Discouraging Protest Vote, Sanders Says: Elect Clinton—Then Mobilize

Reiterating why he thinks it is crucial for the future of the country, as well as the planet, that Republican nominee Donald Trump not be elected U.S. president, former Democratic candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders called on his supporters Friday to "think hard" before casting a protest vote.

"Let us elect Hillary Clinton as president and that day after let us mobilize millions of people around the progressive agenda which was passed in the Democratic platform." —Sen. Bernie Sanders"Look, I was a third-party candidate. I began my career running as a third party, getting 2 percent and then 1 percent," Sanders said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "I'm the longest serving independent in the history of the U.S. Congress, but I think that before you cast a protest vote, because [Hillary] Clinton or Trump will be president, think hard about it. This is not a governor's race. It's not a state legislative race. This is the presidency of the United States."

The remarks were made one day after new polling found that roughly a third of likely voters aged 18-29 are considering voting for a third party candidate. Sanders said that he understands that voters are "not enamored" with their choices, but emphasized the importance of looking "at the issues."

"If you are a working person, do you really think that billionaires need a large tax break? Which is what Trump is proposing. If you are an ordinary American who listens to science, do you think its a good idea that the President of the United States rejects science and says that climate change is a hoax?" he asked. "I think that if you look at the issues—raising minimum wage, building infrastructure, expanding healthcare—Clinton, by far, is the superior candidate."

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/09/16/discouraging-protest-vote-sa...

***

Well, finally. After all the bullshit I've told myself about hanging in and seeing what Sanders is really up to, staying in to see if he really had something 'up his sleeve', I finally hit the hard brick wall of reality. This old duffer can bite my ass. He's turned us over to the neo-liberal wing of the Democratic Party to be screwed over. I don't care what he said about 'supporting the nominee'. The 'nominee' is a lying crooked cheating ($&^$ who robbed us of a fair primary. And if he thinks he's going have any power after this, he needs to go talk to Dennis Kucinich and see what happens to those who try to fight the official party line.

Anyway during the primary, weren't we told by the Clintonistas that they didn't need us anyway? Both Sanders and HillBillary can go bugger off.

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lunachickie's picture

And I am not responsible for everybody else's comments here.

What I am trying to understand is how anyone can even have the opinion that he sold out because he's just another pol. That is not the least bit demonstrable unless you choose to look at this one election in a vacuum. How do you make an opinion if not on information? Don't you want your opinion to be based on actual fact?

It's infuriating to read that same refrain over and over. It's as if there's no other possibilities and there are. Hence my continued mystification at the repetition that "Bernie sold us out". Great example: if he'd actually sold us out, why isn't he on the fucking ticket as Her Heinous' VP?

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

the Clintons are too stupidly arrogant at this point to understand that Bernie as VP would be a much more effective gesture of dominance than Bernie stumping for HRC while Tim Kaine becomes VP.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

[deleted]

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since he campaigned for Bill Clinton. I don't think his acting consistently with what he has said and done for the past 20 or so years = betrayal. http://caucus99percent.com/comment/176027#comment-176027

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Amanda Matthews's picture

lot of unsolicited responses on the internet. And so it goes.

BUT now it really gets down to either having courage and faith in your life-long convictions (and your entire primary campaign platform) to stand up fight or no. The cheating was so obvious and in-our-faces. Did he bargain for all that when he made his promises? If he did, then what the Hell was all this about a 'revolution' and a new way of government? See, not only did HE get cheated, all the people who went to his rallies and gave him their money and believed every word he said got cheated too. Maybe even more than Sanders. One of their biggest rights as citizens of this country was not only was taken away from them, they were told by the assholes that did it that they were misogynists, haters, Berniebros, and they really didn't care what we knew or thought about what they were doing. That was worth "taking it all the way to Philly" if you ask me. Which is something he easily could have done and then surrendered to her after the that. That "we're taking it to Philly" was something that kept people giving their hard earned money, money which they may well have really needed for themselves, even after it became obvious that it was rigged and the Clinton machine was going to end up the nominee.

