The supposed front runner so far has done much in her career and in abetting her husband’s career that has enabled so few to have so much. Now they want us to give the keys to the hen house to the hired fox. (Do you see the irony in the network that calls itself Fox News?)
Naked Capitalism has a good article Sanders Debate “Results” as Case Study of the Modern Versailles Hall of Mirrors.
But what stood out head and shoulders even with my limited focus was on how horrible Clinton seemed. Oh, superficially she had the patter down best, and she had a clear presentation strategy: to use every opportunity to remind her audience of the breadth of her experience, on how many times she’d been a power player. Let us put aside the fact that pretty much everything she’s touched, from her effort to launch a national health plan to her tenure at State, has been a disaster.
I posted the following comment on the article:
I am surprised that nobody has commented on the Howard Dean strategy. The corporate media ended Howard Dean’s candidacy by repeatedly showing a doctored video portraying Dean as too angry.
Some of the local “news” shows I watched played that doctored video several times in one news show. By several, I mean at least 5 times.
Even I thought that though the doctored video was objectively false, that the media were trying to portray an underlying characteristic of Dean that they detected. Even I thought he was an angry man. Now I know that he was rightfully angry, but just ahead of his time.
I don’t think this tactic is going to work against Bernie Sanders because this time around the voters are just as angry.
Our counterattack is that “Oligarchs Say That Bernie Sanders Did Not Win The Debate” That meme puts Bernie Sanders’ name next to the idea of winning the debate. Think of the other ways you could phrase the meme that would put the wrong name in the same sentence as winning the debate.
The full October 13, 2015 CNN run Democratic Presidential Debate is available on YouTube
If you missed the debate, you can pretend you watched the debate and spout the opinions of the pundits, or you can watch the whole 2 hours and decide for yourself.
Warning: If you spout the pundits’ view that Hillary won the debate, the people who actually watched it or who have access to the internet will know you are fibbing.
October 15, 2015
YouTube has already taken down the above video. As of 8:35PM, the following video is still available on YouTube.
CNN has a transcript. You might have to read or at least download this quickly. (I have downloaded a copy for safekeeping.) CNN seems to be making a concerted effort to keep the public from seeing any unedited version of the debate. If you could see the actual debate, then you would know how badly CNN is lying in its analyses of the debate.
Here is an excerpt that they won’t want you to see once the realize the impact of what Hillary said.
CLINTON: Yeah.
You know, I – I respect the passion an intensity. I represented Wall Street, as a senator from New York, and I went to Wall Street in December of 2007 – before the big crash that we had – and I basically said, “cut it out! Quit foreclosing on homes! Quit engaging in these kinds of speculative behaviors.”
I took on the Bush administration for the same thing. So I have thought deeply and long about what we’re gonna do to do exactly what I think both the senator and the governor want, which is to rein in and stop this risk.
And my plan would have the potential of actually sending the executives to jail. Nobody went to jail after $100 billion in fines were paid…
Yes the woman that CNN said won the debate actually admitted that she thought of herself as representing Wall Street when she was a U.S. Senator from New York. I am surprised that there was no rebuttal that said, “And you seem to still represent Wall Street even though you aren’t a Senator anymore.”
I feel honored to know that this Political Blog is under attack from hackers in the Ukraine.
My security software tells me that
A user with IP address 91.200.12.9 has been locked out from the signing in or using the password recovery form for the following reason: Exceeded the maximum number of login failures which is: 20. The last username they tried to sign in with was: ‘admin’
User IP: 91.200.12.9
User hostname: seo3.heilink.com
User location: Kiev, Ukraine
ipaddress.com even provides me with a street map to the offender. If any of my readers happen to be in Kiev, maybe they could stop in and ask these people why they are trying to break into my political blog. I have published a number of items that are not favorable to the political regime that is in power in Kiev. Could that be their reason, or am I just a random site that they have decided to hack?
Talking Points Memo has the article Taking Stock of a Tepid Debate.
