April 29, 2016

This is decently accurate imo.

I am a Gen Xer who was barely out of high school when Bill Clinton got elected and the neo-liberal takeover of the Democratic party occurred. At the time I was struggling to keep my car running and a roof over my head at near minimum wage and it was still pre-internet, so I was not politically informed or active.

By 2000 I was in college had internet access and was getting politically informed. I realized what Bill had done in regards to signing right wing legislation so was no fan of his administration. I was also deeply offended by the Republican impeachment hearings, so was equally unimpressed with them. I considered myself left wing independent. I chose only to vote for candidates I was informed of, so mostly voted local. I left POTUS 2000 blank (I was not in a swing state.)

After the election theft, which I realized right away that it was, I started to swing Democratic if only to stand against the criminal Bush organization. The unconstitutional Patriot act pushed me harder and the illegal (by international treaty) Iraq invasion sealed the deal for me where my new alliances were to become, the Democratic party.

In 2004 I supported the Dean campaign, as he was strongly anti-war and had a more populist platform, which I felt was worth standing for. Even after he did not make it through the primary, I voted Kerry if only to get the war criminals out of office. After that election theft, which should have been fought more I found DU through Air America. I joined up, and the rest is history which could be searched here.

The Democratic Party is my party, but the neo-liberal wing and power structure was put in play by Boomers and is not and never has been the path I think the party should have. So I chose option A long ago, join the Democratic party and encourage change from within. I will continue on this path until the party is rid of the Third way/neo-liberal/Clinton types.

PTTP

April 29, 2016

My personal thanks to Obama for his service.

Let me preface this by getting out of the way, there are many issues I have had with him in regards to what I saw as a continuation of the Bush years. His first term was not one I was thrilled with.

But.

The excitement he inspired in me in '08 was extremely close to what I now feel with Bernie's campaign, he made me happy to be a Democrat. That fire he ignited in me still burns, I still have Hope that Change is possible. Thank you president Obama for your inspiration.

This last term has been amazing imo. His foreign policy towards Iran and Cuba make me proud. Decades of closed doors have been re-openned. I think he did a very good job considering the hellish 8 years we had in this nation prior. I even lessen my angst towards some of my first term disappointments. He had to deal with so much negative momentum coming out of the Bush years. He was in the game. I was an armchair quarterback. It was easy for me to call out what I felt were inadequacies, but he had to deal first hand with those shithead racist warmongering obstructionist Repukes daily. I could not have done it with the class he has shown in his terms.

I am proud to have voted, donated, and canvassed for his campaigns.

Thank you for your service President Obama.

April 8, 2016

Clinton's drug war was a direct followup of Reagan's crimes against AA communities.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/10/gary-webb-dark-alliance_n_5961748.html

Key Figures In CIA-Crack Cocaine Scandal Begin To Come Forward

...

More than 18 years have passed since Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb stunned the world with his “Dark Alliance” newspaper series investigating the connections between the CIA, a crack cocaine explosion in the predominantly African-American neighborhoods of South Los Angeles, and the Nicaraguan Contra fighters — scandalous implications that outraged LA’s black community, severely damaged the intelligence agency’s reputation and launched a number of federal investigations.

It did not end well for Webb, however. Major media, led by The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, worked to discredit his story. Under intense pressure, Webb’s top editor abandoned him. Webb was drummed out of journalism. One LA Times reporter recently apologized for his leading role in the assault on Webb, but it came too late. Webb died in 2004 from an apparent suicide. Obituaries referred to his investigation as “discredited.”

...

After The Associated Press reported on these connections in 1985, for example, more than a decade before Webb, then-Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) launched a congressional investigation. In 1989, Kerry released a detailed report claiming that not only was there “considerable evidence” linking the Contra effort to trafficking of drugs and weapons, but that the U.S. government knew about it.

...

Webb says. “It was a situation where, ‘We need money for a covert operation, the quickest way to raise it is sell cocaine, you guys go sell it somewhere, we don’t want to know anything about it.’”

(much more good stuff @ link)

...

March 22, 2016

What the 2016 Presidential election is about

Privatizing Social Security.

The banking industry has made the Clinton's billionaires in the last decade and now they want their return on that investment.

They have already taken your wealth from your home, you now pay 40-50% of disposable income over the 25% from a generation ago. They have already taken your wages, through offshorring to slave wage countries and union busting. They have already taken your education fund, through hyper-inflated tuition costs.

They are coming for your social security.

The Trump card is even in play to ensure they get their desired candidate who will sign the privatization bill that the Republican congress and senate delivers to her desk.

March 6, 2016

All the people and institutions

who work to separate the profits of industry from those who make those profits possible.

February 9, 2016

I see Bernie's popularity as a natural continuation of the last couple decades

Seattle WTO protests.
Bush and Iraq anti-war protests.
Occupy.
And many more.

Bernie is a vessel for the anti-establishment to finally have a voice for them.

#Bernie2016

January 27, 2016

The establishment does not belong to any "underground."

i.e. - Undergrounds are composed of anti-establishment people.

That is all.

January 5, 2016

Greed, fraud, dishonesty, and arrogance

https://go.berniesanders.com/page/s/wall-street?source=em160105

Greed, fraud, dishonesty, and arrogance: these are the words that best describe the reality of Wall Street today.

We can no longer tolerate an economy and a political system that have been rigged by Wall Street to benefit the wealthiest Americans in this country at the expense of everyone else. While President Obama deserves credit for getting this economy back on track after the Wall Street crash, the reality is there is a lot of unfinished business.

