If Bernie is a sell-out then how come the oligarchs hate him?

Are they just pretending to hate him?
I don't think any sane person thinks that.

And let's not forget that's he's still fighting the Good Fight.

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thanatokephaloides's picture

I also don't think Bernie has sold out. By little bits and quietly, he's still doing what he can.

Although I lack my preferred direct evidence for it, I'm still convinced that the Deep State and its gazillionaire bosses have some significant major threat aimed at Bernie. "We know where you live!" raised to the power of the entire State of Vermont.

Until the forces which have done this to Bernie (and probably AOC and others as well) are publicly and directly exposed by name, we won't have access to any nice things. It's just the way things are.

Bad

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19 users have voted.

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

That is part of his problem!

He has been advocating for people long before I came across him on Thom Hartman radio program years ago. His problem is that his decency deprives him of the ability to go after the jugular vein of those who oppose his policies.

During the last primary he should have torn into Warren and Biden amongst others but unfortunately that is not how he operates.

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16 users have voted.

@humphrey
that's the Occam's razor's answer..
He's just a nice guy

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11 users have voted.

@gjohnsit
in politics and war there is no prize for Miss Congeniality.

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13 users have voted.

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

vtcc73's picture

@humphrey that this is his vulnerability. Bernie would not be Bernie if this trait wasn't part of his fundamental character. I very much would have liked to see him be more aggressive but not at the cost of who he is. Refusing to abide by his principles in every situation and not just when it is convenient, even to get what he has fought his entire life to achieve, is still a violation of the principles that make him who he is. As much as I'd love some wins, I'll take Bernie being Bernie as he is.

We've endured four years of the naked truth about people whose only principle is themselves winning and getting what they want at any price to anyone. I don't want that staring back at me in the mirror. If I'm correct, Bernie doesn't either.

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15 users have voted.

"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."

@vtcc73
forehead

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4 users have voted.

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

vtcc73's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” is the law of the jungle. Look at the state of our people and our country to see the result of this mindset. I hope you’re at the top of the food chain. Otherwise you’re a snack. That is what you’re advocating whether you see it or not.

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6 users have voted.

"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."

@vtcc73
to not wear a "kick me" sign on your back.

Harry Truman said it best, "If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen!"

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5 users have voted.

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

vtcc73's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness @The Voice In the Wilderness 50 years in politics and a reputation for principled stance and working for the disadvantaged among us, rather successfully at that, suggests otherwise. No, he's being criticized and has lost the more, let's say, impatient among us because he wouldn't fight the fight as politics is played in the 21st century. He wouldn't burn down the house and his reputation when he was clearly cheated. He's chosen to live to fight another day which at his age is puzzling. You're right that he could have taken a less destructive approach but chose not too. He's also guilty of not bothering to tell us why. Not that any of us have a valid claim to demanding an explanation. (It's probably along the lines of Mark Twain's thoughts on why we should never explain.) Fair criticism but he's been true to his past actions and is still doing what he's done with some success all these years. I'm also thinking he'll leave the kitchen only when he joins the choir invisible.

When both parties, practically every politician and elected representative, corporations, the media, and the billionaire class are against you and have no ethical or financial boundaries, success is probably not a high probability proposition. Who needs a "Kick me" sign?

I'd love to understand why he didn't choose to fight the DNC and rigged primaries harder. I think he could have taken on both without burning down the house or helping trump by damaging the Dems. He didn't. That's his choice, not ours. The ire of those who don't like it probably won't keep him awake at night. Bernie will keep on being relevant in the ways he's able to be like he has in the past.

We either want better people in elected office or we don't. Bernie for his failings and shortcomings has been a steady presence his entire career. Who else in national politics can compare? How many of the latest and greatest from the past couple of cycles still look attractive? I think the answer says a lot about the quality of the people in politics but I think it says a lot more about us.

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15 users have voted.

"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."

janis b's picture

@vtcc73

Please, can you expand on the last sentence ...

"I think the answer says a lot about the quality of the people in politics but I think it says a lot more about us."

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6 users have voted.
Pluto's Republic's picture

@janis b

...for the people knows the people will betray him or her. They know better than to risk themselves for the people.

As long as people sit silently while Julian Assange is slow-murdered right in front of our faces — they are people who are not worth fighting for. Collectively, they are little more than debris in an unspeakably corrupt nation. The gullible pea-brained peanut gallery of noisy hate.

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4 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
janis b's picture

@Pluto's Republic

I thought of you when I read something recently from a political pundit/blogger who used to be a regular on ’The Panel’, a National NZ Radio program. He hasn’t been invited back to the program in at least 5 years, but writes his own blog and cross-posts at 'The Daily Blog'. If you're at all interested in a NZ perspective, check the references out, in addition to journalist Gordon Campbell who is somewhere in-between more mainstream Radio NZ, and the (usually) more progressive blogs I linked.

This is part of a comment in response to the article linked…

The National Party [subsitute Republican Party] is increasingly irrelevant, rather like a bunch of dinosaurs living on a planet that has been hit by an asteroid. They felt the Earth shake but haven’t yet experienced the tidal wave, the dust cloud and the volcanism. Those are coming very soon, along with extinction … Undoubtedly, there will be many ‘headless chickens running round the yard’ quite soon … But there’s no telling them. They ‘know better than us’, these wizards of global finance, firmly locked into denial of reality and exhibiting delusions of grandeur, these ‘masters of the universe’.

I hope that the Labour Party (substitute the Democratic Party) has a bit more of a fighting chance.

