Bullish on Bernie: The Bernie Sanders 2016 Thread

[The Big Dog]

Pretty sure you're underestimating how many skeletons are in Sanders' closet.

oy vey, and this coming from a person who didn't ever see a Clinton skeleton she could not spin...

 

[Childlike Empress]

oy vey, and this coming from a person who didn't ever see a Clinton skeleton she could not spin...

Inspired me to a youtube search but apparently the task is still waiting for an artist.

 

[The_Animus]

Pix or it didn't happen.

No pix, but I can link the reddit thread

Also I didn't actually read either the 16 negative stories in 16 hours thread, nor the 16 positive stories in 16 hours thread. I didn't read the washington post articles either. Just saying I saw both and to be careful in general about claims about media bias as its easy to get burned as I did the other day

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/49pjfx/now_the_washington_post_ran_16_positive_stories/

 

[Cleon]

Pretty sure you're underestimating how many skeletons are in Sanders' closet.

Such as?

 

[Childlike Empress]

No pix, but I can link the reddit thread

Also I didn't actually read either the 16 negative stories in 16 hours thread, nor the 16 positive stories in 16 hours thread. I didn't read the washington post articles either. Just saying I saw both and to be careful in general about claims about media bias as its easy to get burned as I did the other day

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/49pjfx/now_the_washington_post_ran_16_positive_stories/

Uhm, ok, but you should have at least clicked on the "story" that this reddit is based upon before bothering us with this nonsense based on nothing just inserted into the ******** stream to get repeated by...

(If you somehow failed to detect the sarcasm in the above — or don't get the joke — this should help. Basically, Sanders supporters noted Tuesday that The Post had run 16 "negative" — in their minds — stories about Sanders in 16 hours after Sunday night's debate, in which his performance was seen as less-then-stellar.)

 

[Axiom_Blade]

Such as?

I think we're supposed to just accept it without evidence. Like the claim that Sanders' popularity will plummet if he gets nominated.

 

[luchog]

So, regarding Sanders vs. Trump in the general...

Polls (yes, I know all the problems with polls, but there are multiple polls saying the same thing, so I'm leaning toward accepting this as at least relatively representative) shows Sanders coming out far better against Trump than Clinton does, and leading him by a wide margin.

The voter comments referenced in the articles make it even more clear that this election is less about conservative vs. liberal, and more about establishment vs. populist, especially on the GOP side.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/...-Hillary-Puts-Trump-Closer-to-the-White-House
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-...nst-trump-than-hillary-clinton_b_9390892.html

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

You have to laugh at the Bernbots.

"We won Michigan! The pollsters don't know what they are talking about! They had Hillary 20 points ahead! LOL!"

"Here are some polls showing Bernie beating Trump"

 

[The_Animus]

Uhm, ok, but you should have at least clicked on the "story" that this reddit is based upon before bothering us with this nonsense based on nothing just inserted into the ******** stream to get repeated by...

I meant I didn't look at it at the time I first saw it but I I did see that at the time I posted the link. I also don't really understand your point.

You and others claimed that the Washington Post running 16 negative Sanders stories in 16 hours showed they are biased. The Washington Post also ran 16 positive Sanders stories in 16 hours, and they are listed on the page. Whether the person who chose to highlight them was doing so sarcastically seems irrelevant. Whether or not someone is being sarcastic isn't the evidence being presented, the stories are. If you want to include other evidence that shows the Washington Post is biased (and I actually think it probably is) that's fine. For example I bet if you calculated the total number of negative/positive stories in a given week it may very well show far more negative stories.

But 16 negative stories in 16 hours is flawed evidence of bias when it can also be shown that they ran 16 positive stories in 16 hours. I'm a Sanders supporter as well and this wasn't meant negatively towards you.

 

[Tony Stark]

I think we're supposed to just accept it without evidence. Like the claim that Sanders' popularity will plummet if he gets nominated.

I don’t know if there are actual skeletons in his closet. But that hardly matters. The purpose of propaganda is to get people to do what you want, not nessesarily to tell the truth. For example, there is a story about him honeymooning in the Soviet Union. I have no idea how true that is or the context because I don't care enough to find out. But I do know that Republicans will be completely unconcerned with the facts and will spin it in the worst possible light. And there are things they can use to attack him while being honest. For example, he is a socialist who wants to enact huge tax increases. He also admits to not being religious.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Such as?

