Hillary VS Bernie

Hillary VS Bernie

Hillary is “a safe bet”, because she more or less toes the line of the status quo. People are accustomed to “the way things are”, and a few minor adjustments to American life will not cause a stir. Bernie is quite different. He sees the problem caused by the stealthy slide to oligarchy and plutocracy caused by moneyed interests that game our system of government. He sees how BIG business has hollowed out the middle class workers for greater profits by moving their businesses to other nations where they can pay workers almost nothing. Furthermore the various recent U S Congresses “they bought” have passed laws allowing them to stash their wealth in tax havens to avoid paying taxes to support the needs of the US government. Add to that the asinine moves to decrease their tax brackets so that some of these “legal thieves” have gotten away with paying $0.00 in income tax. The average tax-payer pays at least 13% of his wage income in taxes. What the rich are getting away with is UNFAIR!! Bernie thinks this scenario managed by “bought legislators” is sinking the US middle-class and polarizing us into a very wealthy class of 1%-ers and a lower 98% with much less wealth.

Hillary wants the "safe route" to do just a little bit and avoid going after Wall Street barons to prosecute them. They need to spend some time in prison for what that did to US families and the economy. Many US citizens were driven to bankruptcy and many lost all they had. The depression from these crimes was devastating, and it drove some poor folks to commit suicide. That is right! Some did commit suicide because they could take no more. Bernie feels that justice has not been served, because these guys have gotten away with “high crimes” against America families. Some of these BIG BANKERS should be wearing prison stripes. A guy caught selling 2 oz. of cocaine may get a few years in prison, while these white collar crooks walk the streets, still wear their Brooks suits, and rake in millions of dollars in bonus pay as honored elites. Obama and Eric Holder also did not prosecute them, because Obama announced as soon as he was in office that, “My goal is to look forward and not backward”, that is to avoid prosecuting the banker thieves.
Hillary says her policies are “realistic” and within the realm of possibilities. Her plans are “cautious”! Bernie’s plans are more visionary, but Hillary thinks they are out of reach and maybe impossible. I disagree with that. Being “careful and politically correct” can deny any advance to “change for the better”. What if Magellan and Columbus had bought the logic of their day that “the earth is flat, and if you sail west eventually you will drop off into the abyss”? Where would we be if we had rejected JFK’s “unheard of before” challenge to go to the moon and back, because that idea seems “impossible”? What if the Wright brothers had given up because some of their attempts to fly failed? I love Bernie’s PLANS. They cannot be attempted and achieved by a timid “unbelieving” mind. Hillary reminds me of the status quo cowards, who are afraid to go forward, because they do not want to “rock the boat”! If you are afraid to dive into the water, because when you dipped in your toe “it felt cold”, how can you fulfill the needs of fractured nation? The wealth gap between haves and have not is in shambles; the infrastructure is falling apart, the GOP is sabotaging voter rights and unity among the people for their political advantage; our young people are saddled with tuition debt as the government makes money off their loans. Climate change issues must be addressed seriously and we must protect the earth. “Where there is no vision, the people perish”! Bernie has the vision to solve America’s problems, and Bernie has my full support!

But either Hillary or Bernie is better than Trump or Cruz any day of the week.

goodnewinc, the OP:

I agree with most of what you said, and I've been saying for over a year that my personal political ideology is quite close to that of Bernie Sanders, but I still intend to vote for Hillary in the California primary coming up in June. I'm a democratic socialist in theory, but in practice I'm a "millitant moderate" who believes that maintaining checks and balances on all forms of power should always get top priority. The last two Democratic Presidents have proven that they can do this, and it's reasonable to assume that Hillary Clinton will do the same, especially since she'll have both of them among her closest advisers.

And even though some polls have shown Sanders having more popular support than Clinton, I still think she has a better chance of beating whoever the Republicans nominate than he does. This is simply because Hils has a much better political machine backing her than Bernie does. If he gets the nomination, he'll have the formal endorsement of the Democratic Party leadership, but he still won't get the kind of support within the Party that she will.

And I'd appreciate it you started a copy of this thread over on http://revolutionaryspiritualism.yuku.com/

I agree with every point goodnewsinc makes in this OP.
However, as an expat American residing in Eastern or Central Europe where I was raised, I must highlight the foreign policy issue. It could be the tipping point this year.
I recently talked to a very intelligent relative who is an ardent Sanders supporter and she just happened to say something like "call the troops home" or "exit NATO" in connection with Bernie...
That's a pipe dream now and a nightmare of all Europeans and most of the Middle East.

The US has been militarily a global power - one of the leaders of the planet, to be sure - after Hitler and Toyo were defeated, unwilling sometimes, with certain discrediting imperialist bad adventures abroad (Viet Nam foremost) and wars motivated by greed, power and world capitalism, having, however, still a better record than the Soviets of Brezhniew's time. Which is resurrecting and needs to be contained.

(BTW did you guys know that an event bigger than Chernobyl already happened at Mayak in the late fifties - and the Soviets then managed to keep the whole thing secret? Western watchers thought it was a test bomb, the clouds did not sweep so much towards Sweden and Norway. It was the world's biggest nuclear blowup to date).

Even economically, it is in the long-term self-interest of the US to preserve the balance of power in the European Union, and not let Putin and his puppets (including our prime minister and Marie LePen) upset the balance and annihilate the EU. As a start, the assets of the corrupt tyrants should be frozen and no gas should be bought from them at all. That will do for the Empire...