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3 users have voted.

@Pluto's Republic Bernie has spoken out about Assange?

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3 users have voted.

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

janis b's picture

@on the cusp

to ‘speaking out’ about anything sensitively political these days. Seems like a fleeting spark that is quickly extinguished. As much as Sanders or anyone else speaks out about worthwhile issues, the essence gets quickly buried by the next inflammable thing.

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4 users have voted.

@janis b a tv ratings issue, hasn't it?
Bernie famously used his first Amendment rights to protest, getting arrested for it in the process.
The Assange case is the most important challenge to the first Amendment since McCarthy had his rampage. It matters if our elected officials can justify wiping out that Amendment.

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5 users have voted.

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

janis b's picture

@on the cusp

in support of the first amendment are the ones that determine its fate.

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1 user has voted.

@janis b important and influential voices that are silent. How do they sleep at night?

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2 users have voted.

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

@vtcc73
He doesn't belong in politics. Or rather, his function is to act as a Judas Goat.

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5 users have voted.

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

janis b's picture

@humphrey

I don't think it can ever be a part of the problem to be fundamentally decent.

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7 users have voted.
lotlizard's picture

after an unpredictable interval, even long after they’ve been broken and returned to society?

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10 users have voted.

He doesn't DO anything offensive, and gives peeps reason to vote D.
I have been stepping away from party politics because of Bernie, and paying more attention to propaganda, thanks to Bernie.
I know you are not a fan of Caitlin, but her essay featured in the ebs tonight is voicing my opinion.

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15 users have voted.

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

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

Playing Devil's Advocate: If the Clintons were Republicans in disguise, then how come the GOP always hated them? I haven't forgotten how things were in the 1990s, when the GOP was so grotesquely, irrationally partisan (everything Ao Oni would later become in reaction to Trump) that one of my running 9/11 not-even-really-a-conspiracy hypotheses is that the Bush Regime ignored the outgoing Clinton Administration's warnings about bin Laden out of sheer partisan spite (Karl Rove certainly would've cared about nothing more at the time).

As for Bernie, you might say he really is the well-meaning-and-well-informed-but-ultimately-spineless character we used to believe Ao Oni was - but there's still no excuse nor need for his cuddling up with/making excuses for abusive sociopaths.

Give me a candidate who has the political agenda and personal virtue of a Bernie Sanders, and the in-your-face attitude and media savvy of a Donald Trump!

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9 users have voted.

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

@The Liberal Moonbat
Not today's neoconfederate fascist party. Why did Clinton run as a Democrat? Because he wasn't a member of the ruling class, they wouldn't let him in. But he was smart. He saw that if you suck up to business and say the right things to the rabble that you don't really mean, you can get elected.

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8 users have voted.

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

@The Liberal Moonbat @The Liberal Moonbat
The KSA intelligence service paid for the flight training. And it gave Bush an excuse to invade the Middle east. an invasion that is on-going.
Classic imperialism.

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7 users have voted.

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

earthling1's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat
"Give me a candidate who has the political agenda and personal virtue of a Bernie Sanders, and the in-your-face attitude and media savvy of a Donald Trump!"
And we have seen what happens to them (JFK, RFK, MLK ).
Was it not Bolton who told the head of the ICC "We know where your kids go to school"?
To these monsters, human lives become worthless when they threaten the continuing tranfer of billions of dollars to the already insanely wealthy.
IMHO.

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11 users have voted.

Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@earthling1 ...THAT would be all the justification I'd ever need to hunt them all down to the ends of the earth and beyond. This is precisely what they exist to stop.

Other than that, what's your point? I have no use for wet blankets.

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1 user has voted.

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

The two aren't the same thing and Twitter wars are ultimately meaningless.

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13 users have voted.

Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

@Dr. John Carpenter difference in our lives, then being nice is way overrated.
Oligarchs always hate anyone who identifies with socialism. They are wasting their hatred on Bernie. He never crosses them.

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10 users have voted.

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

usefewersyllables's picture

haters. They hate anyone who wasn’t born into their caste.

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8 users have voted.

Twice bitten, permanently shy.

because he never asked their permission to run for president, and managed to win primaries without their money or paid media endorsement.

Also, don't forget that both his presidential campaigns were infiltrated by Clinton/DNC moles.

I am convinced his biggest weakness is not being too much of a nice guy or anything of the sort, but the lack of a robust antiwar foreign policy.

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8 users have voted.

Mary Bennett

snoopydawg's picture

@Nastarana

001-ben-garrison-bernie-02-e1581664965620.jpg

Apros of nothing:
Umm....WAT?

The reason Republican voters are so susceptible to Russian propaganda is because it is literally no different from the crap they hear from right wing media every day.

Isn't that a pot and kettle thing? Or should the bro look in a mirror?

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4 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Hard to believe. I'd call him a Socialist light. His M.O. from the State to the House to the Senate has always been the same. He makes sure that he is acceptable to the Democrat party establishment, and therefore he gets some recognition and power. But then, how can he be a Socialist? That's a dirty word in America. He is a functional Democrat who leans to the Left. Well that's something, but not the revolutionary that he sounds like at times. His rhetoric is amazingly consistent, and suggests a fixed mental pattern on issues. His positions on war and peace are horrible. I have a hard time believing that he actually thinks through issues. He's a puzzle, but better to have him in Congress than other critters. Should we as Progressives follow him, anywhere? No way, it always ends the same way. Fool me once ... you know the rest.

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5 users have voted.

Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.