Why would we have believed in him? We came to think he believed in what he was telling us and that he would plainly see that we couldn't/can't afford to keep handing the keys to the White House over to a person who has absolute and total disdain for the average American, and sells us out not only to our own corporate overlords but to foreign nations like the Saudis or the Swiss for money and power and to make their own handlers happy. We bit into the sound bites about there being a "Better Way".

By the way, that last paragraph was pretty condescending and snarky.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

[deleted]

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lunachickie's picture

It is hard to read these "he fucked us all on purpose" missives, when you know it's just the most gut-wrenching anger talking. Except that even wrenching anger among the most cynical of us actually does mellow with time.

The fact that it seems to be doing so everywhere else but here is rather curious. I read some of these missives, and I think that anger hasn't mellowed one bit for a few of my friends here. And it makes me sad. But it is also very disconcerting that they cannot--or worse if they "will not"--explain what it is that drives their certainty that there could be no other explanation other than "he fucked us over because he's just like them".

This doesn't read like a realistic conclusion on a couple of levels. I seek only to understand, because I know damned well a guy with a record like that doesn't throw it away lightly for anything.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

think. And thus far I haven's seen anyone ask you to back up your claim that people are accusing Sanders of his sudden support of the Clinton creature because he's greedy. I've not seen one person on this site make that claim, and I've spend an inordinate amount of time on here the last couple of days. I could have missed it. Maybe you could help me out. I'm curious to know who would make that claim. I'd like to know their reason.

And I would greatly appreciate the proof of the gynormous claim that he was 'assaulted'. You put that claim forth like it's a proven 'fact' and you say it's the ONLY explanation for what has happened. He's being forced to support her. Why is that? According to what evidence? It's not what he's saying. Is he lying? How do you know? Gynormous claims require gynormous evidence. Your idea that people who don't see things your way can't possibly have a valid opinion, or that they're making false accusation that Sanders is 'greedy', but you cite no examples, is actually what you claim everyone with an opinion different than yours is doing.

Now, that just don't ring right somehow.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

1)Bernie was a ringer/sheepdog from the beginning.

Nope, not for my money. The media response to him was all wrong for that.

2)Bernie was for real, and genuinely lost the election.

Um...no. Too much evidence of election fraud. Up to our ears in it. 196K people purged in Brooklyn alone--by someone who got to sell her ramshackle tenement at a few million above its value....to a Hillary Clinton superdelegate.

Always nice to see someone appreciates the classics. Who needs Diebold when you have straight-up bribery of pubic officials to rely on?

3)Bernie was for real, the election was stolen, and Bernie is supporting Hillary now because he genuinely believes that racist Donald Trump is a worse threat than someone who uses election fraud to get what she wants.

Possible, but unlikely. Both racism and election fraud are so awful that anybody with a grain of sense would choose neither. In fact, anyone with a grain of sense would call for a break with the entire system that produces that choice.

4)Bernie was for real, the election was stolen, and Bernie is supporting Hillary now because she bribed him with something. Money, position, whatever.

Again, not for my money; if Bernie were corruptible via bribes, it would have happened long since, wouldn't it? As far as I can see, he's been advocating against corporate power and corruption for a couple decades now; have there been no attempts in all those years to get him to shut up about something via a bribe? That's not the DC I know. Anyway, why would Hill bribe him when she could bully him? Look at her entire attitude toward people left of her in this election. It's not even "let them eat cake." It's "Fuck them, why give them anything?"

The story about threatening to take away his chairmanship underscores my point: she didn't offer to make him an Ambassador, she threatened (through her friends Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid) to take away what he already had.

5)Bernie was for real, the election was stolen, and Bernie is supporting Hillary now because she threatened him with something.

