’t really have a third option that I can think of.
In either case, it was senseless, and any time the issue comes up, I draw attention to it, because it was fucking disastrous.
You said she made a dumb decision but haven’t stated what that is.
Oh, sorry, not dropping out on Super Tuesday. She was stayed in as a spoiler candidate on Super Tuesday despite the fact that polling showed that she hadn’t a chance in hell of actually making any progress towards the nomination, and all the other moderates had simultaneously dropped out to support Biden.
all the other moderates had simultaneously dropped out to support Biden.
I love this alternative history where Michael Bloomberg doesn’t exist and didn’t take more votes away from Biden than Warren did Sanders.
Warren should have know it was Sanders’ turn, amirite?
Other than her native American gaff,
It wasn’t any kind of gaff…
She said that she has a Native ancestor. Which a DNA test can’t disprove because:
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Not all of someone’s DNA gets passed on each generation.
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Native Americans have a pretty widespread dislike of DNA tests, so DNA tests don’t really know what to look for.
Also,
- Native Americans focus their community on culture, not DNA
Because of #3, anytime someone from outside their culture talks about ancestry, a bunch of tribes release boilerplate statements about how a DNA test doesn’t make anyone a Native or not a Native.
I can’t remember how far back she said that ancestor was, but I think it was so far back that statistically the most likely result was going to be no native ancestry. People think DNA is all stamped with ethnicity of origin or something, it doesn’t work like that. There’s just certain mutations that can be tracked to specific isolated populations.
Most DNA is just ambiguously human.
So you take that slim chance of an identifiable mutation getting passed down every generation, and the low sampling rate among native populations, and yeah, lots of people will get negative results.
However, it was extremely disappointing that she hired that ex Clinton campaign worker, and then took their advice and immediately started attacking Bernie. That was never about helping Warren, they were kamikazing her campaign into Bernie’s.
And it worked.
I can’t remember how far back she said that ancestor was, but I think it was so far back that statistically the most likely result was going to be no native ancestry.
That’s not how DNA tests work. The experts consulted were confident she had Native ancestry, but it was unclear how far back. The 1/1024th isn’t a chance, it’s people who don’t understand DNA incorrectly converting “on the upper end of 6-10 generations” to 1 out of 1024 ancestors and then to 1/1024 chance. The statistics of it being true were very high even though the proportion of her DNA from the ancestor was small.
Also, I feel like most of these people are either too young to know life without the internet, or they forget, but this was something white, suburban, middle class people used to say all of the time. It was usually some story (true or not, I don’t know), passed down from their great grandparents or some shit, and probably altered like a game of telephone, until you’ve got a person telling their friends about how they’re “1/32 Cherokee” or some shit.
There was never any way to check, and nobody really cared. It was a different time.
I’m not defending what she said, it was a dumb thing to say. But it’s probably just based on some story she was told as a kid that may or may not be true.
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Not to mention, I’ve never heard a person- whose basically white, with no apparent native culture- use “I have Native American ancestry” as anything other than a cudgel to insist they can’t be racist.
Usually while being racist. (Example: my grandfather.)
Eh, depends on the area.
The vast majority of “old family” Appalachians have natives somewhere on their family tree, it’s just most people never really talk about it.
At most it’s offhand mention at family gatherings, which was exactly the context Warren said she heard. Her grandparent or whoever could very well had it and shown up on a test, but it gets exponentially harder the more generations go by
Warren just happened to mention it on the campaign trail, and a bunch of people jumped on it.
At most it’s offhand mention at family gatherings, which was exactly the context Warren said she heard. Her grandparent or whoever could very well had it and shown up on a test, but it gets exponentially harder the more generations go by
it stopped being family history discussions when she mentions it on the campaign trail or on job applications. (I understand there’s conflicting evidence as to the Harvard thing, but, lets be honest here, it’s probably true).
such things coming up in the context of family history makes sense and wouldn’t (necessarily) be racist. But Warren went beyond that… when it’s usually pretty evident if someone’s family is Native American when they’re talking about it. the handful of soundbites I caught were very much in the manner my racist grandfather used to justify his angry bullshit screeds against Native Americans. that said, DNA tests are definitely never going to be conclusive about that. it’s patently ridiculous to think one’s heritage is genetic- heritage is a matter of culture; and culture is learned… distilling your heritage to a percentage based on DNA is a scam to get your DNA.
