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Independent Bernie Sanders

EatTheRich

President
He's a social democratic politician and therefore a support beam for the capitalist system, but I definitely agree with him more than Reid or some other sorry excuse for a senator.
 

EatTheRich

President
People's Weekly World had an article before the election about Sanders and how he was an effective politician because he put political realism above idealism and thus we needed to support Obama as the more progressive candidate instead of falling into the idealist/utopian trap of supporting an independent candidate with a maximalist program. Kind of ironic since Sanders is, you know, an independent.
 

fairsheet

Senator
People's Weekly World had an article before the election about Sanders and how he was an effective politician because he put political realism above idealism and thus we needed to support Obama as the more progressive candidate instead of falling into the idealist/utopian trap of supporting an independent candidate with a maximalist program. Kind of ironic since Sanders is, you know, an independent.
I like Sen. Sanders a whole lot. He understands that it's better to have a Democratic Senator from a state like North Dakota, than a GOP one, even as that Dem. Senator may be a little out in right field. Sanders understands that he's part of a team, and that his causes can only win, if his team wins. The bluer-than-blue Congressman McDermott (D, WA, Sea) is in a similar vein.

Dennis Kucinnich absolutely was NOT. He made his self-righteous name, hating on other Democrats. Dennis is gone now.
 

jammer

Mayor
Bernie Sanders, one of the few honest men left in Washington. Too bad we don't have more like him.
 

EatTheRich

President
We don't because the focus is on electing Democrats (who are "on our team") rather than establishing an independent labor party that can elect socialist candidates from every city.
 

Corruptbuddha

Governor
I like Sanders, always have.

I think he's got some good ideas.

It's a shame he's ignored by both sides of the 'establishment' isle.

And he's so committed tp the Socialcrat establishment.
 

fairsheet

Senator
That just means that despite his talk (some of which I agree with) Bernie is part of the problem.
Bullshit..to you AND my friend EatTheRich. And, Sen. Sanders would be the second to call bullshit on you two. Ask Sen. Sanders how he and his party have been so successful, and the first thing he'll tell you is how they've worked so well with the Democrats. Progressivism (progress) -contrary to some current popular wisdom - is about making good things actually HAPPEN. It's not about staking out a righteous fringe, such that when our politic doesn't go along, you can bloviate how smart you are and how evil, stupid, and corrupt everyone else is.

On a sidenote, I'm surprisingly down with almost all of Sen. Sander's views, except for his tilting at Fed windmills.
 

EatTheRich

President
The Bolsheviks made good things happen, and they were able to do so because they didn't have opportunist alliances with bourgeois parties. Same with the Sandinista National Liberation Front (who made alliances but strategic ones) and the New Jewel Movement.

Are Sanders's politics actually effectual? Or does he cut a Cassandra figure as the left-wing conscience of the Senate?

BTW, I may not agree with him fully but I am still enjoying reading his historic filibuster of Obama's extension of the Bush tax cuts (published as The Speech).
 

Joe Economist

Council Member
The problem with Sanders is his understanding of the English language.

“Through good times and bad, Social Security has paid out every benefit owed to every eligible American”

The fact is that the only reason that statement is true is that Social Security can lower what it owes. So while it may have paid-out every benefit owed. It hasn't paid-out every benefit promised. It is a very meaningless statement considering that Social Security can lower to zero the amount it 'owes'. People who would implement means-testing want to change what the system owes to zero.

So Social Security will pay-out everything it 'owes' forever. The problem is that politicians can change what it owes to zero.
 

OldGaffer

Governor
The problem with Sanders is his understanding of the English language.

“Through good times and bad, Social Security has paid out every benefit owed to every eligible American”

The fact is that the only reason that statement is true is that Social Security can lower what it owes. So while it may have paid-out every benefit owed. It hasn't paid-out every benefit promised. It is a very meaningless statement considering that Social Security can lower to zero the amount it 'owes'. People who would implement means-testing want to change what the system owes to zero.

So Social Security will pay-out everything it 'owes' forever. The problem is that politicians can change what it owes to zero.
And which politicians would that be?
 

Joe Economist

Council Member
The next Congress is just one set. The Congress there after could, and so forth through enternity.

Here are the demographics of Social Security ( per the Trustees and US Census)

more than 50% of voting aged Americans expect to retire after the trust fund is gone. 78% of voting aged Americans expect to out live full benefits in the system - of that is if the economy is good. It is naive to believe that politicians will ignore these people forever.
 

fairsheet

Senator
The Bolsheviks made good things happen, and they were able to do so because they didn't have opportunist alliances with bourgeois parties. Same with the Sandinista National Liberation Front (who made alliances but strategic ones) and the New Jewel Movement.

Are Sanders's politics actually effectual? Or does he cut a Cassandra figure as the left-wing conscience of the Senate?

BTW, I may not agree with him fully but I am still enjoying reading his historic filibuster of Obama's extension of the Bush tax cuts (published as The Speech).
To qualify, I know that Sanders isn't an official member of the Democratic Party. Neverthless, for all PRACTICAL purposes, he's a Democrat. I'm a member of the Democratic team. I like my team. My team is THE most popular one in America's Democrat process. Sanders is an essential member of that team, as is say....Sen. Heitkamp of North Dakota.

Neither the Bolsheviks nor the Sandinistas are good example, since neither was democratically elected. When push comes to shove in terms of making something happen, the Democrats can call upon the likes of Heitkamp. When the Bolsheviks and Sandinistas came up short in terms of the popular will, they had the option of force.
 

EatTheRich

President
The Bolsheviks were elected in multiparty elections to a plurality in the Supreme Soviet in 1917. The FSLN won elections including the 1984 presidential election which was judged free and fair by international observers. Elections have their place and some of the legitimacy of both these parties comes from their electoral victories.

But there are other times when force is rightly employed, in the service of the popular will. For example, the Bolsheviks outlawed one by one the various opposition parties as those parties went into open alliance with the White Army that was trying to destroy revolutionary Russia forever. The Sandinistas censored one issue of an opposition newspaper that called for terrorist attacks on the country. To take some American examples, opponents of the American revolution were tarred and feathered. Thomas Jefferson issued a writ of attainder and a Virginia judge had "lynch law" named after him for his lynchings of Tories. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and censored the press and the mails. Of course, both of the American revolutions mentioned here also involved the direct violent subjugation of the minority by the majority.

If you want to act like elections and the "democratic process" based on a Constitution established via war are more important than substantive fairness and social justice, be advised that the right doesn't show the same scruples. From Aaron Burr's coup attempt, to KKK intimidation, to the theft of the New York mayoral election from Henry George, to kicking the elected Socialist Party members out of the New York state legislature, to the bankers' plot against Roosevelt, to the law outlawing the Communist Party at a time when it had several elected office holders, to the politically motivated Clinton impeachment, to Bush v. Gore and modern procedural barriers to substantive democracy, the right sees elections as a means to an end, not an end in itself. Would that the left were less muddle-headed.

Salvador Allende was democratically elected and never used unconstitutional force against his political enemies, so he was killed in a fascist coup. The Spanish Socialists put electoral victory and constitutional nicety ahead of the clear wishes of the Catalonian people as expressed in the streets, as well as the war effort against Franco, and Franco, who was untroubled by similar scruples, was able to take power.

I am very much a proponent of democracy. And to me, democracy means rule by the majority, that is, by the working class and the oppressed. But Democracy (as in Boss Tweed, Richard Daley, and Huey Long) means a cobbled-together coalition of people united by dissatisfaction with the Republicans but with no political perspective other than trying to convince the billionaires who make or break candidacies that they are better.
 
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