Bernie Sanders

Rebkeh

(2,450 posts) Fri May 6, 2016, 10:43 AM May 2016

Still Feeling the Bern

Why I’m Still For Bernie: It’s not about winning battles, it’s about winning the war

Aside from my distrust of her, Hillary is too focused on policy. I don’t think her approach is the better one, simply because it serves two masters. Further, there are other reasons:

1. Structural change – changing the policies so they support equality is not going to be sustainable unless the policies, in turn, are supported by structures that are consistent with their aims. As it stands now, the structures are built to maintain inequality, no amount of policy change is going to be safe in such an environment. Bernie aims to take both approaches, to address policy AND structure - which is the correct way. Hillary aims for only one approach while benefiting from the neglect of the other.

If you do not take both approaches, you essentially will have a wack-a-mole situation, especially since all the republicans have to do is unravel the policies before they even take root. Even in their current weakened state, giving them such opportunities would help them more than it would help us. Leave them weakened, for God's sake. Stop the co-dependency. They will not be destroyed by anyone but themselves, that’s how it works. Take a “please proceed” approach to the republicans. Stop helping them, let them keep digging, give them more rope and for the love of God, get out of their way.

2. Fighting the ideological war, rather than policy fights, requires the moral high ground because the means shape the ends. If you fight by lying, cheating and stealing, the victorious outcomes will empower liars, cheaters and thieves. Which, in turn, only repeats the ugly cycle and digs us deeper into the quagmire. We cannot defeat conservative or republican ideology by becoming conservatives and adopting republican ideology. The usual tactic of divide and then conquer by co-opting your enemies will not bring justice for anyone but those who have already arrived. It does not help the people at the bottom, it helps the people in the middle – this is not progress. This is not justice. This is not Truth.

3. Bernie brings us a rare opportunity to leap ahead instead of inching along at a slow crawl. Bernie brings light to dark places and there are far too many shadows in the political arena, shadows that empower the enemies of justice, truth, fairness and democracy. We may not ever have another chance to get it right.

So, getting to the structures of inequality in all its forms, countering the toxic ideology of the right, and because sunshine is the best disinfectant, is why we need Bernie.

Don’t blow this, America.

On a final note, at some point we must stop fighting the symptoms of inequality and start fighting the causes of it. It’s on us, I don’t want someone that says, “I got this.” I want someone that says, “We got this.” The power is to always be with the people, ultimately. There is only one person up there speaking this language.