We call it "Extremism"; Republicans call it "Family Values"
Beware the Ides of March!
As Czar Nicholas II and his family came discovered, a working class uprising can quickly become a revolution with very serious consequences. On this day in 1917, the Czar was forced to abdicate his throne, and the Bolshevik era, led by Vladamir Lenin began.
A friend once remarked that Bernie’s only running on one campaign platform – the inequality inherent in our current economic policies; it was a constant one-note rant.
He thought he’d summed up (derisively) what Bernie stands for, and he missed the message entirely.
Bernie has reclaimed the concept of “Family Values” for the Democrats. His platform is about REAL Family Values, not a bunch of “Thou Shalt Not’s” as the Republicans tried to sell us. He understands intrinsically what the majority of people are facing every day, because he’s lived it himself.
Bernie and his brother in Brooklyn, NY
Bernie is one of us. His entry into this world and childhood wasn’t on easy street with a silver spoon in his mouth; no inheritance baby was he. Born in Brooklyn, NY of Polish immigrants, the family lived in a small, rent-controlled apartment.
Bernie says as a kid he learned in many, many ways what lack of money means to a family. It’s a lesson he says he’s never forgotten. I can believe this. Family hardship in childhood leaves a large imprint that will shape that child for the rest of his life. For Bernie, he took this lesson to heart and started fighting for the average family – that they could have it better than he and his family.
He’s still fighting for our better days. He was a co-sponsor of the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act (FMLA), and has signed on to Patty Murray’s Healthy Families Act. These coincide with his “Family Values Plan: that includes: making sure that all American have 12 weeks of paid maternity leave, paid sick leave, and 10 days a year of paid vacation time.
Family is important to Bernie. You can tell it by the way he embraces a child or an eager voter on the campaign trail. He may have a raging voice for injustice, but he exudes a calm, confident persona. He doesn’t believe in the masks most of us end up wearing thru the day, dependent on what we’re doing and where we are. Bernie is Bernie; there is no hidden mystery here. He is just what he says he is, and proves it every day by walking the walk.
Bernie and Grandkids Trick-or-Treating
Furthermore, he fights for ALL families, including us veterans.
Authored the Veterans’ Access, Choice and Accountability Act
Co-sponsored the Post-9/11 GI Bill to allow a veterans, servicemembers and dependents to seek a college degree.
Co-sponsored the Women Veterans Access to Quality Care Act, to ensure VA facilities meet the needs of women veterans.
Introduced legislation to restore all cuts to military pensions.
As President, he proposes to:
VetsForBernie.org
Fully fund and expand the VA so every veteran gets the care that he or she has deserves. Substantially improve the processing of Veterans’ claims for compensation.
Expand the VA’s Caregivers Program.
Expand mental health service for Veterans.
Make comprehensive dental care available to all veterans at the VA.
Most families’ wants are pretty simple. They want a job that pays the bills and gives them a little left over to save, as well as some spending money. They’d like that to encompass one paycheck, so the wife has the option to stay home and focus her time and skills on raising the children, if she wants. They’d rather not be forced into two or three or four job situations just to make ends meet. They don’t want or expect to obtain a huge fancy house. But they would like one that keeps the rain water out and the warmth of the furnace in on cold winter days.
They want to give their children a good start with good food and nutrition. They want their children to be able to run and play and not be tangled up with constant test taking. They want to set them on a responsible path to adulthood where their future will be as good or, preferably better, than their parents. That’s been the desires of parents since at least the end of WWII. And, up until the Reagan era, that’s what they could expect. How small are our options today?
Bernie invites us to dream big with him. Nothing that he’s proposing is so far from what has either been proposed in the past or actually was the law in the past. FDR’s New Deal was fought against as hard as anything President Obama has proposed during his terms. Even in those days, FDR knew the New Deal didn’t go far enough to protect and serve us. The idea of a “New, New Deal” was tossed around, one which would expand our rights and civil privileges of government. That expansion was never accomplished.
Our hopes are that Bernie can restore the New Deal accomplishments of FDR that Republicans and Third Way have either restricted or killed outright. Dreaming big, I hope he can craft and pass (with a favorable congress) the New New Deal that was proffered back in the late 1930’s.
These are only parts of the life and rights Bernie wants for the country’s parents. With our help, we can do it. Not Me; US!
Grandpa — Turning his back on the Ides of March!