People used to say shit like this all of the time before the internet. It was usually just someone trying to sound cool, or set themselves apart from other kids in some way.
If they weren’t just making it up whole cloth, It was usually some story passed down from their great grandparents that they’re repeating (probably inaccurately) about how someone x generations ago had a Cherokee father or some shit, then they do the math to claim that means they’re 1/32 Cherokee or whatever.
Back then, I don’t remember it being used in any way as an argument against being racist. It was usually just people trying to be cool or different, or telling a boring story about their family that they think is true.
I’m not excusing what she said, it was a stupid thing to say. I’m just not sure if it deserved the criticism it received.
Jeez, some even fly the traitorous flag.
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Honestly, even if the DNC was completely even-handed in '16, I still think he would’ve lost.
Right. They pulled all the fuckery they pulled when they didn’t even need to and alienated voters they needed. Then didn’t even try to get them back. I worry they’re repeating the same “write off voters you need because you can blame them later” mistake now.
In '20, it was only some clever politiking (which, I must emphasize, is not illegitimate and quite literally part of the job) and Warren doing whatever the fuck she thought she was doing that sank him.
He got outmaneuvered in 2020, yes. The field narrowed to his disfavor and Biden got a key endorsement in South Carolina. This was probably due to some shrewd politicking on Biden’s part and I very much doubt it was the massive conspiracy that some of my fellow progressives allege.
There are other factors, like how the press hated Sanders. I remember the lead up to South Carolina. They were just openly asking “how do we stop Sanders?” There was CNN’s “how did you feel when he said you couldn’t win because you’re a woman” at that one debate. May as well have just spat on him and called him a liar. You had Chris Matthews saying a Sanders presidency would result in public executions in Central Park. He sounded like he was on Fox News and not MSNBC. Chuck Todd’s “brownshirts” comment was disgraceful. He was kinder to the January 6 insurrectionists than he was to Sanders and his supporters.
I think the party had its thumb firmly and unapologetically on the scale in 2016, but not 2020. Sanders just got outplayed in 2020.
The press consistently put out interviews during the prelims about people wanting Sanders but voting for Biden because he’s more likely to win. Bernie could have generated a ton of public and young support. I do think the corporate Dems didn’t want him to take power.
I do think the corporate Dems didn’t want him to take power.
Corpodems would prefer a Republican to a progressive in any given office.
He should have been president.
Hands down. He had the populist vote of independents and many Republicans too. The right of center DNC torpedoed him. They weren’t going to allow a center left candidate through. Wasn’t the first time either. At the 1944 Democratic National Convention, conservative party leaders defeated a very popular Henry Wallace’s bid for renomination. I canceled all donations to the DNC and became an Independent.
He had the populist vote of independents and many Republicans too.
To put a finer point on it: he had the margin of victory over Trump that Clinton did not, and it came from precisely the sorts of people who don’t vote in Democratic Party primaries (which is why the “but he couldn’t even win the primary” rebuttal is nothing but dishonest horseshit).
“but he couldn’t even win the primary”
TBH that says a lot more about the Democrats than it does about him.
Not really. It benefited Republicans to not attack Bernie to make Clinton look worse. Had Bernie won that would have changed. They had a ton to attack him on, and we’ll never know how well it would have worked. The kind of bullshit they got people to believe about Clinton was insane. I still hear some of it today.
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This makes me laugh. You all whine about how unfair the DNC, the Media, centrists Democrats were to Bernie, and that caused him to lose the Primary. But you assume had he won the Primary that the Republican Party and Donald Trump would not have made all of that look like absolute childs play? If you can’t defend yourself against the DNC and CNN, you’re fucked when you go up against people that will just straight up lie about you. Using polls from when the GOP hadn’t said anything about Bernie is pointless. It was to their advantage to act like Bernie was perfect, it hurt Clinton.
Ummm hi… I enthusiastically supported Bernie in the primary, and then voted for Hillary in the general. Because Bernie lost the primary.
