Group items tagged

Controversial "Bernie or Bust" pledge... I am sympathetic to the freedom to not support other party candidates if this candidate doesn't succeed... pledge to write in Bernie, claim of leverage against delegates robbing Sanders the nomination... seems kind of childish and short-sighted, too focused on the presidential elections... Bernie's own pledge to support Hilary if she is the nominee does much to go against this strategy...

"With our latest fund-raising numbers, we now know we'll have the resources to compete everywhere, including all the Super Tuesday states and throughout the South, even Arkansas," said Jeff Weaver, Mr. Sanders's campaign manager. "We've heard for months, 'Bernie will flame out after Iowa and New Hampshire.' But the truth is that we have the resources, and can raise the resources, to go all the way to the convention."

"The small-donor activity may reflect growing public concern that democracy is under assault from politicians' increasing reliance on millionaire supporters. An opinion poll this month by Bloomberg Politics shows that a stunning 78 percent of the public stand with Bernie Sanders and favor overturning the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which has unleashed unlimited amounts of cash on political races, much of it coming from undisclosed sources." ‪#‎BernieSanders‬ ‪#‎FeelTheBern‬ ‪#‎AllowDebate‬

Good response to "Bernie is too radical to get things done" narrative

"Professor Friedman saw the Wall Street Journal's piece and responded in the Huffington Post with "An Open Letter to the Wall Street Journal on Its Bernie Sanders Hit Piece." He writes that the Journal wasn't completely wrong: the program would involve spending $15 trillion over a decade. But they left out the key detail: it would actually save the country a total $5 trillion over those 10 years. We'd see those savings in reduced administrative waste, lower pharmaceutical and device prices, and by decreasing the rate of medical inflation."

"The theory suggests that when upwards of 60 percent of voters consistently agree that rich people should have their taxes raised, a candidate who promises to do so might be identified as what he actually is: middle of the road. That if Democrats give Democratic speeches on economic issues, voters suckered into Republicanism by refrains like Jihad! Jihad! Jihad! just might try something else. And that new voters might be attracted into politics if they could just hear a candidate cut to the radical quick of the actual problems that are ruining their lives. My new Republican friends didn't know they were not "supposed" to like a "liberal" like Bernie Sanders. Then they heard what he was saying, and liked what they heard. How many are there like them? That's what I've been trying to begin to find out."

"I consider myself a social democrat, yes. And for me, what social democracy simply means is a system that leaves room for small enterprises and individual liberty but also recognizes the fact that we're all part of a larger community, and what hurts any one group of us eventually hurts us all."

via Doug Henwood: Oh fuck off: "Instant success sans much hard work - that's the millennial zeitgeist in one byte." PS: that's more than a byte.