I get what you’re saying, but it’s a valid point that it’s never happened before 2106 because of misogyny because there had never been a female major party presidential candidate.
1 Like
Preaching to the choir my friend.
The point I always like to make is that focusing voting on the lesser evil shouldn’t get in the way of working towards something well, less evil.
Vote Democrat, but also work towards a less corrupt and more representative govt. that doesn’t necessarily involve them.
2 Likes
McCain’s not Trump, and Warren is not Clinton.
2 Likes
For proportion, let’s just remember that Hillary (or Al Gore or Mitt Romney for that matter), had s/he been President in 2003, would never have invaded Iraq in the first place. As for her support, Bush and Cheney did a great deal of outright lying and intelligence fabrication to push the war through. In retrospect, the correct decision is obvious; at the time, less so.
3 Likes
In its entire history, the USA has never gone a single decade without waging war.
The longest period of peace was in the leadup to WWII (1933-1941), and that was primarily because the nation was divided on which side to take.
3 Likes
It’s almost as if a considerable number of the loudest Bernie supporters were fans of their imagined Bernie, who would never have voted to fund the war in Iraq because that’s not what the Ideal Leftist Messiah Bernie would do, instead of the real Senator Sanders who, like every politician ever, has his share of compromises, mistakes, and bad ideas on his record.
2 Likes
But it did work in 2008, 2012, 1992, 1996, etc. In fact, when the Democrats have moved to the left with progressive antiwar candidates like McCarthy and McGovern they were slaughtered in the elections, and the rhetoric around McCarthy’s run, that he would bring in new votes from the young and economically disenfranchised, was eerily similar to the rhetoric one hears today.
As you frequently like to remind us, the US is a nation of right-wing warmongers, it isn’t at all obvious that the only candidate who can win is someone well to the left of the general public.
That doesn’t mean he can’t win, and those of us who can vote in the primaries should support the candidate who we like the most for whatever reasons we like them. The primaries are the perfect time for that.
Meanwhile @Papasan’s meme is spot on, hopefully Democratic voters can get to and through the primary season without slashing and burning our own potential candidates. And if some voters on either wing of the party is deciding already that they will never vote for a candidate on the other wing should she or he win the nomination, then they are not taking the plight of the country (and the world) seriously.
2 Likes
I agree. Being a politician is the number one indicator of ambition, which is the number one indicator of compromised integrity. I’m not looking for ideological purity, but that vote is absolutely unforgivable. I was a soldier in 1998 and clearly remember the 1998 vote (though I wouldn’t have known who Bernie was at the time). A resolution is just a statement, not an authorization of war (even though I disagree with it and his vote as well). The fact is that the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions were wholly unjustified, brutal bloodlust. What is especially egregious and unforgivable about the Iraq war vote is that congress fought for months to ensure that the president had to seek congressional approval for an authorization for war powers and then rolled right over like a good little puppy even though they all knew that there was absolutely no evidence or justification for invasion. They just thought the winds were blowing that way and thinking of holding their seats (which was almost certainly Bernie’s calculus as well, both for 1998 and the war vote).
I actually agree with continuing to fund such an action, however cynical and idiotic, because to not do so would have likely resulted in a full-blown civil war, genocide of the Kurdish people, and another despotic regime. We still ended up with ISIS.
The point is, we should put a permanent end to interventionist US policies. Nearly every “hotspot” in the world today is the direct result of our meddling or our meddling in Russia’s meddling employing nefarious means that only serve to fund chaos when the inevitable power vacuum comes. I’ll vote for anyone who makes that core to their platform.
3 Likes
please note the above comment. Not all Berniebros! ;~)I see this crap trotted out a lot, mostly by people who are too young to remember how things went down in 2003.
-
Hillary was largely responsible, as secretary of state, for our invasion of Libya, which puts lie to any argument that she’s not an inveterate warmonger.
