Inside the Bitter Last Days of Bernie's Revolution - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;50482657]And Hillary is just a spiteful bitter old woman behind all the rallies and ideas. Does that mean you're implying it's time to vote Trump?[/QUOTE] It's not as if Trump isn't bitter and spiteful. Part of the reason why these allegations are concerning to me is that one of the things that I feel makes Trump terribly unfit to run for office is his inability to keep a level-head and not take things too personally. It would've been seriously disappointing to me if we ended up electing Sanders and he wound up using his power or influence to exact personal vengeance against other politicians or make bad diplomatic decisions because he felt personally insulted by foreign leaders. He'd still be better than Trump on a myriad of issues, but that would still be a bad quality to have for someone in that position. Again, I'm not saying this is true or untrue, or that that's for sure what would happen.

[QUOTE=DaMastez;50482292]The wave of supporters Sanders got--the people who are tired on the status quo--are a threat to the status quo, and as such need to be discredited and demotivated.[/QUOTE] yeah okay mulder, sanders supporters are totally all the only waking minds in a world of sheep, and clearly there's got to be a vast conspiracy to keep you guys silenced so that your days of fighting for freedom are over, because you're just [I]too dangerous[/I] hearing bernie's fanbase ramble about shit like this is probably going to be the one thing I miss the least about this election

[QUOTE=Bazsil;50482768]yeah okay mulder, sanders supporters are totally all the only waking minds in a world of sheep, and clearly there's got to be a vast conspiracy to keep you guys silenced so that your days of fighting for freedom are over, because you're just [I]too dangerous[/I] hearing bernie's fanbase ramble about shit like this is probably going to be the one thing I miss the least about this election[/QUOTE] seems to me like you're extrapolating quite a bit from what he said

[QUOTE=mr kjerr;50482530]i guess its true what they say, socialism truly is a religion in itself. someone dares to criticize your perceived savior and you instantly dismiss it as propaganda[/QUOTE] Does legit sound like propaganda to me. Adam Smith compared the "invisible hand of the market" to god. Even today people naive trust that same "invisible hand" to balance and regulate, despite it being proven a farce (see the failures of laissez-faire capitalism). Seems more like a religion to me. [editline]9th June 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Bazsil;50482768]yeah okay mulder, sanders supporters are totally all the only waking minds in a world of sheep, and clearly there's got to be a vast conspiracy to keep you guys silenced so that your days of fighting for freedom are over, because you're just [I]too dangerous[/I] hearing bernie's fanbase ramble about shit like this is probably going to be the one thing I miss the least about this election[/QUOTE] Depending on what the status quo is defined as they are correct. The US has pretty huge inequality, lobbying and corruption lead to nothing being done about it and the major political parties seek only to more firmly cement their position and oppose any grass roots activism or systematic change. Giving corporations more power over the country through unlimited campaign contributions (bribe/buying influence) and opposing any kind of regulation which would serve to benefit the people as a whole. Doesn't make people free thinkers. They might sense something is wrong and be told "that is the reason you think something is wrong! jump aboard!" but there is definitely something wrong over there, that wouldn't be a free thinker but they would still be opposing the status quo.