To me, this is the most likely scenario.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

gulfgal98's picture

of the possibilities. I agree with your conclusion too.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

riverlover's picture

Occam's razor and all that. Maybe his book will say, I don't know if he has handlers or even a ghost writer for that, my guess would be not. But his book may still be censored.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Amanda Matthews's picture

then I really have no respect for him. He's telling us that we need a 'revolution'. But then when things get tough or he's 'threatened' with the prospect of hostility from the Shiilary administration, he runs back to his safe space and we're supposed to keep on doing something, fuck if I know what. The old yadda yadda, conference calls, New This and That bullshit line again. That old man needs to NEVER use the terms 'Better Way' and 'Revolution' ever again.

I hope the 'next big thing' that stands there calling for 'revolution' and a 'Better Way'has more guts than Sanders did, and understands that he's got to put have some 'skin' in the game too. He must have thought that this was some kind of a game where you can get people all wound up, tell them they need to get on the Sanders Express "all the way to Philly", and then when it comes down to the bottom line you fold faster then John Kerry did when the question of cheating in Ohio came up. People gave Sanders their allegiance, trust, money, and support. What did they get? Some guy who thinks that he doesn't owe allegiance to his supporters and that he can just join the other side and all those that were cheated will 'understand'. Well, most of us DON'T UNDERSTAND and are not happy. He needs to just go away.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

shaharazade's picture

If my memory serves me well he said many times he was in it to win all the way. You can't have it both ways and people should remember a pol is a pol, including Bernie. As for winning the nomination he did. I'd say Stanford University is not a left leaning place these days and even they say the primary was rigged. He like every pol lies 'the most progressive platform ever'. Nah not at all progressive not even close.

I respect the movement that turned out to support him including myself. I think it's a big big mistake to get emotionally involved and start loving or hating any pol. Identifying with a pol is not very democratic as it places and confuses the cult of persona above the people and issues that make up real movements.

I did not get sucked into being a whole hog Berner as I was appalled at his 'foreign policy' positions and thought he was weak tea as far as taking on The Mad Bomber. I think most of us who supported and turned out for Bernie have enough sense to realize the movement is not about Bernie. Bernie never owned or even started this movement. It's still alive and has been for decades all across the world.

So no offense to Bernie but please he's just another professional pol. I liked him as a senator but really what did he do other then weak amendments that did not amend the damage done and empty useless speeches passed off as symbolic filibusters. He promised a lot of stuff and then knuckled under when push came to shove. I like him as a person, what's to dislike about The Brooklyn Deli guy? However he is what he is a professional pol who plays his part well and really is no danger, never was to the existing status quo.

As for all this bs. about his being threatened or beat up it's as stupid to get hung up on as this insanity about the Mad Bomber health gruesome fixation. Who cares they all are all unworthy of getting hung up on. Look to the peope globally they are not going to be bogged down with all this bs from pols and they will and can make strange bedfellows and take these fuckers down including Bernie. So sorry to not respect a pol,. He has nothing more to do with the people who placed their faith in another compromised and owned pol. Get real get these fuckers out of power by refusinjg to consent to their bullshit.

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[deleted]

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this year. It did not work out so well for me and other mobilizing persons.
So, I will pass on mobilizing against the shitty candidate/President.
I am tired, too tired for all that mobilizing that has proven to be ineffective.
Bernie wagging a finger in my face is totally not energizing.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

My vote for Jill Stein won't be a protest vote. I am voting to get the Green Party to 5 percent so they can be a "real" political party. And yes, I'm done "mobilizing" for now. I have already set a personal best this year in terms of time and money devoted to politics, with very little to show for it.

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"We've done the impossible, and that makes us mighty."

That could have paid off the ad valorem taxes I will be paying in December.
Dammit.
Bernie now sounds like all he was trying to do was get people interested in the political process.
Well, that is not what I gathered from his splendid campaign.
I saw a man laying out his ideas for the proverbial little man, whom he rightfully claimed has been economically, socially, and politically abused for decades.
And if we small people mobilize against the woman he is dependent upon for some positions on some committees, we will have a part in the political process!
Fuck that.
I resent what he said.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

If Putin's not lying, he was compromised via threats to his wife.