You may have your anecdotal evidence, but my experience has been the opposite. That the people who complain the most about Bernie losing, are people who did not vote in the Democratic primary.
The primary is the time for progressives (and young people, who are notorious for not showing up to vote in anything but the general, if they vote at all) to vote for progressive candidates.
The primary is the time for progressives
Who the fuck is talking about progressives? We’re talking about all the other people who liked Bernie better than Trump, but who otherwise tended to like Republicans better than Biden. Specifically, the people who liked Bernie for his anti-authoritarianism and who held their noses for the leftist stuff. They can’t vote in a Democratic primary because they’re too busy voting in the Republican or maybe even the Libertarian one instead!
More concretely: they couldn’t vote for Bernie because they were too busy voting for (probably) John Kasich.
the people who liked Bernie for his anti-authoritarianism and who held their noses for the leftist stuff.
You know… Morons. Privileged assholes.
Our people don’t deserve a leader like him.
Our people prefer charismatic liars that tell us we can get moooore than our neighbors if we play the rigged game and work against one another.
Our people would much rather have a 0.1% chance of lucking into a lifestyle of perverse gluttony than have a 100% chance of everyone having a roof, a bed, and a full belly at night.
Our people are selfish and cruel.
I haven’t and won’t vote for any Republican ever, but I will admit, Donald Trump is the perfect reflection of the United States of America. We couldn’t ask for a mascot more reflective of our practiced values. He is the USA personified. All the toxic, antisocial traits we celebrate about ourselves: proud Greed, proud willfull ignorance, vanity, arrogance, all the - isms, unearned confidence, cruelty, gluttony, schadenfreude, nepotism, you might as well run him up a flag post and sing the star spangled banner while eating apple pie at a baseball game.
Our people would much rather have a 0.1% chance of lucking into a lifestyle of perverse gluttony than have a 100% chance of everyone having a roof, a bed, and a full belly at night.
Doesn’t hurt that most Americans probably can’t even conceptualize what this even means, and have no understanding of just how big of a difference there is between those two percentages. They don’t even know what an order of magnitude is, let alone the implications of several.
Dude is a failure who can’t even garner the support of his own party, let alone the entire country. Not too mention, you can’t complain about the age of Biden and Trump while naming a dinosaur like Bernie.
He has great ideas but that’s about it, he’s as ineffectual as far as politicians go. You want to beat Trump, find someone who can win an election, not Bernie.
Dude is a failure who can’t even garner the support of his own party
And which party would that be?
Democrats, he’s a democrat. I’m not sure what you’re trying to bait.
He couldn’t win the party nomination, which is step one to winning the presidential election.
I’m not American so I can look at this from the outside and realize that no matter how right Bernie’s ideas are, he’s not gonna win it, and at his age he shouldn’t try. Y’all need to start looking for younger people, Bernie was a nice experiment, move on.
Bernie is not a Democrat. Check again, bud.
He almost always votes with them, caucused with them for most of his house and senate career, and ran for the DNC’s presidential nomination twice (2016 and 2020).
He may not call himself one but that’s where the differences end.
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It’s not his party. He used the party to run for President, and people whine about how the party didn’t fall in love with him. Maybe he should I don’t know, join the fucking party and build a base of support. Otherwise he’s just mooching off them.
So we have a spare 10 billion for Israel, but not predatory studen loan debt relief for our own citizens? Sounds about right
pls, giving student loan debt relief instead of $10 billion to Israeli gov’t is considered anti-Semitic 😔
Or free school lunch.
Free school lunch? Believe or not, straight into communism!
I hope that’s sarcasm.
I hope it’s not. Here we were thinking it would take armed struggle to reach communism, but we can just give people free lunch instead? Sign me up.
I like the cut of your jib!
It’s a play on a parks and rec quote
Or free pre-K
At some point, we should simply allow children to be children. I’m not adverse to pre-k but I’m very adverse to conditioning them to work at ever*-earlier ages.
*edited
The children yearn for the mines, give them what they really want. Let’s turn this into a 10 billion dollar profit.
Pre-mines. They spend a year in the mines as a learning experience ( unpaid internship) and then we send them off to school
First they need basic infantry training so they can defend the classrooms, the bus loops, and the auditoriums.
