In the richest country in the history of the world, it should not be a luxury

[Uncle Joe]

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[onecaliberal]

1. It is not the democratic party doing this Bernie. It is Joe Manchin, Sinema and ALL repukes.

[Mr. Ected]

2. Bernie speaks the truth but right wingers will never let us have nice things

They want to keep dragging us back into the oligarchs' den and tell us it's for our own good.

[Uncle Joe]

3. We're not asking them.

Frederick Douglass

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

― Frederick Douglass

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/951719-power-concedes-nothing-without-a-demand-it-never-did-and

[brooklynite]

8. Who are we asking?

[Farmer-Rick]

9. The filthy rich

The oligarchy, the thieving handful of capitalists who want to take all our national wealth.... Whatever you want to call them.

Gates, Koch bros, Waltons, Bezos, Google kings..... there's only a handful of them.

They buy up politicians and pay them to suck ...err do as they are told. And since money is more important than character or morals in America, the politicians do as they are told.

[brooklynite]

10. Now that your rant is done...

How is Senator Sanders asking "The oligarchy, the thieving handful of capitalists" to change, and why would they?

reality 101: the change will have to come in the Senate. Will Sanders be a leader in that regard and convince hold-outs to support the policy?

[radius777]

26. Sanders is speaking to a higher moral cause

which sometimes you need to do in order to move people (including politicians) to action.

Biden's speech in GA also attempted to speak in large moral terms, invoking the Civil Rights era.

Politics is about the art of the possible. You don't have the votes until you do.

[Uncle Joe]

27. Precisely radius.

[SoonerPride]

41. He needs to tweet at Manchin and Sinema not "the democratic party."

Sanders is a useless old windbag.

Really.

oh, and he isn't a Democrat either.

[sheshe2]

11. Frederick Douglass is speaking about the oppression of Negros.

Black oppression and slavery.

(1857) FREDERICK DOUGLASS, “IF THERE IS NO STRUGGLE, THERE IS NO PROGRESS”


Full quote:

This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas,

Negroes will be hunted at the North and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others.

Much More:https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/1857-frederick-douglass-if-there-no-struggle-there-no-progress/

[Uncle Joe]

13. Yes he was, however regarding power he was also speaking a universal truth.

[sheshe2]

14. He was speaking about the oppression of Negros in 1857.

1857 not 2022.

[Uncle Joe]

15. Yes

[sheshe2]

16. lol

[Uncle Joe]

17. LOL to you too.

[sheshe2]

18. TY.

Have a great night.

[Uncle Joe]

19. YW.

You as well.

[JustAnotherGen]

45. No he wasn't

[Uncle Joe]

46. Then ask the oligarchs, corporate supremacists and their right wing puppets in Congress to quit

screwing the American people at every turn, quit trying to buy the government, quit trying to kill democracy, quit trying to ignore climate change and let the government actually represent the best interests of the people, a public good if you will, maybe you will have better luck than everyone else.

[George II]

24. Thank you SO much for providing Douglass' entire quote, date, and context. Quite different from....

....what was originally given.

Using African American slaves in the 1850s as an analogy to super market workers in the 2020s is disrespectful to the slaves a century and a half ago.

Thanks for putting it all into its proper perspective. Unfortunate that you had to do so to correct the record of Douglass' words.

[sheshe2]

29. You are very welcome 👍

[JustAnotherGen]

43. Ditto eom

[LetMyPeopleVote]

52. Thank you for posting this

[Uncle Joe]

53. Thank you for the kick.

[George II]

22. I'm certainly glad someone provided the ENTIRE quote from Frederick Douglass including the DATE....

....and context in which it was spoken.

He was talking about African American slaves 165 years ago several years before the Civil War. Slaves who where loaded onto ships in Africa and carried against their will across the Atlantic and put to work under horrible conditions and murdered by their owners if they couldn't do the job they were expected to do. Women slaves who were raped and tortured as though they were animals.