[QUOTE=mdeceiver79;50482792]Does legit sound like propaganda to me. Adam Smith compared the "invisible hand of the market" to god. Even today people naive trust that same "invisible hand" to balance and regulate, despite it being proven a farce (see the failures of laissez-faire capitalism). Seems more like a religion to me.[/QUOTE] Look this is super off-topic but I need to take you up on the idea of Adam Smith being a free-market fundamentalist. People often seem to mistakenly think he was some kind of 18th Century Austrian School economist, when in fact he just noted the various effects of markets on human behaviour and opposed mercantilism whilst writing seriously about ethics and morality. [url]https://social.shorthand.com/montie/3CeiPOdwyjf/three[/url] [QUOTE]Which great critic of merchants and manufacturers denounced the "clamour and sophistry", “the impertinent jealousy”, “mean rapacity”, “mean and malignant expedients”, “sneaking arts”, “interesting sophistry” and “interested falsehood” of business people who espoused “the vile maxim, 'all for themselves, and nothing for other people'”? Karl Marx? Friedrich Engels? No. It was Adam Smith – as Gertrude Himmelfarb reminded readers of her 2001 essay for The Public Interest – “The idea of compassion: The British vs. the French Enlightenment”.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]In a University of Oxford discussion paper, published in August 2012, Avner Offer writes: “The ‘invisible hand’ is invoked only once in The Wealth of Nations. Its effectiveness is understated: it is merely ‘not always the worse for society’; and it does not necessarily promote the interests of society, it only does so ‘frequently’. The miraculous powers it has subsequently acquired may not have been intended by its author. In contrast, the ‘impartial spectator’ (the internalised norm of propriety), is invoked sixty-six times in Smith’s first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and its authority, the authority of conscience, is taken as binding.”[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]And even if Smith honoured self-interest and respected the invisible hand it was not supreme for him. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments he stated that “the wise and virtuous man is at all times willing that his own private interest should be sacrificed to the public interest of his own particular order or society.” Smith was first and foremost a professor of moral philosophy. His life’s work was devoted to a systemic account of men and women as social beings. To explain our social identity Smith expounded two related concepts: “sympathy” and the “spectator”. He debated these concepts with the giants of his time: David Hume, Adam Ferguson, Francis Hutcheson and, of course, Edmund Burke. The relationship with Edmund Burke was particularly important. Burke was interested in the health of the “small platoons” of family, place of worship, neighbourhood charity and voluntary association. “To be attached to the subdivision,” wrote Burke in Reflections on the French Revolution, “to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country, and to mankind.” In other words – through the subdivisions or the small platoons – our sense of what Smith would call “sympathy” is developed. Just as Smith’s 1759 and 1776 books weren’t in great tension, neither were Smith and Burke. Smith is reported to have remarked of Burke that he was "the only man I ever knew who thinks on economic subjects exactly as I do, without any previous communications having passed between us". In a polemic entitled “Adam Smith, the Last of the Former Virtue Ethicists” Professor Deidre McCloskey of the University of Illinois at Chicago makes the important observation that Smith did not just want to be a mere bystander, a describer, or, indeed, a spectator. He had moral ideals – or “recommendations” of how things should be ordered: “The Impartial Spectator, or the Kantian or even the Benthamite equivalent, are not merely behavioural observations about how people develop ethically. They are recommendations. Recommendations depend on faith and hope and transcendent love, articulated from the identity of an urbane resident of Edinburgh, for example, hopeful for a rather better society, loving sweetly the imagined result. As Fleischacker notes, “When we ask after the “nature” of human beings we are looking for what human beings “really” want, beneath the surface trappings. . . . Human nature always includes what people aspire to, for Smith; it is never reduced [as in the economist’s version of utilitarianism] to the desires they merely happen to have.”[/QUOTE] Smith is a far more interesting philosopher than people give him credit for, going far beyond setting out the ideas that form modern markets and capitalism, with a writing extensively on ethics and morality (unlike most modern economists).

I don't buy it. If this really was Bernie, why wasn't he doing a bunch of shit flinging like everyone else?

[QUOTE=archangel125;50482752]I've lived in Canada for thirteen years, and you're full of shit. By the way, our shitty healthcare system with its alleged long waiting times saved my little brother's life by performing open brain surgery on him after he had a mini stroke. Some of the best doctors in the country oversaw his care, and his surgeon was one of the best in his field. He's made a full recovery now. In the US, that would've plunged almost any family into lifelong debt. Know what it cost us? About two hundred dollars. For the air ambulance that came to retrieve him when he collapsed playing soccer. People who need urgent care in our country get it fast, ER waiting times are short (And completely nonexistent if you need immediate aid), and medicine costs a fraction of what it does for you guys. Again, take your propaganda bullshit and shove it back up your ass. Sanders, by the way, would've tried to push through a similar system for you guys, based on the belief that access to good healthcare is a basic human right - not a privilege reserved for the rich.[/QUOTE] But my taxpayer money is more important, we desperately need our tax money to go to military funding to fight our imaginary enemies.

[QUOTE=Paramud;50482829]But my taxpayer money is more important, we desperately need our tax money to go to military funding to fight our imaginary enemies.[/QUOTE] I'm pretty sure your enemies aren't imaginary, unless you're completely dim.

[QUOTE=mr kjerr;50482735]ive visited canada, and am friends with several canadian residents who all confirm my research about the poor health care system. your assumptions are poor[/QUOTE] I heard from a guy who visited america... ill drop the facade. [URL="http://www.gallup.com/poll/8056/healthcare-system-ratings-us-great-britain-canada.aspx"]This gallup poll[/URL] shows people in canada are far more satisfied by their healthcare. US also has lower overall satisfaction with quality of care than Canada. [quote]Ah ba ba! The american system is far cheaper and more efficient! Capitalism is always more efficient than socialism!!!![/quote] US healthcare is far more expensive per person than most other first world nations, in some cases twice as expensive. So overall less satisfactory, lower quality and more expensive. But hey! At least you're not all filthy communists ye. Well since people claim communism is stealing for the people and proving a shitty product/service... maybe you are communists!

