Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped? Bernie Sanders wants to know who owns America?
#1121
Posted 2016-April-10, 20:38
At the very least he votes against everything regarding war....fighting for a war.
#1122
Posted 2016-April-10, 22:41
1. Climate change. This may be the most important issue of our lifetimes. Republicans don't even acknowledge the problem! Hillary (and Obama for that matter) are willing to make incremental changes but both have supported fracking (terrible for the environment, causing earthquakes and ruining drinking water and releasing methane into the air) and an "all of the above" energy strategy including subsidies for ethanol, oil, and gas. We need to make big moves on this issue, not small ones.
2. Money in politics. The most obvious example of the impact is the trade deals we keep signing where big US companies and their shareholders get rich and working Americans lose their jobs. Clinton has supported every such deal. She has taken millions in campaign contributions bundled by lobbyists (reversing Obama's rule of no lobbyist contributions). Her paid speeches would've been illegal when she was in the Senate or SoS or a presidential candidate. Sure they were technically legal when she was out of office but everyone knew she would run for President and likely win so at least the appearance of corruption remains. Not that the billionaire-funded Repubs are better of course (and Trump is just cutting out the middleman -- can anyone seriously believe that a guy who made billions screwing over his employees, his contractors, and his investors is really "for the little guy"?)
a.k.a. Appeal Without Merit
#1123
Posted 2016-April-11, 03:04
kenberg, on 2016-April-10, 18:28, said:
Is there a serious American plitician who is also likeable? Presumably not Trump or Clinton...
On the subject of inequality, I am by no means a socialist but many studies have shown a strong negative correlation between inequality in society and happiness. Even some on the right regard this as a serious issue (at least publically) so you certainly do not need to be a socialist to want to address it. I doubt many middle-class people believe that it can really be correct to tax lower earners considerably more than high earners but that is the truth in most Western economies these days. When you factor in tax avoidance schemes, the difference in real tax rates (including VAT, etc) is alarming. I would applaud it if the issue is seriously being addressed over there.
#1124
Posted 2016-April-11, 06:37
awm, on 2016-April-10, 22:41, said:
1. Climate change. This may be the most important issue of our lifetimes. Republicans don't even acknowledge the problem! Hillary (and Obama for that matter) are willing to make incremental changes but both have supported fracking (terrible for the environment, causing earthquakes and ruining drinking water and releasing methane into the air) and an "all of the above" energy strategy including subsidies for ethanol, oil, and gas. We need to make big moves on this issue, not small ones.
2. Money in politics. The most obvious example of the impact is the trade deals we keep signing where big US companies and their shareholders get rich and working Americans lose their jobs. Clinton has supported every such deal. She has taken millions in campaign contributions bundled by lobbyists (reversing Obama's rule of no lobbyist contributions). Her paid speeches would've been illegal when she was in the Senate or SoS or a presidential candidate. Sure they were technically legal when she was out of office but everyone knew she would run for President and likely win so at least the appearance of corruption remains. Not that the billionaire-funded Repubs are better of course (and Trump is just cutting out the middleman -- can anyone seriously believe that a guy who made billions screwing over his employees, his contractors, and his investors is really "for the little guy"?)
Zelandakh, on 2016-April-11, 03:04, said:
On the subject of inequality, I am by no means a socialist but many studies have shown a strong negative correlation between inequality in society and happiness. Even some on the right regard this as a serious issue (at least publically) so you certainly do not need to be a socialist to want to address it. I doubt many middle-class people believe that it can really be correct to tax lower earners considerably more than high earners but that is the truth in most Western economies these days. When you factor in tax avoidance schemes, the difference in real tax rates (including VAT, etc) is alarming. I would applaud it if the issue is seriously being addressed over there.
I agree with both of these. And I really am trying to decide what to do. I have settles (it was easy) on Chris Van Hollen to replace the retiring Barbara Mikulski but I am having trouble choosing from the field of 7 fot Van Hollen's replacement. And then there is Bernie/Hillary.
