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Bernie Sanders urges progressives to seek more electoral wins

Lafayette

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From the Guardian here: Bernie Sanders urges progressives to seek more electoral wins

Excerpts:
Buoyed by the British Labour Party election gains this week, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Saturday urged a summit of progressive activists who propelled his presidential candidacy to ramp up efforts to win elections and help remake a Democratic Party he deemed a failure.

"They won those seats by standing up to the ruling class," he said, referring to the British elections and citing wins by progressive U.S. candidates in several state and local races while writing off losses as evidence liberal progressives could still be competitive even in conservative states.

Many activists said they hoped to transform the momentum from recent protests such as January's Women's March in Washington into concrete plans to support a growing wave of grassroots candidates to secure electoral power.

"We could have 10,000 people marching, but if we don't have some means of translating that into winning political office and enacting a legislative progressive agenda, at the end of the day, what does it amount to?"

Sanders credited progressives with increasing public acceptance of proposals such as a $15 minimum wage, renegotiating trade policies and offering free college tuition. He got a standing ovation when he said the California Senate recently passed a single-payer health care plan.

It's time to prepare for the mid-terms, where the Dems take back the HofR ...
 
You know what is so sad is by the time America got to 2017 it is Crazy Bernie of all people who is found yelling "HEY MORONS; IN POLITICS THE ONLY WAY TO MATTER IS TO WIN!'.
 
Sanders is politically ridiculous.

He wants a GINORMOUS sized government...yet he freely admits that government is incredibly corrupt.

So his solution to the world's problems is to take money from taxpayers and feed it into incredibly corrupt governments.

Friggin brilliant... :roll:
 
From the Guardian here: Bernie Sanders urges progressives to seek more electoral wins

Excerpts:

Buoyed by the British Labour Party election gains this week, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Saturday urged a summit of progressive activists who propelled his presidential candidacy to ramp up efforts to win elections and help remake a Democratic Party he deemed a failure.

"They won those seats by standing up to the ruling class," he said, referring to the British elections and citing wins by progressive U.S. candidates in several state and local races while writing off losses as evidence liberal progressives could still be competitive even in conservative states.

Many activists said they hoped to transform the momentum from recent protests such as January's Women's March in Washington into concrete plans to support a growing wave of grassroots candidates to secure electoral power.

"We could have 10,000 people marching, but if we don't have some means of translating that into winning political office and enacting a legislative progressive agenda, at the end of the day, what does it amount to?"

Sanders credited progressives with increasing public acceptance of proposals such as a $15 minimum wage, renegotiating trade policies and offering free college tuition. He got a standing ovation when he said the California Senate recently passed a single-payer health care plan.

It's time to prepare for the mid-terms, where the Dems take back the HofR ...

Bernie Sanders; Independent (Socialist actually) from 1979 - 2015. Democrat for purposes of running for President 2016 - Present.

Sanders, 73, has been preaching socialism for nearly half a century...“I myself don’t use the word socialism,” he said in 1976 in the Vermont Cynic, a student publication at the University of Vermont, “because people have been brainwashed into thinking socialism automatically means slave-labor camps, dictatorship and lack of freedom of speech.”
14 things Bernie Sanders has said about socialism - POLITICO

He really wants to build the Democratic Party? Does this mean he, and therefore we all, should view Democrats rightly as actually Socialists? Calling a spade a spade...
 
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Bernie Sanders; Independent (Socialist actually) from 1979 - 2015. Democrat for purposes of running for President 2016 - Present.

14 things Bernie Sanders has said about socialism - POLITICO

He really wants to build the Democratic Party? Does this mean he, and therefore we all, should view Democrats rightly as actually Socialists? Calling a spade a spade...

Do not forget that he is an accomplished populist and the MSM are hysterical enough right now to do anything including willful harm to the country to get rid of their object of ire.
 
Sanders is politically ridiculous.

He wants a GINORMOUS sized government...yet he freely admits that government is incredibly corrupt.

So his solution to the world's problems is to take money from taxpayers and feed it into incredibly corrupt governments.

Friggin brilliant... :roll:

Don't forget that Trump and Corbyn were also considered politically ridiculous, while Obama or Macron had the sole sales pitch of "Change!" and "Yes we can!".
 
And you are certainly right that the inexperienced young and profiteers of the promised largesse that "progressves'" BS feeds them in populist storylines of the type you so love to tell. ;)

Thank you, thank you, thank you - for our daily-dose of blah, blah, blah ...
 
