Bernie Sanders has a long record. It ain’t all pretty. It seems at every turn, he prioritizes Corporate Gun Manufacturers, like GE (The General Electric Company), over people.
From POLITICO:
Even as he took criticism from his right for spending too much time on global issues, Sanders was occasionally the target of leftists who felt he didn’t go far enough. That was the case in the summer of 1983, when protesters targeted Burlington’s General Electric plant, which produced Gatling machine guns supplied by the U.S. to its proxies in Central America.
Sanders resisted their calls to shut down the plant, arguing that it was unfair to punish workers for corporate policies influenced by Washington.
“I’m not going to throw 3,000 people out of their jobs at union wages and create a depression,” he said in an interview at the time.” In another interview he argued that “you cannot spilt the movement and push workers to one side and have peace activists on the other side.”
Here is how The New York Times described things.
When Bernie Sanders, a self-declared socialist, served as mayor here in the 1980s, he often complained that the United States had its priorities wrong, that it should be diverting money from the military to domestic needs like housing and health care.
So when dozens of antiwar activists blocked the entrance to the local General Electric plant because it was manufacturing Gatling guns to fight the socialists in Central America, the protesters expected the mayor’s full support.
Instead, he lined up with union officials and watched as the police made arrests, saying later that in blocking the plant, the activists were keeping workers from their jobs.
It was a classic example of how Mr. Sanders governed — as a pragmatist. He tended to talk globally but act locally, in this case choosing the real and immediate socialist principle of protecting workers over blocking the making of weapons to fight leftists abroad. Although he often shouted about foreign affairs, Mr. Sanders was consumed with running the city.
BERNIE SUPPORTED GE MANUFACTURING GATLING GUNS TO KILL BROWN-SKINNED PEOPLE
So, General Electric — one of the world’s Big Businesses and War Profiteers — was manufacturing Gatling Guns in Burlington and shipping them to Central America where they would be used to GUN DOWN BROWN-SKINNED PEOPLE.
Peace Activists appealed to then-Mayor Bernie Sanders. When that didn’t work, they blocked the entrance to the GE Gatling gun manufacturing plant.
Bernie didn’t join the activists. He didn’t stand up for peace or use his position of power to help the little guy. To the contrary, he watched as cops arrested the protesters!!!
Bernie was wrong then.
BERNIE STILL SUPPORTS IMMUNITY FOR GUN MANUFACTURERS LIKE CORPORATE GIANT GENERAL ELECTRIC
Bernie is still wrong in his unwaivering defense of Big Businesses who manufacture guns.
During an interview with the New York Daily News editorial board, Bernie was asked about his position in favor of immunity for gun manufacturers and in opposition to allowing victims of gun violence to sue gun manufacturers.
Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-Conn.), former Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Jillian Soto, the sister of Victoria Soto, a Sandy Hook Elementary School first-grade teacher who died in the December 2012 massacre, all ripped Sanders for the comments he made to The News’ Editorial Board last week opposing allowing victims of gun violence to sue gun manufacturers.
HOW WILL BERNIE BREAK UP THE BANKS WITHOUT CAUSING JOB LOSS
Several others have written about the position Bernie took on the GE Gatling gun manufacturing plant. One that caught my eye was from diarist HumanOfEarth. Here’s a link. I’ll quote from it because it exemplifies a typical defense of Bernie’s positions, no matter how wrong they are.
Bernie’s belief that government should put money towards people, not war, has absolutely nothing to do with his decision not to close down a factory. His choice wasn’t about where to direct government funding, but about whether to allow protesters to punish factory workers because of Washington’s policies.
Bernie didn’t pick “protecting workers over blocking the making of weapons to fight leftists abroad,” but called for the workers and peace activists to unite in that fighttogether.
He never abandoned the protesters, but stopped them from hurting the factory workers’ ability to survive and support their families. He never stopped talking globally, he just wanted the people to put those global efforts towards making constructive change. He never abandoned his foreign policy perspective, but refused to allow the people to fight amongst themselves.
Why should 3,000 individuals lose their pay because of the federal government’s foreign policy?
That’s the insanity of crabs in a bucket attacking each other instead of the person who put them there.
Bernie is campaigning in New York. He has said: “We must break up too-big-to-fail financial institutions.” (source)
Won’t breaking up the Big Banks cause individuals to lose their pay? Of course it will.
HOW CAN ANYONE TRUST BERNIE SINCE HE HASN’T BEEN PROPERLY VETTED
How can anyone believe Bernie will do anything he promises after examining his public record.
1. He claims he’s for world peace, but he put a few union jobs and his love of corporate gun manufacturers over the people of Central America.
2. Gun violence has ravaged the country, especially poor Black communities. Bernie is more concerned about the gun manufacturers than the victims of gun violence.
3. If Bernie wouldn’t break up GE’s Gatling gun plant because doing so would cause job losses (there’s no proof that the plant couldn’t have been re-purposed for another use) why would anyone believe he’ll break up the Big Banks when doing so would most certainly cause job losses?
4. Bernie says he’s against mass incarceration, and he’s appalled that African Americans and Latinos comprised 57% of all prisoners in 2014. But Bernie VOTED for the 1994 Crime Bill that led to hundreds of thousands of Blacks and Latinos being tossed in prison.
5. Some people don’t like this truth, but it is the truth. Bernie co-sponsored legislation to give reparations to Jews, but he flat out refuses to support legislation to study reparations for slavery.
POSTSCRIPT
Anytime any member of this community questions Bernie, they can expect a bunch of angry responses. Bernie’s folks love to shout down critics, silence debate, and use one of their favorite lame slurs “you’re a troll”.
If Kos wasn’t founder of this site, I’m sure they would’ve worked to get him suspended or banned for his diary “Successful movements are about more than one person”. They complained in the comments. Others wrote separate diaries to attack the man for speaking his truth.
I fully expect people to complain about this diary and call me a bunch of names. It’s really all Bernie’s people have to offer — there’s a reason they’re called “BernieBots”.
But for the good of the Democratic Party and the progressive movement, Bernie needs to be vetted before it’s too late!!! He’s already looking like a fool now that he’s being aggressively questioned by the New York media.
Sidenote: Why doesn’t Bernie ever hold press conferences? Even Donald Trump is expected to take questions from the press now. Why is Bernie given a free pass? Why do some in this movement expect so little from those who seek to lead us?