Hopeful thought for fellow Berners: no matter what happens in 2020, in 2024, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will be old enough to be the first woman President. Let that sink in. Think about how much we (Bernie and all of us) have changed the dialog in our country. We have already done that, no one can undo it, and, no matter what, our movement will go forward. Hopefully, we win the nomination and the Presidency in 2020. America desperately needs that. But even if we don't: we have US. We have brilliant, passionate, eloquent young leaders like AOC. And, whether it happens in 2020 or later, one day, our platform will be America's reality.*
( * Unless it's too late by then and we lapse into total fascism and oligarchy, which we're pretty close to at this very moment, but this was supposed to be a hopeful thought/musing! I'm just saying: whether we win or not-so-much this year, in some ways, we truly have already won, because we've really started a movement and, no matter what, it, and we, will GO ON.)
Saturday, March 7, 2020
Friday, March 6, 2020
A Rose By Any Other Name Still Smells As Sweet
As an ardent Bernie Sanders supporter who has many friends among my fellow Democrats who are not, I find it very dismaying, upsetting and ironic to read posts and comments on social media mischaracterizing Bernie and we who support him. Bernie Sanders is the most decent, classy person and campaigner I’ve ever witnessed. In 2016, journalists and debate moderators were constantly trying to bait him to personally attack his opponent, Hillary Clinton, and he would not. For example, he refused to entertain questions on the whole email server thing, and said he wanted to stick to the issues. He constantly said, throughout 2016, that he hoped the debate between candidates for the nomination would be substantive, stick to the issues, and avoid personal attacks. And he stuck to that and ran a beautiful campaign.
His entire life’s work, platform, choices and actions, up to and including his 2020 campaign for the Democratic nomination for President have all been about INCLUSION, respect, civil rights, social justice, economic fairness and a society that invests in and is for and about all the people, not just the wealthiest individuals and corporations. At every campaign rally, from 2016 through the present, he talks about how “we cannot allow anyone to divide us up. When we stick together, black and white, straight and gay, men and women, old and young, there is nothing we cannot do.”
Most of us who support Bernie, do so precisely because of the decency of both the man and his platform, period. I, and every other actual Bernie supporter I know, are kind, fair-minded, loving human beings. So it hurts to see us constantly mischaracterized on cable news networks and on social media as being the opposite, and I won’t even give the specific words that are being used ANY oxygen.
What is so ironic is, I see and hear all this commentary about how terrible Bernie and, particularly, us Bernie supporters are. Yet, from our perspective as Bernie supporters, it sure seems like WE are the ones taking a lot of incoming missiles and being generalized about.
Perhaps if people would actually take the time, and make the effort, to listen to what Bernie himself actually says, and what is actually in his platform, and his life’s choices and actions, instead of believing what is said *about* Bernie and those of us who support him, by the media and those who aim to take down his campaign, they would realize that Bernie stands for respect, tolerance, pluralism, civil rights, social justice, economic justice and inclusion. There is zero way, if you actually LISTEN to what Bernie says, that anyone could misconstrue it as being--as the media and those who oppose Bernie are working very, very hard to have you believe, and are clearly having success at getting you to believe--the opposite.
His entire life’s work, platform, choices and actions, up to and including his 2020 campaign for the Democratic nomination for President have all been about INCLUSION, respect, civil rights, social justice, economic fairness and a society that invests in and is for and about all the people, not just the wealthiest individuals and corporations. At every campaign rally, from 2016 through the present, he talks about how “we cannot allow anyone to divide us up. When we stick together, black and white, straight and gay, men and women, old and young, there is nothing we cannot do.”
Most of us who support Bernie, do so precisely because of the decency of both the man and his platform, period. I, and every other actual Bernie supporter I know, are kind, fair-minded, loving human beings. So it hurts to see us constantly mischaracterized on cable news networks and on social media as being the opposite, and I won’t even give the specific words that are being used ANY oxygen.
What is so ironic is, I see and hear all this commentary about how terrible Bernie and, particularly, us Bernie supporters are. Yet, from our perspective as Bernie supporters, it sure seems like WE are the ones taking a lot of incoming missiles and being generalized about.
Perhaps if people would actually take the time, and make the effort, to listen to what Bernie himself actually says, and what is actually in his platform, and his life’s choices and actions, instead of believing what is said *about* Bernie and those of us who support him, by the media and those who aim to take down his campaign, they would realize that Bernie stands for respect, tolerance, pluralism, civil rights, social justice, economic justice and inclusion. There is zero way, if you actually LISTEN to what Bernie says, that anyone could misconstrue it as being--as the media and those who oppose Bernie are working very, very hard to have you believe, and are clearly having success at getting you to believe--the opposite.
Sunday, March 1, 2020
Democratic Party: Embrace Your Base!
I'm trying to figure out why the political party I've been a member of my entire life (since age 17--I think I somehow registered at 17, so in 1979, but if it wasn't at 17, it was 18, 1980, okay--suffice it to say, dinosaurs still roamed the earth), and that I have been a consistently loyal, voting member of, ta boot, is treating the only presidential candidate in my entire life's history who actually represents me as a mortal threat to the party and our country.
