[mike777]

SANdERS Is famous for doing nothing over 25 years in central govt.
At the very least he votes against everything regarding war....fighting for a war.

[awm]

Bernie is not a perfect candidate -- he is older and sometimes seems grouchy or says tone deaf things. I don't agree with his position on guns and his knowledge of foreign affairs seems lacking. With that said, there are two huge issues that I believe are very important, where Bernie is the only candidate in the race doing the right thing.

1. Climate change. This may be the most important issue of our lifetimes. Republicans don't even acknowledge the problem! Hillary (and Obama for that matter) are willing to make incremental changes but both have supported fracking (terrible for the environment, causing earthquakes and ruining drinking water and releasing methane into the air) and an "all of the above" energy strategy including subsidies for ethanol, oil, and gas. We need to make big moves on this issue, not small ones.

2. Money in politics. The most obvious example of the impact is the trade deals we keep signing where big US companies and their shareholders get rich and working Americans lose their jobs. Clinton has supported every such deal. She has taken millions in campaign contributions bundled by lobbyists (reversing Obama's rule of no lobbyist contributions). Her paid speeches would've been illegal when she was in the Senate or SoS or a presidential candidate. Sure they were technically legal when she was out of office but everyone knew she would run for President and likely win so at least the appearance of corruption remains. Not that the billionaire-funded Repubs are better of course (and Trump is just cutting out the middleman -- can anyone seriously believe that a guy who made billions screwing over his employees, his contractors, and his investors is really "for the little guy"?)

[Zelandakh]

kenberg, on 2016-April-10, 18:28, said:

Now that I take him seriously I don't much like him.

Is there a serious American plitician who is also likeable? Presumably not Trump or Clinton...

On the subject of inequality, I am by no means a socialist but many studies have shown a strong negative correlation between inequality in society and happiness. Even some on the right regard this as a serious issue (at least publically) so you certainly do not need to be a socialist to want to address it. I doubt many middle-class people believe that it can really be correct to tax lower earners considerably more than high earners but that is the truth in most Western economies these days. When you factor in tax avoidance schemes, the difference in real tax rates (including VAT, etc) is alarming. I would applaud it if the issue is seriously being addressed over there.

[kenberg]

awm, on 2016-April-10, 22:41, said:

Bernie is not a perfect candidate -- he is older and sometimes seems grouchy or says tone deaf things. I don't agree with his position on guns and his knowledge of foreign affairs seems lacking. With that said, there are two huge issues that I believe are very important, where Bernie is the only candidate in the race doing the right thing.

1. Climate change. This may be the most important issue of our lifetimes. Republicans don't even acknowledge the problem! Hillary (and Obama for that matter) are willing to make incremental changes but both have supported fracking (terrible for the environment, causing earthquakes and ruining drinking water and releasing methane into the air) and an "all of the above" energy strategy including subsidies for ethanol, oil, and gas. We need to make big moves on this issue, not small ones.

2. Money in politics. The most obvious example of the impact is the trade deals we keep signing where big US companies and their shareholders get rich and working Americans lose their jobs. Clinton has supported every such deal. She has taken millions in campaign contributions bundled by lobbyists (reversing Obama's rule of no lobbyist contributions). Her paid speeches would've been illegal when she was in the Senate or SoS or a presidential candidate. Sure they were technically legal when she was out of office but everyone knew she would run for President and likely win so at least the appearance of corruption remains. Not that the billionaire-funded Repubs are better of course (and Trump is just cutting out the middleman -- can anyone seriously believe that a guy who made billions screwing over his employees, his contractors, and his investors is really "for the little guy"?)

Zelandakh, on 2016-April-11, 03:04, said:

Is there a serious American plitician who is also likeable? Presumably not Trump or Clinton...