Hillary is definitely politics as usual, Bernie is definitely not as usual. Back in 1968. Eugene McCarthy was unusual. I preferred Humphrey or, especially, Robert Kennedy. By instinct, I am not the revolutionary type.
As mentioned, over the years I have known many people, mostly in academia, who remind me of Bernie. Very intense. Maybe more intense than practical. By "don't much like him" I of course mean as a candidate. Many years back we had someone I knew fairly well elected as our faculty representative to the state capitol. Personally, this guy and I got along fine. But I was tempted to write to the governor and tell him that under no circumstances should he think that this character was representing my views. How did he get elected? Very few people would be the least bit interested in taking on such a role.
This WaPo piece by Larry Summers is maybe not all that deep but gets at an issue, I think. I would put it as: Globalization is not going away, how do we cope? Breaking up the big banks and taxing the billionaire class might help some but then what? Of course when placed against the hallucinatory Donald Trump anyone can look sane, but I am cautious about signing on. Once Bernt, twice shy.
Anyway, I am working on it. I expect I will vote for Hillary.
#1125
Posted 2016-April-11, 06:54
#1126
Posted 2016-April-11, 09:57
#1127
Posted 2016-April-11, 17:31
barmar, on 2016-April-11, 09:57, said:
For me, ad I think for many, the most stunning thing is the total disaster of the Republican process. And not only the selection of their candidate. I can well imagine people supporting Romney or McCain but Trump? Are they nuts? And this total lack of cooperation on the Supreme Court. They really cannot see that a highly qualified candidate with no great ideological baggage would be very good for the country? I guess they must be able to see it, but like Rhett Butler they don't give a damn. It's beyond words.
Hillary strikes me as a walking position paper that has been written by someone else. And we have big problems in need of deep thought. I hope that she is up for it. She is experienced, and she is, or I hope she is, intelligent. Maybe I am crazy, but I really don't see Bernie as a president. Which is a very lukewarm way of supporting Hillary.
Yes, this is not a great election year.
#1128
Posted 2016-April-12, 09:46
kenberg, on 2016-April-11, 17:31, said:
No, just racist, and willing to flush everything else for the sake of it.
kenberg, on 2016-April-11, 17:31, said:
They don't want or care about what is good for the country. It's a pure power struggle for them. Their power is waning and the resulting fear drives them to desperation. Why refuse hearings when they have a majority in the full senate? Because they know a vote will confirm, exposing their lost hold over their own party, and increasing their weakness.
kenberg, on 2016-April-11, 17:31, said:
Yes, this is not a great election year.
Eh, Clinton is crooked as a 9-iron. I could vote for Sanders but I doubt I will have the chance.
No, not a good year at all.
-gwnn
#1129
Posted 2016-April-12, 10:23
billw55, on 2016-April-12, 09:46, said:
And the worst thing about this is that it's happening when the country is really in need of good leadership. While the economy isn't in as bad shape as when Obama took over, many other problems have gotten worse. Wealth inequality has increased, and so has terrorist activity. Climate change is following its course.
No matter who wins, I'm not optimistic about the next 4 years.
#1130
Posted 2016-April-12, 13:39
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Is it a better approach to start with accepting tens of millions of dollars from the rich, talking to them in secret?
http://www.huffingto...4b0836057a16748
George Carlin
#1131
Posted 2016-April-15, 07:22
Quote
...
The term neoliberalism was coined at a meeting in Paris in 1938. Among the delegates were two men who came to define the ideology, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. Both exiles from Austria, they saw social democracy, exemplified by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and the gradual development of Britain’s welfare state, as manifestations of a collectivism that occupied the same spectrum as nazism and communism.