At this point, I'd flip a coin on that one. Putin lies, of course, but the Clinton machine, and the forces that back it, apparently can't stop lying. Or bullying people.

Could they have descended to the level of physically threatening people?

Well, folks in Puerto Rico said voters were threatened that they'd be killed if they didn't vote for Hillary. Supposedly only happened in the prisons (in PR, prisoners can vote, and apparently a prison gang was putting out threats that if you didn't vote for Hillary, you'd be killed). This was reported in Puerto Rican press, but was not reported in any English-language press, so few know about it.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cachola's picture

It happens only in prison. Although pastors do suggest that if you don't vote for the pro-statehood party you are in cahoots with the devil.

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Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur.

ggersh's picture

sorry but I'm with Putin on this.

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

josb's picture

Remember how he said we shouldn't listen to him if he loses? Good advice.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

how he couldn't just hand us to Clinton like drinks on a tray. How it 'didn't work that way.' How it wouldn't matter, in a way, even if he did hand his donor list over to her.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

lunachickie's picture

he couldn't just hand us to Clinton like drinks on a tray. How it 'didn't work that way.'

I don't see her poll numbers bumping upward, do you?

And for the life of me, I cannot figure out why anyone would doubt for a minute that these people wouldn't stoop to physical violence, unless your brain just simply won't go there as a defense mechanism for your own sanity...

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Love ya, man, but I'm writing in "None of the Above." The lesser of evils is still an evil.

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Hawkfish's picture

None of them appeal?

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We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

TheOtherMaven's picture

There are three, NV, OK and SD. And in three others (IN, GA, and NC) the Green Party is only a write-in option.

The Libertarians claim to be on the ballot in all 50 states, but I don't know if they're counting write-in status as being "on".

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

Doing so will help with ballot access in 2020. IMO, doing whatever we can to begin to break the one-party system that masquerades as a two party system is a good thing.

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I think that if you look at the issues—raising minimum wage, building infrastructure, expanding healthcare—Clinton, by far, is the superior candidate.

It's an incredibly weak pitch given her record. She didn't support the $15 minimum wage at all until NY passed it independently, and she still refuses to explicitly commit to it or talk about how it will be enacted on a national level. In other words, it's pure lip service with no concrete plan to back it up.

Does anyone think that infrastructure will be a priority for a President Clinton II? Maybe if you define defense spending and funneling more money into the MIC as "infrastructure," but in terms of modernizing our roads, bridges, water systems, and public utilities? I sure don't. If anything, I see her cutting infrastructure spending and forcing more privatization onto us.

Expanding healthcare? First, what does she intend to do about Obamacare, which is about to implode into itself? Then, how is she going to ensure that we start on the path to a single payer system? Hillary herself said that achieving it was impossible and that it wasn't worth trying for, so if the best that we can hope for is a better version of health insurance reform, what's the point?

And even worse, in terms of climate change, she might believe in the science, but she also supports the TPP and opposes a carbon tax. In other words, she recognizes the problem, but refuses to do anything about it. How exactly does that make her better than Trump? To me, that makes her worse, because she is purposely ignoring a problem that needs to be urgently addressed.

What Bernie is presenting here is not a winning argument.

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Shockwave's picture

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The political revolution continues

Neither Trump nor Clinton is the right vote.

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I find it to be insulting that my vote is called a "protest" vote when I am voting my conscience.

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Hillbilly Dem's picture

Writing in "Mickey Mouse", now that would be a protest vote. Jill Stein is the genuine article. And BTW, she has my vote.

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"Just call me Hillbilly Dem(exit)."
-H/T to Wavey Davey

Wink

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WaterLily's picture

I see what you did there. Smile

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RantingRooster's picture

From Ring of Fire's YT channel, Farron Cousins breakdown the Youth vote and how Hillary is loosing to G. Johnson with the youth vote. Holy intercourse batman!

Hillary Clinton is only beating the Libertarian Party candidate by 2 points among voters aged 18 – 34. This age group is abandoning the Democratic Party, and that could be a disaster for the Party’s future.
(emphasis mine)

WTF are these kids smoking? Gary Johnson?