All the videos and other records of his views on socialism.

Keep in mind, I don't believe all these interpretations of Sanders. I agree with many of his views. My argument is he can't get any of that done. This country is not going to become a socialist country by electing one POTUS.

But this is what you can expect to see more of if Sanders wins the primary:

Don’t be fooled by Bernie Sanders — he’s a diehard communist

Rewind to 1964.

While attending the University of Chicago, Sanders joined the Young People’s Socialist League, the youth wing of the Socialist Party USA. He also organized for a communist front, the United Packinghouse Workers Union, which at the time was under investigation by the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

After graduating with a political science degree, Sanders moved to Vermont, where he headed the American People’s History Society, an organ for Marxist propaganda. There, he produced a glowing documentary on the life of socialist revolutionary Eugene Debs, who was jailed for espionage during the Red Scare and hailed by the Bolsheviks as “America’s greatest Marxist.”

That's just the beginning. You can read the rest if you are interested. And of course the article was attacked right away.

Sanders time on a Kibbutz

Ely says many of those who came to the kibbutz wanted to learn about socialism and how it works.

"Maybe that had an influence on (Sanders)," Ely says.

When he moved to the kibbutz, Ely admits he "didn't know a thing about communism." But he studied the political philosophy of Marxism-Leninism, the socialist ideology on which the former Soviet Union was based.

"It was once communism. Today it's socialism. Call it whatever you want," Ely says. "It's a number of people who want to live together. And want to share everything together. We think that you have to take care of the weak (community members). The strong can deal with themselves."

Again, I don't think this makes Sanders a communist. And this is an interview with a man from the Kibbutz, not an interview with Sanders. But it will come up.


The Daily Beast: When Bernie Sanders Thought Castro and the Sandinistas Could Teach America a Lesson

But foreign-policy questions, The New York Times noted, had a habit of pushing him “out of his comfort zone.”...

What were the policies and ideas that animated his small-town internationalism? In a recent interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, Sanders was asked about a comment he made in 1974 calling for the CIA’s abolition. He qualified, hedged, and offered a potted history of CIA meddling in the affairs of sovereign countries, all while arguing half-heartedly that his views had long-since evolved toward pragmatism....

perhaps another enterprising television journalist will ask the candidate-of-consistency one of the following questions:
— Do you think that American foreign policy gives people cancer?
— Do you think a state of war—be it against the Vietnamese communists, Nicaraguan anti-communists, or al Qaeda’s Islamists—justifies the curtailment of press freedoms?
— Do you stand by your qualified-but-fulsome praise of the totalitarian regime in Cuba? Do you stand by your unqualified-and-fulsome praise of the totalitarian Sandinista regime in Nicaragua?
— Do you believe that bread lines are a sign of economic health?
— Do you think the Reagan administration was engaged in the funding and commissioning of terrorism?
A weird palette of questions, sure, but when Sanders was mayor of Burlington, he answered “yes” to all of them. Hidden on spools of microfilm, buried in muffled and grainy videos of press conferences and public appearances, Mayor Sanders enumerated detailed—and radical—foreign-policy positions and explained his brand of socialism. (If you find foreign-policy debates tedious, feel free to ask Sanders if he still believes that “the basic truth of politics is primarily class struggle”; that “democracy means public ownership of the major means of production”; or that “both the Democratic and Republican parties represent the ruling class.”)

Again, there's more if you chose to read on.

Sanders has been very outspoken his whole adult life and a lot of it is on the record in all its raw hippie form.

 

[Cleon]

Ah, by skeletons in the closet I assumed you meant some dark secret Sanders wants to keep hidden, as the phrase implies. I didn't realize you meant "same old redbaiting bullcrap."

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I don’t know if there are actual skeletons in his closet. But that hardly matters. The purpose of propaganda is to get people to do what you want, not nessesarily to tell the truth. For example, there is a story about him honeymooning in the Soviet Union. I have no idea how true that is or the context because I don't care enough to find out. But I do know that Republicans will be completely unconcerned with the facts and will spin it in the worst possible light. And there are things they can use to attack him while being honest. For example, he is a socialist who wants to enact huge tax increases. He also admits to not being religious.