Don't forget this very important part of the same speech:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...bsolute-failure-of-democratic-partys-strategy

That aspect of it cannot be overstated enough; the Dem party needs to undergo some serious reinvention and introspection.

Agreed, but the Dem-party is simply the "other party" in a decrepit democracy. What can progressives do if the odds have been stacked against them as in the Electoral College (national) and with gerrymandering (state).

We need to get rid of both, along with unlimited campaign funding that sells candidates like "soap-powder"in a uniquely two-party system*.

They all wash whiter-than-white ...

*Were Bernie to live as a politician in the UK, he'd have run on middle-road-but-slightly-left program on a Liberal Party label. Which is what he should do in the US. Make the electoral system three- and not two-dimensional - and that cannot happen until Americans smarten-up politically ...
 
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Sanders is politically ridiculous.

He wants a GINORMOUS sized government...yet he freely admits that government is incredibly corrupt.

So his solution to the world's problems is to take money from taxpayers and feed it into incredibly corrupt governments.

Friggin brilliant... :roll:

I believe he wants to shift the monies from "Corporate Welfare and War as business" to Socially benign programs to benefit humans, a/k/a constituents/taxpayers/human citizens, not Corporate Entities given life support by Citizens United.
/
 
Agreed, but the Dem-party is simply the "other party" in a decrepit democracy. What can progressives do if the odds have been stacked against them as in the Electoral College (national) and with gerrymandering (state).

We need to get rid of both, along with unlimited campaign funding that sells candidates like "soap-powder"in a uniquely two-party system*.

They all wash whiter-than-white ...

*Were Bernie to live as a politician in the UK, he'd have run on middle-road-but-slightly-left program on a Liberal Party label. Which is what he should do in the US. Make the electoral system three- and not two-dimensional - and that cannot happen until Americans smarten-up politically ...

The odds aren't stacked against Progressives. Their results are.

All a candidate has to do to demonstrate the folly of Progressivism is point to what Progressives have done to California. I doubt there are sufficient votes to get people to want a repeat of California on a National level.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2016/09/15/californias-boom-is-poised-to-go-bust-and-liberals-dream-of-scandinavia-on-the-pacific/#2b86f4e65cb6
 
I believe he wants to shift the monies from "Corporate Welfare and War as business" to Socially benign programs to benefit humans, a/k/a constituents/taxpayers/human citizens, not Corporate Entities given life support by Citizens United.
/

But he still wants to force Americans to prop up governments that he admits are corrupt...FAR more than they already are.

If he wants to cut corporate welfare? Simple. Just eliminate/neuter the Fed, make it illegal for governments to bail out/directly assist corporations in ANY way except during a major, declared war and cut the military budget by at least 25%. Additionally, he could limit campaign contributions to $100 per person and only individuals can contribute to campaigns.

Done.

But he wants to explode government healthcare (good but potentially VERY expensive), make it free for everyone to go to college (extraordinarily expensive) and tax the rich to death (which will just result in the rich bolting to greener pastures). Plus God knows how many other programs that will cost a HUGE fortune.

The absolute LAST thing that should be done is give the STAGGERINGLY corrupt government even more money/power than they presently have. But that is EXACTLY what he wants to do.
 
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But he still wants to force Americans to prop up governments that he admits are corrupt...FAR more than they already are.

If he wants to cut corporate welfare? Simple. Just eliminate/neuter the Fed, make it illegal for governments to bail out/directly assist corporations in ANY way except during a major, declared war and cut the military budget by at least 25%. Additionally, he could limit campaign contributions to $100 per person and only individuals can contribute to campaigns.

Done.

But he wants to explode government healthcare (good but potentially VERY expensive), make it free for everyone to go to college (extraordinarily expensive) and tax the rich to death (which will just result in the rich bolting to greener pastures). Plus God knows how many other programs that will cost a HUGE fortune.

The absolute LAST thing that should be done is give the STAGGERINGLY corrupt government even more money/power than they presently have. But that is EXACTLY what he wants to do.

