Willful Ignorance

[panader0]

I have seen here on DU a willful ignorance on the part of those who support HRC.
In the face of countless evidence, much by her own quotes, and much by the can of worms shady dealings, a
willful ignorance, a denial of truth. Okay, I too, would like to have a woman as president. Just not this woman.
And here I will link an e-mail
from my 24 year old daughter:http://www.democraticunderground.com/1280112845
But to stare at facts and deny them is willful ignorance.
One simply CANNOT study, read and learn about HRC without seeing her as a lying, self-important, overly
ambitious person, dedicated to winning no matter the cost to truth or dignity. Our country, our world is at stake.
Our future, our children, our economy, our climate. Hillary is not truthful, and those who believe her are
willfully ignorant.



"Society is, always has been and always will be a structure for the exploitation and oppression of the majority through systems of political force dictated by an élite, enforced by thugs, uniformed or not, and upheld by a willful ignorance and stupidity on the part of the very majority whom the system oppresses."--Richard Morgan

"Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn."--Ben Franklin

[stopbush]

1. A willful ignorance matched only by that displayed

by those who can't look objectively at Bernie's plan on paying for his programs like healthcare, and who ignore the analyses by numerous economists who say his plan is underfunded and unworkable. Even the one economist who said his plan was possibly workable is supporting Hillary.

[Kelvin Mace]

3. So, what you are saying

is I should not support Bernie because he is too idealistic or unrealistic.

Instead a should support someone bought and paid for by Wall Street, who embraces a war criminal as her friend and mentor, while pushing the death penalty despite massive evidence that it is unjustly applied and that innocent people will die.

I'll take unrealistic idealism, thank you.

[panader0]

4. The vast majority of the money in this country is in the hands of the very few.

That's where the money is to pay for the things that not only Bernie wants, but that this country needs.
How can the USA blow trillions on tax cuts for the rich or wars for the oil companies and turn around
and say we can't afford the much cheaper goals of free community college or new bridges, or healthcare?
It's wrong, it's backwards and it's unsustainable. We, as a nation, need to move forward--Progress!
There is plenty of money, it's just in the hands of the wrong people. This HAS to change, preferably
peacefully, for if it does not come peacefully, it will surely come violently

[tk2kewl]

7. dont forget the cost of war

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/

Total Cost of Wars Since 2001 $1,670,944,452,765

Every hour, taxpayers in the United States are paying
$8.36 million for Total Cost of Wars Since 2001.

[stopbush]

10. Yes, that's a real a problem, because wars are a drain on the economy for years after they end.

It took us a long time to pay off the expense of WWII, and that was with a marginal tax rate of 100% on the wealthy.

We will be paying for bush's wars for many years. We are still incurring interest on the debt from those wars. People think that once a bad president leaves office he has lost his power to harm out country. Not so - look at the Reagan legacy. Scalia was harming this country for decades after Reagan left office!

So even if we don't get into any more wars, we still owe for our old wars. It's not like that money we spent on the wars is suddenly available to be spent elsewhere. There is no money to be spent elsewhere. The wars were funded through deficit spending, i.e.: spending money we didn't actually have at the time.

Even if we eliminated the defense department, it would only save us $600-billion a year. That's for everything we spend on defense. Bernie is asking us to add $1.5 - 3 trillion year in spending. That $600-billion in defense spending would equal only a third of $1.5-trillion, only 1/6 of $3-trillion.

[stopbush]

9. No one is saying it doesn't have to change.

The question is how does one do it?

I was hoping Bernie would present a plan that was honest at least in its projections and particulars. His plan is dependent - dependent - on the US sustaining a 5% growth rate over a decade. 5%! This country has never been able to sustain 3% growth rate for that long. How the hell are we going to get to 5%?

It's a big question, because if we don't hit Bernie's growth target, the wealth isn't being created from which to impose the taxes that he himself says are needed to fund his programs. Doesn't matter if those taxes are coming from the rich or the middle class, without the growth, they don't exist.

That means deficit spending, just like it did when Reagan's economic policies blew up in our faces.

