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Gary
Social climber
Where in the hell is Major Kong?
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May 19, 2016 - 03:33pm PT
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You didn't answer the question Gary. :-)
In the long run, it's working out. After the debacle of the W administration, more people see the modern Republican Party for what it is, prostitutes for Wall Street. And they see the Democrats aren't much better.
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dirtbag
climber
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May 19, 2016 - 03:47pm PT
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It didn't work out for the families who lost loved ones in the war, our treasury, the millions of families still struggling to recover from the Great Recession and housing bust (not to mention the deteriorated condition in Iraq).
I would not be so sure that letting the country sink to a trump presidency is the kind of thing which the country can quickly recover from, all for the possible "gain" of leftist political clout. That's a mighty big gun with which to play Russian roulette.
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nature
climber
Boulder, CO
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May 19, 2016 - 03:56pm PT
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Russian roulette?
You give Drumpf far too much credit.
All six chambers have an active round.
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skcreidc
Social climber
SD, CA
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May 19, 2016 - 04:02pm PT
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^^^^Rats. So I've been doing it wrong?
Moose. More lycra!!
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John M
climber
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May 19, 2016 - 04:06pm PT
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I would not be so sure that letting the country sink to a trump presidency is the kind of thing which the country can quickly recover from, all for the possible "gain" of leftist political clout. That's a mighty big gun with which to play Russian roulette.
and that dirtbag.. is the only reason I might vote for Hillary.
Crankster.. I am struggling with what to say to you. When many here expressed their concerns over having Hillary as a president, you went.. La la la.. she is the best person for the job and did not hear us. Now that it looks like she will be the Dems nominee you say you will listen. To what end? The only way we get any attention is if we say we won't vote for her. Which puts us in a horrible position.
This is what we mean when we say the establishment does not listen to us. We end up in a terrible position with no good answer. I don't agree with many things Bernie says, but I do see that he is putting pressure on the establishment. which.. though the end result might be terrible for the GOP and the country, is also one of the roots of what is driving the Trump nomination.
the coin is.. our government has not been serving us. that is what Bernie and Trump are playing with. At some point, the government as a whole needs to wake up or that energy will take hold and whoa unto us if it does.
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dirtbag
climber
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May 19, 2016 - 04:52pm PT
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Another thought: if Sanders feels the best thing to do is to cause enough disruption to Hillary and the party, so that she is incapable of winning the election, he should understand and be warned that that strategy will backfire horribly among many, if not most dems. Sanders would be distrusted, if not loathed by the majority of people he would need.
He needs to tread very carefully the next few weeks.
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dirtbag
climber
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May 19, 2016 - 06:03pm PT
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And another thought...
Sanders finds a lot of problems with the Democratic Party presidential nominating process.
But where has he been all these years working within the party to change it?
As a US Senator, he could have done a lot to change the nominating rules and the party's platform. Instead, he joined only last year to take advantage of the party's considerable resources to run for president. And now that things haven't gone his way, he whines about the process and threatens to hurt the presumptive party nominee.
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Norton
Social climber
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May 19, 2016 - 06:07pm PT
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Doubtful
Obama did not pick Hillary to unite the party after all that contentiousness
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
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May 19, 2016 - 06:24pm PT
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nature posted This is why I see Drumpf as an excellent long-term solution. At least he sets the pendulum ball up to swing wildly to left. Final nail in the coffin of the GOP and the apes take over the planet. Or progressives bury the regressives and we all live happily ever after.
Accelerationism is the worst possible idea and likely a pipe dream. In the mean time the nation's most vulnerable pay the highest price. On top of that it's the pinnacle of "fine, if I can't have my way then I hope the world burns."
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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May 19, 2016 - 07:09pm PT
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Forget for a moment about about personality, trustworthiness...
Here are the important issues that affect me not supporting Hillary today. I recognize the distinction between executive and legislative office, but the executive is the leader that creates a vision, generates public support and pressure, to which our representatives must acquiesce if a majority of the public wants it. Part of generating the public majority is to successfully cut through BS arguments and lay out facts and consequences of different potential paths.
 Overturn Citizen's United
Hillary has spoken out against it in a nominal way, but her reasons for not supporting it and the fact that she has used it to compete against Bernie Sanders shows a lack of integrity to the principles that I want the leader of the free world to defend. She just wanted to not let Bernie score points against her on the issue, and she doesn't want people saying bad stuff against her:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/02/10/hillary_clinton_on_citizens_united_was_terrible_and_terrifying.html
The key points she should honor which she does not are:
Transparency of money sources to show the context and potential for corruption embedded in the message
Money outweighing the voice of ordinary people, undermining the essence of a government of, by, and for the people
Beyond Dodd-Frank: Really Fixing "Too Big to Fail"
Simply put: banks where people park money or seek moderate investment to just keep up with inflation, should be completely separate entities from investment firms where customers should expect that losing money is a strong possibility. No parent company using the safe assets from one to justify being more risky in the other.
At the most basic and intuitive level, any business that is "too big to fail" is a risk to our economy and our society, and must not be allowed to exist in that aggregate form. Half-measures like in Dodd-Frank are not enough. What good is an extra pad of cash when on average the big banks are exposed to losing 28x their total net worth? You can't pad enough to account for that. You just need laws that stop you from doing that!
Hillary's plan to tax leverage is a good idea striking at the heart of that problem, but it's not practically enforceable. Banks can too easily hide what they are doing just as they can hide profits from taxation today. So in spirit I like where Hillary is going with that, but we need a more clear-cut mechanism, like absolute caps on debt/equity ratios. Here's a decent recent article comparing Hillary and Bernie on this front:
http://fortune.com/2016/05/17/clinton-too-big-to-fail/
Her mechanism is a way to look to the public like we are doing something bu in fact appease the banks because they know they can sidestep it.
Single payer healthcare, destroy for-profit insurance industry
Our leaders need to lead with a calm rational vision and a plan that explains the benefits so clearly that it overcomes the vapid objections. People in our country are divided because of the flow of information is so messed up. We're not talking about nationalization of healthcare- just of the health insurance industry. Life and death medical decisions do not fit the model of "both parties informed and able to walk away" which is a cornerstone of free market capitalism and the benefits of the invisible hand.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/271001-hillarys-newfound-disdain-for-single-payer
Hillary? Yes, it's hard politically- because of the money in politics and realities of getting reelected! But in the end there are a small number of people benefiting from NOT doing single-payer. Call them out under the light of day and make them scurry like cock-roaches... except you have your own skeletons that stop you from doing it? I'm disappointed that Barack Obama is not more aggressive on this front at this stage of his presidency.
Very Aggressively Break Up Monopolies
Our government should intervene in any industry when the conditions inhibit a buyer and seller being fully informed of the aspects of the transaction and being able to walk away. In other words, our government should intervene to make the circumstances of a "free market economy" when the natural tendencies create an imbalance of power or restriction/manipulation of information available in the transactions. Finance and media (tv, radio, print) are two industries that are most ripe for breaking up. And where there are truly economic benefits for natural monopolies (e.g. power distribution, residential wireline Internet access, single-payer health system killing for-profit competitive healthcare insurance), then government run or government regulated entities should exist with the primary interest of promoting the public welfare.
Only say Yes to international trade deals when they have strong method of enforcing rules about working conditions and environmental protections on par with laws in U.S. TPP fails for environmental protections - it actually penalizes a country for refusing business over domestic environmental protections:
http://medium.com/the-trans-pacific-partnership/environment-a7f25cd180cb
As for labor... TPP seems right on the surface but it doesn't address the economic realities in each country that cause all parties to look the other way when labor laws and working conditions are being violated. Maybe the approach here is right in getting some incremental commitments and then over time strengthening them when each participating country wants to keep the benefits associated with the TPP. I'm unsure on this issue. Perhaps TPP is the only practical way for the US to wield influence in the world to make other countries improve their working conditions. Read more of the actual agreement here:
https://medium.com/the-trans-pacific-partnership/labour-66e8e6f4e8d5#.b1fue2hlh
Share the benefits of automation technology across humanity
Someone who invests hard work and time and money into automation (or anything else) should reap the rewards of their efforts. But this should be envisioned in a very encompassing and holistic way. One consequence of automation is a widespread loss of jobs, associated income, spending power, disparities in quality of life between rich and poor, etc.... The creation of automation technology has a social and macro-economic cost that can be offset in the same way that environmental costs are offset. Increasing use of automation means more profits for companies and shareholders, but it should also mean a progressive tax burden to cover the societal costs (paid to government for programs and services to help the people adversely affected by this automation). I'm open to different ways of addressing this, but fundamentally the owners of the automation technology should be forced to help pay for the hidden costs they create. This is the only path I see to sustain our civilization without a revolution related to loss of jobs and human dignity.
Some creative ways governments can help encourage this: use more open-source software, and give tax credits to companies that also use them. Destroy the idea of privatized for-profit automation and foster community-minded open source automation projects.
Aggressively breaking up monopolies would potentially solve the whole problem.... Right now when customers only have a single source of a product or service, all of the benefits for automation in that product/service go to the product/service provider as increased profits. If there was more anti-monopoly enforcement, these lower costs would be passed on to consumers to win their business, and we would all enjoy lower costs for a given lifestyle. This would be a preferred way to manage things rather than trying to tax the companies higher and administer programs to redistribute the wealth back to society.
Government paid public preschool
The cycle of poverty begins in early childhood, when children from poor families miss out on education and family attention because their family members are busy working to meet survival expenses. Free preschool would mean that single parents have time to work, even at a low paying job, which would improve people's self esteem and sense of contribution in the world, would improve their attitude when interacting with their kids, and would help the economy rather than being a drain on it.
From Hillary's website: "Her proposal would work to ensure that every 4-year old in America has access to high-quality preschool in the next 10 years."
That's just not enough. Many kids start kindergarten at 4 years old. We should be seeing availability (but not make it compulsory) from 18 months onward. That's about the age when kids start to get bored at home and parents or individual care-givers can't keep them entertained/occupied enough. This needs to be considered as not just a formal structured education environment like school, but as a daycare with age-appropriate elements of unstructured play and structured education available. As as society, we will still have to deal with the problem of single parents who can't work for 18 months or more because they can't afford the cost of someone else watching their kids.
Hands-Off Approach to Policing the World
Stop spending so damn much money trying to protect our access to assets around the world. Let Americans pay global market prices for goods and services instead of artificially low prices for some commodities with big back-end taxes for expansive military spending, and big profits baked in for beneficiaries of the oil and military-industrial complex.
Contingent Free or Highly Subsidized Public University
Payment-deferred government loans for university, with full forgiveness of the debt when performance exceeds a metric (e.g. degree attained, 2.0 GPA or better). Maybe even offer differences in percentage of debt forgiveness as a function of market demand for different skills. For example, you get 50% debt forgiveness if you major in Art History but you get 100% debt forgiveness if you major in computer science, biology, math, chemistry, physics. This gets a little ugly to debate the merits of different degrees, but there should be some correlation to what unsatisfied market demands we have. Giving 50% debt forgiveness as a baseline for all degrees honors the intention to let people pursue their own happiness while getting a proper education to participate in a democracy. The rest of the debt forgiveness honors the real-world circumstances of what skills and jobs are needed.
Think of this as an in-sourcing alternative to the H1-B program. We need H1B because we fail to educate enough Americans for key professions. Is it because we are too stupid, too lazy, or just don't want to be burdened with college debt? There are other reasons that H1B is popular with business, but it would certainly help the U.S. to encourage more US people into fields where we have to import workers.
ok, gotta break it off at some point.
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Norton
Social climber
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May 19, 2016 - 07:27pm PT
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did not pick Hillary to unite the party after all that contentiousness
Good point. He chose prozac instead, a vanilla milkshake of a politician. It takes courage to embrace your enemies, huh? Maybe she does have the guts to do it. Maybe he is pragmatic enough to accept. That would dump Trump, for sure :)
DMT
yes, President Obama lacks "courage" because he did not pick Hillary Clinton to be his VP, of course you don't know that he did ask her and she said no, either, do you
of course you don't, but if only he would have consulted a climber on an internet forum 8 years ago.....he would have more "guts'...wow
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kattz
climber
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May 19, 2016 - 07:47pm PT
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Don't worry, I'm sure a socialist or career bureaucrat will fix it.
Because it's always someone else who "f*#ked us up" (and "us" is being applied to all other persons, without their approval), it's always someone else who's at fault, etc. Socialist/totalitarian mentality mandates this. They know what's good for "us", they know it better than us.
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kattz
climber
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May 19, 2016 - 07:52pm PT
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Discussion is pointless...Sanders is done and will be forgotten soon.
There won't be any free stuff, sorry. May be in the dumpster.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Shetville , North of Los Angeles
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May 19, 2016 - 07:57pm PT
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There's plenty of free stuff for the 1 % ers...
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kattz
climber
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May 19, 2016 - 08:00pm PT
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Life is not fair.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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May 19, 2016 - 08:12pm PT
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If bernie drops out I am thinking 30 % of his supporters don't vote for president at all. Or they vote green or peace and freedom. If that happens hillary probably will still win ; much better than the other alternative. Actually a lot better. Similar to obama. I am worried worried about voter suppression.
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Curt
climber
Gold Canyon, AZ
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May 19, 2016 - 08:18pm PT
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Obama did not pick Hillary to unite the party after all that contentiousness
True. However, if she wants the very best possible chance of winning, she will pick Bernie.
Curt
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MisterE
Gym climber
Small Town with a Big Back Yard
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May 19, 2016 - 09:12pm PT
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If bernie drops out I am thinking 30 % of his supporters don't vote for president at all. Or they vote green or peace and freedom. If that happens hillary probably will still win ; much better than the other alternative. Actually a lot better.
+1
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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May 19, 2016 - 11:56pm PT
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I'm beginning to understand the degree to which Bernie supporters lack even a basic understanding of how our system of government works. The November election isn't for a King, a Pharoh or a Pope, it's for the President of the United States of America. And here's the tricky bit in that - the President proposes and signs passed laws and budgets, but does not legislate them - that's Congress' job.
PRESIDENTIAL VISION, PROMISES AND TICK LISTS ARE COMPLETELY MEANINGLESS WITHOUT THE SUPPORT OF CONGRESS.
Did you Bernie supporters understand any of the above? I mean, what will it take to sink in? You're barking up the wrong frigging tree - you can't ignore, wave away or otherwise bypass Congress and can't summon laws you want by fiat or magic.
You have the cart way ahead of the horse as you need a progressive Congress in order to pass your agenda and you need a friendly Supreme Court in order for any of those progressive agenda items that do become law in the future to survive the inevitable and endless legal / constitutional challenges from the right.
So if you're really serious about that progressive tick list you'll vote for Hillary in order to secure the Supreme Court and then get your asses to work in the states to turn the Congress back to a democratic majority. And let's be clear, that will be an eight to ten year battle given the gop's statehouse takeovers and gerrymandering in the wake of the 2010 census, so plan on having to conduct a pitched ground battle until at least 2022 in order to turn the tide on that front.
So are you all just delusional dreamers waving magic unicorn wands and or are you serious about your tick list? Because if you are, it's not Bernie you need, it's Hillary this year to secure the court and then you need to work to elect democratic senators and congressmen/women over the next three to four election cycles. Anyone who refuses to vote for Hillary is clearly a hypocrite who is not really serious about a progressive agenda; in fact, they're willing, in a tantrum, to throw the whole damn thing under a bus in a heartbeat.
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Escopeta
Trad climber
Idaho
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May 20, 2016 - 04:24am PT
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Nut again, You forgot about banning guns.
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