It is true. He went on city business having arranged a sister city relationship between Burlington and the Soviet city. He got married just before and took his new wife. He claims it was because he didn't have enough time off for the trip and a separate honeymoon.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Ah, by skeletons in the closet I assumed you meant some dark secret Sanders wants to keep hidden, as the phrase implies. I didn't realize you meant "same old redbaiting bullcrap."

By skeletons I mean his own words coming back to haunt him.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Ah, by skeletons in the closet I assumed you meant some dark secret Sanders wants to keep hidden, as the phrase implies. I didn't realize you meant "same old redbaiting bullcrap."

No, she means the literal skeleton of Joe McCarthy, undead and restlessly pacing in Sanders' closet, clutching a yellowed parchment on which his list has all but faded, waiting for a chance to wipe the red off the ballot.

 

[angrysoba]

So oppressive left wing dicatorships are less objectionable then oppressive right wing dictatorships?

I think it really depends on the particulars.

I do think that Saudi Arabia is worse than Cuba for many reasons. I'm sure that Nazi Germany was worse than Cuba.

What do you think?

 

[ddt]

No, she means the literal skeleton of Joe McCarthy, undead and restlessly pacing in Sanders' closet, clutching a yellowed parchment on which his list has all but faded, waiting for a chance to wipe the red off the ballot.

You mean that Zombie-Joe at last has done what Alive-Joe never bothered to do, viz., write an actual name on the "list"?

 

[Trakar]

My actions? I voted for Bernie Sanders (I've posted a photo of the ballot to prove it). Just because I understand that the notion that she may as well be a Republican is ridiculous nonsense doesn’t mean I support her. I agree with Bernie more than her. Doesn't mean that I should believe things that are false. She is pretty liberal in the context of American politics, to the left of both Bill and Obama. And significantly to the left of every Republican in Congress.

That said, yeah, of course I will vote for her in the likely event she is nominated. Because she is way better than Trump or Cruz. She would not give massive tax cuts to the rich, for example. And she would certainly appoint liberal Supreme Court justices like Bill and Obama did. But if you don't think that things like that matter enough, feel free to take a course of action that best benefit Republicans. They certainly hope that there are enough people on the left that are that foolish.

Also, if low turnout for the Democratic primaries means that Hillary can't excite the party, certainly logic dictates that Bernie excites it even less given the fact that he is losing to her and all.

Last to first,

We are talking about the primaries right now, and the primaries are mostly about establishment party voters nominating the best establishment candidate. Yes, I really thought that Sanders would attract and motivate people to the primary that don't normally attend them. Evidence indicates that this has happened in some primary states, but it is much smaller and much less impactful than I hoped for. It seems to be growing and becoming a larger issue, but there is still a lot of inertia to overcome. He has come a long way since the single digit levels of support he garnered nationally 7-8 months ago, I am hopeful, I just don't think there is enough time left to fully transcend the early handicap.

As for Hillary being better than Trump or Cruz, on some domestic social issues this is certainly true, on most domestic economic issues the difference is much smaller. On personal liberties and freedoms as well as foreign policy issues, many of the positions are much more equivalent. Back in 2007 I would have agreed with you that Hillary was to the left of Obama, that's why she was my lessor evil choice in 2008. Once in office as SoS, however, I quickly saw how mistaken I had been as she drove hard right during her term at that position in ways that were all too frequently very Wolfowitzian, if not downright Cheneyesk.

 

[Beeyon]

It is true. He went on city business having arranged a sister city relationship between Burlington and the Soviet city. He got married just before and took his new wife. He claims it was because he didn't have enough time off for the trip and a separate honeymoon.

It's true if you define honeymoon as "a trip taken by newlyweds." It's false if you define honeymoon as "a vacation taken by newlyweds."

It would definitely come up in the general. But because the percentage of the population that thinks "working-honeymoon" is an oxymoron is nearly 100%, it's extremely likely that anyone pushing this idea is a slime-ball.

 

[The Big Dog]

By skeletons I mean his own words coming back to haunt him.

That is clearly not what the expression skeletons in the closet means and the use use of it in this thread is not only spectacularly ironic, it is spectacularly dishonest.

Shillaries and their projection. Oh Hillary is a despicable fraud that must mean everyone is. Wrong.

Just Hillary.