In The Road to Serfdom, published in 1944, Hayek argued that government planning, by crushing individualism, would lead inexorably to totalitarian control. Like Mises’s book Bureaucracy, The Road to Serfdom was widely read. It came to the attention of some very wealthy people, who saw in the philosophy an opportunity to free themselves from regulation and tax. When, in 1947, Hayek founded the first organization that would spread the doctrine of neoliberalism – the Mont Pelerin Society – it was supported financially by millionaires and their foundations.
With their help, he began to create what Daniel Stedman Jones describes in Masters of the Universe as “a kind of neoliberal international”: a transatlantic network of academics, businessmen, journalists and activists. The movement’s rich backers funded a series of think tanks which would refine and promote the ideology. Among them were the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Centre for Policy Studies and the Adam Smith Institute. They also financed academic positions and departments, particularly at the universities of Chicago and Virginia.
As it evolved, neoliberalism became more strident. Hayek’s view that governments should regulate competition to prevent monopolies from forming gave way – among American apostles such as Milton Friedman – to the belief that monopoly power could be seen as a reward for efficiency.
Something else happened during this transition: the movement lost its name. In 1951, Friedman was happy to describe himself as a neoliberal. But soon after that, the term began to disappear. Stranger still, even as the ideology became crisper and the movement more coherent, the lost name was not replaced by any common alternative.
At first, despite its lavish funding, neoliberalism remained at the margins.
But not any more. It might be the ideology that dare not speak its name, but its adherents have been gaining power for decades. And here we are...
The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists — that is why they invented hell. — Bertrand Russell
#1132
Posted 2016-April-15, 07:38
PassedOut, on 2016-April-15, 07:22, said:
But not any more. It might be the ideology that dare not speak its name, but its adherents have been gaining power for decades. And here we are...
It lost its tag because calling bulls$%^ by another name does not mask its smell.
#1133
Posted 2016-April-15, 14:50
#1134
Posted 2016-April-15, 16:49
I have never seen anything like this for a Congressional race. I get far fewer phone calls and mailings for Senate and Governor races. In fact no one has called me about Sanders/Clinton. But Congress? Almost daily.
I am still working on who I will vote for. No doubt the calls will keep coming.
Note to Michael Douglis: You candidate is getting serious consideration.
Note to Kathleen Matthews. I voted many time for Barbara Mikulski for Senator. Not once did she ask me to so so because she is a woman.
#1135
Posted 2016-April-16, 07:46
This is not surprising since even water cooler posters have struggled to answer simple variations of this question such as: Why has the left repeatedly failed to even try to win the support of white blue collar voters?
Instead, Monbiot devoted his entire article to yet another rant against neoliberalism which, no doubt, he does at even greater length in his new book "How Did We Get into This Mess?" Perhaps his book discusses this assertion by Milton Friedman in "Capitalism and Freedom" and the incredible, Alan Greenspan-esque naiveté that underpins it:
Quote
Friedman wrote that in a era when it was perhaps unthinkable, to him, that a majority of Congress and the Supreme Court would take a similar view of social responsibility. I feel sure he would agree that the left *and* the right need to come up with an alternative to what we have now.
#1136
Posted 2016-April-16, 16:11
I have not yet decided about who to vote for for Congress, but I do not need to think further about the presidential primary.
#1137
Posted 2016-April-16, 18:31
When you put the scorekeepers in charge, there is no guarantee of continued success. We have "corporatized" ourselves into a creative corner. Only time will tell how this particular game will play out...
#1138
Posted 2016-April-17, 08:42
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"Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness — and Ted Cruz is a complete a--hole," said Steve Giannantonio, who works in finance. "That's a New York value."
or
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"We're neighbors here," she began calmly. "We enjoy the theater. We enjoy the arts. We enjoy Central Park, we enjoy the city — that's New York. We've got all kinds of people, and we've all got to get along. Be kind, be patient, be gentle. Cruz is a moron. Marcia, what do you think of that jerk?"
I am sure we should all be able to evaluate various proposals for economic growth, but elections often are decided on different grounds.
#1139
Posted 2016-April-18, 05:59
#1140
Posted 2016-April-18, 06:25
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