That's why today in New York City I announced my plan for taking on Wall Street. We must break up the banks, end their casino-style gambling, and fundamentally change the approach of the financial industry to focus on helping the American people.
To those on Wall Street, let me be very clear. Greed is not good. In fact, the greed of Wall Street and corporate America is destroying the fabric of our nation. And here is a promise I will make as president: If Wall Street does not end its greed, we will end it for them.

As most people know, in the 1990s and later, financial interests spent billions of dollars in lobbying and campaign contributions to force through Congress the deregulation of Wall Street, the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, and the weakening of consumer protection laws.

They paid this money to show the American people all that they could do with that freedom. Well, they sure showed the American people. In 2008, the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street nearly destroyed the U.S. and global economy. Millions of Americans lost their jobs, their homes, and their life savings.

Meanwhile, the American middle class continues to disappear, poverty is increasing, and the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider and wider by the day. But the American people are catching on. They also know that a handful of people on Wall Street have extraordinary power over the economic and political life of our country.

We must act now to change that. Our goal must be to create a financial system and an economy that works for all Americans, not just a handful of billionaires.

There are eight points to my plan, and I want to go through each of them here because I think it's important for our campaign to discuss specific policies with our supporters. Some of this may seem a little in the weeds, but I trust our supporters to be able to handle this kind of policy discussion.

Here's my plan for what I will do with Wall Street when I am president:

Break up huge financial institutions in the first year of my administration. Within the first 100 days of my administration, I will require the Secretary of the Treasury to establish a “Too Big to Fail” list of commercial banks, shadow banks, and insurance companies whose failure would pose a catastrophic risk to the U.S. economy without a taxpayer bailout. Within one year, my administration will break these institutions up so that they no longer pose a grave threat to the economy.

Reinstate a 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act to clearly separate traditional banking from risky investment banking and insurance services. It is not enough to tell Wall Street to "cut it out," propose a few new rules and slap on some fines. Under my administration, financial institutions will no longer be too big to fail or too big to manage. Wall Street cannot continue to be an island unto itself, gambling trillions in risky financial instruments. If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.

End too-big-to-jail. We live in a country today that has an economy that is rigged, a campaign finance system which is corrupt, and a criminal justice system which often does not dispense justice. The average American sees kids being arrested and sometimes even jailed for possessing marijuana. But when it comes to Wall Street executives — some of the most wealthy and powerful people in this country whose illegal behavior hurt millions of Americans — somehow nothing happens to them. No jail time. No police record. No justice.

Not one major Wall Street executive has been prosecuted for causing the near collapse of our entire economy. That will change under my administration. “Equal Justice Under Law” will not just be words engraved on the entrance of the Supreme Court. It will be the standard that applies to Wall Street and all Americans.

Establish a tax on Wall Street to discourage reckless gambling and encourage productive investments in the job-creating economy. We will use the revenue from this tax to make public colleges and universities tuition free. During the financial crisis, the middle class of this country bailed out Wall Street. Now, it’s Wall Street’s turn to help the middle class.
Cap Credit Card Interest Rates and ATM Fees. We have got to stop financial institutions from ripping off the American people by charging sky-high interest rates and outrageous fees. In my view, it is unacceptable that Americans are paying a $4 or $5 fee each time they go to the ATM. And it is unacceptable that millions of Americans are paying credit card interest rates of 20 or 30 percent.

The Bible has a term for this practice. It's called usury. And in The Divine Comedy, Dante reserved a special place in the Seventh Circle of Hell for sinners who charged people usurious interest rates. Today, we don't need the hellfire and the pitchforks, we don't need the rivers of boiling blood, but we do need a national usury law.

We need to cap interest rates on credit cards and consumer loans at 15 percent. I would also cap ATM fees at $2.
Allow Post Offices to Offer Banking Services. We also need to give Americans affordable banking options. The reality is that, unbelievably, millions of low-income Americans live in communities where there are no normal banking services. Today, if you live in a low-income community and you need to cash a check or get a loan to pay for a car repair or a medical emergency, where do you go? You go to a payday lender who could charge an interest rate of over 300 percent and trap you into a vicious cycle of debt. That is unacceptable.

We need to stop payday lenders from ripping off millions of Americans. Post offices exist in almost every community in our country. One important way to provide decent banking opportunities for low-income communities is to allow the U.S. Postal Service to engage in basic banking services, and that's what I will fight for.

Reform Credit Rating Agencies. We cannot have a safe and sound financial system if we cannot trust the credit agencies to accurately rate financial products. The only way we can restore that trust is to make sure credit rating agencies cannot make a profit from Wall Street. Under my administration, we will turn for-profit credit rating agencies into non-profit institutions, independent from Wall Street. No longer will Wall Street be able to pick and choose which credit agency will rate their products.

Reform the Federal Reserve. We need to structurally reform the Federal Reserve to make it a more democratic institution responsive to the needs of ordinary Americans, not just the billionaires on Wall Street. It is unacceptable that the Federal Reserve has been hijacked by the very bankers it is in charge of regulating. When Wall Street was on the verge of collapse, the Federal Reserve acted with a fierce sense of urgency to save the financial system. We need the Fed to act with the same boldness to combat the unemployment crisis and fulfill its full employment mandate.
So my message to you is straightforward: I’ll rein in Wall Street's reckless behavior so they can’t crash our economy again.

Will Wall Street like me? No. Will they begin to play by the rules if I’m president? You better believe it.
No president alone, not Bernie Sanders or anyone else, can effectively address the crises facing the working families of this country without a powerful grassroots movement. When we stand together, there is nothing we cannot accomplish.

Thank you for standing with me.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

January 1, 2016

No one becomes one of the 1%

without destroying untold numbers of lives of other human beings. Our systems are designed to obscure and shelter people from this basic truth.

Our system is corrupt and sociapathic to the core.