Rev. Al Sharpton: Bernie's Campaign Is 'Transformative'

[Donkees]

Dec 28, 2019

"Bernie is not running as a politician. He's running as one leading a movement." -Rev. Al Sharpton

[George II]

1. Has Sharpton ever apologized to the families of those whose lives he ruined in the Brawley debacle?

[johnnyplankton]

5. Did you pull that response from the Republican playbook?

Every time someone points something out about Trump that's true and awful, the Republican response is "But what about Obama when he did X?" I totally agree with the substance of Sharpton's comment, so I was able to look past your smear of the messenger. We can't criticize Right Wing nutjobs when we engage in the exact same behavior...

If you don't like Bernie, find a more substantive argument...

[George II]

7. Nope, I pulled it out of the history books. You might want to look into that debacle and others.

[Autumn]

10. One could always pull out the Central Park Five but..... I see why you would rather go with

his defense of a young woman who perpetuated a hoax and had people believing it.

[George II]

12. The Central Park Five has nothing to do with Tawana Brawley.

[Autumn]

15. It has to do with Al Sharpton doesn't it? You know, the guy you commented on. One of Obama's

key allies, one of his go to guys to blunt criticism by the black community on his economic policy . The OP was about Al Sharpton, not Tawana Brawley. A lot of people had them guilty and he stood up for them. Then they were found innocent. Kind of the same in reverse.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704588404575123404191464126

[George II]

18. If you're responding to my input in this discussion, specifically with respect to Tawana Brawley....

....why don't you address his comments and actions throughout that case? Please.

[Autumn]

22. No. Hell no. You don't get to tell me what I can discuss and how to discuss it.

Just like no one told you that you are only allowed to address Sharpton's comments and actions regarding his comments on Bernie Sanders. You brought up Tawana Brawley, I'll bring up his actions in the Central Park Five case if I wish to.

[George II]

25. So you admit that he never apologized to the families of the lives he ruined in that case. Okay....

[Autumn]

29. Try reading what I posted again George. Your word admit?

ad·mit
/ədˈmit/
Learn to pronounce
verb
1.
confess to be true or to be the case, typically with reluctance.
"the office finally admitted that several prisoners had been injured"
Similar:
acknowledge
confess
reveal
make known
disclose
divulge
make public
avow
declare
profess
own up to
make a clean breast of
bring into the open
bring to light
give away
blurt out
leak
concede
accept
accede
grant
agree
allow
own
concur
assent
recognize
realize
be aware of
be conscious of
appreciate
get something off one's chest
spill the beans about
tell all about
blow the lid off
squeal about
blow the gaff on
discover
Opposite:
deny
conceal
2.
allow (someone) to enter a place.
"senior citizens are admitted free to the museum"
Similar:
let in
allow entry
permit entry
grant entrance to
give right of entry to

[George II]

34. I did. What's so funny..

[Autumn]

36. I edited it just for you. I added the definition of the word admit.

You're welcome.

[MerryBlooms]

44. And Tawana Brawley has nothing to do with Rev. Al supporting Sanders.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

6. Wow.

Not surprised. But wow. To think you don’t even have to leave the confines of DU these days to read that.

[George II]

9. Oh whatever do you mean?

[Polybius]

41. Right-wing talking point

[guillaumeb]

2. It is a different type of campaign.

As was the Obama campaign, for that matter, and the Jesse Jackson campaign before it.

Can these campaign organizations of voters associated with them become independent of the candidates and become a lasting force in politics?

I think the Sanders campaign has demonstrated that it can happen.

[jalan48]

3. It's no wonder, people are looking for more than the Centrist "No we can't".

[I_UndergroundPanther]

46. No we can't

Is self limiting bullshit.

Warren or Bernie are who I want to be the Democratic candidate for president.
They will get shit done that centrists pretend they can't do.

[The Valley Below]

4. I don't embrace the "transformation" that Sanders seems to have in mind.

[PatSeg]

8. Bernie has a lot of great ideas,

he always has, but his campaign tends to be divisive. Now more than ever, we need to be unified. We also need to focus on down ballot candidates and show our support for Democratic candidates throughout government. I don't see Bernie doing that. He seems to disdain most Democratic politicians.

This is about more than a Democrat in the White House. Without Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate, as well as governorships and state legislatures, a Democratic president will not be able to bring about the changes we need and want. All those great ideas will just be words and barely a footnote in the history books.

[floppyboo]

11. I was watching AM Joy this morning, and apparently Harry Reid edit: Adam Jefferson

thinks Sanders Warren-either one - the one with the most enthusiasm - the party should get behind quickly and get to talking about the general. I sure would like to find that clip for you. And for me! Couldn't believe my ears!

[floppyboo]

21. found the clip - Adam Jefferson, who worked for Harry Reid. Not Harry Reid.

my bad. As I said, I couldn't believe it. Given Reid's interference in the Nevada primary last time around.
It's at 22:20

[PatSeg]

28. That is very interesting

I think Warren probably can generate more enthusiasm, as she has a more positive presentation. I find her genuinely likable and sincere. Bernie's ideas are similar, but the anger and shouting tends to turn off a lot of voters.

