some slime going around. [View all]

[mopinko]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by TM99 (a host of the Bernie Sanders group).

a hillary supporter posted this on her fb page.
i wonder if folks have seen this. please debunk, and i will be happy to clobber her.

As far as Bernie's long held views, here's a passage from Ashley Smith writing for the socialistworker.org

"DESPITE HIS own claims, Sanders has not been an antiwar leader. Ever since he won election to the House, he has taken either equivocal positions on U.S. wars or outright supported them.
His hawkish positions--especially his decision to support Bill Clinton's 1999 Kosovo War--drove one of his key advisers, Jeremy Brecher, to resign from his staff. Brecher wrote in his resignation letter, "Is there a moral limit to the military violence you are willing to participate in or support?"

So outraged were peace activists over Sanders' support of the Kosovo War that they occupied his office in 1999. Sanders had them arrested.

Under the Bush regime, Sanders' militarism had only grown worse. While he called for alternative approaches to the war on Afghanistan, he failed to join the sole Democrat, Barbara Lee, to vote against Congress' resolution that gave George Bush a blank check to launch war on any country he deemed connected to the September 11 attacks.

Ever since, he has voted for appropriations bills to fund the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, despite their horrific toll on the occupied peoples as well as U.S. soldiers.

Sanders has been critical of the war on Iraq, but he has supported pro-war measures--such as a March 21, 2003, resolution stating, "Congress expresses the unequivocal support and appreciation of the nation to the President as Commander-in-Chief for his firm leadership and decisive action in the conduct of military operations in Iraq as part of the ongoing Global War on Terrorism."

He also opposes immediate withdrawal from Iraq, despite the fact that a majority of residents in his home city of Burlington voted for such a position in a town meeting resolution in February 2005.

The day after his election to the Senate, Sanders declared, "I don't think you can do a quote-unquote immediate withdrawal. I think the policy has got to be we will withdraw our troops as soon as possible, and by that, I mean that I believe we can have our troops out in the next year, and maybe a significant number of them before that. I don't think you can snap your fingers and just bring all the troops home tomorrow. I just don't think that's practical."

Even more shocking, Sanders scuttled any action on a wave of Bush impeachment resolutions that swept Vermont towns in 2006. Like House Majority Leader-to-be Nancy Pelosi, who had promised not to impeach Bush, Sanders argued that impeachment was impractical, and that activists should put energy into electing Democrats.

Outraged, Dan Dewalt, the organizer of the impeachment resolution campaign in Vermont, said, "We think we have quality politicians in Vermont. We're wrong. We have politics as usual in Vermont. Our so-called independent congressman, Bernie Sanders, can't get far enough away from impeachment."

Sanders voted for House Resolution 921, which gave full support to Israel's murderous war on Lebanon. He also voted for HR 4681 that imposed sanctions on the Palestinian Authority with the aim of removing the democratically elected Hamas government.

In response, longtime War Resisters League leader David McReynolds sent a public letter to Sanders, stating, "Because of your vote of support for the Israeli actions, I would hope any friends and contacts of mine would not send you funds, nor give you their votes."

Indeed, Sanders has consistently defended Israel through it worst crimes against Palestinians and Arabs. Unsurprisingly, some Sanders staffers have also worked with the American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC)--including David Sirota, now a Democratic Party strategist, and Sanders' former communications director Joel Barkin.

Finally, in perhaps his worst betrayal yet, Sanders joined a host of liberal Democrats including Barbara Lee and John Conyers to vote for HR 282, the Iran Freedom Support Act--which bears a striking resemblance to the resolutions that set up the framework for the war on Iraq.

The act stipulates that the U.S. should impose sanctions on Iran to prevent it from developing weapons of mass destruction and distributing them to aid international terrorism. It also calls for the U.S. to support democratic change in the country, thereby establishing all necessary pretexts for a war on Iran. Democrat Dennis Kucinich voted against the act and denounced it as a "stepping stone to war."


eta link to original-http://socialistworker.org/2015/05/05/problem-bernie-sanders