Soviet school curriculum actually had a little bit of that. Well, how to tell ranks, what to do in case of war (also fire alarm or any other emergency), first aid, disassembly and assembly of the AK rifle, orientation on terrain and basic survival skills, not sure about actually firing at targets - I wasn’t alive back then.
In our school (I was born in 1996) there was literally one time where our class was taken to a shooting range, but it was more like a tour. The got to shoot a few rounds at targets, yes. The first aid, ranks and AK disassembly\assembly parts I do remember.
There were war-themed games (“Zarnitsa” etc) teaching coordination, subordination, orientation, and of course using radio (to communicate and to intercept the other team’s communications). EDIT: That I only heard about.
i don’t know what your pre-K was like, but i don’t remember mine requiring the kids to punch a timeclock, earn wages, or to perform any actual labor. IIRC, we played with toys, played games, sang songs, engaged in educational activities for toddlers, ate snacks, and took naps.
It’s a finger painting sweatshop.
Banksy will make millions off this one weird trick.
If we had more funding for great teachers, it would be anything but pre-work. Ultimately, lower income families really benefit from free childcare schools provide, and a good pre-K classroom is all about play and exploring.
Teaching at that level should be fun for kids and teachers (though also exhausting). It’s when underfunding forces teachers into a solid 8h of classroom time a day with a way too large class size that it turns work-like.
I freelanced music ed and worked with 4-8 year olds in several different schools. Some were amazing, supportive teaching assistants and reasonable schedules with a few breaks in my day, kids loved it and so did I. Others, I felt like a warden just trying to stop a riot for 9 hours straight with a 20min lunch. 25+ 4 year olds with no support doesn’t work.
What am amazing reply! I’m fully on board with fully funded, fully fun pre-k-12. I’d like to see it Montessori style, as well. Bring back recess, and for goodness’ sake, a full lunch hour.
Bruh what do you think pre-k is lol
Free school lunch!? Well there, Karl, I bet they will give you a free lunch in the gulags.
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Given that Isreal is calling everyone and their mother (extra ironic in Judaism) anti semitic for not agreeing enthusiastically enough to ethnic cleansing/genocide, I am pretty confident they’re the ones who made the term meaningless. They litterally called the UN a bunch of Nazi sympathizers who would have supported the holocaust while at a UN meeting. Like my dude, why don’t you go
sheckleheckle some actual nazi sympathizers and see if you walk out of the room.Thank you. I couldn’t have said it any better. I mean, sometimes we joke about horrible stuff like this because we feel powerless to do anything about it, so at least we can poke fun at some of the silly aspects of the situation.
Are you a member of any out groups?
What is an out group?
Basically any non majority population segments. In the West, typically straight white cishet male Christian. In reality we should include the poor but in the States they’re just embarrassed millionaires without their money yet, and regurgitate the views and will of the Haves.
It’s a post about the US government’s spending. Equivocating them proves my point that they’re just looking for an opportunity to normalize a dangerous sentiment. That antisemitism doesn’t exist. A disinformation campaign that has existed for centuries.
IIRC Eichmann kinda liked the state of Israel. He considered it a thing of the past that Nazis “had” to exterminate Jews, in the spirit of “well, it’s ancient history, everybody has done that, we all have our own racial interests in mind”.
Military aid is generally not cash.
Now if you want to cut the military budget to do things at home, I’m all for that
I’ll take a tank to pay my student debt
Please give me a tank to pay my student debt
Arthur pay your student debt.
I’M IN A TANK AND YOU’RE NOT
Give a man a tank, he never had debt again.
It’s cash to the weapons manufacturers and substitutes for cash the recipient would need to pay. It’s not like we give those weapons away and then just have fewer weapons.
Student loan debt wouldn’t have been “cash” either. They’re federal loans. They’re just numbers on a computer at this point, and wiping it out would be trivial (as we’ve seen with the continued, successful, attempts for the Biden Admin to continue forgiving these loans on the sly using whatever loopholes they can).
What I’m saying is that they say “give $X of aid” but really they’re giving $X worth of munitions and equipment they already have.