The only other presidential candidate I have ever been this excited about, this passionately FOR, was my beloved Al Gore. But even Al, who is, obviously, great on climate change, and a great human being and leader, did not represent ME--my exact platform and exact world view in virtually every single way, on every single issue, and as a WHOLE--like Bernie Sanders does. His platform is my platform (except he's for open primaries and I'm not, but there had to be SOMETHING--some small issue--we disagree on). He's a democratic socialist, I'm a democratic socialist. His heart is in Vermont and my heart is in Vermont. He's for all the things I've been fighting for my entire, entire, ENTIRE life: peace, protecting the environment, single payer health care/universal health care, federally mandated maternity and paternity leave for workers, federally funded child care, everyone paying their fair share of taxes. I mean, I could go on, but the man is MY candidate. His platform represents me. Me, a lifelong Democrat. Me, whose lifelong party is now acting like, if this truly great candidate wins our nomination due to the will of the Democratic voters, it would be the end of the world.
I am stunned, shocked and disgusted with my party's centrist spokespeeps right about now. You've got James Carville, for example, running around saying he's "terrified" and that Bernie's platform is a ...wait for it...this was last night on MSNBC..."utopian fantasy". You've got basically the entire party running around talking about: how do we STOP SANDERS?!!!
My question to my party, after I have spent a LIFETIME shouting into the intense wind that the party needs to stop trying to be "Right Lite" and to woo Republicans and Independents, and instead needs to EMBRACE THE BASE, stand for progressive/liberal issues and be a true ALTERNATIVE to the Right, show some backbone, and GROW THE BASE, is: why, when someone (Bernie!!! 💜) comes along and does that, inspires entire new generations (Millennials, Gen Z and beyond) of young people, brings them, enthusiastically into the party, fired up, and with a substantive, LIBERAL/progressive platform to get behind, WHY, WHY, WHY are you trying to "stop" him?!!!
Isn't this what we WANT? Don't we want to bring massive numbers of young people into our base, our party? Don't we want to have a fired up, impassioned grassroots base, people who VOTE, people who go out in the deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep snow and knock on doors, a candidate who casts off corporate lobbyists and is funded solely by said grassroots? Isn't this all amazing, inspiring, breathtaking, heartening, and, in a word, GOOD?
What is your ever-lovin' problem, James Carville et al.? Quit your disparaging and realize that YOU are what the party should be terrified of: pundits and party spokespeeps who show shocking levels of overt disdain and outright, inexplicable anger over a beautiful grassroots influx of young people, your beautiful long-suffering grassroots of not-as-young-as-we-used-to-be liberal Democrats who have been putting up with YOUR ruining of our party since 1984, to be precise, when you decided we needed to be Reagan Lite and, face it, you've never gotten over that misguided decision. And now you are finally being forced to HEAR US: your ACTUAL base. You know: LIBERALS. PROGRESSIVES. We are who you should embrace, not be terrified of!
EMBRACE YOUR BASE!
BERNIE 2020! It's a GOOD thing!
The only other presidential candidate I have ever been this excited about, this passionately FOR, was my beloved Al Gore. But even Al, who is, obviously, great on climate change, and a great human being and leader, did not represent ME--my exact platform and exact world view in virtually every single way, on every single issue, and as a WHOLE--like Bernie Sanders does. His platform is my platform (except he's for open primaries and I'm not, but there had to be SOMETHING--some small issue--we disagree on). He's a democratic socialist, I'm a democratic socialist. His heart is in Vermont and my heart is in Vermont. He's for all the things I've been fighting for my entire, entire, ENTIRE life: peace, protecting the environment, single payer health care/universal health care, federally mandated maternity and paternity leave for workers, federally funded child care, everyone paying their fair share of taxes. I mean, I could go on, but the man is MY candidate. His platform represents me. Me, a lifelong Democrat. Me, whose lifelong party is now acting like, if this truly great candidate wins our nomination due to the will of the Democratic voters, it would be the end of the world.
I am stunned, shocked and disgusted with my party's centrist spokespeeps right about now. You've got James Carville, for example, running around saying he's "terrified" and that Bernie's platform is a ...wait for it...this was last night on MSNBC..."utopian fantasy". You've got basically the entire party running around talking about: how do we STOP SANDERS?!!!
My question to my party, after I have spent a LIFETIME shouting into the intense wind that the party needs to stop trying to be "Right Lite" and to woo Republicans and Independents, and instead needs to EMBRACE THE BASE, stand for progressive/liberal issues and be a true ALTERNATIVE to the Right, show some backbone, and GROW THE BASE, is: why, when someone (Bernie!!! 💜) comes along and does that, inspires entire new generations (Millennials, Gen Z and beyond) of young people, brings them, enthusiastically into the party, fired up, and with a substantive, LIBERAL/progressive platform to get behind, WHY, WHY, WHY are you trying to "stop" him?!!!
Isn't this what we WANT? Don't we want to bring massive numbers of young people into our base, our party? Don't we want to have a fired up, impassioned grassroots base, people who VOTE, people who go out in the deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep snow and knock on doors, a candidate who casts off corporate lobbyists and is funded solely by said grassroots? Isn't this all amazing, inspiring, breathtaking, heartening, and, in a word, GOOD?
What is your ever-lovin' problem, James Carville et al.? Quit your disparaging and realize that YOU are what the party should be terrified of: pundits and party spokespeeps who show shocking levels of overt disdain and outright, inexplicable anger over a beautiful grassroots influx of young people, your beautiful long-suffering grassroots of not-as-young-as-we-used-to-be liberal Democrats who have been putting up with YOUR ruining of our party since 1984, to be precise, when you decided we needed to be Reagan Lite and, face it, you've never gotten over that misguided decision. And now you are finally being forced to HEAR US: your ACTUAL base. You know: LIBERALS. PROGRESSIVES. We are who you should embrace, not be terrified of!
EMBRACE YOUR BASE!
BERNIE 2020! It's a GOOD thing!
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