On the subject of inequality, I am by no means a socialist but many studies have shown a strong negative correlation between inequality in society and happiness. Even some on the right regard this as a serious issue (at least publically) so you certainly do not need to be a socialist to want to address it. I doubt many middle-class people believe that it can really be correct to tax lower earners considerably more than high earners but that is the truth in most Western economies these days. When you factor in tax avoidance schemes, the difference in real tax rates (including VAT, etc) is alarming. I would applaud it if the issue is seriously being addressed over there.

I agree with both of these. And I really am trying to decide what to do. I have settles (it was easy) on Chris Van Hollen to replace the retiring Barbara Mikulski but I am having trouble choosing from the field of 7 fot Van Hollen's replacement. And then there is Bernie/Hillary.

Hillary is definitely politics as usual, Bernie is definitely not as usual. Back in 1968. Eugene McCarthy was unusual. I preferred Humphrey or, especially, Robert Kennedy. By instinct, I am not the revolutionary type.

As mentioned, over the years I have known many people, mostly in academia, who remind me of Bernie. Very intense. Maybe more intense than practical. By "don't much like him" I of course mean as a candidate. Many years back we had someone I knew fairly well elected as our faculty representative to the state capitol. Personally, this guy and I got along fine. But I was tempted to write to the governor and tell him that under no circumstances should he think that this character was representing my views. How did he get elected? Very few people would be the least bit interested in taking on such a role.

This WaPo piece by Larry Summers is maybe not all that deep but gets at an issue, I think. I would put it as: Globalization is not going away, how do we cope? Breaking up the big banks and taxing the billionaire class might help some but then what? Of course when placed against the hallucinatory Donald Trump anyone can look sane, but I am cautious about signing on. Once Bernt, twice shy.

Anyway, I am working on it. I expect I will vote for Hillary.

[y66]

Smart piece by Summers. Hope to hear more along the lines he proposes from Hillary Clinton's administration.

[barmar]

Is this election the most "least of evils" in recent history? When Obama ran, I was eager to vote for him. This year, it's a reluctant "I've got to vote for someone."

[kenberg]

barmar, on 2016-April-11, 09:57, said:

Is this election the most "least of evils" in recent history? When Obama ran, I was eager to vote for him. This year, it's a reluctant "I've got to vote for someone."

For me, ad I think for many, the most stunning thing is the total disaster of the Republican process. And not only the selection of their candidate. I can well imagine people supporting Romney or McCain but Trump? Are they nuts? And this total lack of cooperation on the Supreme Court. They really cannot see that a highly qualified candidate with no great ideological baggage would be very good for the country? I guess they must be able to see it, but like Rhett Butler they don't give a damn. It's beyond words.

Hillary strikes me as a walking position paper that has been written by someone else. And we have big problems in need of deep thought. I hope that she is up for it. She is experienced, and she is, or I hope she is, intelligent. Maybe I am crazy, but I really don't see Bernie as a president. Which is a very lukewarm way of supporting Hillary.

Yes, this is not a great election year.

[billw55]

kenberg, on 2016-April-11, 17:31, said:

I can well imagine people supporting Romney or McCain but Trump? Are they nuts?

No, just racist, and willing to flush everything else for the sake of it.

kenberg, on 2016-April-11, 17:31, said:

And this total lack of cooperation on the Supreme Court. They really cannot see that a highly qualified candidate with no great ideological baggage would be very good for the country?

They don't want or care about what is good for the country. It's a pure power struggle for them. Their power is waning and the resulting fear drives them to desperation. Why refuse hearings when they have a majority in the full senate? Because they know a vote will confirm, exposing their lost hold over their own party, and increasing their weakness.

kenberg, on 2016-April-11, 17:31, said:

Hillary strikes me as a walking position paper that has been written by someone else. And we have big problems in need of deep thought. I hope that she is up for it. She is experienced, and she is, or I hope she is, intelligent. Maybe I am crazy, but I really don't see Bernie as a president. Which is a very lukewarm way of supporting Hillary.

