The thing is… he did. See below.
[quote=“Kimmo, post:199, topic:59394”]
Not as if it isn’t anything he hasn’t already said… folks can check him out on YT going back for years. But as a responsible person, he’s responsive.
[/quote] Indeed, as is Sanders.
For those who still might not understand the confusion some of us found towards the hostility directed at Sanders by #BlackLivesMatter (who I still do support), they should get up to speed on what we already knew about Bernie Sanders.
I think Sanders made some mistakes when BLM very hostilely shouted him down while attempting to respond to their protest. However, I keep in mind the context that it was at a forum for the candidates to speak with limited time on dire immigration issues that deeply effect the lives of hispanics. The manner in which the BLM went about their protest helped to push aside important issues for hispanics and that fact shouldn’t be sugar-coated. That wasn’t the intent of the BLM, however it happened due to poor planning on their part.
No more bullshit.
Despite some media mantras that say so, Sanders was not “befuddled” by the anger over police brutality. He was befuddled that people were choosing to target him with hostility after already addressing the issue (see below) recently along with most of his entire life.
Overall, I blame a lot of the corporate media for that. They purposefully kept Americans in the dark about Sanders and that was reflected in some of the BLM supporters who lashed out at Sanders as if he’s a part of the problem instead of someone who is one of our greatest allies in civil rights today.
On Sanders part, after they kept shouting him down after he attempted to respond, I think he shouldn’t have gotten flustered and realized the complicit corporate media basically set up some factors for that shit-show against him. He should have calmed himself down, swallowed a lot of well-deserved pride and asked the BLM spokesperson back onto the stage to address the issues. He missed that opportunity. He made that mistake.
What’s also been bothering me is how some who support the BLM (as I do) also can’t seem to muster the ability to see how they could have possibly handled their actions any better in proper context of Sanders’ current and lifelong efforts for civil rights. I’m not afraid to say the BLM made mistakes. They did. I’m not afraid to say that Sanders made mistakes. He did.
However, this bullshit of denying Sanders’ record and asking the, “What have you done for me lately?” mantra in a hostile manner is seated in ignorance if one researches his recent efforts up to the PRESENT YEAR. The BLM should have done that and if they DID do that before they greeted Sanders with so much hostility, it certainly didn’t show.
Here are 20 ways Sanders has stood up for civil and minority rights, starting in the early 1950s up to the present year of 2015. If you already think you know all of his past, try giving him the respect he deserves and double-check yourself. Otherwise, skip to the bottom for his current actions:
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Raising Money For Korean Orphans: International solidarity was an unusual concept for any American to have in the 1950s, let alone a high school student. But one of Sanders’ first campaigns was to run for class president at James Madison High School in New York City. His platform was based around raising scholarship funds for Korean war orphans. Although he lost, the person who did win the campaign decided to endorse Sanders’ campaign, and scholarships were created.
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Being Arrested For Desegregation: As a student at the University of Chicago, Sanders was active in both the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1962, he was arrested for protesting segregation in public schools in Chicago; the police came to call him an outside agitator, as he went around putting up flyers around the city detailing police brutality.
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Marching In March On Washington: Sanders joined the mega-rally called by the leaders of the civil rights movement, a formative event of his youth.
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Calling For Full Gay Equality: 40 years ago, Sanders started his political life by running with a radical third party in Vermont called the Liberty Union Party. As a part of the platform, he called for abolishing all laws related to discrimination against homosexuality.
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Standing Up For Victims Of U.S. Imperialism In Latin America: While mayor of Burlington, Vermont, Sanders formally protested the Reagan government’s policy of sending arms to Central America to repress left-wing movements. In 1985, he traveled to Nicaragua to condemn the war on people there. He writes about it in his book Outsider In The House: “The trip to Nicaragua was a profoundly emotional experience…I was introduced to a crowd of hundreds of thousands who gathered for the anniversary celebration. I will never forget that in the front row of the huge crowd were dozens and dozens of amputees in wheelchairs – young soldiers, many of them in their teens, who had lost their legs in a war foisted on them and financed by the U.S. government.”
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Condemned And Opposed Welfare Reform and Dog Whistle Politics: While President Bill Clinton and most Democrats in Congress supported so-called welfare reform politics, Sanders not only voted against this policy change, but wrote eloquently against the dog whistle politics used to sell it, saying, “The crown jewel of the Republican agenda is their so-called welfare reform proposal. The bill, which combines an assault on the poor, women and children, minorities, and immigrants is the grand slam of scapegoating legislation, and appeals to the frustrations and ignorance of the American people along a wide spectrum of prejudices.”
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Vocally Condemned and Opposed Death Penalty and Prisons His Entire Political Career: Sanders has long been a critic of “tough on crime” policies. Here he is in 1991 condemning a crime bill for promoting “state murder” through expansion of the death penalty:
"My friends, we have the highest percentage of people in jail per capita of any nation on earth…What do we have to do, put half the country behind bars? Mistser Speaker, instead of talking about punishment and vengeance, let us talk about the real issue. How do we get to the root causes of crime? How do we stop crime? … I’ve got a problem with a president and Congress that allows five million people to go hungry, two million people to sleep out on the street, cities to become breeding grounds for drugs and violence. And they say we’re getting tough on crime. If you want to get tough on crime, let’s deal with the causes of crime. Let’s demand that every man, woman, and child in this country have a decent opportunity and a decent standard of living. Let’s not keep putting more people into jail and disproportionately punishing blacks.” He also voted for an amendment in the crime bill to eliminate the death penalty with life imprisonment. -
Voted Against Cutting Off Prisoners From Federal Education Funds: In the 1990s, there was a successful effort to end the Pell Grant program for prisoners, which was one of the most effective ways to reduce recidivism. Only a handful of members of Congress voted against the legislation, and almost all of them were members of the Black Caucus. Sanders was one of the few white members who opposed this effort. It passed by 351 to 39. Of those in the House who opposed that vote, few are still serving; Reps. John Lewis, Jose Serrano, Charlie Rangel, and Bernie Sanders stood together at that time and continue to serve today.