-
In 2003, the foreign media (e.g. Guardian and Der Spiegel) were reporting on the details of why the Iraq invasion was based on lies. Also, the people telling these lies were the very same people that lied to the nation in the Iran-Contra scandal. (Fool me once…) Sensible people understood that we were being lied to.
-
I understood that we were being lied to, and was protesting in the streets, and got pepper sprayed and later run off the road by horse cops. I would say that makes me more qualified to make policy decisions than anyone gullible enough to believe those lies. (Bernie also understood this in 2003, which also makes him fundamentally more qualified to make policy decisions than people who were gullible and warlike enough to start a war under the pretext of flimsy lies.)
-
The Democrats controlled the Senate in 2003. Bush couldn’t have done it without their help, and they are just as culpable.
-
All of the above also applies to Biden.
3 Likes
Is he really to the left of, say, Warren? I feel like there’s an automatic assumption that the grumpy old man is always the biggest socialist.
Looking at On The Issues for Gravel and Warren, I really don’t see it. He’s maybe more progressive on crime and punishment. She supports reparations and he doesn’t. On most things, it’s a wash.
We can possibly thank Sanders and others like him for possibly being the cause of this, but most of the major candidates are significantly more progressive than the crop was 4, 8 and 12 years ago.
1 Like
Are you talking about the vague, unanimous 1998 bill that allocated a piddling sum to help internal Iraqi agitators to broadcast, train their military personnel and distribute humanitarian aid while they oppose Saddam?
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/105/hr4655/summary#libraryofcongress
That’s…not a great argument, considering all of his other consistent votes against authorizing invasion or use of force by the United States, in both the fist Gulf War and the post 9/11 travesty…
1 Like
All I can tell you is that his campaign team (the people who persuaded him to run) are associated with some of the left wing subreddits.
I also think this is the first time I have seen a Democratic candidate approve a message that mentions Mikhail Bakunin in a positive way.
I think there may also be an Outside Context Problem within the Democratic Party, as they struggle to deal with completely alien ideas (Like the Democratic Socialists of America Libertarian Socialist Caucus)
3 Likes
I was around for Ferraro’s VP bid, trust me there was plenty of misogyny then.
I don’t see how that was relevant. None of the primary opponents went after Mondale because of Ferraro; she hadn’t even been selected as his running mate until 2 days before the convention.
In 1998 Sanders voted in favor of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which said: “It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.”
yeah, bud, that’s the one I linked to. It makes your statement technically correct in only the slimmest interpretation and majorly misleading in real world terms. It was $94 million (pentagon paperclip budget, basically) toward communications, military training and humanitarian aid to pro-democracy political and paramilitary groups in Iraq. Basically voting to say “This is a shitty, tyrannical leader and these people deserve an opportunity to vote” is a far cry from authorizing or voting for boots-on-the-ground, bombs-in-the-air war, which he voted against both before AND after that 1998 vote when Biden, Clinton, et. al. voted for. It’s some weak-sauce both-sides-ism, is what I’m saying.
I bet you like that there’s a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives that can hold the current presidency accountable. So perhaps you can spare a thought for those Democrats tenuously holding seats in red and purple States that make this majority possible. Big government giveaways on the taxpayer’s dime is a tough sell in places like that.
I’m not saying “you can’t haz” for progressive policies, but this is a big country with variety of concerns chief among them is if the country even wants to be a democracy anymore. It’s insane that the United States, richest country in the world, is the only developed country without universal care, but it would be far worse if it turned into a fascist autocracy.
It’s your right to vote for Trump if you don’t get an offer for free college and healthcare from the other party, but I’m pretty sure that’s the last time you’ll ever get to vote in a presidential election ever again should he win. And if you think the government doesn’t care about what you want now, just wait till they don’t need your vote to stay in power.
If it was just paperclip money about unimportant stuff… they he easily could have voted no. Your excuses for him do the opposite of exonerate him. He voted for something that explicitly calls for regime change. Sorry, those are the facts.
"It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.”