[video:https://youtu.be/KNQT_wJtqOw align:center]

Of course there this on Bernie Sanders, with Chris Hedges and Ralph Nader.

[video:https://youtu.be/vQ1JZXR8EG4 align:center]

Whether you like Nader or not, he certainly has Bernie pegged.

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C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote

ThoughtfulVoter's picture

Thanks for the Nader interview. He predicted millions of demoralized Bernie supporters...guess he was right.

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lunachickie's picture

I'll bet you can't find a million people who are that demoralized. Even if you could, the other 15 1/2 million will be voting for Dr Jill Stein.

(sorry, just sayin'! Smile )

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During the 2008 campaign season, I heard lots of things about Obama and fought against them instead of taking them to heart. And then, Obama got elected to Bill Clinton's third term on steroids, but with Hillary as SOS and Bush the lesser's War Secretary--and Gates was probably the less crazy one in that deadly duo.

After Obama, I swore I would not be duped again. However, had I seen this video for the first time in March 2016, instead of September 2016, I probably would have condemned Nader and Hedges, instead of taking what they said to heart. That makes me think I may just be perennially dupe-able. As Perot might say, "That's just sad."

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Amanda Matthews's picture

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

Creosote.'s picture

Nader talks about what Sanders could have said or done, says, "But why didn't he do that?" Hedges responds low key and plainly, "Beause they'd destroy him." Nader can only respond, missing the bodily seriousness of the threat, "How could they do that?"

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Ravensword's picture

It's odd and annoying that a non-binding platform is the hill he's chosen to die on.

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lunachickie's picture

that he can't get kneecapped over if he tries to talk it up.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

he can talk about changing the Democratic party from within by mobilizing voters to vote for "progressive Democrats" who will gradually move the party left.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

TheOtherMaven's picture

Not with REgressives at the top of the ticket. That would be breaking his "deal". Notice he threw Tim Canova under the bus because Tim was up against Shill-buddy DWS.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

that you and Luna both missed. Dangers of talking satirically on the Internet.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

lunachickie's picture

Bernie Sanders cannot talk about that? Cannot--not will not--CANNOT.

I love ya, CStS, but this assumes that Sanders can talk freely and openly, via the "media" or at appearances, about any of this. And it's simple--no one should believe that's a reasonable assumption anymore.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

the Establishment WANTS Bernie to push shit like Our Revolution and Brand New Congress, as a nice convenient time-sink that will do nothing to change anything, but will sound really good and will produce a lot of work for workaholic well-intentioned lefties to do.

And some of the candidates will be actual progs, and some of them will be crappy Establishment candidates, and just enough real progs will be let through to maintain the illusion of some kind of fair and not rigged electoral game.

The way this goes, I think, is a lot like the way this guy described what was happening with Occupy and the media--listen at the end, when he's talking about the Establishment as a 3-card-monte table. Apply it to politicians rather than the press, and it basically looks the same:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9zkQcLi4Yo]

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

lunachickie's picture

Name three:

workaholic well-intentioned lefties

OR is going nowhere. People are starting to see the "time suck" motif for what it is--good for not much.

No, really, I get ya--I just think we'll see more "giving up" than trying to save that wreck of a Party. The only thing that bothers me is people dropping out of the entire process altogether. That really sucks.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Hillary's numbers are tanking and it's our fault. So disappointed that Bernie continues to dance for them.

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ThoughtfulVoter's picture

The liberal establishment’s Clinton obsession is blowing up in its face

Hey, Democrats, where were you? Hey liberals, where were you? The potential train wreck that is the Hillary Clinton candidacy didn’t just become evident last week when ill-chosen words about 25 million “deplorables” and a public near-collapse tanked her polls to make this a tied presidential race.

No, Democrats and liberals, the possibility of Hillary crashing and burning was there from the outset of her candidacy. And yet you stood there and let it happen.