Though Warren disagreed with Hillary on some policy issues, in 2016 she supported her energetically and was a powerful attack dog against Trump. I have a lot of respect for her.

[floppyboo]

42. Warren would be a Fantastic President!

but I must disagree about generalizing that Sanders' 'anger and shouting tends to turn off a lot of voters.'
Every poll I've seen shows him to have the highest favorability ratings.
It's a shame there is still a tendency to see the same qualities of a person as positive in a male and 'off-putting' in a woman.

I came to this board when Liz was running for senate. Have always thought she would be the most significant first female President.

[PatSeg]

43. Though Bernie may have high favorability ratings

the people who dislike him (and there are quite a few) really can't stand him. I see it everywhere that Democratic politics are discussed. The anti Bernie Democrats are as vehement as the pro Bernie voters. Everything that I once liked in Bernie, I like in Warren, but she brings so much more to the table in terms of disposition and personality. Also I think she is more capable of making progressive changes a reality.

[Autumn]

14. Why do you consider his campaign to be divisive?

[PatSeg]

31. He puts down Democrats an awful lot

and at a time when our focus needs to be on republicans from the top down - national, state, and local. Sell your ideas and sell yourself as a potential president, but don't go after other Democrats, especially at a time when republicans are an actual danger to our democracy.

[Autumn]

35. That tends to happen in a primary.

[PatSeg]

40. Yes it does

Though not all the candidates put a lot of energy into slinging mud. The stakes are really high this time and I think anyone paying attention knows that we need to be united. Some things are bigger than an individual candidate's vanity.

[dansolo]

49. No it doesn't

Attacks against other candidates occur, not attacks on the entire Democratic Party.

[Thekaspervote]

16. +1000

[BannonsLiver]

27. They're really not that great

And he takes credit for many that aren’t his.

[PatSeg]

37. I give him credit

for helping to pull the party to the left. In 2016, I saw him as a necessary trailblazer, though I didn't see him as a president. There is a lot more to being president than ideas and policies. I never expected him, however, to divide the party and he's doing it again. Not everyone can be president, but each of us can put ego aside and contribute.

[PatrickforO]

24. I hear you. But imagine in this republic, if you will, citizens like you and me

actually having a say in the policies that affect them - how their tax dollars are used, in effect.

Bernie is talking about a 'political revolution,' which does scare people, granted. But think about us not spending over $700 billion for 'defense' when the next six countries combined don't spend as much. Think about going to the doctor and not having to be wheeled through accounting to find out how you can pay before they'll treat you. Think about being able to purchase prescription drugs for a reasonable price instead of as much as the market will bear.

Think about the government providing those services, like healthcare, corrections, research and development in pharmaceutical and other medical products, police and firefighting forces, childcare, early childhood education, K-12 and on into state college or university.

Think about how much LESS stress you'd have. I have a friend who lives here but is a Dane, and generally the Danes are a very happy people. They have less stress, are healthier, live longer and are more highly educated. Oh, it's not a panacea because they have their problems, and certainly northern Europe has not done nearly as well assimilating immigrants as we in the US have.

But I'd take the Danish system, which is a liberal social democracy, complete with free market, over what we have here any day of the week.

Basically, Bernie is advocating for a market economy that has high taxes that finance a strong central government that provides a regulatory structure to mitigate the excesses of capitalism, and provides services to the public where the profit motive is in conflict with the public good. Again, services such as health care, old age pensions, disability pensions, unemployment insurance, worker's compensation insurance, prisons, police forces, firefighting forces, childcare, early childhood education, K-12 and state colleges and universities are publicly funded because they can and should benefit ALL Americans, not just those few who can afford them.

Bernie is merely saying that in order to have those things, we have, as an entire population, to become engaged in our political process at local, state and national levels. Do that, we we have REAL democracy, which the big capitalists definitely do not want.

Permit me to tell you a story. I have worked many years for a certain employer, and have watched each year as my healthcare premiums have risen, my copays and coinsurance have risen. So, each year, I get less for more.

Now, my wife needed to go to urgent care late in the year a couple years ago, and she ended up having to have her gall bladder out. The way my HMO does surgery is they have an operating team who starts cutting at about 7:30am and doesn't stop until all the surgeries have been performed. In my wife's case, she was last, and they didn't even get to her until 9:00 that night. Surgery was not done until nearly midnight.

OK, so she ended up being released the next day in spite of a blood clot.

Fast forward to one day post release. Her abdomen started swelling up. Bad. So I took her to the ER. The doctors came in and said no worries, this is very common after the surgery. So, we are feeling better, a bit. Suddenly, this guy comes in wheeling a laptop on a black chest-high cart. He asks us how we want to 'handle' the copay, and he took my money right then and there.

