I cannot do it.

[HughBeaumont]

I cannot in all consciousness support an economic platform that relies on the assumed benevolence of the wealthy, the hope that a business will pan out to a sustainable fruition, the demand that children finance a high-interest mortgage merely for their economic advancement, the vanquishing of an underfunded but highly necessary social safety net, and most laughably, the almost sarcastic assurance that an individual's "gumption and hard work" will save them despite the sheer lack of solutions as to how that's going to happen.

[HereSince1628]

1. The Am dream promised by so many, is less hopeful thinking and more delusion.

And it turns out that DIY success is an easy thing to ask of what are assumed to be the not-hardworking.

[HughBeaumont]

5. THIS ^

'You're worthless and lazy. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and accomplish something that requires extremely hard work, 3/4 of your waking hours and lots of luck to pan out!"

[RKP5637]

2. Success in the US for most is a delusion. Some great CEOs and like have said in today's

economy, costs of starting, etc., etc. they could never create the great companies they once did that benefited everyone with employees treated well and sharing in the success ... The system today is rigged against most people.

[jalan48]

3. I think many people are fooling themselves.

They believe by simply electing a woman it will solve our problems. While it's long overdue (having a woman as the President) being a female will have little effect on the corrupt economic system we all currently live in. It's a simple solution that is very appealing to those who want to see a woman as President, but it misses the point that it's what that woman believes in that makes the difference. Can you imagine if Elizabeth Warren were running instead of Hillary? DU would become a cheerleading organization for her. Bernie is right in stressing the problems with the system, simply changing genders within that system won't fix the problems.

[HughBeaumont]

6. Not to mention the Boehner Congress is still controlling the purse strings and not going anywhere.

So we either get years-long gerrymandered gridlock or a rocket ride to the Abyss.

Some menu.

[TexasBushwhacker]

13. Well at least all if the House and a third of the Senate

has to get reelected to continue their obstructionist agenda. The fact that Sanders and Trump, two "outsiders" are so popular means people are fed up with the status quo.

Of course, those camps have VERY different agendas, but the fact that Jeb! and Walker and other GOP candidates are getting a big fat yawn from most voters doesn't bode well for the current Congress. Challengers in the GOP primaries are going to be further to the right. They're all going to try to out Teabag each other. Will this be enough to make some of the center-right voters cross over to the Democrats? I don't know. I hope so.

[daleanime]

15. That would depend....

on getting some good candidates.

[HughBeaumont]

19. Yep. One man or woman isn't enough.

There is strength in numbers.

Just ask Dubya.

[jeff47]

11. Thatcher wasn't exactly a step forward for the UK.

Just being a woman is no guarantee of beneficial results.

[TBF]

4. It's a big club and we're not in it -

and it's really not even that big - top 1/10th of the top 1% owns it.

[L0oniX]

21. ...and it's all bullshit.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Who's asking you to? If it's a Democrat, shouldn't this be in GD:P? (nt)

[HughBeaumont]

8. No candidates or parties are mentioned.

This economic platform seems to be ubiquitous, no matter if it's a President, a Congressperson, a Senator or a candidate for either one.

That's kind of the tragic point here.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. If you feel that's what even Bernie Sanders is standing for,

then perhaps voting for Democrats will never be for you.

[HughBeaumont]

12. I don't feel that.

Last edited Mon Aug 24, 2015, 12:04 PM - Edit history (1)

He's changing the economic narrative. His crowds show that America is ready to get on board with this message.

The problem that I see is that he's only one and very rare unpurchased Democrat and "Democrat" doesn't always = "progressive".

For every one that WANTS to do good things, you have two to five Joe Lieberman/Max Baucus types who (for example) sabotaged our closest chance of getting Universal Health Care. For someone who has a kid with a congenital heart issue, I'm never going to forget or forgive that. I don't just want "Qualify" . . . I want "Guaranteed Human Right", as the rest of the civilized world sees it.

I don't want to vote for "Lost Cause Lite". We have long-standing and complex economic issues that should have been handled years ago. The fact that some Democrats are on board with lowest-cost labor is reprehensible.

[area51]

28. +1 n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

31. "This economic platform seems to be ubiquitous, no matter if it's a President ...

... or a candidate". Maybe you don't know what 'ubiquitous' means, then. It would include Sanders, because it includes everyone - certainly a candidate for a major party.

[haikugal]

27. Neo-liberalism s what it's called and both sides are into it.

Not Bernie, he gets it and is against it, wants to fix it.