Couple the above with the warning from many, many liberal, single-payer-friendly economists that Bernie is underestimating the yearly price rage for his healthcare plan by 100% - a number that is over $1-trillion a year in NEW taxes and supposed savings - and you have a real problem being addressed by a plan built on wishful thinking.

That's the problem with Bernie's plan. Not the fact that rich people currently get most of the money.

[Ron Green]

18. The real problem with Bernie's plan is that

people keep convincing themselves and others that it's about "free stuff" or "how are we gonna pay for it" or "we can't maintain x level of growth."

I admit that, for many of the low-info voters that any successful Presidential candidate must attract, his hopeful and well-warranted ideas are a carrot that deserves support. However, the reality is that Bernie's plan calls for huge numbers of people to raise their information level, to shake off some of their sleep and engage their identities as citizens. A well connected and more egalitarian society doesn't need to sustain huge levels of economic growth to be more prosperous and healthy; indeed, the election of Bernie Sanders would be a first step of many away from the dismal consumer culture we've built around our corporate empire and toward an authentic earth community that might actually give our grandkids a chance.

[Motown_Johnny]

5. Teddy Roosevelt started pushing for health care as a right in 1912. Was he wrong to do so?

I suppose you would attack him and his ideals as not being pragmatic enough.

Before rebutting your assertion, I will ask the question that no Clinton supporter ever answers.

How will Hillary extend health care coverage to the homeless?

Medicaid requires that you apply for, and prove that you are eligible for, coverage. People without addresses and state issued identification are unable to prove their eligibility. If they could, they would already be covered since these people have little to no income. So, how will she do it? Isn't it more likely that she is just lying about wanting universal coverage? (Also, if she has a plan how much will it cost and how will she pay for it?)

Now, onto the rebuttal:

http://usuncut.com/news/bernie-sanders-healthcare-plan-would-save-the-average-american-family-1200/


^snip^

Politifact Confirms Bernie Sanders’ Healthcare Plan Will SAVE Every American Family $1,200/Year

[stopbush]

11. Thanks for the question. You've asked the right person,

because I worked for a homeless shelter for a while and was myself on the Obamacare Medicaid expansion for about a year before I found my present job.

Let's talk first about Medicaid: through the ACA expansion, Medicaid is now available to millions of people who were previously denied coverage because Obamacare dropped the assets means test for the program. Prior to Obamacare, your eligibility for Medicaid was determined by a combination of your income and your assets. So, if you were out of work for 3 years but had been frugal and had saved money, you couldn't get Medicaid. You had to buy health insurance on the open market. Expensive, and a YUGE drain on resources that you were also dependent on to pay rent, food etc.

Obamacare did away with the means test. So, even though my family did have assets, they didn't count toward our eligibility. Even though my wife was working part-time, our family was able to get health coverage for free. That allowed us to use our dwindling assets to pay for rent etc. We didn't have to decide between healthcare or rent, because healthcare was free.

When it comes to the question of needing an income to get Medicaid, not having an income actually makes you eligible for Medicaid, no questions asked. The only barrier to Medicaid is earning more than the program allows to qualify. No income = you qualify.

Now, turning to homeless people: who are the homeless? A 2009 Congressional report found that:

78% of all sheltered homeless persons are adults.
61% are male.
62% are members of a minority group.
38% are 31-to-50 years old.
64% are in one-person households (i.e.: 36% are families)
38% have a disability.

Like most people in this country who don't have insurance, the homeless often end up at the emergency room. The costs for treating them are absorbed by the system, yes. But often times there are state-run programs available to specifically help pay for the care homeless people receive. True, there are many more programs available to, say, homeless families than single people, but that's only because families and kids tug at the heartstrings more than single adults, so philanthropists tend to fund families over singles.