And his surprising strength in running against her — Sanders ultimately secured 44 percent of the Democratic primary vote — should have made clear that whatever the mainstream Democratic view, ordinary Democrats did see her as shifty, untrustworthy and someone they did not wish to vote for.

Well, here we are. And here you are, Democrats and liberals. There will be a lot of blame to go around if Trump wins. But a significant share will go to you, because you live in a bubble so impervious to reality, you didn’t realize that nominating a widely disliked person with legal and ethical problems might come to bite you in the ass in the end.

http://nypost.com/2016/09/17/the-liberal-establishments-clinton-obsessio...

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Shahryar's picture

does he really think we'd believe this? He'd be better off if he were very, very tepid for Hillary, saying "she's terrible, but..." instead of praising her.

He does hold back a little, but not enough.

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divineorder's picture

inevitable blame game that will surely follow HRC loss?

###

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

ThoughtfulVoter's picture

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featheredsprite's picture

doesn't mean that you own us.

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Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.

But it's well known in the Midwest. "If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas." Bernie needs some flea powder.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

snoopydawg's picture

I read somewhere that the deal he has with them is that they wouldn't run a democrat against him in Vermont if he promised to caucus with the democrats or something to that effect.
And after telling us for 15 months how bad Hillary and the democrats are, why does he think that we wouldn't believe him and vote for them anyway? No way, Bernie. It sure would have been nice if you had spoken out about the election fraud and how so many people were kicked off the voting rolls or had their party affiliation changed. Since you didn't raise a peep about that then I'm going with the sheep dog angle. But I do thank you for taking the blinders off my eyes and telling me the truth about how corrupt the democrats are. And guess what? You can't walk that back. Ever.
I didn't vote for Obama's second term because I think that is saying that I approve of what he had done and is going to continue doing.
I'm very against killing innocent people who happen to live in a country that has the resources that the corporations want to get their hands on.
Other countries make deals with others, but the US believes that it can take what it wants people be damned.

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There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?

Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.

ThoughtfulVoter's picture

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any Democrat who runs against Bernie and Bernie votes with Democrats on "administrative" matters, whatever they are, unless he gets permission. But he is supposedly always free tp vote as he wishes on substance. I suspect cloture votes are considered "administrative," but, when Democrats are in the minority, it's all they've got.

On substance, they can, of course, always try to coax him, pretty please, to vote with them. And, for a guy without Party funding or Party donors, Democrats' agreeing not to put him through a campaign is a large carrot/stick.

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pswaterspirit's picture

He has had democrats run against him before and still won by a landslide. He is golden in Vermont I have several friends who live there one friend said as long as he wants the job it's his because people trust him. He has yet to let them down. He has no trouble defeating anyone who has run against him because he is supported by people with a broad spectrum of ideologies from liberal democrat to conservative republican.

He has thought out how he wishes to proceed with this I don't agree with it but we all have the right to make that choice. I respect his decision and will look in the future to hear his ideas once the election is over.

The real Bernie was at standing rock a couple of days ago. I have several friends and relatives that are camped there. They said he was awesome he spent a fair amount of time there talking to people, hearing their stories and giving practical advice on different avenues they could use to make progress.

He told us if he lost not to listen to anything he said did no one believe him? I take him at his word on it

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promised him they won't support anyone who runs against him?

He has had democrats run against him before and still won by a landslide.

Which Democrat ran against him for the U.S. Senate? When? Did the DSCC back that Democrat? If so, link, please.

He has no trouble defeating anyone who has run against him because he is supported by people with a broad spectrum of ideologies from liberal democrat to conservative republican.

Do you not see a difference between winning a battle against a Democrat who is backed by the DNC and the DSCC and their donors, and for whom Dean, Schumer, the President and other popular Democrats campaign versus not having to fight that battle at all, and to have Democratic Senators and Democratic Presidents campaign with and for you instead?

FYI, something like this has been in Bernie's wiki for years.

