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August 1, 2015 at 4:30 am #826355
JTBParticipantI’m fine with a thread about Hillary, but I’d prefer to address Bernie Sanders’ candidacy on the the Bernie Sanders thread.
Regarding Glass Steagall, Sanders has introduced legislation requiring the break up of the “too big to fail” gang, prohibiting use of Federal Reserve resources to bail them out and other measures to protect taxpayers from the misadventures of the banks. I like that.
I don’t like his knee jerk opposition to TPP based on loss of jobs. I think it is simply unrealistic if not out-and-out unproductive to think that unskilled jobs can or should be protected in the context of global trading. There are more serious problems with TPP, mostly around intellectual property (big pharma) and the extra judicial review of corporate complaints about regulations impacting “expected profits” (Investor State Dispute Settlement commission).
At present, things are looking grim for TPP thanks to the Aussies and Kiwis who oppose the IP provisions. Canada is refusing to open up their poultry and dairy industries to competition, so the negotiations will be drawn out. Hopefully Bernie will take a more considered position in the meanwhile. As I said earlier, this POS is about making national regulations meaningless in deference to corporate profits.
August 1, 2015 at 4:49 am #826356
JoBParticipantcatlbob..
i am going to make an exception to my rule not to dish back what is thrown at me today because we are friends and i think our friendship can take it..
so fasten your seatbelt because i am in the mood to dish snark..
i seem to remember trying to point out the last time Hillary ran for President that the expectations everyone had of Obama were unrealistic at best.
but nooooo.. everyone knew what Hillary was because the Republican lie machine had repeated it so often that if there was no proof it still had to be true… and Obama told such a good story..
it was what everyone wanted to hear so they didn’t listen closely enough to realize that he wasn’t even promising what was expected.
and now you dismiss Hillary because at best she will only take Obama’s policies further?
tell me.. how exactly does that work?
She wasn’t as good as Obama for the last round but since Obama turned out not to be so good as Obama now she will be no better?
you have already dined on that political dish.
tarring her with the brush you used to defeat her isn’t really a good argument.
then there is the empty symbolism argument…
we tried a black man and that didn’t change racism so trying a woman won’t affect sexism?
give me a break.
The black coalition asked for nothing and that’s what Obama gave them..
but that doesn’t mean that his Presidency hasn’t had a profound effect on acknowledgment of racism in the United States… which will change racism. maybe even for the better if we can keep the Republican machine not only out of the White House but out of the Senate and House as well.
If Hillary’s presidency did nothing more than bring acknowledgment of sexism into mainstream conversation.. nothing more than what Obama’s presidency has done.. it would be a lot.
but not enough… because she’s Hillary?
So we go for round two
in this round, it’s Bernie who is as clean as the driven snow and will be our savior ..
except that he is running for nomination to be the Democratic party candidate for the Presidency…
you know. the same party that you tell me Jimmy Carter is now labelling the oligarchy?
how exactly do you expect that to play out?
Do you think it’s just possible that there might be a clash between expectations and the ability to deliver?
and god forbid that he doesn’t get the nomination.. do you really expect that his supporters are going to back the democratic nominee.. if it’s Hillary?
Old vets like you and hubby would probably grudgingly vote for her though i think it more likely that at least his vote would go to the green party nominee.. for the symbolism.
but those angry young men.. not so much.. especially after all of you older and wiser heads do the Republican job for them…
they will stay home.
this is a dangerous game you are playing and i hope to heck that it turns out better than i think it will.
I am all for giving our party a solid wake up call.. but i want more than that. F.. you is not enough.
I want someone in office who can be an effective leader and deliver on the fairly modest promises she makes.
the guy on the outside isn’t that guy..
no matter how many of us he has behind him
if public opinion were enough the Keystone deal would be dead…
and they wouldn’t currently be building pipeline in anticipation of eventual completion.
without revolution or at the very least evolution public opinion is not going to carry us all off into the sunset…
evolution takes lifetimes. I have hope for it but no expectation that it is going to magically happen before the next election.
I want someone who understands that at the end of the day this fight is personal to the families that have to live with the way ideology is compromised… who will make sure that in every compromise something is gained for the least of us.