Comparing slavery in the 1850s to super market workers in 2022 is unbelievable.

[Uncle Joe]

23. It sure is and you shouldn't do it. n/t

[George II]

25. What should I not do?

[JustAnotherGen]

44. My great great grandfather

Ran away to Mexico a few years after that - came back to Alabama at the end of the Civil War.

His grandson - my grandfather - always said - Take your American dream. I'm pretty sure the only white Americans he liked were my mom and his grandfather in law (my grandmamas grampa).

Kroger workers are not having toes cut off and their backs ripped to shreds - and those are the images my grandfather had of his grand dad. It was his grandfather's 4th attempt.

Punished was brutal, twisted, sick, and cruel. You cannot own another human being.

These Kroger employees are not 'owned'.

Use whatever quotes you want - but understand . . . it's deeply offensive to those of us who descend from enslaved Americans and who have that inter-generational trauma imprinted in our souls.

[Hortensis]

30. Huh? Most people are up to their eyebrows in nice things.

Sanders is wrong to suggest the Democratic Party has not always stood for all those things, especially living wages. We do. We always have. We got them for almost everyone for decades -- until the 1980s when the people themselves voted to have them taken away.

My guess, and I think it's a solid one, is that 19 out of 20 people who don't realize that haven't read 1/50th of the Democratic platform in any election. That may be an overly generous estimate. Our platform's always very long and meant to meet the will of an incredibly diverse populace. But otoh, most of it is always the same ideals and goals tweaked for current conditions.

[Mr. Ected]

32. Up to their eyebrows?

You mean like in things that include single-payer healthcare? Equality of opportunity? A livable minimum wage? Those kind of things?

I respect your opinion, but my post wasn't to shit on present-day Democrats, it was to point out the suffocating influence of the mighty rich on policies that, but for their opposition, we would enjoy in this country.

[ck4829]

34. +1

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[Hortensis]

39. Well, but let's be honest. The problem is with 100,000,000 Americans

who don't vote and another 80,000,000 who vote against those things -- on BOTH right and left btw.

Those with liberal Democratic leanings are always the majority. We could usually sweep the board.

The problem is not a tiny fraction of very wealthy decisionmakers who know, but really hate to be reminded!, that we're far more powerful than them. And let's remember that a lot of wealthy Americans actually lean liberal (not a majority, of course) and have been waiting for the electorate to get fed up and insist on a new new deal. They don't want their nation to go down the RW toilet.

The problem is with the people. And I'm thinking specifically of the problem on the left. There's something really warped about claiming noble goals then sabotaging their achievement. Some do it every election, though.

Healthcare? We ARE a fabulously wealthy nation. If all the people who SAID they cared about universal healthcare voted Democrat to get it we'd all have had it our entire lives.

Equality of opportunity? The equalizing effects of social liberal cultural advances combined with the inexorable demographic progression have made great advances that couldn't be stopped by those who'd vote against.

But other advances, same as healthcare. If all those who said they wanted them voted Democratic, we've have been doing them for decades. Democrats finally at least almost had nationally subsidized community college/trade school, revolutionizing millions of lives. Almost! So close! If they'd failed every election up to 2020 but came through then, we'd have passed it, and other important goals, this year. Where were the MIAs who claim they care more than anyone else about equality of opportunity?

A livable minimum wage? Same thing. We had it practically in hand in 2016, and then a critical few threw it all away. More voted Democrat in 2020, bless them, but not quite enough. Where were the MIAs who claimed $15 was their personal holy grail? Still, President Biden and Senator Roadblock Manchin indicated they'd be open to a $12 increase from the $7.25 ( ) federal minimum. Where was the giant yes! from those who insisted they cared more about this than anyone? Think about it: Millions living on $290 a week MIGHT be living on $480 a week -- every week since then. Not nearly good enough, but so much better for people in trouble now! until we could do the rest.