Sanders entered the race for the U.S. Senate on April 21, 2005, after Senator Jim Jeffords announced that he would not seek a fourth term. Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, endorsed Sanders, a critical move as it meant that no Democrat running against Sanders could expect to receive financial help from the party. Sanders was also endorsed by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Democratic National Committee chairman and former Vermont governor Howard Dean. Dean said in May 2005 that he considered Sanders an ally who "votes with the Democrats 98% of the time".[115] Then-Senator Barack Obama also campaigned for Sanders in Vermont in March 2006.[116] Sanders entered into an agreement with the Democratic Party, much as he had as a congressman, to be listed in their primary but to decline the nomination should he win, which he did.[117][118]

As an independent, Sanders worked out a deal with the Senate Democratic leadership in which he agreed to vote with the Democrats on all procedural matters, except with permission from Democratic whip Dick Durbin (a request that is rarely made or granted). In return, he was allowed to keep his seniority and received the committee seats that would have been available to him as a Democrat; in 2013–14, he was chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs (during the Veterans Health Administration scandal).[124][125] Sanders was free to vote as he pleased on policy matters, but almost always voted with the Democrats

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders

Most politicians scrub their wikis regularly, especially if they run for POTUS. The fact that this is still in his wiki after he ran in a Presidential primary seems pretty convincing to me.

He has thought out how he wishes to proceed with this I don't agree with it but we all have the right to make that choice. I respect his decision and will look in the future to hear his ideas once the election is over.

The real Bernie was at standing rock a couple of days ago. I have several friends and relatives that are camped there. They said he was awesome he spent a fair amount of time there talking to people, hearing their stories and giving practical advice on different avenues they could use to make progress.

None of that has anything to do with my post.

He told us if he lost not to listen to anything he said did no one believe him? I take him at his word on it

He told us if he lost not to listen to anything he said did no one believe him?

First and foremost, link, please?

Second, that seems totally inconsistent with what you said a few sentences earlier, namely,

He has thought out how he wishes to proceed with this I don't agree with it but we all have the right to make that choice. I respect his decision

So, I should ignore all his emails asking me to donate more money and telling me to vote for various Democratic Senators? Happy to oblige!

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

I think maybe you should ignore them. I think maybe he'd actually want you to ignore them, under these circumstances.

Of course, no proof--it's all speculation.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

I'm lost, though. No proof of what?

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

And continue to fight the machine.

We're not inside his head; no way to know.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

pswaterspirit's picture

He said so during his campaign speech in Vancouver, WA. "If I lose don't listen to anything I say." He may Have been joking or maybe not. I accept it at face value.

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lunachickie's picture

"If I lose don't listen to anything I say."

I didn't think he was kidding, either.

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and could not find it quickly. Seems as though something as unprecedented as that would have been big news.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

read that he ever said it. And if he did, I'd have had to wonder what kind of hypocrite is he a lot sooner than his sudden capitulation way before his much promised "taking it all the way to Philly" nonsense.

Some day I'd like to see one of these guys calling for 'change' actually mean it.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

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pswaterspirit's picture

So no links can't do them.

He has had an ongoing agreement with the Vermont democratic party that they nominate him and he declines the nomination. They did this as I understand because no one they ran against him lost with appallingly low numbers.

If Vermont is anything like Washington state as my friends and fellow electrical engineers who were born here but work there say it is endorsements and DNC money would simply get him more votes. That's what has happened in the past here. Not only did Henry Jackson keep his Senate seat his opponent a former popular governer had his political career destroyed. Out of state money is not a popular thing in some places.

As for the rest as I said we are all entitled to our opinion. Bernie is entitled to his. You are entitled to yours and I am entitled to mine.

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lunachickie's picture

It would really behoove you to find a PC at some point, long enough to link to this, because this is not "opinion", it seems to be a fact you're alleging:

He has had an ongoing agreement with the Vermont democratic party that they nominate him and he declines the nomination. They did this as I understand because no one they ran against him lost with appallingly low numbers.