Yes, this is not a great election year.

Eh, Clinton is crooked as a 9-iron. I could vote for Sanders but I doubt I will have the chance.

No, not a good year at all.

[barmar]

billw55, on 2016-April-12, 09:46, said:

No, not a good year at all.

And the worst thing about this is that it's happening when the country is really in need of good leadership. While the economy isn't in as bad shape as when Obama took over, many other problems have gotten worse. Wealth inequality has increased, and so has terrorist activity. Climate change is following its course.

No matter who wins, I'm not optimistic about the next 4 years.

[gwnn]

(bold face added by me)

Quote

Wealth inequality: It does not come naturally to me to resent the rich. It just doesn't. To Bernie, I think it does. This is important. I do think that the concentration of wealth is a significant problem. Problems must be addressed. But if we can address the problem in a way that makes the poor and others better off while leaving the rich just as rich as they are now, I am fine with that. I am not so sure Bernie is. His approach seems to start with resentment of the rich. Mine doesn't.

Is it a better approach to start with accepting tens of millions of dollars from the rich, talking to them in secret?
http://www.huffingto...4b0836057a16748

[PassedOut]

George Monbiot has a piece in The Guardian today about the evolving ideology that has brought us here: Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems

Quote

Financial meltdown, environmental disaster and even the rise of Donald Trump – neoliberalism has played its part in them all. Why has the left failed to come up with an alternative?
...

The term neoliberalism was coined at a meeting in Paris in 1938. Among the delegates were two men who came to define the ideology, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. Both exiles from Austria, they saw social democracy, exemplified by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and the gradual development of Britain’s welfare state, as manifestations of a collectivism that occupied the same spectrum as nazism and communism.

In The Road to Serfdom, published in 1944, Hayek argued that government planning, by crushing individualism, would lead inexorably to totalitarian control. Like Mises’s book Bureaucracy, The Road to Serfdom was widely read. It came to the attention of some very wealthy people, who saw in the philosophy an opportunity to free themselves from regulation and tax. When, in 1947, Hayek founded the first organization that would spread the doctrine of neoliberalism – the Mont Pelerin Society – it was supported financially by millionaires and their foundations.

With their help, he began to create what Daniel Stedman Jones describes in Masters of the Universe as “a kind of neoliberal international”: a transatlantic network of academics, businessmen, journalists and activists. The movement’s rich backers funded a series of think tanks which would refine and promote the ideology. Among them were the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Centre for Policy Studies and the Adam Smith Institute. They also financed academic positions and departments, particularly at the universities of Chicago and Virginia.

As it evolved, neoliberalism became more strident. Hayek’s view that governments should regulate competition to prevent monopolies from forming gave way – among American apostles such as Milton Friedman – to the belief that monopoly power could be seen as a reward for efficiency.

Something else happened during this transition: the movement lost its name. In 1951, Friedman was happy to describe himself as a neoliberal. But soon after that, the term began to disappear. Stranger still, even as the ideology became crisper and the movement more coherent, the lost name was not replaced by any common alternative.

At first, despite its lavish funding, neoliberalism remained at the margins.

But not any more. It might be the ideology that dare not speak its name, but its adherents have been gaining power for decades. And here we are...

[Winstonm]

PassedOut, on 2016-April-15, 07:22, said:

George Monbiot has a piece in The Guardian today about the evolving ideology that has brought us here: Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems


But not any more. It might be the ideology that dare not speak its name, but its adherents have been gaining power for decades. And here we are...

It lost its tag because calling bulls$%^ by another name does not mask its smell.

[Al_U_Card]

Or perhaps only the names were different but the end result is pretty much always the same. When the dice are loaded it matters little which game you play.