I want a woman in the White House.. because we have seen that when the women of the house and the senate get together behind legislation we get function.. not just more empty form.
I am not going to be bought off with slogans. i want results that translate into improved quality of life for all of us… even for the fellas.
And I want that woman to be Hillary… because she has the experience to get the job done.
women don’t think that glass ceiling is in thousands of shattered pieces.
Women retiring today who have worked their entire working lives will be getting a third less in their social security payments than their male contemporaries… and it’s not because they took their work less seriously than men did..
it’s because of a lifetime of lower wages and lower expectations of moving up the wage ladder.
that glass ceiling isn’t overhead.. it’s the window those women will be looking through at the opportunities denied to them in their retirement for no reason other than the accident of their sex at birth.
the bill for that oversight is going to be much larger than anticipated.. women live longer than men and just like interest.. that underfunding is going to accumulate and create some very nasty surprises.
I don’t think any of us can afford the current head in the sand it’s not really a problem any more mentality…
sexual inequality needs to be acknowledged and fixed now while we can still afford to make the necessary adjustments to our national bottom line.
AS much as i love Bernie.. and i have always loved Bernie.. he isn’t the person to get that job done. Hillary is.
and on that note. i am going to bed. night all.
August 1, 2015 at 5:00 am #826357
JoBParticipantif your eyes weren’t full of Bernie you would be cheering.
if she didn’t have Bernie at her back there might be no reason to cheer.
i would hate to see us win so much only to lose it all.
August 1, 2015 at 5:04 am #826358
JoBParticipantthisisagooddeal
for some reason the universe is delivering tonight… please read the entire article
August 1, 2015 at 5:11 am #826359
JoBParticipantJTB..
we agree..
i suspect that if Hillary was still in the Senate she and Bernie would both be backing financial reform legislation .. though i am not positive it would be that bill
i would also like to see a more measured conversation about the trade bills. i am far more concerned with the conflict resolution provisions and intellectual property rights myself…
the important thing to remember in this primary season is that at the end of the day we have mutual goals that we want to achieve…
we may disagree on how to best achieve those goals.. but not about what we ultimately want.
the trick will be to not let the horse race become such a fight that there is nothing left for the real battle next fall.
August 1, 2015 at 7:46 am #826360
c@lbobMemberJoB
I think you have me mixed up with someone else, Obama wasn’t my choice in 2008, I was hoodwinked by John Edwards.
No primary contender since Bill Clinton in 1992 has been my pick, I was wrong about Bill, too. Clinton was an excellent soothsayer, though, pay no attention to Goldman-Sachs behind the curtain, he is only adjusting the mechanism.
Now, Hillary was a key player in Bill’s administration. Remember we got 2 for 1, back then. I rather doubt that there was much going on where Hillary wasn’t whispering to Bill from behind the curtain.
I’m a little slow, but the pattern I see from the past 23 years reminds me of the old Lanvin ads. Remember, “Promise her anything, but give her Arpege?”
Since Bernie is the candidate I adore this time, I think I should tell you why. It goes back to 1993 when Congress was going to vote to approve the treaty. Bernie was on the radio, I guess it was Thom Hartmann, and he laid out his opposition to it. We had just been through the ’92 election of Ross Perot and the giant sucking sound, so I wasn’t very receptive. The only reason I remember it was I remarked to myself that it wasn’t only Republican nut bags who were against NAFTA.
After Clinton threw welfare moms under the bus in 1996, the scales fell from my eyes, and after the reality of NAFTA became clearer, I started to pay attention to Bernie. Look to him for analysis of issues I wasn’t very familiar with. I found that he was a politician who was in sync with me. That was by 1998.
I’m responsible for the election of George W. Bush, I wrote in Nader in 1996 and worked in his campaign office in 2000, I say bring ’em on, maybe we’ll get Lindsay Graham and we can all go together when we go.
Whatever happens, pols who put their finger in the air and focus group their answers so they can get elected, then do the bidding of their rich pay masters won’t get my heart to go pitty pat.
Lips that touch lucre will never touch mine.
