February 27, 2016

Seth Meyers: Bernie's Democratic Socialism and Millenials

In this clip, Seth Meyers seems to be doing the closest thing to what Jon Stewart used to do in terms of calling out FOX bullshit.
It's pretty funny, and I find Bernie's general lack of interest in worldly possessions to be very endearing!

February 22, 2016

Bernie and African American voters.

Yes. He has the best policy platform for African Americans. He has the best policy platform for Americans, period.
Yes. He has the best civil rights record among all white congress members. He's been there from day one when it comes to racial justice.
He is more likely to be proactive in pursuing criminal justice reform because he's not beholden to private prison industry, unlike his opponent. He's credible when he says he'll do his best to combat institutional racism.
And he's a secular humanist Jew from rural state of Vermont with significantly lower name recognition.


He will get votes from some African Americans. Perhaps not as many votes as we hope he would get. But I don't buy into the notion that African American voters should all vote alike. They decide the way they vote, and I don't have problem with that. And Bernie doesn't have problem with that.


This is how I feel about Bernie's approach to African American voters.


I'm proud that he has so adamantly abstained from pandering and exploiting tragedies.
I'm proud that he's met and consoled Sandra Bland's mother and didn't ask for endorsement, interview, or a photo-op. "We are broken, and this exposed us" -His raw words brought tears to my eyes.
I'm proud that while meeting the families from Flint, Michigan, he's shut press out of the room. While speaking in his Michigan rally after the meeting, he's made sure to his supporters that he doesn't wanna politicize the crisis in his favor. And I appreciated that.
I'm proud that he's the only presidential candidate who bothered to show up where Freddie Gray has died of broken spine.
I'm glad that Bernie and his campaign didn't ask grief-stricken family members of police brutality victims to come out and campaign for him. I'm glad that Bernie campaign has taken care to let Erica Garner's voice heard in the way that she wanted to be heard.
I'm glad that my candidate doesn't view African Americans as a useful voting bloc. I'm glad that he didn't alter his views of President Obama's legacy out of cynical calculation, while his opponent is using President Obama to justify her Wall Street ties.


His campaign will have to work harder on this particular matter, for sure. But overall, I'm proud of his honorable tactics. And I hope he doesn't trade his principles for power (and I don't think he will).
Whatever happens with this primary -whether he wins or not-, I know he'll continue to do everything he can to better the lives of Americans of all colors. And that matters to me.

February 21, 2016

What Chris Hedges and Noam Chomsky said when Bernie announced to run.

I don't remember the exact words, but Hedges said something about how the DNC would do everything to bury him.
Chomsky said that Bernie is a "thorn in the Clinton machine."


Now, I am not as cynical as they are when it comes to Bernie, but those are some of the greatest intellectuals. And their sentiment rings true. We have seen the DNC unravel in the way that I certainly wasn't expecting. At this point I'm completely disillusioned about the DNC. And I don't think I'm ever coming back.
There's a reason why Warren and Biden are not running this time around. This was not supposed to be a primary.


But for Bernie, the first democratic debate would have been a complete joke. Webb, Chaffee, O'Malley -all fine folks, for sure. But not even a match for Clinton. All of them outsiders -two of them former governors. They were the kind of people who had no clue what this was (Webb and Chaffee, in particular, seemed to utterly lack self-awareness).
They're not part of Washington. They had no idea that the people in Washington had decided that this was not a primary.


Did Bernie know that? I think he did. He's a politician, too. After all, he's been in Washington for decades. I think he knew but decided to run nonetheless. I think he felt a sense of urgency that we cannot go on like this. Because what we now have is unsustainable. We can't constantly bomb people abroad while poisoning our children. We can't turn away sick people at the hospital anymore. We can't let sick people go bankrupt anymore. We can't. That's unrealistic.


"Thorn in the Clinton machine." How appropriate. It makes sense why they're calling it "firewall." It's very indicative. As in a firewall blocking foreign materials from infiltrating a machine, so it could function as it normally does.
And whether people realize it or not, corporate media is big part of it. Even as they're harping on email scandal on MSNBC, they sound like folks in the Clinton strategy room. But it's fine even if Clinton goes on to lose to republicans. Republicans are fine, too. They're not turning the apple cart upside down. Republicans will cut social security. Republicans will start wars. And the media's not gonna challenge them. That's how you keep your job on MSNBC.


How far will Bernie go? As far as he could. And that means, as far as we allow him to go. Because we're the reason he's running, and we're his fuel. We fund his campaign.


Like Bernie said, "Democracy is not a spectator sport."
Let's do this, Bernie folks!

February 16, 2016

So what do you think it means that of all the "pundits," Ann Coulter was the only one

who predicted that Bernie will be stronger against republicans than Hillary? (And that was even before they started pulling match-up polls, I think)

Now that it looks like many of the pundits are coming home to roost and admitting Bernie's viability as a candidate, just what do you think it means that she's the only one who was right about Bernie's potential? At one point, she went on FOX and told them to "back off" about Hillary, because "she's the one we wanna run against."