My response to the author of the article follows.
I can’t conceive of how you would call this a tepid debate. I think the issues of finally taking control back from the oligarchs is far more consequential than anything that was debated in 2008.
Furthermore, if you have to decide among several candidates who are making similar promises, and have similar qualifications to be President, the deciding factor is how consistent the current promises are with past actions.
Bernie Sanders’ huge advantage of Hillary Clinton is that what he is promising is entirely consistent with what he has stood for and has done over many years.
In far too many instances, Hillary’s behavior has been diametrically opposite to what she claims she stands for. For instance, you can’t say you are a strong defender of the middle class when you vote to squeeze that middle class with tighter bankruptcy laws, as she and Biden both did. In Clinton’s case she was schooled on the perfidy of these changes by Elizabeth Warren. Clinton understood the lessons well enough to advise Bill Clinton to veto such a bill when he was President, but then she voted for a similar bill when she was Senator. In fact, Elizabeth Warren wondered in one of her books how a person could withstand the pressure when in Congress, if Hillary Clinton could not. Well, Elizabeth Warren’s performance as a Senator has shown that she is tough enough to stand up to the pressures that Hillary Clinton could not.
Hillary Clinton supported the actions that Bill Clinton took during his Presidency that promoted a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the oligarchs. How does she have any credibility in now decrying that transfer?
If even TPM can’t get excited about the candidacy of Bernie Sanders, then one wonders if there is any hope for this country. Fortunately 10s of thousands of people who attend Sanders’ rallies seem to be excited about Sanders potential.
Sharon and I attended a Democratic Debate Watch Party in Holland, MA.
The New Yorker has the article The Populist Prophet about Bernie Sanders.
In June, when NPR’s David Greene pressed Sanders on whether he embraced the phrase “Black Lives Matter,” the Senator got irritated. “It’s too easy for quote-unquote liberals to be saying, ‘Well, let’s use this phrase,’ ” he said. “We need a massive jobs program to put black kids to work and white kids to work and Hispanic kids to work. So my point is, is that it’s sometimes easy to worry about which phrase you’re going to use. It’s a lot harder to stand up to the billionaire class.”
Sanders does not argue that greater economic equality would end racism, but for most of his career he has subsumed discussions of race under class. Van Jones, a criminal-justice reformer and a former Obama adviser, derides that approach as “trickle-down justice”—and told Salon in August that he had been “warning the white populists in the Party, behind the scenes, for several months, that their continued insistence on advancing a color-blind, race-neutral populism was going to blow up in their faces.”
So know I understand why Bernie Sanders won’t use the phrase “Black Lives Matter”. I also agree with Van Jones that this stance will probably blow up in their faces.
I might have called Bernie Sanders principled for sticking to his ideals even though it might cost him the Presidency if it weren’t for the Elizabeth Warren speech discussed in my previous post Elizabeth Warren just gave the speech that Black Lives Matter activists have been waiting for. I think her speech was far more principled than Bernie Sanders’ approach, and it shows a depth of understanding that he just does not seem to have.
I did sense a rigidity in Bernie Sanders’ reaction to the people of Black Lives Matter. Now I see that what I sensed was actually true. He is going to rigid himself right out of the White House if he can’t listen well enough to figure out why he is wrong on this issue.
October 10,2015
On reading the article more thoroughly, I did come across softening paragraphs such as this reaction after the Black Lives Matter disruption at Netroots Nation
A week later, in his Senate office, Sanders sounded chastened. “The issues these young people raised are enormously important,” he said. The video showing the arrest of Sandra Bland, the African-American woman who died in a Texas jail, had just been released, and Sanders seemed shaken. “It impacted my night’s sleep,” he said. “I don’t sleep that great, and it made it even worse.” He went on, “It’s hard to imagine if Sandra Bland was white she would have been thrown to the ground and assaulted and insulted.” Sanders, speaking more broadly about police violence directed at black people, said, “I plead guilty—I should have been more sensitive at the beginning of this campaign to talk about this issue.”
