Some people say that they cannot support Bernie because he's not a Democrat. But I would argue that he's more of a democrat by nature, more in tune with what democrats are supposed to be about, than most beltway democrats these days. Modern establishment dems are all about the money and pleasing their mega-rich donors, and precious little else. Admittedly there are exceptions but they are relatively few. Virtually all play the Big Money game. They insist they can't survive otherwise. Bernie is out to prove them wrong.
”I don't work for big corporations and I don't want their money.”
Bernie Sanders
”Virtually every campaign for president has a superPAC funded by millionaires or billionaires. Not me!”
Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders has not only long caucused with the democrats, but continues to live progressive values and principles, even after the majority of Democrats abandoned them (to a greater or lesser extent) to become Republican-lite and chase after corporate money. Everybody here knows that's true - and the honest ones will admit it.
I don't mean to be harsh in my judgment of democrats but merely to acknowledge the truth of what has happened. It's not any one person's fault, it's just the way our system has devolved into dependency on Big Money donations, and thus corruption, maybe a 'soft' corruption but corruption nonetheless.
As Bernie said about Hillary saying she has to take superPAC money, “I understand where she's coming from.” So I'm not condemning anyone or pointing fingers, I'm just saying that we need to reject this devolution and corruption as the death knell to democracy that it is. And that is exactly what Bernie has done. Virtually everyone said that rejecting corporate money and superPAC money would doom his candidacy. He's very courageously proving them wrong.
Bernie is the best thing that ever happened to the Democratic Party.
Unlike Sanders, Clinton and Biden are comfortably nestled with most of the other Democratic Party leadership in the left hand pocket of the country's military-financial complex. Would either be better for the country than one of the crowd of reactionary clowns running for the Republican nomination? Most probably. But given our experience with them, can we seriously think that Hillary or Biden would stand up to Wall Street? Clean the neo-con networks out of the Pentagon and State Department? Reverse the relentless march to inequality? Most probably, no.
Thus, Bernie Sanders' candidacy has created a moment of truth for Democratic voters, testing how serious they are about changing the country's direction. We cannot be certain, of course, that even a President Bernie Sanders could loosen Big Money's stranglehold on our democracy. But we can be certain that neither of his rivals would even try.
Bernie Sanders: A Moment of Truth for Democrats
Bernie, and Bernie alone, is standing up to the corporate bullies and the Big Money corruption of our politics.
Sanders, the Vermont senator leading Hillary Clinton in polls of New Hampshire, said the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal will lead to the loss of U.S. jobs, adding he was “disappointed but not surprised” by the decision to complete it.
“Wall Street and other big corporations have won again,” Sanders said. “It is time for the rest of us to stop letting multi-national corporations rig the system to pad their profits at our expense.”
Sanders blasts ‘disastrous’ Obama trade deal
We've got one guy sticking up for us. One guy. We need him as president.
Finally, Bernie Sanders is the only candidate whose allegiance is to the American public and not Wall Street and the military machine. He's the only one who sees and understands the travesty of our horrifically fucked up spending priorities. We should be using our economic might to relieve human suffering, not cause it.
“War should be in my view, the last resort of a great nation.”
Bernie Sanders
"Let us wage a moral and political war against war itself, so that we can cut military spending and use that money for human needs."
Bernie Sanders
This is a big one for me. I am antiwar and pro-human. I worry about anyone who is not both of those things at this stage in history. After all the horror we've seen, from Vietnam to Yemen, do we really want to back another war hawk? Have we learned nothing? I am sick to death of watching plutocratic 'leaders' mislead us into one insane military debacle after another. When's it going to stop?
Haven't we seen enough needless and mindless destruction? Are we not tired of all the mass murder, killings, bombings, torture, widows, orphans, amputations, brain injuries, post traumatic stress disorder, refugees, homeless veterans, limbless veterans, veteran suicides? Don't we believe that all of humanity, our veterans included, deserve better? Don't we care that wasting our resources on unnecessary wars is foolish, crazy, shameful and immoral and prevents investment in all of the worthy things we could and should be spending those trillions on?
We need to quit accepting this madness as though it were normal or sane.
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
Krishnamurti
We
are a profoundly sick society and we'll never be anything better if we don't seize this rare opportunity to turn this battleship around. We need to bring the Pentagon (where trillions of dollars have simply gone missing) to heel and quit wasting our national treasure on hurting and killing people on a massive scale.
Don't we want to ever provide better education, health care, social security, sound infrastructure and an all around better society for all of us instead of pouring our money down the black hole of war? Do we even care about our government acting like monsters in foreign lands? Does it keep us up at night thinking about the horrors being committed in our names? Do we ever stop and think about the frightened children hearing American bombs coming closer and closer to their village? Or the wedding parties or gatherings of old men that get droned into oblivion for looking suspicious? Or the children whose fathers come home from war disabled, disfigured, changed forever and not for better – or about the ones whose parents never come home at all? Have we lost our capacity for compassion? Have we lost our minds? Have we become brainless, soulless, heartless idiots enslaved to the machine? Have we no fucking shame?
People who are pro-war, pro-TPP, pro-Wall Street, pro-Corporate America and pro-environmental destruction already vote Republican.
I am going to vote against the madness, horror and unspeakable evil of war and torture, the exploitation of the working class and the insane and foolish destruction of our ecosystem. I am going to vote against the ruthless domination of the billionaire class and the Big Money corruption in our political system. I am going to vote for a bright and hopeful future of peace and progress for our nation and for all of humanity.
I'm going to vote for a true progressive. I'm going to vote for Bernie Sanders.