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Took IMF To Task For Oppressing Developing World Workers: In a 1998 committee hearing, Sanders took Clinton administration official Robert Rubin to task for not enforcing a provision to protect the rights of workers in Indonesia. “Tell the world now that no more IMF money goes to that country, goes to [dictator] Suharto!” he thundered to Rubin, who later went on to be the chief architect of policies that led us to the Great Recession. “The IMF historically does not have a good record in terms of the poor people of various countries,” he noted, standing up for the poorest black and brown people on the planet, tackling an institution few in Congress dare to criticize.
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Achieved High Ratings From Leading Civil Rights Organizations: A frequent critique of Sanders is that he is from a very white state. While this is true, he certainly has not ignored issues that matter to people of color. In 2002, he achieved a 93 percent rating from the ACLU and a 97% rating by the NAACP in 2006.
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Voted Against the PATRIOT Act: The USA PATRIOT Act was passed in a 98-2 vote in the Senate and a 357-66 vote in the House. Sanders voted against it, and has voted against renewing it every single time. The law has been used to violate the rights of Arab and Muslim Americans, but few know how extensively it has been used in the drug war; from 2009 to 2010, the law was invoked for 3,034 narcotics cases and only 37 terrorism cases.
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Opposed Both Iraq Wars on Moral Grounds: Sanders was opposed to U.S. involvement in both Iraq wars. While many simply talked about the war in terms of the impact it would have on the United States, Sanders went further, saying that the “death and destruction caused” would “not be forgotten by the poor people of the Third World.”
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Traveled to Costa Rica to Defend Exploited Workers: Sanders traveled to Costa Rica to help organize workers opposing the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). While many critics of trade agreements do so on the grounds that Americans deserve jobs that could be lost to foreign countries, Sanders instead practices a form of solidarity politics, saying that workers in both countries are being exploited by corporations and so we must organize workers in both countries.
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Endorsed Jesse Jackson, Spoke Up For Palestinians: In 1988, Jesse Jackson was the first competitive black candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. He came under fierce attack for his advocacy of Palestinian statehood. Sanders came to his aid, organizing Vermonters and winning the state for Jackson. Sanders was asked about Jackson’s comments on Palestine and defended him, saying that the Israeli assault on Palestinians was “reprehensible.”
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Strongly Condemned Police Violence Over the Past Year: One criticism of Sanders is that he avoids talking about police violence in favor of talking about the economy. While the economy forms the bulk of his pitch, he has repeatedly condemned police violence during the duration of the Black Lives Matter movement. Here he is in mid-August 2014, before frontrunner Clinton ever spoke about the issue. Here (8/20/14) are (8/24/14) a (8/18/14) few (6/6/2015) more (4/30/2015) examples (6/2015).
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Embraced Immigrants When Hillary Clinton Refused To Talk To Them: In 2014, young immigration activists repeatedly tried to talk to Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton to ask her about executive action. While Clinton did not talk to them, Bernie Sanders was not only willing to talk, but agreed with their call for executive action.
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Defended Voting Rights Against Voter Suppression Efforts: Sanders earned the endorsement of radical rapper Killer Mike by his leadership on defending the Voter Rights Act and calling for expanding voting rights.
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Fought Against Employment Discrimination: Sanders was a strong supporter of legislation to end workplace discrimination against LGBT Americans.
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Called For End to War On Drugs, For-Profit Prisons and Migrant Detention Quotas: Sanders supports decriminalizing marijuna, and believes the war on drugs to be a failure. Additionally, he has vowed to end for-profit prisons and immigrant detention quotas.
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Put Out Detailed Plan to End Economic Crisis in Minority Communities: Many argue that Sanders views the issue of racial justice in too myopic a fashion by focusing on the economy. But polling of both Latinos and African Americans shows that jobs and the economy is either their top concern or tied for their top concern. Gallup polling shows that 13 percent of Hispanics say immigration is their top concern; 47 percent say the economy is. Meanwhile, among black Americans, 13 percent say “race relations” is their top concern, tied with “unemployment/jobs,” an additional 10 percentage points go to the “economy in general.” Combined, economic concerns make up 23 percentage points while race relations compose 13 percent. If you add in healthcare, at 6 percent, another major Sanders theme, it gets you up to 29 percent. Add in poverty at 7 percent and education at 5 percent and you’re up to 41 percent of African Americans naming Bernie Sanders’ top issues as their top issues.
source for list.
I support #BlackLivesMatter, however they are not infallible. They made mistakes in judgment in the way they attacked Bernie Sanders. I support Bernie Sanders, but he is not infallible. He made mistakes in judgment in the way he handled the protest and he obviously didn’t counter the corporate media’s attempts to hide his recent record enough. Lessons learned for both parties, I hope. The corporate media, of course, will continue to work for their treasonous owners as usual instead of for the American people.
However, let’s knock off the lie (that the corporate media is now parroting) that Bernie Sanders was ignoring current issues. As a matter of fact, I predict the BLM movement and Sanders will become greater allies that will be a great, national nightmare… for racists.