Homeless people don't have addresses. Yes, that's often true. But there are many programs out there that allow homeless people to acquire an address, even if it's temporary. For instance, a family may get into a state- or county-run program that houses them in motels or hotels for extended periods. Those people don't have a "home" address, but they do have AN address that the state and their social workers know very well. So, you would have an address at which to reach them. Once you've got them identified, you bring them into the Medicaid program. The great thing about Medicaid is that it travels with you. As long as you are in the system, have the proper ID and are enrolled with a Medicaid-approved provider, you are good to go. You are then dealing directly with the provider. Yes - Medicaid does require that you update them on your employment status and address occasionally (usually once a year or so), but there's nothing that says your Medicaid provider couldn't be that address through which the state would stay in touch.

There are currently just over 600,000 people in this country who are chronically homeless, and that number has been consistent for years (the number swells when we add people who will become and remain homeless for a short period of time). That includes the vet sleeping under a bridge to the family of 4 living in a shelter run by the state or a philanthropic entity. While this is a large number of homeless people on its face, it's only .01% of the current US population of 350-million. Unfortunately, that tends to put the plight of the homeless in a perspective - what's .01% of the population when there are still tens of millions without health insurance? We ran into this kind of thinking when I worked at the homeless shelter. it's not helpful, but it is understandable. Out of sight, out of mind.

What that means is that no one in their right political mind is going to devise a healthcare plan whose main benefit is to reach only .01% of the population. That's not what Bernie is doing, of course. He's saying if there was true universal healthcare that the homeless would receive the same care as the millionaire, no questions asked. But unless we are going to have the government take over the running of every hospital in this country, we are still going to be dealing with providers - you know, the Kaisers etc of the world - who currently provide Medicare and Medicaid to their patients through a health network. Unless we dictate that anybody and everybody is allowed to show up at a Kaiser hospital for what ails 'em, it's not doable.

That means that we will need to maintain a hybrid system like we have now. And that means that the "you don't pay anything just walk into any hospital in America" idea of Medicare-for-all isn't going to work, because there are too many moving parts involved before you even get to the hospital to allow it to work (I won't even get into the need for medical records to be available so doctors can make informed decisions on patient care).

As far as how Bernie or Hillary will pay for things - I think that expanding the current programs would be less-expensive and more-effective than throwing it all out and starting from scratch. How about we LOWER the age for Medicare eligibility to 60 or even 55 first? Allow more people to come into the existing program and see what that will cost us in time, money, efficiencies and effectiveness before throwing the program open to all? Let it run for 5 years and study the results. In the meantime, work to get Medicaid expanded to all of those red states whose governors have rejected it. That program is in place, is providing healthcare to millions more people and is working, saving $ right now in preventative measures.

Sorry this got so long, but the question you asked couldn't be answered in a campaign slogan.

[Motown_Johnny]

17. So you admit Hillary has no intention of even attempting universal coverage?

You could have answered my question briefly. The short answer is "Hillary will never try to provide homeless persons with health care coverage".


I am trying to point out that Hillary is lying about her policies and that her supporters are to blinded by their hero worship to notice.

[stopbush]

19. That's not what I said.

I can see that I wasted a lot of time providing you with an answer that offered some facts and figures and a position that was more than a bumper sticker. You obviously aren't interested in any response that doesn't toe your narrow view of this issue.

I won't be wasting my time with you again.

[Motown_Johnny]

21. Part of that post was...

What that means is that no one in their right political mind is going to devise a healthcare plan whose main benefit is to reach only .01% of the population. That's not what Bernie is doing, of course. He's saying if there was true universal healthcare that the homeless would receive the same care as the millionaire, no questions asked.



How else can that portion of your post be interpreted?



Edit to add: We can continue this conversation including undocumented immigrants and people in Red states that did not expand Medicaid. It is my belief that she also leaves those persons out of her plan for "universal" coverage.

[Jarqui]

29. Sorry but some economists have defended the work or a good portion of it or

pointed out that it was a hit job.

The Fight Between Bernie Sanders And Hillary Clinton Is Officially Super Ugly

A former executive director of the congressional Joint Economic Committee on Thursday accused columnist Paul Krugman and four prominent Democratic economists of dishonestly smearing an academic in order to score political points for Hillary Clinton.

