Why, oh why don't all progressives support Bernie Sanders for President?
Why is he not getting the attention or excitement that Barack Obama received during his historic run?
How in the world, can progressives support someone like Hillary Clinton, who is little more than George Bush with better hair?
Well, there is some trouble with Bernie. Trouble that keeps many who might like the man, his policies and even his past from supporting him. They do for me.
It is not popular and this diary will get flamed and I may even get banned from Dkos for writing it but here is the trouble with Bernie.
New Hampshire to Cut Oil Deal with Venezuela
Congressman BURNIE [sic] SANDERS (Independent, Vermont): Frankly, my concern here is not international geopolitics.
GORENSTEIN: That's Congressman Burney [sic] Sanders, an Independent from Vermont. He helped negotiate the recent contract with Citgo, which would supply heating oil to 10-12,000 household in his state.
Congressman SANDERS: And if Exxon Mobile wants to do it, I would take that as well, or any other large corporation. So to my mind this is not a political issue, this is not a controversial issue. This is a means by which we can keep people warm, senior citizens, low income people in the State of Vermont who need that help.
Ah...but wait, what did Bernie say about Chavez in 2015?
“Yesterday, one of Hillary Clinton’s most prominent Super PACs attacked our campaign pretty viciously,” said the senator in a statement sent to supporters. “They suggested I’d be friendly with Middle East terrorist organizations, and even tried to link me to a dead communist dictator.
Except, Chavez wasn't a Communist and he wasn't a dictator....
Some people - especially in Venezuela - took offence.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/...
And this statement is somewhat strange coming from Bernie, as he has in the past had this to say about real Communist Dictators:
Bernie Sanders praised Fidel Castro in 1985 interview: 'He educated their kids, gave their kids health care, totally transformed society'
The grainy 1985 interview footage from Chittenden County, Vermont, shows Sanders praising Castro's policies on education, health care and society in general.
At the time, Sanders had been on a recent trip to Nicaragua to observe the sixth anniversary of the Sandinista regime. He compared Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega - who is now president of Nicaragua - to Castro.
'In 1961, [America] invaded Cuba, and everybody was totally convinced that Castro was the worst guy in the world,' he said.
'All the Cuban people were going to rise up in rebellion against Fidel Castro. They forgot that he educated their kids, gave their kids health care, totally transformed society.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/...
And what about that infamous "honeymoon" in the Soviet Union?
When Sanders was mayor, Burlington formed an alliance with another city – in the Soviet Union. When Sanders traveled to Yaroslavl, 160 miles north-east of Moscow, in 1988, the trip doubled as a honeymoon with his new wife, Jane. Not much survived in terms of paperwork from that trip, although the mayoral archives do contain a tape recording of Sanders interviewing Yaroslavl’s mayor on a boat somewhere on the Volga river.
After receiving a rundown of central planning, Soviet-style, from Yaroslavl’s mayor, Alexander Riabkov, Sanders notes how the quality of both housing and healthcare in America appeared to be “significantly better” than in the communist state. “However,” he added, “the cost of both services is much, much, higher in the United States.”
Now I know
IT WASN'T A HONEYMOON!
Except, Bernie says it was:
Sanders honeymooned in the USSR. Sanders married his current wife, Jane, in May of 1988 and the next day left for their “romantic honeymoon” to Yaroslavl, in the then-Soviet Union. The trip was an official delegation from Burlington to cement the two cities’ sister-city relationship. “Trust me. It was a very strange honeymoon,” Sanders writes.
So there is that.
I don't object to a candidate for President being honest when talking about the Soviet Union, Cuba, Castro or Nicaragua. But it would be nice if he at least acknowledge Chavez was not a Communist or a dictator.
But don't worry, Bernie has policies that will rally the country to his side, right? What are those policies and how will they be implemented?
Asked how he would transition the country from the Affordable Care Act, toward the universal, single-payer system he prefers for healthcare, Sanders seemed unsure. “That’s a good question,” he told the Guardian. “I can’t give you a definitive answer.” He added that he envisaged a system “kind of modelled on what the Canadians are doing”.
Pressed on his taxation policy, Sanders said he would “absolutely” make the income tax system more progressive, but declined to say precisely how much top-rate earners should pay on their income. “I don’t want to develop policy off the top of my head,” he said, pointing to the extensive work he had already done on legislation to close tax loopholes for corporations and tax Wall Street stock transfers. “We will come up with a progressive individual tax rate as well.”
http://www.theguardian.com/...
But hey, he is the BEST Democrat running for the office of President. One thing that can be said about Bernie, he is NO hypocrite:
Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat. He may be running for president as a Democrat, but (at least when he wrote the book) he had no interest in being formally involved with the party. “There wasn’t a helluva big difference between the two major parties,” he writes.
“There wasn’t a helluva big difference between the two major parties.”
When supporters tried to put him on the Democratic ballot in a congressional reelection race, he was adamantly opposed: “If, by chance, I win the Democratic nomination I will respectfully decline. I am an independent and proud of it,” he said he told supporters.
One Democratic congressional opponent passed around an opposition research document detailing “my less than flattering observations on the Democratic Party,” Sanders writes. “I have been extremely critical of the Democratic Party,” he writes at one point.
Sanders had a complicated relationship with Bill Clinton. “Without enthusiasm, I’ve decided to support Bill Clinton for president. Perhaps ‘support’ is too strong of a word,” he writes of the 1992 presidential campaign.
“Do I have confidence that Clinton will stand up for the working people of this country – for children, for the elderly, for the folks who are hurting? No, I do not,” he writes. But he decided that Clinton was better than the alternative and would give progressives time to “build a movement” – and perhaps one day run a presidential candidate of their own.
But at least he is a true socialist, through and through.
And he holds some head-turning positions. The Vermont senator is “pro-gun, and pro-hunting,” and opposed the Brady Bill to because he thought handgun wait times should be decided by states. The National Rifle Association gave Sanders a major assist in one race went it targeted his opponent. But by 1994, the NRA turned on Sanders, distributing “Bye, Bye Bernie” bumper stickers and running ads against him.
As mayor of Burlington, Sanders made opposing property taxes a cornerstone of his campaigns, worked to cut government spending, and earned a critical endorsement from the police officers’ union.
http://www.msnbc.com/...
I could go on, but I think at this point most have stopped reading.
The point is, I found this information in one ONE hour of Google searching.
How much do you think the media and the Republicans will find?
I repeatedly read that Clinton has to be rejected because she was a Goldwater Girl, voted for the Iraq War, is too close to Wall Street, and a dozen other sins both real and imagined.
But Clinton. Can. Win.
And even if it was a toss up between Bernie and Hillary on who had the best chance for winning the Presidency in 2016, I would still back Hillary. She has been loyal, firm and a solid Democrat for decades. She didn't just become a Democrat, just to become President.