Money on a computer is still money
Actually no. It it not always physical goods. Most often it’s a line of credit, basically a way for the government to kick back more funds to contractors that then kick back to bureaucrats and politicians.
Damn, every take you make on this forum is completely asinine lol.
Military aid is generally not cash.
So it’s free? Military equipment has no value and giving it away is not a loss?
It’s funny how often you see a wack ass take and this guy’s name is attached
At least if we are giving them tangible goods rather than cash, it’s not as fungible.
But I don’t agree with giving ANY country aid. Shut it all off. We have shit at home to deal with.
Any money being sent abroad is 100% eventually lining the pockets of politicians. Even money spent domestically does.
It’s not, but do you think we’re giving away cutting edge military tech or not developing that cutting edge tech that obsoletes the stuff we’re giving away regardless? It doesn’t really have a lot of value to the US rotting away in warehouse storage.
Note that I’m not saying this in support of Israel nor am I well enough informed to know if this even applies there. It definitely applies to Ukraine aid, though.
Lmao. Genuinely.
The military budget isn’t even that large. You realize that Medicare, Medicaid, and Ss all used to be under HHS. They took it out because then people would realize that’s actually where something like 82% of our budget goes.
And before you go, “military spending is 40% or whatever” that’s literally because they STOPPED including medicare/medicaid/SS (not all of them but I forget which ones) in those budget numbers. In reality, HHS, MC/MC, and SS EACH are larger line items than military spending.
Bro I’m not engaging with a person who wants to end all foreign aid. That could not possibly be a worse position to hold.
The lower they are, the higher you seem. Helping the poor is never in their interest. If you are not poor, they are not rich.
That literally how they have exploited civilizations for centuries.
- Student loans through FAFSA are not and never were predatory. The real crime is they’re essentially the Kat Williams Bad Credit, No Credit, Unapproved Credit loans made real with no limits and no denials and so colleges, seeing free money (hey look, basically printing money for them, so Federal Reserve-like) jacked prices as high as they could.
- People should look at that cause and effect and realize that’s what forcing higher minimum wage does, handing out free money does, unilaterally absolving people of valid debt does, etc. Rather than demanding MORE money (because again, the only winner there is the tax man, every one else loses) they should be demanding answers for:
- Why have price of goods unnecessarily increased?
- Why has the purchasing power of the dollar gone to shit?
- Plot Twist: it’s government the whole way down.
Student loans through FAFSA are not and never were predatory.
You’re really gonna sit here and try to tell me that a loan for the cost of education being 3-4 times what it should be isn’t predatory? All the while force feeding the narrative to children that if they don’t go to college they can’t be productive members of society?
Glossing over the larger deal in that most people sign up for them as minors and they can’t be cleared through bankruptcy.
Go ahead and call him antisemitic just to close the loop.
“There has never been a greater enemy of the Jewish people than Bernie Sanders.” - Bibi simps ten seconds from now
LOL they are, unironically
Which is ironic because he comes from a Jewish family.
ThatsTheJoke.gif
That never stopped it from happening. Ever.
It’s clear Bernie doesn’t like Bibi. Dont blame him. But, right now it’s ‘Push’. The ‘Shove’ comes later.
We need more Bernie, really hope he has disciples or something. Man has decades of stamina fighting for the people
I think his movement has traction with the younger generation. Hopefully it motivates them and they keep it going.
AOC
ah yes, strike breaker AOC, truly an inspiring progressive :|
Politics sucks. You can’t do everything. There’s also never going to be anyone that agrees with you 100% unless you run yourself, and even then your views change over time (hopefully).
AOC has made mistakes, but tearing down the left-most Members of Congress for not being left-enough will only push Congress right.
I highly recommend this episode of Unfucking the Republic: https://www.unftr.com/episodes/topical13
It should be noted that many of the workers’ demands were quietly met just this summer largely through back channel efforts led by none other than Bernie Sanders. Bernie did it by working beyond the headlines and within the system.
The linked article discusses ONE demand. It is a fucking lie to say that “many” of the demands were met.
Not to mention the condescension inherent in a politician telling workers “it’s ok that I betrayed the working class because I got one of their demands met”
She’s nothing but mistakes and lunacy and lies. And she’s repeatedly shown through her actions she doesn’t give two shits about the working class. How willfully ignorant are you?