Still, that understanding seems to have eroded in his recent speeches. He does not have the understanding that Elizabeth Warren does about the special hell that the oligarchs have reserved for African American victims of their plans to strip the wealth away from the people below them.
NPR has the story Where The Wild Fractions Are: The Power Of A Bedtime (Math) Story.
We compared kids who used the Bedtime Math app that involved reading stories and doing math problems with their parents to kids who did a very similar app that didn’t have the math content. We showed that when kids frequently used the app with their parents, those who used the math app were three months ahead in terms of math achievement relative to kids who just did the reading app.
This sounds like it may be a great idea for kids and parents who are struggling with math in school.
This is the home page for Bedtime Math, the subject of the NPR story above.
An email conversation I had today gave me an occasion to re-look at some items I had posted on the Sturbridge For Bernie Sanders Facebook page.
The first item was posted on September 28 with the headline from above.
Speaking in Boston, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) says black Americans still face violence, economic injustice and restrictions to voting rights. She highlights the efforts of activists in the Black Lives Matter movement. (Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate)
It had a three minute excerpt from the speech that I thought was excellent.
I was looking for reaction from the Black community when I came across the article that I posted on Facebook on September 29.
This post was about the Color Lines article ICYMI: Elizabeth Warren Talks About Structural Racism and Black Lives Matter.
I focused on a dissenting view of Warren’s speech.
But some wondered online if Warren isn’t just riding the wave of the movement in an attempt to win black votes. Arielle Newton, founder of the Black Millennials blog, wrote on Facebook
At the time I posted the article, I didn’t have time to listen to the 55 minutes of the entire speech from which the above clip was taken. Later someone who had taken the time told me that I really ought to listen to the whole thing. Today, I finally watched and listened.
During her talk at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate on Sunday, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) gave a speech that bore the heart of the structural racism that activists have long known to be the sparks that necessitated the Black Lives Matter movement.
Warren touched on many topics that are key to the every day lived experiences of black people in America, covering everything from housing discrimination, to police violence, to domestic terrorism, to the gutting of voting rights.
This was such a great speech. It had me and the audience close to tears at some points. How I wish Bernie Sanders could make a speech like this. That wish is even taking into account that Bernie Sanders delivers one heck of a rousing speech when ever he makes an appearance.
October 6, 2015
People on Facebook have been so resistant to the message I am trying to convey, that they missed the comment in the Color Lines article I mentioned above. Even though I quoted a bit of what I was trying to emphasize, people’s mind filters seem to be so strong, that they still missed it.
Perhaps if I quote the entire section below, they will have a harder time missing it. Unfortunately, I will not be surprised if they still resist understanding what Arielle Newton said. I didn’t say agree. All I am asking people is to consider why she might have the feelings she expressed. In all the management courses I ever took, they always told me you cannot deny a person’s feelings. You may disagree about whether they should or should not have those feelings, but you cannot tell them that they do not have the feelings they profess.
But some wondered online if Warren isn’t just riding the wave of the movement in an attempt to win black votes. Arielle Newton, founder of the Black Millennials blog, wrote on Facebook:
Black Lives Matter (as a Movement and affirmation) holds tremendous political capital. Folks can literally get votes and funds if they court the growing Black vote that is disillusioned by of the system and is ready to divest from it.
Black folk are conditioned to accept so little, to the point where we applaud white folk for recognizing our work, labor, analysis, and most importantly…our lived existence. We praise a white women who made credible our claims against institutional racism. We laud a white women who probably wouldn’t have delivered these words had it not been for sustained protest and uprisings. We uplift a white women for doing what she’s supposed to do. …
If you wanna praise Sen. Elizabeth Warren for the words that’ve been uttered, written, screamed, chanted, whispered, and proclaimed by many Black folk, fine. But don’t get complacent.
Sharon and I attended the October 3, 2015 Springfield rally with Bernie Sanders. We volunteered to be ushers. Here are some pictures.