Because I'm just not getting the point here. And I'm not trying to be an asshole about it at all, I'm just sayin', because I follow this stuff like gangbusters, and I missed that "agreement". Have no idea what you're talking about. A link would really help.

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ThoughtfulVoter's picture

Up thread, in the Nader interview there was comments about Bernie's relationship with the Dem party vis a vis who runs against him in Vermont. It is toward the end of the interview and the video is embedded in a post by RantingRooser at 7:36pm Friday.

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lunachickie's picture

I just wish there was a transcript to compare it to, because this makes no sense to me as stated upthread:

because no one they ran against him lost with appallingly low numbers.

Is that Nader, saying Sanders owes his entire career to inter-party wheeling and dealing in Vermont? That the Vermont Democratic Party stacked the deck against anybody ran against him, any time he ran? Because....wow, well, that would be a new one, wouldn't it?

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http://caucus99percent.com/comment/176076#comment-176076

I don't think Nader said anything like Sanders owes his entire career to the agreement, but what Nader says is not dispositive on this subject anyway.

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Bernie has shifted from being revolutionary and demanding sweeping change - to being an incrementalist - as if that is his only choice. His behavior now is uncharacteristic.

Personally, I think he should be raising the roof on the rigged primary and disenfranchised voters. I think he should Bern it down as best he can.

I agree with Lunachickie. He has been forced by threat to be doing what he is doing. He might not mind threats to himself and Jane might not mind threats to her, but grandchildren and children are a whole different story.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

The open, arrogant, and insulting way we who didn't want the DNC candidate and were denied our vote cannot stand. If they get away with it now, we might as well just freaking forget any future elections. Let them just tell us to screw off up front and cut out the spewing of the bullshit DNC excuses and lies.

A revolution will NOT WORK if you sit by silently while your supporters are screwed over by TPTB. He is abandoning us up to some very horrific people. He is joining them in fact. Because this is a woman who has no problem with coups and despots and taking their side while poor people and children struggle and die. Either by being murdered by the military narco -terrorists who are assassinating people fighting for their rights, or by falling out of their parent's arms as they are trying to get in a lifeboat to escape the bullets and the bombing and the poisonous gas that we provide 'our' allies. She has and had a lot to do with the spread of these weapons. This is a woman who is responsible for so much blood and misery that it's mind boggling that anyone calling themselves a Liberal or a Progressive OR A DEMOCRAT (if even for a few months) would even support her.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

MsGrin's picture

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'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member

Amanda Matthews's picture

awful.

Millions of us lost our right to a fair primary. But as long as Sanders doesn't 'lose' anything that's all that matters. I mean, why should he have to put up or shut up like the rest of us do?

EDIT: Lost/lose

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

Don't fall for the spin. I'm not making a protest vote. I'm voting for the candidate who I think is the leader this country needs.

I also read they're bringing Al Gore out on the campaign trail to remind everyone that Nader cost him the election. Nevermind that 11% of Democrats voted for George W. Bush, the decision to only do a sample re-canvassing, the Supreme Court decision, or the horrible Vice Presidential candidate. Nope, it's all Nader's fault. Zombie lies never die.

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Bisbonian's picture

I'm voting for the candidate who I think is the leader this country needs.

Me too. If enough of us do, it will make some difference.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

lunachickie's picture

own home state. The guy who rolled over on the recount.

Yeah, I'm gonna believe every word that blurts out of his mouth. Good lord, what idiots actually think he'll help?

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WoodsDweller's picture

Because Hillary is running out of washed up politicians who will return her calls.

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

no matter what - their malfeasance should not be rewarded.

So my plan is that if I'm in a swing state, I'll vote for Trump. If my state is strongly Clinton or Trump I'll vote Green.

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Not Henry Kissinger's picture

... just to spite you.

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

Just know that write in votes do not get reported anywhere and voting Green could help the Greens with ballot access next time.

Candidly, Greens do not seem serious enough, but, in my view, something has to start breaking the two-party stranglehold and Libertarians are too far right for my taste.

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Not Henry Kissinger's picture

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

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