Read the article. Then the letter (which refers to another economist who seems to agree)
http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/ResponsetoCEA.pdf


This guy says something similar:
The Pious Attacks on Bernie Sanders’s “Fuzzy” Economics

What’s more troubling is how Democratic mainstream economists use these tactics to boot anyone not preaching from the incrementalist gospel out of the serious club. There are problems with Friedman’s projections; it’s unlikely that we will regain the same labor force participation as the late 1990s when the population now is so much older, for example. But the ferocity of the response—from people who have spent their careers making flawed economic forecasts—suggests that the real issue here is that the establishment is uncomfortable with the more far-reaching aspects of the Sanders economic agenda.

Instead of going point by point on those agenda items, the CEA chairs decided to argue from authority, dismissing Friedman’s numbers as prima facie absurd. This “do you know who I am?” style of argument, first off, is just a bad look if the goal is to persuade. But it also ignores how there is no real authority when it comes to making decade-long economic forecasts. Some humility on that front would be in order.

But then he takes these hot shots real economic projections used for running the country and shows you in reality how erroneous they were.



Here, for reference, it the only plan I've seen and it says:
http://www.dollarsandsense.org/What-would-Sanders-do-013016.pdf
Draft: Not to be cited or circulated without permission

The economist who vouched for Bernie Sanders’ big liberal plans ...

Those economists didn’t reach out to Friedman before they released an open letter on Wednesday criticizing his analysis. If they had, he said, he would have happily adjusted his modeling to respond to their specific critiques.

He also he would have explained that what he found, in what he calls his “orthodox” model of the Sanders plan, boils down to something many liberal economists have been saying for years: that the economy would respond strongly to a big new dose of fiscal stimulus.

Friedman said he is revising his estimates now with more pessimistic assumptions about that response, but that he still expects the new numbers to show broad growth and income gains as a result of Sanders’ plans.
...
“It’s completely standard,” Friedman said. “I’m not sure if I knew another way to do it. Maybe if I’d done it on a napkin?”

Bernie's economist plugged Bernie's economics into an "orthodox" model and the GDP went high - like the Reagan years as the above points out. He's not swearing by it. He's playing with it more. The copy I've got again and again was a draft. He's working the problem and as he says above, it's looking pretty darn good for growth. And others generally agree with him on the growth.

Thomas Piketty, a respected economist, recently had some nice things to say about Sanders. He has not reviewed Friedman's numbers but he talked positively about the concepts.

Sanders Would Build a Roaring Economy, Says One Report

Dean Baker, economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said that while an increase in taxes to the extent that Sanders is proposing will likely have some impact on behavior and growth, it probably will not be as high as the Tax Foundation has proposed. As for Friedman's analysis, while it does paint a sunny picture, it is not an absurd one.

"The basic story that he seems to be saying is to reverse the upward distribution of income over the last 40 years, so basically redistributing 10 percentage points of income to the rest of the population, then assuming normal healthy growth ... that's evenly shared," Baker said. "That would give you his numbers. That's an optimistic scenario, but I don't think that's a crazy scenario."

Not everybody trashed it. It's complicated stuff. The hot shots don't always get it right either. I doubt you could get two top economists, put them in separate rooms to look at the US economy and have them come out with an identical view. Happens all the time.

The difference is Hillary Deception Clinton wants to gin up something to smear her opponent - and you're falling for it. Those economists were over the top. Premature. Didn't do their homework. The jury hasn't even been called in as the development isn't done.

If nothing else, Bernie has some economists looking at this. And they're bickering whether his GDP numbers will get as high, etc but you know what few of them said conclusively: Bernie's plan was going to deliver poor growth.

The best GDP Obama delivered in any year was 2.5%. If Bernie plans are on to something, it's going to be pretty embarrassing to the hot shots who ran Obama's economy. Right now, a number of economists project growth with Bernie's plan and you know what, he's got more than a 50% margin of error to be as low as Obama's best year. It's not a bad place to start the discussion.