That made me fucking sick. The profit motive and healthcare are in direct conflict with one another, because in order to profit, the healthcare provider has incentive to minimize or even deny the treatment you need. Because if they'd have kept my wife an extra day in the hospital we wouldn't have had to go to the ER. But to maximize profit, they routinely send people home from the hospital who have no business going home - it's too soon.

Basically, here in this country we have shitty, rationed healthcare with financially crippling copays. They say we have the best system in the world, but if that is true, why is our life expectancy going down? Why is our infant mortality up? Why are 66.5% of all bankruptcies due to medical bills? What is the matter with us?

I support Warren this time around, but if Bernie is the nominee, I'll sure as heck be supporting him big time. Any of the other candidates as well, but I get sick of being told why I can't have healthcare like everyone else in the entire industrialized world has. I get sick of local businesses in my own state foregoing $2.7 billion in sales for goods and services because that is how much money is being remitted for student loan payments by the 733K people who owe an average of $30K plus and have an average monthly payment of $350. We're making our children and grandchildren debt slaves.

And predatory lending practices? Alive and well. A year ago, I bought a refrigerator on an interest-free-for-one-year-plan from a big box hardware store because Sears would not honor the warranty I'd purchased for my top-of-the-line Kenmore elite refrigerator, which went out and Sears screwed me around for over 2 months during which we did not have a refrigerator.

So I ate the $2600 I'd paid for that Kenmore, had it hauled away and bought a new refrigerator.

This month my statement came. Now, I hadn't paid all of the balance, because I thought if I don't that's OK - interest will just begin accruing after the interest-free period is over.

Not so. The fine print on my predatory credit card agreement says that if I haven't paid off the entire amount, even if I only own a single penny, THEY WILL ACCRUE INTEREST AT 25.9% ON THE ENTIRE INITIAL AMOUNT FOR THE ENTIRE INTEREST-FREE PERIOD AND SLAP THAT ON YOUR BALANCE. So instead of now paying interest on the balance I had, the greed-company added over $500 to my balance in a single month. Merry Christmas, right?

Those fucks. These greed-credit companies need to have the HELL regulated out of them because this particular practice is not only reprehensible, but it is the exact kind of predatory capitalism that both Bernie and Warren rail against.

No. I'm sick of hearing how I just have to suck it up and have shitty healthcare, be a debt slave the rest of my life and have to worry about Social Security and Medicare being cut, cut, cut because Republican fucks solemnly intone, "We've got to FIX the entitlement programs." Meaning cut, cut, cut.

Why do you think we had the giant tax cut for billionaire parasites and corporations in 2017? The plan is to privatize everything in sight, deregulate industry completely and gut all social safety nets. The neoliberal idea being that the benign market will take care of us all. Well, no it won't. Do that and we'll ultimately have three companies running everything and we'll all be debt-wage slaves to a few billionaires.

Bernie and Elizabeth are right. They just are. I think we'll end up with a centrist nominee though, and there will be the expectation on the part of the monied interests in the MIC, on Wall Street, and in the new prison-industrial-complex that hey, once Trump is gone, we can just go back to business as usual. But do you really want that?

What about climate change? My giant rant above will be moot if we all go extinct, won't it?

We need some aggressive action on the part of a government that insists on a wider role to protect our interests from the excesses of capitalism. I don't know if Biden will have that kind of vigorous expectation, or Klobuchar or Buttigieg for that matter. Which is why I'm supporting Warren. Her policies (and Bernie's) would materially benefit me and my entire family.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

48. Good post!

Hope centrist Bias does not cloud
Too many people's thinking.

[evertonfc]

13. I support Joe but

he has a point. Bernie wants to shake up the entire system. That is appealing. Trump did the same thing in 2016. Not sure it would have same effect but he has a huge, rabid base and probably appeals to younger, new voters more than Biden.

[emmaverybo]

17. Some of us find his tactics quite unappealing while we admire his convictions and even endorse

his ideas.

[Autumn]

19. You know, I understand that. I feel the exact same way about Joe Biden.

[beastie boy]

20. That's exactly the problem. As a rule, movement leaders are good for revolutions, but not governing.

[Thekaspervote]

23. Yes... you nailed that one!!

People quickly grow weary of rah rah. Especially when the revolution isn’t working

[BannonsLiver]

26. I'll say

But not in a positive way.

[OnDoutside]

32. To be fair, Bernie was always running as a head of a movement.

Bernie has always been about Ideology above all.

[OldRed2450]

33. He should have a good campaign

He has been campaigning without a break since 2015

[David__77]

38. I support him!

...

[Uncle Joe]

39. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread Donkees.

[betsuni]

45. Bernie's a politician, he knows passing things is about the math. 2010 on single payer:

"I would say that in the Senate, there are at most 10 votes for a single payer plan. In the House I have no idea but its a small minority. It's absurd to say, 'Mr. President, go forward and make your bill single payer' when you've got 10% of the Congress supporting you."

[hack89]

47. Transformative people usually have a history of transformation.

Bernie’s history in the Senate says he is not such a man.