August 1, 2015 at 2:16 pm #826361
JoBParticipantcatlbob
too often we forget that our leaders are people who are often as easily hoodwinked as we…
thus the fall of the promising Jon Edwards
and the absurd belief in the system that those who chose to work within it instead of following the clarion call of rebellion had in “the” experts.
You easily accept that you learn from being hoodwinked
but assume that the wife of the former President who you assert must somehow have had a power to manipulate the strings of government that few women accessed at the time and who has certainly seen and felt more of the disenfranchisement of women than we is incapable of gaining such wisdom.
i would say that she has had plenty of opportunity to learn from not only her own mistakes but those around her.
and i believe she has learned. You don’t.
I too have admired Bernie. I still do. He has displayed a clarity of ideology over the course of his career that is impressive… and had been an incredibly effective voice for those who felt the slide of the democratic party down the abyss to the right…
He has done so by being a constant irritant to both the left and the right… which makes me wonder how he can be expected to magically build the kind of coalition it will take to build consensus.
He is quite simply not suited to it. The very outsider quality that makes him the ideal person to galvanize a jaded nation is the same quality that will make it nearly impossible for him to lead it.
that’s a tragedy.
but, those lips that you say have touched filthy lucre have also learned how to build coalitions within the system to get things done… and the things she worked to get done in the Senate were predominantly the right things…
she often worked in tandem with Bernie towards shared goals.
the two candidates are pretty much lockstep when it comes to domestic policy.
where they diverge is where i think Hillary still has her greatest weakness… in foreign policy… she is still far too much of a hawk for me…
the tragedy of those of our generation who chose to work within the system was too much time spent at the knees of those constantly replaying the high points of the greatest generation and their world changing use of the American military muscle.
still.. she has had a lifetime to learn the lessons not only of Vietnam but Korea… and every other dirty modern conflict.
After spending time in international negotiations.. Hillary is not looking as hawkish these days…
but who knows what the need to look tough in the face of anti-feminism will cause her to do?
what the need to appear unprejudiced and open minded did to Obama was not a good thing for this country.
prejudice is an ugly thing and overcoming it too often undermines reason.
Bernie won’t willingly lead the nation down the abyss of war..
but will he have the diplomatic skills to prevent it?
I don’t know. I don’t see it.
What i see is a man who has lived his ideals… and i admire him greatly for that.
But is Bernie the man we want to be?
that would be a wonderful thing for America
or is Bernie just not them?
while that is a powerful statement.. it may not be such a wonderful thing for getting the business of America done.
August 1, 2015 at 6:32 pm #826362
c@lbobMemberI know full well how the Democrats have been making coalitions. They bow at the altar of “free trade” to make common cause with multi-national corporations so big business can become a super government to override the pesky laws of agreeing nations. It isn’t trade they’re after, it’s filthy lucre at the cost of the bodies of working people.
Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, lost her election in Louisiana and what did she do before she left office. Make a strenuous play to get the Keystone XL pipeline bill passed. Why? Polishing her bona fides for the K Street lobbying firm that represented TransCanada Corp. She is now an “advisor” for them.
Bernie knows what to do about that, which is why the campaign is a political revolution. He isn’t showing up in AZ, TX, and LA for his health. The ground game is going to include electing better representation for working people in the red states. States the DLC has abandoned.
And why have they been abandoned? Because pols in the Democratic party are only looking for office to get rich. Leaving office is the big payoff, you get the golden ticket to K Street. Why hard work to appeal to people in KS, when you can stay in the blue states and pick off offices by lying to liberals? It’s a win-win-win. The DLC gets to act like it’s the party of the people by saying nice things about the environment, access to health care and helping blacks; the rich contributors get the power as a payoff for their investment, the DLC remains an institution – kind of a consolation prize for pols with no charisma.
Talking about the issues that matter to people and getting them to vote for candidates who will work for the people. That’s how to get a Congress that will work with Bernie.
In the meantime, a sure veto in the White House for policies that prey on the 99% will be good enough.
August 1, 2015 at 8:13 pm #826363
waynsterParticipantTo early for Presidential Politics they should pass a law that says wait until January of the year the elections are to be held……
August 3, 2015 at 5:42 am #826364
JoBParticipantwill someone please start a new Bernie thread…
c@lbob has left the room but i know she wouldn’t want you to forget Bernie.
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