Absolutely
She’s a nutcase and a puppet.
A lot of his political supporters and constantly shamed for supposedly helping Trump because we dare voice how terrible the Democrat party is, and are assumed to not understand how strategic voting works or that one party can be less bad.
and are assumed to not understand how strategic voting works
That would be a correct assumption. I’ve seen twice as much apathy come out of Bernie fans than Progress. This war is a good example. We can all disagree with how they go about what they are doing, but the idea that they should only be defending will lead to more attacks. If the US just increased airport security after 9/11 and didn’t go after Bin Laden, you better bet they’d send more. The answer isn’t doing that they are doing now, and it’s not doing nothing. Bernie might have the right idea in a ideal world, but in reality it’s not a great take and it makes other Democrats look bad that are having to make the difficult decisions which again spreads apathy. I don’t think there is a good solution to the problem without going back in time and not letting the West arbitrarily divide up the middle east and fuck everything up in the first place.
The Bush government response after 9/11 increased radicalization, strengthened Al Qaeda, and decreased support for the US. It put us in more danger, in order to destabilize the Middle East, advance US imperialism, and line the pockets of international arms profiteers.
The Netanyahu government response after 10/7 increased radicalization, strengthened Hamas, and decreased support for Israel. It put them in more danger, in order to destabilize the Middle East, advance US imperialism, and line the pockets of international arms profiteers.
Maybe you’re correct that some action, other than strict defense, would be best, but that’s not on the table, here. In this context, the choice is between further funding the worst choice, or not doing that. What makes Democrats look bad is how many of them support further funding the worst case.
You’re not considering the act of no retaliation causing the terrorists to keep trying large attacks. Hamas isn’t acting alone, just like Bin Laden wasn’t acting alone. They have backers with deep pockets that can’t be dealt with directly for complex political reasons. I’m not advocating for one way or another, I’m acknowledging it’s incredibly complicated and there’s no good solution to it.
How do you conclude that I’m not considering that? Escalation doesn’t reduce that risk.
Bernie might have the right idea in a ideal world, but in reality it’s not a great take and it makes other Democrats look bad that are having to make the difficult decisions which again spreads apathy.
It’s hard for me to read this as “not advocating for one way or another”, given that what Bernie is doing is saying to step back from the unquestioning full-throttle support of the Netanyahu government. If you think that’s a bad take, the only conclusion I can draw is that you are advocating for that full support of what they’re doing.
To be fair, a lot of the other things you’ve said indicate otherwise, so I guess I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.
I don’t think it’s a bad take, it’s not a complete one. What’s his full plan? He’s not in a position to have one.
I’m a realist not an idealist. We will all sit here doing nothing if we still to our ideals. I acknowledge that difficult decisions need to be made. The metaphor of politics being a game of chess is great. If you play the game ideally, trying to never lose a piece, you will lose the game.
Given what I’ve seen for far, Israel is going too far. But given what I’ve seen from Hamas, I’m not sure where the line is. It’s a similar problem to the war on terror where the enemy isn’t a nation state and has to be identified mixed into civilians. Add on top that no one knows what a solution is. You could argue never invading Iraq was the correct move for the US, but keeping the situation between Israel and Gaza sure as hell isn’t imo.
Bro I just want some more bombs, please bro come on, I won’t even do anything with them bro
The left: we only want universal health care and education! Also the left: *spends inflated billions on high performance environmentally friendly children massacring missiles.
Democrats aren’t left
They have left’s vote though. A leftist will never vote for a bully like Trump
Let me introduce you to “MAGA Communism”.
You just read how Bernie (as lefty as they come in US) is opposing giving missiles to Israel, what the fuck are you talking about?
Bernie is center left at best, everything in the US is pretty much right wing
Everything is only exist in its own context. But I even clarified that we’re talking about US (if it wasn’t obvious by the fact that we’re talk about US politicians)
I think that any country that has nukes should not be asking for handouts.
And Israel is the only nation with nukes that gets to lie about having them.
Fuck Israel. Fuck zionists.