[QUOTE=FlashMarsh;50482831]I'm pretty sure your enemies aren't imaginary, unless you're completely dim.[/QUOTE] No, but it's commonly known that US military contractors are fleecing their government. And getting away with it by greasing the right palms.

[QUOTE=archangel125;50482838]No, but it's commonly known that US military contractors are fleecing their government. And getting away with it by greasing the right palms.[/QUOTE] Correct because of contracts being given to benefit constituencies rather than the country as a whole. For example the whole debacle of building lots of new tanks which the military said it didn't even need.

[QUOTE=FlashMarsh;50482831]I'm pretty sure your enemies aren't imaginary, unless you're completely dim.[/QUOTE] US could cut its spending somewhat and remain just as safe... if not safer. Truth is influential people have got interests which serve military contractors/arms providers first and america second.

[QUOTE=mdeceiver79;50482856]US could cut its spending somewhat and remain just as safe... if not safer. Truth is influential people have got interests which serve military contractors/arms providers first and america second.[/QUOTE] But this isn't really about lobbying in my opinion. This is about iron triangles, which, whilst somewhat related, have the problem of benefiting not only lobbyists but the politicians being lobbied by benefiting in turn those in their constituencies. The US could, and is, cutting its spending somewhat, and remaining just as safe, as a result of its lack of global engagement under Obama's disastrous foreign policy. Military spending could certainly be allocated more effectively. However, this does not mean that America faces 'imaginary' enemies or does not need a strong military (with the associated costs) which seems to be the implication when I talk to left-wingers about military spending. Nor, as many people claim, is America only faced by non-state actors as enemies anymore. Truth is, some money can be cut from military spending. But not as much as people want to think, at least without terrible long-term consequences.

[QUOTE=FlashMarsh;50482872]But this isn't really about lobbying in my opinion. This is about iron triangles, which, whilst somewhat related, have the problem of benefiting not only lobbyists but the politicians being lobbied by benefiting in turn those in their constituencies. The US could, and is, cutting its spending somewhat, and remaining just as safe, as a result of its lack of global engagement under Obama's disastrous foreign policy. Military spending could certainly be allocated more effectively. However, this does not mean that America faces 'imaginary' enemies or does not need a strong military (with the associated costs) which seems to be the implication when I talk to left-wingers about military spending. Nor, as many people claim, is America only faced by non-state actors as enemies anymore. Truth is, some money can be cut from military spending. But not as much as people want to think, at least without terrible long-term consequences.[/QUOTE] Frankly? If you want an example of a powerful, effective military force that required a fraction of the upkeep that the US military does, look at Russia during the peak of the Soviet era. Notwithstanding the corruption the government was known for, its military valued cost-effectiveness very highly, and it did more than merely keep up with the USA in its arms race, it outstripped her in many areas. If nothing else, it at least supports the claim that a military can still be indomitably strong on a somewhat smaller budget, with the right planning and r&d.

[QUOTE=FlashMarsh;50482872]But this isn't really about lobbying in my opinion. This is about iron triangles, which, whilst somewhat related, have the problem of benefiting not only lobbyists but the politicians being lobbied by benefiting in turn those in their constituencies. The US could, and is, cutting its spending somewhat, and remaining just as safe, as a result of its lack of global engagement under Obama's disastrous foreign policy. Military spending could certainly be allocated more effectively. However, this does not mean that America faces 'imaginary' enemies or does not need a strong military (with the associated costs) which seems to be the implication when I talk to left-wingers about military spending. Nor, as many people claim, is America only faced by non-state actors as enemies anymore. Truth is, some money can be cut from military spending. But not as much as people want to think, at least without terrible long-term consequences.[/QUOTE] Well we can agree that cuts could be made, just not on the degree of those cuts. A manufacturer benefiting from the production of tanks is 1 thing. Dick Cheney, ex ceo of haliburton, becoming the vice pres and giving haliburton a several billion dollar contract without any competition is another thing. Contractors in Iraq on cost plus contracts so they scrap, burn, sell their SUVs to purposely put it as a cost for more profit at the expense of the US tax payer is another thing. Over all its inefficiency, profit and corruption. Companies primarily see it as an opportunity to get money from the government, so they will purposefully make it inefficient and over charge, competition isn't working and lobbyists are buying politicians so they have no incentive to change anything.

[QUOTE=FlashMarsh;50482831]I'm pretty sure your enemies aren't imaginary, unless you're completely dim.[/QUOTE] At least their "weapons of mass destruction" were

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;50482129]The campaign is over, what's the point in smearing now?[/QUOTE] it may not be anything as dedicated as a smear campaign but it's very clear that the authors of the article have an opinion they want to push, going by the "go hillary bernie was just a bitter stupid old man!!" circlejerk in the comment section that the article has stirred up and the fact that the first thing you see on the page is a photo of bernie with the text "Bernie Sanders and aides laugh at the idea that he’s damaging the party and hurting Hillary Clinton." underneath it

This article is hilariously bad. It's so blatantly biased and not even attempting to hide it.

