Bob,
But during the primary, he criticized Hillary for her friendship with
Kissinger and he did talk about how objectionable the US role in the world
had been from Vietnam on. I suppose that he's made this calculated decision
, the one he made originally, that in order to make any change at all, you
need some power in this society. And the only real power lies within the two
major parties. So he thinks that compromises need to be made in order to
work within the party. Well, there was recently a special election for a
congressional seat in California. A corporate Democrat won that seat even
though a reform Democrat was running for it. And even if we look at domestic
policy, many Democrats voted for Trump's appointees. What did they think
they'd gain? Did they think that if they were reasonable and compromised,
that the Republicans would return the favor? And if they wanted to get Trump
out of office, why didn't they compromise on all his business dealings with
Russian criminals rather than trying to make the case that he and his
campaign committed treason because they were talking to the Russians?
Everybody in all administrations has off the record dealings with people in
other countries. I suspect that one of the reasons is that the Democrats
didn't want anyone looking at their business dealings. I think that what
Bernie is doing now, traveling around and working to organize working people
is a good thing. But our country is so tainted. The corporate news media
isn't emphasizing that, that bomb they dropped in Afghanistan is the largest
bomb, other than the two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan, that has ever been
dropped in history. Yesterday, NPR, in its headlines, repeated our
government's lie, that the bomb was dropped in an uninhabited area and that
Afghan observers hadn't reported casualties. I heard Kathy Kelly talking
about that area between Afghanistan and Pakistan in the mountains. She has
lived there. She says it has been misrepresented as uninhabited, but it is
filled with small villages, with lots and lots of people. And given the size
of that blast, God knows how many people were killed and mained.
Supposedly, it was dropped to destroy tunnels where weapons were stored. But
that kind of bomb explodes above the ground before it hits. This is like
Israel in Gaza, only bigger and better. Jeff Halpern wrote a book about how
Israel uses Gaza to test weapons before it sells them on the open market.
The Pentagon had this weapon ready in 2003 but the Bush administration
thought it was too dangerous to use. But now, apparently, they were given
the go ahead to test it. And did one Democrat come out with an immediate
statement condemning this atrocity?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bob Hachey
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2017 9:57 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: No One Can Sit on the Sidelines. Not Now.
Hi Miriam,
Here's my take on Sanders. Domestically, he agrees with a good bit of what
many of us here have been saying for years about things like a living wage,
income inequality, healthcare, campaign financing etc.
But, when it comes to foreign policy, he's much more closely aligned with
the current status quo.
Bob Hachey
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam Vieni
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2017 4:35 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] No One Can Sit on the Sidelines. Not Now.
But he isn't saying enough about these military attacks. If he wants my
support in renewing the Democratic Party, I want to hear about a totally new
foreign policy.
Miriam
Senator Bernie Sanders. (photo: Getty)
No One Can Sit on the Sidelines. Not Now.
By Bernie Sanders, Reader Supported News
14 April 17
With Trump's election, we live in a pivotal moment in American history. This
country will either move in the direction of an authoritarian government
where the rich get richer and everyone else gets poorer, or we will
successfully fight back and build a strong grassroots movement to create a
government which represents all of us, not just Donald Trump and others in
the billionaire class.
That's the struggle we now face. No one can sit on the sidelines. Not now.
The only way we win is when we stand together and fight back. I need your
help to do that.
The bad news is that Trump's agenda - huge tax breaks for billionaires,
enormous increases in military spending, massive cuts in health care and
programs that protect the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor,
horrific attacks on environmental protection and scapegoating the immigrant
community - constitutes the most reactionary set of policies in the modern
history of our country.
The good news is that the resistance to this extremist Trump/Republican
agenda is growing rapidly. We saw that as millions participated in the
Women's March in January. We saw that as hundreds of thousands attended
rallies and town meetings in February and March to successfully defeat the
Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act and throw 24 million
Americans off of their health insurance. We are seeing that now as people
across the country are mobilizing for Green Day events to take on the fossil
fuel industry, combat climate change and transform our energy system to
energy efficiency and sustainable energy.
When we launched our presidential campaign two years ago, I told you that
victory would require the active participation of millions of Americans in
every community across the country. That it would require nothing short of a
political revolution to combat the demoralization so many feel about the
political process. That's what I believed then. That's what I believe now.
And that's what I am attempting to do.
During the last several months I have visited a number of states where
Donald Trump won. My message: working people must not support a president
and a party beholden to powerful special interests and the top 1 percent. We
cannot support a party which wants to divide us up by race, gender,
religion, national origin or sexual orientation.
I was in Wisconsin where progressives are determined to overcome the Trump
victory in that state and elect candidates who, in 2018, will stand with
working people and not the 1 percent. I was in Kansas where, in one of the
most conservative states in the country, over 5,000 people attended a
progressive rally in Topeka. I was in Mississippi, a state today heavily
dominated by the Republican Party, where brave workers in the auto industry
are fighting for a union. I was in West Virginia, where Trump won a
landslide victory, but where many people are beginning to rethink the wisdom
of that decision.
And next week I am going back on the road, visiting areas of the country
often ignored by Democrats. I will be in Maine, Kentucky, Florida, Nevada,
Nebraska, Utah and Arizona. I will be talking about the grotesque level of
income and wealth inequality that we face and the need for the rich to start
paying their fair share of taxes. I will discuss the Medicare-for-all,
single-payer legislation that I will soon be introducing. I will urge people
to join the Fight for $15 minimum wage struggle to make sure all Americans
enjoy a living wage. I will ask people across the country to help us create
millions of jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. I will explain
the need to aggressively move forward for comprehensive immigration reform
and why we must immediately fix our broken criminal justice system.
But I can't do it alone.
Please attend the rallies in your area. Please work with me to revitalize
American democracy and advance the political revolution.
Like I said from the beginning, our political revolution was never about one
candidate. It was about creating a mass movement for real change in this
country. That's the struggle we began. That's the struggle we'll continue.
No turning back now.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
e-max.it: your social media marketing partner