Is she secretly...you know, insightful?
I mean I've always thought she was fake -that she's just a media slut, and she's doing all that shtick for attention because attention ultimately translates into money in the media-industrial complex.

She may be a xenophobic homophobic bigot, but that may not be all of it. Just a curious thought.

February 6, 2016

So I was watching Bill Maher.

And there was one thing that really got under my skin; it was a particular kind of derision directed at nobody else but Bernie.

It was how Alex Wagner was astounded at the thought of Bernie getting on the Air Force One.
And it's not just her. I also remember Chris Matthews being astounded at the thought of Bernie overseeing the CIA.

I don't think any presidential candidate faces that kind of derision, especially when it comes to them potentially being a commander-in-chief.
Because, do they say that about Chris Christie, a blowhard bully who said he's gonna sue Obama for the Iran deal? Does anybody think he's gonna get along with anybody? Marco Rubio, the billionnaires' butt-boy. He's gonna handle pressure with regard to foreign affairs? If we had an attack, he might faint in the oval office (at least that's how I see him). And Donald Trump? He's literally the caricature of a country. Can you imagine him going to the G8 meeting and talking to Angela Merkel? We'll be the laughing stock of the world. And does he have any idea about, well, any foreign policy matter really?

If you look at the commentary about the clown car and their foreign policy, they come at it with actual criticism -that it's gonna exacerbate situations in the ME, or whatever. But they do seem to be comfortable with the idea of any of them being a commander-in-chief, at least more comfortable than they are with Bernie.

So that was a curious thing for me.
If you have a case to make, then make your case as to why you don't think he would be a good commander-in-chief. And they're not making any case. They're just so befuddled and flabbergasted at the idea of Bernie directing foreign policy. So why is that?

I think it's fundamentally because when they think of foreign policy and the president's handle of it, they immediately associate it with war. Not diplomacy. Because we're so used to that. We don't really know how to engage the world anymore in other ways than coercion and arm-twisting and aggression when there's a difference.

And don't tell me it's because of his "lack of experience" that he somehow deserves that kind of derision.
He certainly has more experience in foreign policy than George W. Bush or Reagan did. Or Barack Obama, for that matter.

The derision directed at Bernie when it comes to foreign policy matters is the derision directed at what his rare breed of philosophy represents -he's a dove. Certainly by modern standard, at least.
They're scornful of the idea of Bernie directing intelligence agencies because he would actually treat them as they ought to be treated -as government employees working for public good, and not as a monstrous behemoth that they have become; it's because he might even represent a breakaway from war path, to possibly, a path toward peace. And the corporate media's not interested in that.

Remember. The way Bernie opposed the Iraq War was far more vigorous than the way Obama was. He was very upset at the idea of unilateral action with no factual merits.
And remember. Even supposedly liberal congress members bought into the Gulf War in the 90s because they believed Iraqi soldiers were unplugging babies from incubators (which was a farce, of course. The woman who testified in front of congress was the daughter of Kuwaiti ambassador. She lied). Bernie didn't buy it.

He, as a president, will face challenges, of course. And I probably won't agree with every action he takes abroad. But we can be sure that he will do everything in his power, look into every detail, and talk to as many partners around the world, before he takes military action. His record shows that.

I happen to be an IR major, and foreign policy is something very important to me. The biggest reason I support Bernie -besides the economic policy- is because he's a dove (in loose terms). I'm not saying I'm perfectly in line with his foreign policy stance, but he's certainly a chance -a chance for us to start transforming the way we engage the world.
To my mind, it's because he's a dove that it has to be him. The world is going down in flames, and it's simply not sustainable. The empire has to wind down on its own; or it's gonna be a destruction from within.

Hillary's neocon connections in Washington concern me. They concern me very much.
The way she was talking about Russia in the last debate was precisely the neocon position. That horrifies me.
She's deeply in bed with the Saudis and other warmongering states in the ME, and that should concern everybody.

As far as foreign policy goes, Bernie's the best option we got.
Chris Matthews and others, who couldn't see what the Iraq War really was, don't see that. And they still talk.
Hopefully, voters will have better judgment than Chris Matthews.

February 6, 2016

Is it me or are they completely losing their shit today?

Bernie supporters are horrible -that's a familiar one from H supporters. But now politico's whining about it.
And now they're trying to make a case that Bernie's hanging out with bankers.

Are they completely losing their shit?
I mean, that's as prepostrous as it gets -it's like claiming H is secretely pro-life.
Does it have anything to do with the fact that she's about to be crushed in NH?

Iowa momentum. 3 million raised in one day. New Hampshire poll numbers. Endorsements coming in. And now, new national poll has him eating away Hillary's lead by 30 points.

Yep. I guess maybe they should be losing their shit.