Seriously, Mr. Ect3ed, WE were there with conviction of principle. Where were those others who always SAY they care more than anyone -- but not if it means voting Democratic to make it happen?

[Mr. Ected]

42. Man, oh man, you speak the truth

Having lived in Europe for 8 years, the Netherlands and Germany specifically, I know what's possible if your population isn't actively denying itself the privileges our taxes should provide for us. We seem intent on self-loathing and ultimately that's how we'll lose our democracy and cede all power to the rich and powerful. Our representative system is broken, our press is broken, and we are shallow, ill-informed and self-destructive as a people. The greatest democracy in history is only as good as the ordinary citizens that comprise it, and we're failing miserably as a people.

[Hortensis]

48. :) Well said. After my ranting, I just feel

better for such a realistic response. Thanks.

We do have a solid core who are soldiering on, seemingly immune to the pernicious influences. We're so close to having the numbers to do what we have to. And so close to losing the inheritance we were supposed to make better before passing it on to the next generations.

Well, time to be braver again.

[betsuni]

47. [phone]

[Evolve Dammit]

4. Damn straight

[paleotn]

5. "Are you prepared to stand with struggling working families all over this country? "

Joe and Kyrsten say.......nah.

[ck4829]

35. Ouch

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[PatrickforB]

6. I love Bernie, he's not 'far-left,' but common-sense.

I am honoring the Kroger picket line.

As to paid time off, and HEALTHCARE, including dental care, I ask this:

The background:
We didn't bat an eyelash while passing a whopping $770 BILLION war bill this year, and we squandered $4.2 TRILLION on two forever wars, and we frittered away another $3 TRILLION in an irresponsible tax cut for billionaires and corporations. Yet individual taxpayers like you and me pay in 86% of the government's tax revenue, while corporations only pay in 6.8%.

So, here's the question: WHERE IS OUR HEALTHCARE??? Where is our DENTAL CARE??? Where is the affordable, debt-free college for our grandkids? Where is the voting rights bill? Where is adequate K-12 funding? Where is the infrastructure bill?

[George II]

40. Where is the comprehensive bill, with details on benefits AND funding, for those things asked for?

It's fine to conceptually propose these things, but Congress and the American people need more than concepts.

[PatrickforB]

50. Transaction tax on Wall Street trades. Wealth tax. Tax capital gains at regular tax rates for people

with income over $450K. Raise medicare payroll tax and impose it without cap (also, while at it, remove cap from Social Security payroll tax so very high earners pay their fair share.

Raise corporate tax, too, so it is the same ratio we had in the 70s, which is that corporations paid in around 35% of the government's revenue and individuals around 45%.

I'm also thinking, George, as I have for some time, that we need to gradually and systematically reduce military expenditures. Clearly, DoD funds so many civilian jobs, as well as Energy, NASA and other contracts, that if we decide to beat our swords into plowshares, it cannot all happen at once. In addition, we must be careful not to allow our military to become weak, and we really, really need to beef up information security to defend us not only against cyber-terror, but criminals, and also things like EMPs.

See, to me it is a matter of priorities. I get sick to the point of vomiting when people say, 'oh, we can't afford healthcare.' Because we can. Oligarchs have salted away over $30 trillion in offshore havens like the Caymans, and that money is out of circulation. But it should not be, and a better tax policy would help a lot.

We could also force changes in corporate charters while we're at it - we definitely need some reform around the current shareholder primacy doctrine, which makes shareholder profits king over everything else, including the worker interests, consumer safety, and the environment. This is why we have the current levels of corporate corruption and malfeasance that we do. What we need is a stakeholder approach to corporate governance that upholds the interests of shareholders, workers, consumers and the environment. Do this, and we'd solve a boatload of problems. There is a great book about this called 'The Myth of Shareholder Primacy' by the late Lynn Stout, who was a Distinguished Professor of Corporate & Business Law at the Cornell Law School and, before that, the Paul Hastings Professor of Corporate and Securities Law at UCLA Law School. Really good book. Gives the whole history and alludes to the takeover of American business theory by the Chicago School of economics a la Hayek and Milton Friedman. Supply side over Keynes.