[kenberg]

I have previously mentioned that there is a heated contest here in Maryland's 8th Congressional Distric.t I said there were seven candidates but in fact there are nine. This is just for the Dem primary. I just got a recorded phone call from Michael Douglis praising the virtues of one of them, Joel Rubin. Another, David Trone, has (he says and I believe him) spent five million dollars of his own money on this race. This is not a projection of future spending, this is money already spent. Kathleen Matthews, a former newscaster and former Marriott big wig, is running and we receive calls on her behalf every other day or so. Speaking with one of the callers I said I would ask a question that would ordinarily be rude, but since she was seeking my vote it came to mind: Just why did Ms. Matthews quit her job with Marriott? The caller did not know the answer offhand but apparently they have support staff so I received the following answer, such as it is: She quit to run for Congress. With 8 other candidates in the race this seems like quite a leap of faith, but I let it be. I found the answer a bit glib.

I have never seen anything like this for a Congressional race. I get far fewer phone calls and mailings for Senate and Governor races. In fact no one has called me about Sanders/Clinton. But Congress? Almost daily.

I am still working on who I will vote for. No doubt the calls will keep coming.
Note to Michael Douglis: You candidate is getting serious consideration.
Note to Kathleen Matthews. I voted many time for Barbara Mikulski for Senator. Not once did she ask me to so so because she is a woman.

[y66]

George Monbiot did not answer his own question: Why has the left failed to come up with an alternative?

This is not surprising since even water cooler posters have struggled to answer simple variations of this question such as: Why has the left repeatedly failed to even try to win the support of white blue collar voters?

Instead, Monbiot devoted his entire article to yet another rant against neoliberalism which, no doubt, he does at even greater length in his new book "How Did We Get into This Mess?" Perhaps his book discusses this assertion by Milton Friedman in "Capitalism and Freedom" and the incredible, Alan Greenspan-esque naiveté that underpins it:

Quote

The doctrine of "social responsibility", that corporations should care about the community and not just profit, is highly subversive to the capitalist system and can only lead towards totalitarianism.

Friedman wrote that in a era when it was perhaps unthinkable, to him, that a majority of Congress and the Supreme Court would take a similar view of social responsibility. I feel sure he would agree that the left *and* the right need to come up with an alternative to what we have now.

[kenberg]

Well, I recorded the latest Hillary/Bernie debate. Summary: For me, Bernie out. Absolutely out. He cannot answer the simplest questions. He shouts and wave his hands. He wiggles around when anyone other than him is speaking. And then he does it some more shouting and waving. I can do some waving. So long Bernie.

I have not yet decided about who to vote for for Congress, but I do not need to think further about the presidential primary.

[Al_U_Card]

Capitalism is all about the "use" of capital to generate added value to products (transformation) and processes (intellectual property). Profit is the means whereby this method is bonified and supported for its continued existence. No profit, no improvement due to effort expended .
When you put the scorekeepers in charge, there is no guarantee of continued success. We have "corporatized" ourselves into a creative corner. Only time will tell how this particular game will play out...

[kenberg]

I found this piece in the WaPo amusing. It is also at least a little instructive in just how candidates get votes. The discussion centers on the Cruz comment about NY Values. Here is an exceerpt.

Quote

"Hey Steve," one friend called to another. "What's a New York value?"

"Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness — and Ted Cruz is a complete a--hole," said Steve Giannantonio, who works in finance. "That's a New York value."

or

Quote

"We're neighbors here," she began calmly. "We enjoy the theater. We enjoy the arts. We enjoy Central Park, we enjoy the city — that's New York. We've got all kinds of people, and we've all got to get along. Be kind, be patient, be gentle. Cruz is a moron. Marcia, what do you think of that jerk?"

I am sure we should all be able to evaluate various proposals for economic growth, but elections often are decided on different grounds.

[y66]

Very happy to see a conservative voice of reason weighing in today on Obama's use of executive privilege on immigration.

[Zelandakh]

Does Richard Lugar really qualify as a conservative voice at the present time? Although he took office as a Republican, his policies seem to be generally closer to those of the Democrats in 2016.