A sense of economic justice seems to go hand in hand with a distaste for tyrannies and maffiosi in the case of many EU politicians. That, however, is not the case in the US. I've heard many people over decades support a good, Rooseveltian agenda of re-regulating and putting in some social checks and balances into the system, hand in hand with arguments like "the US is merely one country among others" and "let's not boss all these foreign folks around and call the troops home."

It is long past that time, since there is perhaps one last chance to repair the mistakes of George Bush and others who - while playing the scary card of aggressive rich investor clubs plus semi-Fascist slogans, messed up half of the Middle East and tarnished the value of the entire West in the eyes of many.

To a smaller degree, Clinton's solution of the Kosovo crisis was belated and messy, but still better than if the world did nothing. The EU was simply biding its time in 1995 and making more business and having arguments between the French and the Germans and the Dutch. As it is doing presently. Making business with Putin until he takes all the small countries of the former Soviet influence and so on...

Holland voted against Ukraine's future acceptance in the EU which is only symbolic. No one imagines that poverty and corruption will disappear from Ukraine overnight just because the country sent its Russian-installed mafia dictator home. But it is scandalous that the Dutch could not even make this symbolic gesture.

And it serves the interests of Vladimir to raise issues of rampant xenophobia all over the West. His clique will continue to profit and trade, and will grow into something even Wall Street has to appreciate.

reg, #3, re: "I agree with every point goodnewsinc makes in this OP. However, as an expat American residing in Eastern or Central Europe where I was raised, I must highlight the foreign policy issue. It could be the tipping point this year. I recently talked to a very intelligent relative who is an ardent Sanders supporter and she just happened to say something like 'call the troops home' or 'exit NATO' in connection with Bernie... That's a pipe dream now and a nightmare of all Europeans and most of the Middle East. The US has been militarily a global power - one of the leaders of the planet, to be sure - after Hitler and Tojo were defeated, unwilling sometimes, with certain discrediting imperialist bad adventures abroad (Viet Nam foremost) and wars motivated by greed, power and world capitalism, having, however, still a better record than the Soviets of Brezhniew's time. Which is resurrecting and needs to be contained."

I'm in complete agreement with everything you just said, which is why I've recently started saying, "I'm in close ideological agreement with Sanders on social and fiscal issues, but I hope he doesn't get the Democratic Presidential nomination, for two reasons. The most important is that I don't think he has as good a chance of being elected as Clinton or any other mainstream Democrat, and a close second is his seeming ignorance of and disinterest in matters of foreign policy."

re: "(BTW did you guys know that an event bigger than Chernobyl already happened at Mayak in the late fifties - and the Soviets then managed to keep the whole thing secret? Western watchers thought it was a test bomb, the clouds did not sweep so much towards Sweden and Norway. It was the world's biggest nuclear blowup to date)."

Actually, rumors about this started circulating shortly after the Three Mile Island incident, but there was no way to prove that the Mayak event was the melt-down of a nuclear reactor and not an underground test of a nuclear bomb that went awry and allowed radioactive material to escape.

re: "Even economically, it is in the long-term self-interest of the US to preserve the balance of power in the European Union, and not let Putin and his puppets (including our prime minister and Marie LePen) upset the balance and annihilate the EU. As a start, the assets of the corrupt tyrants should be frozen and no gas should be bought from them at all. That will do for the Empire...

re: "A sense of economic justice seems to go hand in hand with a distaste for tyrannies and maffiosi in the case of many EU politicians. That, however, is not the case in the US. I've heard many people over decades support a good, Rooseveltian agenda of re-regulating and putting in some social checks and balances into the system, hand in hand with arguments like 'the US is merely one country among others' and 'let's not boss all these foreign folks around and call the troops home.'

Throughout the Sixties and Seventies, I argued with fellow liberals who were embracing isolationism as an alternative to the military imperialism represented by the Vietnam war and the continuing military occupation of South Korea and Japan. I pointed out that the true isolationists of the Thirties were on the right, not the left: they hated the Soviet Union but were tolerant and even friendly to the fascist regimes in Germany, Italy, and Japan. Franklin Roosevelt was never an isolationist, and a major part of the economic New Deal involved the building of modern industrial facilities deliberately designed to be easily converted from the production of consumer items to the production of arms and other military equipment.

re: "It is long past that time, since there is perhaps one last chance to repair the mistakes of George Bush and others who - while playing the scary card of aggressive rich investor clubs plus semi-Fascist slogans, messed up half of the Middle East and tarnished the value of the entire West in the eyes of many."

It was obvious to me at the time that, "This is the last gasp of American military/economic imperialism, and it's bound to do more harm than good to everyone involved: not just in the Islamic World, but in Israel and Europe as well." However, it's still becoming clear just how severe the distaster really was and how long it will take to set things right ... if it can be done at all."

re: "To a smaller degree, Clinton's solution of the Kosovo crisis was belated and messy, but still better than if the world did nothing. The EU was simply biding its time in 1995 and making more business and having arguments between the French and the Germans and the Dutch. As it is doing presently. Making business with Putin until he takes all the small countries of the former Soviet influence and so on... Holland voted against Ukraine's future acceptance in the EU which is only symbolic. No one imagines that poverty and corruption will disappear from Ukraine overnight just because the country sent its Russian-installed mafia dictator home. But it is scandalous that the Dutch could not even make this symbolic gesture. And it serves the interests of Vladimir to raise issues of rampant xenophobia all over the West. His clique will continue to profit and trade, and will grow into something even Wall Street has to appreciate."

I am hoping that over the next ten years, the Democrats will remain in political power in the USA and make a major effort to keep the EU intact and prosperous. I'm sure this CAN be done ... but I have no idea about the odds that it WILL be done.