[Octafish]

10. Someone's done a switcheroo.

What once were planks in the GOP platform now hold together the DEM thing. Go TPP!

[brewens]

14. For many guys like myself, the "American dream" didn't amount to my becoming wealthy at any

time. All I asked was to be able to retire and mostly do stuff like go fishing and drink beer within a 100 miles or so from where I lived most of my life. I never thought that was asking a hell of a lot but they want to take that away too.

The rags to riches stories. The guy with nothing that becomes a huge success and is worth million or billions now. We pretty much are told of every single one of them. There aren't that many. I'd be willing to bet there are quite a few more that made all the right moves, worked just as hard and ended up getting screwed.

[HughBeaumont]

16. And that's why they make news . . . because even living wage Horatio Alger stories are pretty rare.

"Maybe you just didn't WANT it bad enough!"

"Wanting it bad enough" is a "strategy" for achieving just about any goal promoted by a multiplicity of public figures, from self-help writers to mainstream celebrities, who all have one thing in common: they have already achieved their goals. These people like to talk up their own hard work by saying that:

1.They got where they are simply or largely because they wanted it bad enough.
2.You too can achieve your dream, so long as you want it bad enough as well.

Of course, none of these people's success can be in any way attributed to factors outside their own direct personal control such as patronage, privilege, opportunity or simple dumb luck.

There is also the flip side, of "blaming the victim." If you do not have the success you want, it is your fault because you didn't really want it badly enough. It has nothing to do with a bad economy, or the flat out odds against something happening.

[font size="3"]Seductive appeal[/font]

The idea of "wanting it bad enough" as a route to success is very attractive to large numbers of people, since anyone is able to want something, and everyone likes to believe that their own dreams are uniquely powerful and thus more likely to come true. Unfortunately, while there is an abundance of testimonials from successful people endorsing the power of "wanting it bad enough," the sample tends to be somewhat self-selecting: only people who have already tasted success have the platform to tell their success story. While Britney Spears has undoubtedly had a level of success that must have been due in part to wanting success, history does not record how many other little girls from the American South might have wanted to become famous pop singers just as badly as, or even worse than, Spears, yet somehow ended up with only multiple divorces, drug problems and bouts of pant-mislaying insanity to show for it.

[jmowreader]

24. And the people who tell those stories always leave one tiny detail out

You go from "rags to riches" by running up someone else's riches at the crap table called American Business. Think very, very hard: is there one RtR story in the last 100 years that didn't involve either family wealth, like Elon Musk, or being college roomies with a guy who has a rich dad, like Mark Zuckerberg?

[d_legendary1]

17. In some cases we don't have a choice

In Florida we had the choice to vote for Rubio or Crist. I voted for the lesser of two evils (Christ) but he ended up losing. Four years later he ran against Skeletor and well you know what happened after that...

[jtuck004]

18. But, welfare reform will keep people working, keep them from substituting laziness for hard work,

you tell us. It's the thing to do in 1996, eh?

O, wait, you said higher tuition. that wouldn't be added until later, when there are already almost 100 million Americans in or near poverty. I guess the government thinks this will build even more character.

I'll vote for President Sanders. I've never known him to kick people while they were down.

[madokie]

25. And I'm with you

[L0oniX]

20. I never wonder why people rob banks.

[Shandris]

22. But that's any system that doesn't change how currency works.

So are you moving in the direction of a new, constantly-generated, depreciable social capital for an economic basis too?

[HughBeaumont]

32. I'd like basic human rights not to be commoditized, made economically quantifiable or politicized.

There ARE economic systems that operate far more efficiently than ours does, believe it or not.

[Liberal Veteran]

23. More likely they will say: Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons? -nt

[demigoddess]

26. They want you to buy a house but never pay it off.

first home loan, no assumable mortgages, then take out home equity loans to pay for improvements on said home, and then you take out a reverse mortgage, which is essentially a home equity loan on any amount up to the full amount of the home value. By the time you get done, you have paid for the house ten times over, maybe more. Banks make out like bandits!!

[Nuclear Unicorn]

29. You shouldn't assume anyone's benevolence. The same sociopath's that occupy boardrooms

will not suddenly cease to exist if there are no more boardrooms, they will simply relocate themselves to whatever institution currently controls the wealth and power. If that means they migrate to the halls of government power they'll gladly do that.

You can't control them, you can only make your own way in life.

[reformist2]

30. "They call it the American dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it!"

In an age when your job can be outsourced at the drop of a hat, and your 401K can drop almost 20% in the blink of an eye, I think you'd have to insane to believe that you can make it on your own, with absolutely no help from society at large.