Israel helped South Africa become a Nuclear armed state and supplied their apartheid government with weapons.
Later, South Africa gave up their nukes, making them the only nuclear power to voluntarily disarm.
Sort of. Ukraine had Soviet nukes, and gave them up for security guarantees with Russia. Libya and Iraq had also previously given up their weapons of mass destruction programs.
South Africa is the only one on the list that wasn’t later invaded by a larger power. The Great Powers are teaching the smaller ones that if they give up their weapons of mass destruction programs, they’ll get invaded later.
The only reason why north korea hasen’t been flattened yet
NK has China backing them, so that’s the main reason. Otherwise they’re not really a threat.
That’s silly. Between the end of the war and 2006 was quite some time for them to be attacked and yet nobody did. Even though they have been assholes about it the whole time. Them having thousands of artillery pieces aimed at Seoul worked just fine as a deterence without any nuke around. Big brother China also did help I guess.
Ukraine never had control of those nukes. They got a good deal to have them moved into Russian territory, but if Ukraine had wanted to keep the nukes, they’d have been attacking Russian soldiers to get them, and wouldn’t have had the launch codes. Ukraine got the best deal they could under the circumstances, especially since the US wasn’t particularly concerned about Ukraine at the time.
So what I’m hearing is whatever you do, do not give up your nukes. You will get invaded.
Ukraine had Soviet nukes, and gave them up for security guarantees with Russia.
Ah yes, that worked out really well for Ukraine /s
Trusting Russia is a mistake
Trusting the US or any of the other globalist/banker controlled Western countries isn’t any less of a mistake.
But you know who did that? Went their own way away from the international bankers? Libya Iraq
Almost like THAT’S the reason they were invaded.
Nothing unusual, Israel hates human rights and loves war crime.
They also hate national stability. Notice how they want every other country to import the Middle East or South America but by golly you’re a filthy anti-Zionist if you say Open Borders For Israel.
Fuck international bankers too
I am anti-zionist, as Zionists are anti-human rights, steal land from innocent people and see themselves as something better.
Kill all Zionists
Japan is also on the list of countries that don’t officially have nukes, but essentially just have to tighten some screws and they’ll have working nukes.
Also Pakistan may or may not have nukes iirc.
I thought Pakistan admitted having nukes ?
Have they said what the 10bn would be used for? Because it seems like Israel doesn’t need financial help glassing over Gaza if we’re being honest. That 10bn could be used domestically to improve the lives of millions of people.
Among other things, the Iron Dome system
Israel is perpetrating a holocaust.
The word ‘holocaust’ goes back to a type of sacrifice in the Mediterranean where the animal bodies were burned in their entirety, coming from the Greek holos (‘whole’) and kaustos (‘burnt’).
We call what the Nazis did “the Holocaust” because they systematically killed and then burnt the bodies to ash in crematoriums.
So no, even if you think Israel is committing genocide in Palestine, they are not perpetuating a holocaust, unless they start gathering up the bodies of the dead and burning the majority of them to ash.
The Holocaust was a genocide, but not all genocides are a Holocaust (in fact, it was pretty much just the one).
I mean… They are bombing countless civilians into ash and dust. But I agree with your point of view as a whole. We need a better word here for the horrors Israel is committing.
It’s War.
No. It’s genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Were all the bombings during WWII genocide and ethnic cleansing?
When you bomb civilian blocks, destroy 60% of housing, and displace 2 million people, then bomb them where you told them to go, and cut humanitarian aid from them, then it’s considered genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Mind blowing stuff, right?
You’re describing war. Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Germany, Kosovo, Chechnya. Just to name a few. Civilians are killed. War is horrific.
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I imagine the etymology of Holomodor is similar.
etymology of Holomodor
The name Holodomor is explained as coming from the Ukrainian words ”holod” which means hunger, and ”mor” which means plague: ”In the Ukrainian language, the famine of 1932 and 1933 famine is called ‘holodomor’, which means extermination by starvation.
There you go.
Somehow I don’t think the etymology adequately conveys the paradigm there.
Thank you. Trying to explain this away with etymology is pedantic and short sighted. The reason the word was used was to point out the hypocrisy that Israel continues to milk sympathy due to the Holocaust, capital H, whole committing genocide of their own.