Question for everybody in this thread: Why, after every Trump thread posted, are there not the legions of you all proclaiming "Lol, obvious smear article, we're smarter than that!" but yet you all complete bite the Trump articles like fucking Piranhas. Because it's just as obvious there as it is here. You think you're all so level-headed, but it's not quite as so :v: It's pretty funny. I'm telling you out of love

Even if this blatant smear article is right he has every right to be bitter, this entire election has been a complete fucking joke.

[QUOTE=mooman1080;50483354]Even if this blatant smear article is right he has every right to be bitter, this entire election has been a complete fucking joke.[/QUOTE] What's amazing is how quickly it took for both Trump and Clinton to be all like "yeah we love Sanders now". I never supported Sanders, but I'd feel like it had all been for nothing after all of this :/ It is a huge shame, the guy's really honest, polite and likable, after this election I wouldn't be surprised if he quit politics all together. But I get the impression that that just "wouldn't be Bernie" to quit. Does he have to endorse Clinton? How does this work now?

Interesting that they chose to call it the last days of Bernie's revolution instead of campaign. Last days of his campaign, sure. His 'revolution' exposed a lot of the political system and raised discontent in the party system, and sympathies towards actual progressiveness and third parties aren't going to just wash away in the next four years, though the latter of the article would like you to think so.

[QUOTE=Cypher_09;50483342]Question for everybody in this thread: Why, after every Trump thread posted, are there not the legions of you all proclaiming "Lol, obvious smear article, we're smarter than that!" but yet you all complete bite the Trump articles like fucking Piranhas. Because it's just as obvious there as it is here. You think you're all so level-headed, but it's not quite as so :v: It's pretty funny. I'm telling you out of love[/QUOTE] I think the recent hoohah about bring up the judge's ethnicity was over played. He's said worse in the past and the republicans did nothing about it. Now that he's proven he can beat their establishment candidates they're all crying about him being racist (I'm not complaining that they are, more that they weren't before and so are being inconsistent) Biggest difference is criticism of trump being a conman or a dick or whatever else are largely correct where as criticism for bernie being a sexist or greedy are lies. [editline]9th June 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Cypher_09;50483364]What's amazing is how quickly it took for both Trump and Clinton to be all like "yeah we love Sanders now". I never supported Sanders, but I'd feel like it had all been for nothing after all of this :/ It is a huge shame, the guy's really honest, polite and likable, after this election I wouldn't be surprised if he quit politics all together. But I get the impression that that just "wouldn't be Bernie" to quit. Does he have to endorse Clinton? How does this work now?[/QUOTE] I think he said he was going to carry on regardless of the impossible mathematics. I think its more him trying to get his/his voters message listened to more than actually becoming president. I think he'll drop out later because he doesn't want trump to win but the longer he's in the more pressure there is on hillary to adopt his views and fight hard to win over his voters.

Just because you're a Democrat doesn't mean you're right :smile:

[QUOTE=mr kjerr;50482530]i guess its true what they say, socialism truly is a religion in itself. someone dares to criticize your perceived savior and you instantly dismiss it as propaganda[/QUOTE] What does "socialism" have to do with this?

Note: This article isn't a smear piece, it is only HEAVILY opinionated (Bad journalist), the only true news in it is the Staffers knowing he wouldn't win, Bernie knows it privately too, he is just consolidating power for the Democratic Party Platform.

i feel this sums it up [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twX-FraN4QE[/media]

[QUOTE=Trebgarta;50483633]To be frank a real moderator should be able to smell a troll's scent from 2 miles away[/QUOTE] Telling the difference between trolls and zealots is hard enough during a normal election year, but this one is possibly the most bizarre we've ever had. I don't know what's real anymore!

[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;50483770]Telling the difference between trolls and zealots is hard enough during a normal election year, but this one is possibly the most bizarre we've ever had. I don't know what's real anymore![/QUOTE] idk if the guy is a troll so much as just a special kind of poster. I've found that one can spot this special kind of person by their penchant for vauge, indirect ways of expressing unpopular opinions as well as their misuseof/overuse of ellipses like they're some geriatric facebook user reposting tabloid articles

[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;50483770]Telling the difference between trolls and zealots is hard enough during a normal election year, but this one is possibly the most bizarre we've ever had. I don't know what's real anymore![/QUOTE] It may be time to bring back FP to an older, more reigned in time. A time when the solution to this is just ban everyone and let the Refugee Camp sort them out :v: