And They're Off! The Democratic Candidates for 2020

[71 dB]

Bernie may get around the NRA. But he can't get around the Second Amendment.

Do you have the right to own nukes or biological weapons because of the Second Amendment? I didn't think so. Where is the line? Do you think they thought about powerful firearms of 21st century when they wrote the Second Amendment? If the US can prevent prisoners to vote, it damn sure can prevent people with mental issues to have firearms no matter what the Amendments say.

[JBS]

Capitalism is essentially the rich making all important economic decisions and not only regulating the economic activity for their own benefit.  It is therefore implicitly authoritarian, even if the decision making process has elements of democratic input.

Yeah, that's oversimplifying things, but so is your statement. How authoritarian is Denmark in your opinion? Do you think Danish people suffer because Danish government regulates the purity of tap water?

Again, Bernie's proposals are normal social democratic stuff. Sometimes he calls even himself a socialist, but you need to understand what he means when he says it. He is for socialistic aspects in capitalism where they make sense such as tuition free education or healthcare. So, it's important to understand in what sense he is a socialist and in what sense he is not. When you make that analyse you see he is a social democrat who unfortunately calls himself a democratic socialist, because these DAMN labels are poorly known, but they are JUST LABELS!! If someone wants to make the US similar to Denmark (because Denmarks kicks ass when it comes to quality of living), it's idiotic to claim he wants to make the US like Venezuela! Is it that difficult to be intellectually honest?

Btw, even Venezuela would be doing better if it wasn't for the economic sanctions by the US crushing them. That's not to say Venezuela is a good model for anyone - they have made a lot of mistakes for sure - but their problems aren't 100 % caused by socialism. Intellectually honest people take that into account. Deep inside YOU know that, but you need to justify your stupid simplistic right-wing opinions to yourself.

Depends on what kind of socialism we are talking about. Every socialistic country has been different just as every capitalistic country is different. Some more centralized and authoritarian than the others. Sweden in the 70's was perhaps the closest to Karl Marx's ideal society and I'm sure you wouldn't call it elitistic or the decision making centralized. That's because Sweden has been a highly democratic country. Simpletons may want to simplify the world to understand it better, but it's not a sign off intellectual honesty.

You forget that Bernie wants to reduce/remove corruption. When the rich can't buy the elections, politicians are more responsible to the voter, the regular people. This means reduced corruption. Corrupt politicians are simply voted out. You also conveniantly forget that companies are greedy actors. Their desicions are made to benefits them. How is that better? Again, how corrupt is Denmark compared to other countries in the world including the US? Your claims are avoid of any empirical evidence so why would anyone take them seriously?

Debating healtcare with you is tiresome af. Theoretically medicare for all may not be the only way to cover everyone, but it is certainly the BEST and most cost effective way backed up with empirical evidence and studies. The reason why we are even debating about this is because the insurance companies and Big Pharma want to protect their MAFIA-like profit model and have bought the MSM to brainwash a lot of people including you to believe stupid lies and smear about single payer healthcare. Luckily the majority of americans aren't as stupid as you and understand how much better medicare for all would be as a healthcare system. Since the single payer is the best model, the other models are compromizes done to serve other interests than providing healthcare to all citizens and that makes them oligarchic in nature, especially when these companies spend millions to misslead the public. You really have some serious mental limitations between your ears not understanding these things despite of me explaining then to you several times. So tiresome! 

A functioning healthcare system is pretty simple: You need help you get help. The more serious your health problem is the quicker you get the help, because everyone can't be given healthcare immediately for resource limitation reasons. Not only is this morally right, but it even benefits the whole society.

Medicare as it is is an underfunded afterthought to "fix" the problems of for profit healtcare. Medicare for all would be expanded version based on medicare, but many ways different, properly funded system. Even as it is medicare is a very popular program and a lot of old people would be in serious trouble without it.

You never answered me what you would lose going from your current healthcare coverage to medicare for all? Isn't it bothering you you can't answer such a simple question? One of your main arguments is medicare for all means worse coverage, but you can't tell how! The truth is your coverage would be the same or better under medicare for all (depends on how good your healthcare plan is), but you would pay less for healthcare even when your taxes would go up. I am on your side here wanting you better healthcare for less money. You may be thoroughly brainwashed and stupid, but you are still a human being and good affordable healthcare is your human right.

Medicare saves money. We can discuss about how much (different studies have differing answers), but the real question is how is the US going to pay for the current system, the most expensive healthcare system in the World that gives average results comparable to other countries with half of the costs. More important than whether decision making is entralized or not is what are the incentives. For profit healthcare system creates insane incentives (denying care increases profit) and that's the underlying reason why the US healtcare system is so bad and needs to be reformed into a single payer system. If capitalism and for profit philosophy worked with healthcare the US would probably have one of the best healthcare system in the world, but that's not the case. Capitalism can work with healthcare providers as proven by countries such as France and Canada, but the payer need to be centralized, governmental. That's why single payer system.

All the talk about protection against pre-existing conditions is a prime example of the problems with for profit decision making.

Medicare for all can be mandated so that each State creates it's own single payer system. That solves any problems regarding size as even the biggest States are small compared to such single payer countries as Germany (~80 million people).

You know even less about Venezuela than you do about the US. Venezuela cratered because Chavez, and now Maduro, used the Venezuelan economy as a piggybank for himself personally and to pay for loads of free stuff for the poor. The money ran out, and now everyone is poor, except the Chavez family, Maduro, and his cronies. BTW I know thus because I know Venezuelans and their relatives who live here in Florida. I don't need a Youtube channel propagandizing for  the Left to get my information on the subject.

The rest of your comment reveals you understand almost nothing of what U said. For instance, you fail to realize that under Bernie's plans, companies will not stop buying politicians and bureaucrats. (Bureaucrats are easy to buy, in fact.) Instead, their purchases of politicians and bureaucrats will increase because they'll have even bigger reasons to buy them.

[JBS]

Do you have the right to own nukes or biological weapons because of the Second Amendment? I didn't think so. Where is the line? Do you think they thought about powerful firearms of 21st century when they wrote the Second Amendment? If the US can prevent prisoners to vote, it damn sure can prevent people with mental issues to have firearms no matter what the Amendments say.

Bernie thinks prisoners who aren't allowed to vote are having their civil rights violated.  I actually agree with him on that.

[Florestan]

You know even less about Venezuela than you do about the US. Venezuela cratered because Chavez, and now Maduro, used the Venezuelan economy as a piggybank for himself personally and to pay for loads of free stuff for the poor. The money ran out, and now everyone is poor, except the Chavez family, Maduro, and his cronies. BTW I know thus because I know Venezuelans and their relatives who live here in Florida. I don't need a Youtube channel propagandizing for  the Left to get my information on the subject.

Actually, this is a favorite canard of some leftists, used also in the case of Cuba: that it's the US sanctions, rather than domestic policies, which ruined the country. This is of course nonsense: Cuba benefitted from massive USSR economic aid and Venezuela's trade with any other country than US was completely free. It's the USSR going broke and the inept economic policies of the Chavez-Maduro gang that wreaked havoc in those countries' economies. It's actually a bitter irony that one of the richest countries in oil, Venezuela, is also one of the poorest. There's been talk of Norway here --- one can be sure, at least I am, that had Norway pursued Chavez-like policies she'd have been exactly at the same level of Venezuela.

[Florestan]

Bernie thinks prisoners who aren't allowed to vote are having their civil rights violated.  I actually agree with him on that.

I'm puzzled. In the Romanian legal system there are crimes whose legal punishment involves, besides a term in prison, stripping that person of several civil rights, including voting. Therefore only a fraction of the inmates can vote, and it's perfectly legal and nobody complains about it. Isn't that the case in the US as well?

[JBS]

I'm puzzled. In the Romanian legal system there are crimes whose legal punishment involves, besides a term in prison, stripping that person of several civil rights, including voting. Therefore only a fraction of the inmates can vote, and it's perfectly legal and nobody complains about it. Isn't that the case in the US as well?

Generally, yes. But it's something that has started to come under fire from both the Left and the libertarian Right.

One complicating fact is that, given the higher incarceration rate among blacks, this loss of voting rights has a disparate impact on blacks. So it  is a actual instance of what the Left calls systemic racism.

[Florestan]

Generally, yes. But it's something that has started to come under fire from both the Left and the libertarian Right.

One complicating fact is that, given the higher incarceration rate among blacks, this loss of voting rights has a disparate impact on blacks. So it  is a actual instance of what the Left calls systemic racism.

I see. Time and again, the racist past of the USA haunts their present. Will there ever come a time when the wounds will be completely healed?

[71 dB]

You know even less about Venezuela than you do about the US. Venezuela cratered because Chavez, and now Maduro, used the Venezuelan economy as a piggybank for himself personally and to pay for loads of free stuff for the poor. The money ran out, and now everyone is poor, except the Chavez family, Maduro, and his cronies. BTW I know thus because I know Venezuelans and their relatives who live here in Florida. I don't need a Youtube channel propagandizing for  the Left to get my information on the subject.

The rest of your comment reveals you understand almost nothing of what U said. For instance, you fail to realize that under Bernie's plans, companies will not stop buying politicians and bureaucrats. (Bureaucrats are easy to buy, in fact.) Instead, their purchases of politicians and bureaucrats will increase because they'll have even bigger reasons to buy them.

I know less about Venezuela than the US. As I said, Venezuela has made a lot of mistakes thinking oil will pay for everything, but that doesn't take away the fact US sanctions have hurt Venezuela even more and without those santions they would be better off.

Bernie wants to make buying politicians illegal. Unless the CEOs want behind the bars they stop the bribery.

[Florestan]

US sanctions have hurt Venezuela even more and without those santions they would be better off.

Nonsense. The sad situation of Venezuela is entirely the fault of the Chavez-Maduro gang.

[71 dB]

Nonsense. The sad situation of Venezuela is entirely the fault of the Chavez-Maduro gang.

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IF10715.pdf

[amw]

Actually, what is socialism? I was born and raised in the Socialist Republic of Romania whose society was officially labelled as "developped socialist society" so socialism as I experienced it was characterized by:

- one-party state (actually, there was no differenece between the Party and the State: most governmental agencies were officially described as "state-and-party entity")

- complete government control over the completely state-run economy, absolutely no privately-owned businesses whatever

- heavy censorship and suppression of any ideas not in line with the official ideology

- omnipresent, omnipotent and universally feared secret police with an extensive network of informers (after 1989 there were numerous cases in which people discovered they had been reported by some of their closest friends and relatives)

- shameless cult of personality of the Party leader and his wife

- relentless anti-Western propaganda by the state-run newspapers, radio and TV stations.

- in the last few years of the regime, chronic and dramatic shortages of pretty much anything, from bread, meat and potatoes to toilet paper and deodorants, plus frequent power, gas and heating outages.

- etc etc etc along the same lines.

This is socialism for me, an odious regime which trampled under foot the common people and their liberty, impoverished, indoctrinated, persecuted them and made them unhappy while securing a life of political and economical privileges for the party nomenklatura, the secret police members and their minions.

If you think life isn't still like this in the USA for people of the "wrong colour" you are either misinformed or have a serious empathy deficit. There are admittedly some small differences:

- economy completely run by multinational billion-dollar corporations rather than the state

- one-party state, but "it has two of them" (- Julius Nyerere) (and in many states, there is effectively only one party e.g. in New York State the state government is indistinguishable from the state Democratic Party, which controls all political activity; the same is true in e.g. Mississippi or Tennessee with the state Republican Party)

- police operate in the open, not in secret

America is a great place to live if you are white and have money. But some examples of what life is like if you are not:

- The states with the largest black populations—especially Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina—impose generational extreme poverty that is almost impossible to escape and resembles situations in the third world (according to a UN report a couple of years ago, which made minimal if any impact on the state/corporate-run media in the USA). Lack of adequate sanitation and clean water have led to the resurgence of diseases like hookworm. Power companies target these areas first for scheduled outages. Pig farms and other local industries—usually owned by multinational agricultural companies—dump effluent into the water supply, while keeping workers' wages low enough that they cannot afford to install, e.g., septic tanks. This is not an aberration or mistake; it is completely intentional and in the service of a system of apartheid.

- Even outside the deep south, in virtually every neighbourhood that is majority black or hispanic, there are few or no grocery stores—and the ones that do exist price their goods out of range for the inhabitants. As a result, people have to primarily shop at dollar stores. This creates artificial but chronic shortages of various foods and goods. Some states are trying to take action to ban dollar stores from majority-minority neighbourhoods—notably Oklahoma—simply because access to even that limited selection of consumer goods is deemed too generous.

- Minority neighbourhoods in every city, and majority-minority towns throughout the USA, are policed and surveilled to a similar degree to that experienced in e.g. socialist Romania or Democratic Kampuchea. Go to any such neighbourhood and you will see armed police officers on every street corner—officers who, if they so choose, can kill you or make you "disappear" into prison for years before you face trial for whatever charges the officer invents. Political protests or strikes are met with tanks, helicopters and armoured vehicles, alongside heavily armed police officers with police dogs and so on. And the repression continues even after the protest is broken up; in Ferguson, MO (for example) the leaders of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2014 have been mysteriously "committing suicide" for six years ("shot himself in the back of the head six times, very tragic" as they might say on Radio Yerevan lol). Surveillance cameras are omnipresent, and (literally) always watching you when you're in public. When you're at home, a police officer can enter your home and kill you for basically any reason with no consequences except perhaps—in the most egregious cases—a public trial (always resulting in acquittal, as juries are extensively vetted to ensure they contain only police sympathisers). Every American prison is essentially a labour camp—with a variety of types of forced labour—and the majority of inmates at any one time have probably not been convicted of any crime and are simply there because they couldn't afford bail (protection money). Every person of colour I know in the USA lives in constant fear of the police.

- The USA has some of the worst health outcomes among developed countries, but this is averaging together the two "classes". White people with money have some of the best healthcare in the world. Everyone else essentially lives in a third-world country: for example black mothers are extremely likely to die in childbirth due to medical neglect, doctors who attended USA medical schools were likely taught that black people feel less pain than white people (this teaching only ended recently), and the average lifespan in poor communities and communities of colour is 10-12 years shorter than in wealthy ones. Again, all of this is completely intentional, not a "mistake"; this is fundamental to how and why the USA was founded.

I don't see the point of addressing the idea of a "shameless cult of personality" given that the capital of the USA is literally named Washington and the faces of several US presidents are carved into a mountain. Only the Soviet Union can really compare, and they at least would delete various past leaders from the cult of personality when tastes changed, whereas in the USA the "Founders" are still revered to an absurd degree. (if I were more religious, I might say blasphemous.) Similarly, the state & corporate-run newspapers, radio and TV stations constantly and relentlessly run propaganda against whatever the current enemy of the USA is—socialist countries, Iran, Syria, China, etc. But I can't really think of any countries where things are different. Go to India and you'll see anti-Pakistan propaganda, go to China and it's anti-American, etc. Propaganda, like death and taxes, is inescapable & one just has to stay aware of it; I don't watch CNN for accurate information on the US government just as I don't watch PressTV for accurate information on the Iranian government.

I also note that polling in Romania has pretty consistently shown that, despite all the downsides of living in essentially a USSR puppet state with enforced austerity, a plurality of respondents think their lives were better under socialism. (See https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/communist-nostalgia-in-romania/—a capitalist propaganda source—or https://www.liberationnews.org/romania-30-years/—a socialist propaganda source—take your pick)

[drogulus]

     Facebook Probed Suspicious Pro-Bernie Sanders Content on Platform: WSJ

Facebook probed suspicious content supporting 2020 presidential contender Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), but the social network was unable to determine whether pro-Trump or Russian actors took part in the coordinated inauthentic behavior.

     or.....

[amw]

BTW I know thus because I know Venezuelans and their relatives who live here in Florida.

I also know some Serbs and their relatives who live in Russia, who assure me that any allegations of "war crimes" or "genocide" during the Yugoslav wars are patently false—for example, my good friend Marko Milošević.

[Karl Henning]

I see. Time and again, the racist past of the USA haunts their present. Will there ever come a time when the wounds will be completely healed?

Judging by this presidency, and its enormous base of White Grievance support: Never.

[Karl Henning]

Cannot Bernie learn to cool it?

https://www.vox.com/2020/2/24/21147388/bernie-sanders-cuba-60-minutes-nicaragua

[JBS]

If you think life isn't still like this in the USA for people of the "wrong colour" you are either misinformed or have a serious empathy deficit. There are admittedly some small differences:

- economy completely run by multinational billion-dollar corporations rather than the state

- one-party state, but "it has two of them" (- Julius Nyerere) (and in many states, there is effectively only one party e.g. in New York State the state government is indistinguishable from the state Democratic Party, which controls all political activity; the same is true in e.g. Mississippi or Tennessee with the state Republican Party)

- police operate in the open, not in secret

America is a great place to live if you are white and have money. But some examples of what life is like if you are not:

- The states with the largest black populations—especially Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina—impose generational extreme poverty that is almost impossible to escape and resembles situations in the third world (according to a UN report a couple of years ago, which made minimal if any impact on the state/corporate-run media in the USA). Lack of adequate sanitation and clean water have led to the resurgence of diseases like hookworm. Power companies target these areas first for scheduled outages. Pig farms and other local industries—usually owned by multinational agricultural companies—dump effluent into the water supply, while keeping workers' wages low enough that they cannot afford to install, e.g., septic tanks. This is not an aberration or mistake; it is completely intentional and in the service of a system of apartheid.

- Even outside the deep south, in virtually every neighbourhood that is majority black or hispanic, there are few or no grocery stores—and the ones that do exist price their goods out of range for the inhabitants. As a result, people have to primarily shop at dollar stores. This creates artificial but chronic shortages of various foods and goods. Some states are trying to take action to ban dollar stores from majority-minority neighbourhoods—notably Oklahoma—simply because access to even that limited selection of consumer goods is deemed too generous.

- Minority neighbourhoods in every city, and majority-minority towns throughout the USA, are policed and surveilled to a similar degree to that experienced in e.g. socialist Romania or Democratic Kampuchea. Go to any such neighbourhood and you will see armed police officers on every street corner—officers who, if they so choose, can kill you or make you "disappear" into prison for years before you face trial for whatever charges the officer invents. Political protests or strikes are met with tanks, helicopters and armoured vehicles, alongside heavily armed police officers with police dogs and so on. And the repression continues even after the protest is broken up; in Ferguson, MO (for example) the leaders of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2014 have been mysteriously "committing suicide" for six years ("shot himself in the back of the head six times, very tragic" as they might say on Radio Yerevan lol). Surveillance cameras are omnipresent, and (literally) always watching you when you're in public. When you're at home, a police officer can enter your home and kill you for basically any reason with no consequences except perhaps—in the most egregious cases—a public trial (always resulting in acquittal, as juries are extensively vetted to ensure they contain only police sympathisers). Every American prison is essentially a labour camp—with a variety of types of forced labour—and the majority of inmates at any one time have probably not been convicted of any crime and are simply there because they couldn't afford bail (protection money). Every person of colour I know in the USA lives in constant fear of the police.

- The USA has some of the worst health outcomes among developed countries, but this is averaging together the two "classes". White people with money have some of the best healthcare in the world. Everyone else essentially lives in a third-world country: for example black mothers are extremely likely to die in childbirth due to medical neglect, doctors who attended USA medical schools were likely taught that black people feel less pain than white people (this teaching only ended recently), and the average lifespan in poor communities and communities of colour is 10-12 years shorter than in wealthy ones. Again, all of this is completely intentional, not a "mistake"; this is fundamental to how and why the USA was founded.

I don't see the point of addressing the idea of a "shameless cult of personality" given that the capital of the USA is literally named Washington and the faces of several US presidents are carved into a mountain. Only the Soviet Union can really compare, and they at least would delete various past leaders from the cult of personality when tastes changed, whereas in the USA the "Founders" are still revered to an absurd degree. (if I were more religious, I might say blasphemous.) Similarly, the state & corporate-run newspapers, radio and TV stations constantly and relentlessly run propaganda against whatever the current enemy of the USA is—socialist countries, Iran, Syria, China, etc. But I can't really think of any countries where things are different. Go to India and you'll see anti-Pakistan propaganda, go to China and it's anti-American, etc. Propaganda, like death and taxes, is inescapable & one just has to stay aware of it; I don't watch CNN for accurate information on the US government just as I don't watch PressTV for accurate information on the Iranian government.

I also note that polling in Romania has pretty consistently shown that, despite all the downsides of living in essentially a USSR puppet state with enforced austerity, a plurality of respondents think their lives were better under socialism. (See https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/communist-nostalgia-in-romania/—a capitalist propaganda source—or https://www.liberationnews.org/romania-30-years/—a socialist propaganda source—take your pick)

Your description matches China rather well.
It is rather ironic that a Maoist complains about cult of personality.

[JBS]

I also know some Serbs and their relatives who live in Russia, who assure me that any allegations of "war crimes" or "genocide" during the Yugoslav wars are patently false—for example, my good friend Marko Milošević.

You actually understand less about the world than 71db.

[JBS]

I know less about Venezuela than the US. As I said, Venezuela has made a lot of mistakes thinking oil will pay for everything, but that doesn't take away the fact US sanctions have hurt Venezuela even more and without those santions they would be better off.

Wrong. Anyone who claims otherwise is lying or a fool.The proof of this is that Venezuela's problems began from the moment Chavez took power.

Bernie wants to make buying politicians illegal. Unless the CEOs want behind the bars they stop the bribery.

He can't do that. Even if Citizens United was reversed, political contributions and advertisements from individuals are protected by the First Amendment.

You really need to learn how we do things here if you want to actually learn about politics.

[amw]

Your description matches China rather well.

China is pretty much the same if you substitute Black/Latino/Native American for Uighur/Tibetan (although the oppression is less all-pervasive; I have not seen any evidence of e.g. Tibetans facing systematic discrimination in hospitals) and Washington/Jefferson/Madison for Xi Jinping (although I don't think his face has been carved into any mountains yet). But if you don't think this is an accurate description of the USA, you lead a quite sheltered life.

[71 dB]

Bernie DOMINATING In The Rust Belt

https://www.youtube.com/v/ghDpIrbKtdw