See, I pay in a bunch of taxes and some things make me angry:
1. Social security checks are TAXED. This will adversely affect me when I finally make it to retirement age.
2. Medicare is so full of holes and complicated you have to get a book to even understand it, and it doesn't go by family but by individual.
3. We spend WAY too much on war, and way too little on childcare subsidies, K-12, and higher ed.
4. The world is literally heating up and severe weather is happening exponentially - global warming is happening faster than the models, and one whole political party won't even admit it is a problem.
5. I get sick, sick, sick of getting dozens of emails a week from Democrats saying 'please give us money' when they are only now starting to play hardball with the Trump traitors in the GOP. I want that BBB plan to pass, and I want the voting rights act passed. I also want the age for Medicare eligibility reduced to 55 or even 50. THAT would benefit millions of Americans and their families, much more so than a $770 billion war bill.
6. I'm tired of corporate money flowing into the pockets of Republicans, and even people like Manchin and Sinema. I don't know if you saw the extensive piece Rolling Stone did on Manchin a week or so ago. That corporate corruption needs to stop because I want the Senators and our Representatives to uphold OUR interests, not those of lobbyists for big oil, big pharma, health insurance providers and so on. That is not morally right, and you know that, George, I know you do.
7. I'm sick of us not having a fairness doctrine. It should NOT be OK for Fox, OAN and other right-wing propaganda outlets to spout Q-type lies that have polluted the minds of ~30 million or so Americans. We also need to rein in hate-talk radio. There's a guy on here who pounds on that as much as I do on healthcare. And he's right. People like Limbaugh started it, and we need to end it. At least we need a good-faith debate about policies that could ensure people have access to actual news.

But, the thing is, and we both know this, that the American people are profoundly ignorant. My ex-SIL, for instance, can tell you in detail all about all the nuances of a number of sports teams, but doesn't vote. Which is OK because he would vote R just on principle, because his parents do. Same with my other SIL - he's in the army, and is THOROUGHLY indoctrinated far-right. Sometimes, I wonder if we deserve to keep this republic - because we do seem to be about to lose it.

[George II]

51. But again, all these things need to be put into writing, in detail, with specific tax rates, costs..

...and plans for implementation. We can all talk until we're blue in the face, but nothing will be done until its all put into legislation, promoted, support raised in the two chambers, and passed.

I've been saying this for a couple of years, we cannot legislate on Twitter, MSNBC, or CNN.

[brooklynite]

7. And what will Senator Sanders do about these issues?

[sheshe2]

12. -------------------------------------------

[Jedi Guy]

20. He's working as hard as he can, okay? Those three tweets surely took several minutes to write. N/T

[sheshe2]

21. ...

[betsuni]

28. Sternly worded tweets.

[ck4829]

31. Something that will get filibustered?

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[ck4829]

33. Kick

Last edited Sat Feb 12, 2022, 03:56 AM - Edit history (1)

Billionaires Cause Inflation

[Ohio Joe]

36. My niece is on that line...

Today we brought them some nice homemade chicken salad sandwiches on potato bread.

[Uncle Joe]

37. Excellent!

[George II]

38. I've been working since the early 1960s at all levels of jobs...

Summer jobs and weekends during high school and college:

Stock clerk at a department store
Cashier at the same store
Hospital messenger
Hospital admitting clerk
Emergency Room clerk
Payroll pickup and delivery (for ADP)
Data entry clerk at a bank Data Center
Cab driver

And others all the way up to Engineer and Marketing Manager

At every one of those jobs I had paid sick time, it was never considered a "luxury".

[lapucelle]

49. The Democratic Party answered those questions in the 2020 party platform.

Those who like to hear themselves talk (especially perennially fundraising politicians who get little actual work done) might want make sure that they've read it before they ask silly questions.