Emphathetically, I have strong feelings for what you have said. From the pragmatic standpoint, we have to restart somewhere and Sanders is the only one that makes any sense. At least he wants to aim government at the real people, not Citizen's United annoited acolytes, a/k/a Big Corporate. The USA seems to be spiraling into the sewer and a major change is necessay, not cosmetics. I don't like Big Corporate. I don't like the Police State. I don't like all the surveillance. I don't like War as a Business. I'm offended by property taxes, birth taxes, death taxes, energy taxes, etc. Big Corporate always picks the taxpayer's pockets and the gov't helps them. Enough, any populist is a good alternative, and Bernie fills the bill.
./
 
Emphathetically, I have strong feelings for what you have said. From the pragmatic standpoint, we have to restart somewhere and Sanders is the only one that makes any sense. At least he wants to aim government at the real people, not Citizen's United annoited acolytes, a/k/a Big Corporate. The USA seems to be spiraling into the sewer and a major change is necessay, not cosmetics. I don't like Big Corporate. I don't like the Police State. I don't like all the surveillance. I don't like War as a Business. I'm offended by property taxes, birth taxes, death taxes, energy taxes, etc. Big Corporate always picks the taxpayer's pockets and the gov't helps them. Enough, any populist is a good alternative, and Bernie fills the bill.
./

I understand. I realize we are both Ron Paul fans.

But I am FAR more afraid of big government than big corporate.

The latter can be controlled with an economic boycott.

The former cannot be controlled at all other than at election time. And sometimes, not even then if the problem is bureaucratic.


Anyway, I feel a major, worldwide 'reset' is coming. I know not when...but I feel it is inevitable now. All this government control of the economies and GINORMOUS amounts of cheap money sloshing around is destined to crumble.

And it could be a golden opportunity for humankind.

The concern is - what process must it go through to get to that point?
 
Agreed, but the Dem-party is simply the "other party" in a decrepit democracy. What can progressives do if the odds have been stacked against them as in the Electoral College (national) and with gerrymandering (state).

We need to get rid of both, along with unlimited campaign funding that sells candidates like "soap-powder"in a uniquely two-party system*.

They all wash whiter-than-white ...

*Were Bernie to live as a politician in the UK, he'd have run on middle-road-but-slightly-left program on a Liberal Party label. Which is what he should do in the US. Make the electoral system three- and not two-dimensional - and that cannot happen until Americans smarten-up politically ...

Bernie is and has always been for getting money out of politics as a priority; perhaps the single most important thing for getting the US away from being the plutocracy it's become.

That said, if the Dem party is to win, it definitely needs to channel popular, progressive ideas rather than its present strategy of papering over its corporatism and devotion to the status quo with little more than platitudes and a social justice platform (a favourite of its donor beholden establishment because these cost them nothing while _implying_ leftism/progressivism).
 
Sanders credited progressives with increasing public acceptance of proposals such as a $15 minimum wage, renegotiating trade policies and offering free college tuition. He got a standing ovation when he said the California Senate recently passed a single-payer health care plan.

Makes it all the more puzzling that he never seems to reference the one state where single-payer is already law and could be implemented tomorrow if the political will could be found, given that he has some sway in said state.
 
You know what is so sad is by the time America got to 2017 it is Crazy Bernie of all people who is found yelling "HEY MORONS; IN POLITICS THE ONLY WAY TO MATTER IS TO WIN!'.

Idealism is good. It gives you something to strive for. But you can't get there without some practicality.
 
And you are certainly right that the inexperienced young and profiteers of the promised largesse that "progressves'" BS feeds them in populist storylines of the type you so love to tell. ;)

More blah, blah, blah.

Moving right along ....
 
That aspect of it cannot be overstated enough; the Dem party needs to undergo some serious reinvention and introspection.

I can agree with that, but I have doubts about the way Bernie wants to do it.

The Dem party is not as "homogenous" as you might think, and if Bernie lost the primaries it shows that not all Dems want "real, substantial change". (Which, yes, I agree is fundamentally necessary to take the US out of the stone-age of democracy.)

Progressives must have goals but understand that changing American mentalities is a long, hard slog.

For America, it seems that "success" is reduced fundamentally to one parameter. Called "Wealth". How much ya got relative to everybody else. Which is the foundation of our presently stark Income Disparity in the nation.

If you were to live in a truly Social Democracy, you'd understand that the calamity of concentration of Wealth, due to low upper-income taxation, is NOT THE PROBLEM. Yes, there are multimillionaires, but such an objective is not the mind-boggling pursuit of the entire nation.

Those living below the Poverty Threshold in the US are 14% of the population. In Sweden they are 7% - half that amount.

And a nation's goal should be 3/5%. Can we achieve that same reduced level?

Of course we can.

But not by voting Replicants in charge of Congress and the Presidency! And certainly not by voting Donald Dork as PotUS - a guy born with a 40Megabuck spoon in his mouth ...
 
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