[leftofcool]

2. I'm voting for HRC but thank you for playing.

[panader0]

6. I'm not playing.

I have done my very best to educate myself about our two candidates. There is a distinct difference.
I see the argument here daily that Bernie is not electable, when all surveys and polls show that he fares better than HRC against
all of the Republicans. I have witnessed with my eyes and ears the complete duplicity of HRC, the very troubling
issues of the Clinton Foundation, the selling of favors has been well documented. Willful ignorance abounds here at DU.

[EdwardBernays]

8. It's a game

That's the same thing I hear from endless Clinton supporters.

They see this whole thing as a big game.

Says it all really.

[Justice]

13. It's not a game

Advocacy FOR a candidate is good. Great, fantastic, read with eagerness and appreciation. Tell me why I should support a candidate.

Endless, repetitive, insulting, hyperpolic, over the top OPs about the worst evil in the world being another canadidate are ineffective and unwelcome. They do not persuade. They litter GD: Primaries.

[panader0]

15. How is my OP "hyperpolic" (sic)?

The truth is in her own words--read, listen at your own risk.

[EdwardBernays]

16. I tell ya

There seems to be two main reactions by people when they learn about Hillary:

- I'm disgusted by by dishonesty and won't vote for her
- everyone is dishonest and so I don't care

There's an ever dwindling number of people that think shes honest, because "technically" no one in a position of power has found her guilty of any crimes.


None of those reactions are really inspiring for a Presidential candidate.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

12. Who can win the swing states

The evidence is that Sanders is the best bet

Fact need to be considered

[hifiguy]

14. I started paying attention to politics in 1968, the year I turned 12.

Robert Kennedy was my first hero who didn't wear a baseball uniform. Watergate marked my political coming of age, and I followed the news very closely throughout. My dad and I watched Nixon's resignation speech together. He hated the ground Nixon walked on and was a union man and an FDR/Truman Democrat. We enjoyed it immensely.

In all the years that have passed since then, I have only seen one candidate for president that exhibits the same kind of slipperiness, truthlessness and undisguised naked ambition/desire for power for its own sake as Richard M. Nixon. And that is Hillary Clinton.

Pace.

[uponit7771]

20. nah, just don't like it when SBS associate his campaign with people who call Obama "n-word-izze"

... and makes sure to have this person in front of mostly non SC like crowds.

See, it's simple... don't dis people openly or minimize their relationships and culture and expect them to vote for you right?

tia

[panader0]

22. Were you around for Clinton's campaign against Obama in 2008?

That would answer your question. I saw it, heard it and was disgusted by it then, as I am by her pandering now,
pretending to be the heir of Obama.

[uponit7771]

23. Yeap, I was also around for him choosing her as SoS and forgiving her by having an open...

... close relationship with her too.

Sure was...

Sanders?!

Nah... not so much

[panader0]

24. Please refer to the title of the OP.

"forgiving her".....

[uponit7771]

26. yeap, willful ignorance is SBS associating his campaign with Cornell West and wondering why blacks

... and Hispanics are going hard toward Hillary.

Cause we've seen moves like that before but it was in the 60s and not any were

[MohRokTah]

25. If an HRC supporter had posted an identically worded thread about Sanders supporters

It would have been hidden within five minutes.

[panader0]

27. You know, that gif of HRC

looks like she's brushing the little people off her shoulders.

[Beowulf]

28. Not to mention the extreme violence depicted

in the extermination of the flies, which I assume are supposed to be Bernie supporters. I interpret that to mean you want me dead, and so I see it as a threat. And you expect I and other Sanders supporters are going to support Hillary if she wins the nomination? You might get our votes, you might not, but you surely aren't going to be getting our enthusiasm. I don't know anyone who cares much for people who want to hurt them.

And just where is Hillary going to get the votes she needs to win the general election? Even if she manages to hold onto all of the party, a pretty big if, I think, she's still going to need a big chunk of the independent vote. They don't like her, there's no other way to read that polling data. If the Supreme Court and other issues are so important to the Clinton wing of the party, why wrap those concerns around a candidate the majority of Americans don't trust and don't like?