Now everyone who wants to draw that comparison has to explain that they don’t really mean holocaust they just mean genocide but they’re saying holocaust to point out hypocrisy? Absurd.
This is absurd and distracting from the point being made by the OP. Even if you’re technically correct, it’s pedantic not useful to the conversation.
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I guess, now it’ll rain dislikes for me?
I find this to be a weird thing to add to a comment. Everytime I see this in a comment I wonder what its purpose is. Are you trying to prove that you know your opinion is unpopular? That you will stoically endure the downvotes to have your opinions heard? It seems odd.
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Here’s what I can pretty much guarantee will be an unpopular observation; Israel is 100 percent committed to eliminating Hamas, for understandable reasons. They aren’t going to stop until the job is done. Therefore, if you really care about innocent Palestinian civilians getting killed, you should want to give Israel more aid since the faster they are able to destroy Hamas, the less innocent civilians get killed.
Not sure that I agree with the morality of this proposition. It seems pretty sound, but I am still wrestling with it.
Israel has been massacring Palestinians decades before Hamas was a thing. They’re also massacring people in the west bank where Hamas has no powers and settlers are killing people and stealing their lands.
So, your observation is incorrect.
Maybe, but just like with Stuxnet they’re go fucking overboard and fuck it up.
Oh was Stuxnet Israel? I had thought for sure it was USA or Germany
It was a joint US-Israel-Britian effort, that was going fine until Israel modified it to do more which allowed it to escape the target and be found out by international security researchers. Up until that point, they thought their engineers were screwing up.
To be precise, Bernie opposes unconditional aid. He’s not completely opposed to any aid to Israel whatsoever; He wants to stipulate the aid under the condition that the Israel government does more to safeguard the lives of uninvolved Palestinian civilians.
The entire article seems designed to confuse if not intentionally mislead the reader.
“Unconditional” certainly would have fit in the title.
Or, if not, it could have been added to the text below the title that instead juxtaposes Republican opposition as if to suggest Bernie has the same interests as Republicans.
Or, it could have at least been in the first paragraph where they state Bernie’s opposition again.
But no, you have to read through nearly half the article to find that important qualifier in paragraph 5.
It’s hard to imagine this is anything other than an attempt to misrepresent his position.
It seems that way because it is. It’s a for-profit media company, owned and run by rich neoliberals, who are shareholders in other for-profit companies owned by neoliberals, reporting on someone who is a genuine threat to that system.
Most of the “left vs right” in politics and media is just an elaborate pantomime to vie for market share. The moment someone is a genuine threat to neoliberalism, watch them all unite to take them down.
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No they’re not conditional anymore. Genocide Joe removed all restrictions for israel targeting civilians recently.
https://theintercept.com/2023/11/25/biden-israel-weapons-stockpile-arms-gaza/
Has he written anything specific up on it, or is he grandstanding?
Israel can take it from their ruling class.
Israel has an intel fab, just to highlight how wealthy the nation is.
Pics for proof lol with Israeli flags in the background too
I mean… he’s right though, they do.
Ltt did a video on it?
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Headline sounded pro-Bernie to me.
Yeah, this is like one of those illusions where you can’t tell if you’re looking at two people staring at each other or a vase. If you’re a leftie, you look at this and go, “Good, based Bernie.” If you only consume the mainstream narrative that the Israelis are on the right side of history here and opposition to their campaign or our support for it are heresy, this reads like “Bad Commie Bernie.”
Edit: Just read the article. It quotes Bernie heavily, seems to let him represent his own position. It juxtaposes the Israeli claim that they’re not being indiscriminate against some pretty ugly numbers about the dead and displaced. The article reads pretty pro-Bernie to me.
The headline is a straight fact, your own opinion makes it anti/pro.
It’s NBC news. They’ll be promoting a pro-Israel stance. They know exactly what happens to political persons that publicly condemn Israel.
Israel doesn’t really need the aid. They’re doing just fine militarily
But Berrnieeeee, there’s still Palestinian children that haven’t been bombed yet!!
They don’t need aid they need to chillll
Me too Bernie, me too.
