CNN - Wall Street has made Hillary Clinton a millionaire (many times over)

[Jhhnn]

I fear that Sanders and many of his supporters don't realize that Hillary is INDEED his biggest "enemy". Showing solidarity, patting each other's backs and agreeing with each other at the debates (as nice as it is) WON'T help Bernie, I am afraid.

His campaign is outspokenly "non confrontational", he's avoiding even addressing his rivals and reasons why better not to vote for them. And this could ultimately cost him. Hillary *is* his biggest obstacle, that's how I see it right now.

Bernie believes that his ideas stand on their own merits. He doesn't need to tear down the opposition. That and continuous scandal mongering are best left to those who have little else to offer.

He says "This way is better". That's a huge contrast to current Repub raving which boils down to "They suck". Given their ideology & past failure, it's all they can say.

I don't think Bernie intends to win but rather to shape the direction & platform of the Democratic party, remind us that the roots of our ideology lie in the New Deal.

 

[Brian Stirling]

Reversals of class fortune have been accomplished by peaceful ends more than once in this country, both during the Progressive Era & the New Deal.

Part of the problem today is that many people have been led to believe that Govt is the problem rather than the corrupting influences placed upon it. That impression has been deliberately created by those wishing to corrupt it into non-existence so that the power of Wealth will be free of the constraints of egalitarian democracy.

How corrupt is it that 9% of the House of Representatives can hold the country hostage to their desires? Who pays for that to happen?

FDR had a couple of things going for him that our different today and makes peaceful change much less likely. First he had the great depression that was a kind of revolution in it own right. And second, the electoral process was not nearly as controlled by money then as it is now.

Back then Dems could get elected without promising to the wealthy to provide them with what they wanted -- that's not possible today -- in order to have a chance of being elected today you need billions and that's just the start and even with billions you'd still be facing billions arrayed against you. The rate of increase in spending during a presidential election cycle has been growing at many times the inflation rate and has been for many cycles.

Citizens United has only made the advantage the wealthy have even greater and the odds of peaceful change less likely.


Brian

 

[Jhhnn]

FDR had a couple of things going for him that our different today and makes peaceful change much less likely. First he had the great depression that was a kind of revolution in it own right. And second, the electoral process was not nearly as controlled by money then as it is now.

Back then Dems could get elected without promising to the wealthy to provide them with what they wanted -- that's not possible today -- in order to have a chance of being elected today you need billions and that's just the start and even with billions you'd still be facing billions arrayed against you. The rate of increase in spending during a presidential election cycle has been growing at many times the inflation rate and has been for many cycles.

Citizens United has only made the advantage the wealthy have even greater and the odds of peaceful change less likely.


Brian

I'm sure that the nay saying & concern trolling was much the same then as now.

The difference in the political situation between the Great Depression & today is largely due to the difference in the way that the govt & the FRB dealt with the collapse of credit & banking. The fact that we avoided catastrophe just gives Righties room for denial rather than the great epiphany leading to the election of 1932. Back then, the People were getting fucked so hard by the financial elite that they had to utterly renounce the free market everybody can get rich Repub Rah-rah of the 20's.

It's so fucked up today that Teatards still resent the Bailout even as they embrace the ideology that necessitated it.

Yes, Righties firmly believe that doing the same thing over will somehow yield different results just because they want it to be that way rather than the way it is.