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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPro-Sanders group rebranding into 'pragmatic progressives'
But after another defeat in 2020, the 79-year-old Vermont senator is unlikely to run for president a third time. And the organization centered on his fiery brand of politics is undergoing a rebranding.
Rather than insisting on Medicare for All Sanders trademark universal, government-funded health care plan or the climate-change-fighting Green New Deal, Our Revolution is focusing on the more modest alternatives endorsed by President Joe Biden. Those include expanding eligibility for the existing Medicare program and curtailing federal subsidies for fossil fuel companies.
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Sanders, who now heads the powerful Senate budget committee, cant legally work with outside political groups like Our Revolution. But many of his top allies have been closely aligned with the group since its August 2016 founding.
The senator didnt comment for this story.
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Thats a far cry from the groups founding, when some activists worried that it was the kind of outside fundraising organization that could make Sanders and his denunciations of big-money politics look hypocritical. Sanders also spent the 2020 presidential campaign saying he didnt want a super PAC, even as Our Revolution effectively acted like one for him.
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-climate-change-election-2020-campaign-2016-3c6a4d7b4ff078f5eced9e389ac0f644?utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP_Politics
wryter2000
(46,016 posts)Overall, this is a good move. What good has an insistence on Medicare for All done us?
Budi
(15,325 posts)Ok then.
lapucelle
(18,037 posts)That's how President Obama got the ACA.
And that's how we in NYS accomplished the $15 an hour minimum wage and tuition-free community college and state university while other states like VT are still chasing those goals.
Tom Rinaldo
(22,911 posts)President Biden and Senate Budget Committee Chair Sanders enjoy a good working relationship.
Budi
(15,325 posts)Negotiations as Vice President
Biden played a key role in negotiating with Republicans on Capitol Hill after his election as vice president in 2008.
He helped the Obama administration pass several key pieces of legislation, including the 2010 Tax Relief Act, the Budget Control Act of 2011, which dealt with a debt ceiling crisis, and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. The 2012 act resolved the so-called "fiscal cliff."
Obamacare and the "Cancer Moonshot"
Biden has previously highlighted his role in the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also called Obamacare. This was the Obama's signature piece of healthcare legislation, which passed in 2010 with limited bipartisan support and Biden's personal role seems to have been getting his own party on board.
He later helped to launch a "Cancer Moonshot" initiative in 2016 aimed at improving the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the disease. The Lancet Oncology, a medical journal specializing in cancer, gave Biden an unprecedented endorsement on October 1, 2020 for his commitment to healthcare and cancer research.
Career in the Senate
➡️Biden sponsored one of the first climate change bills in the Senate in 1986 and went on to propose curbing greenhouse gas emissions in 2007.⬅️
In 2008, he successfully passed the PROTECT Our Children Act, which was aimed at addressing the online exploitation of children.
Biden has played a role in foreign policy, serving as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee three times. He spoke passionately about the need to place sanctions on Apartheid-era South Africa in 1986 and advocated for intervention in Yugoslavia in the 1990s as that country descended into civil war and ethnic cleansing.
He also pushed for former Eastern Bloc countries to join NATO after the fall of the Soviet Union, which many of them did.
The Violence Against Women Act
Biden co-sponsored the original Violence Against Women Act in 1994 along with Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah. Biden was chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time.
The act passed with bipartisan support in both houses of Congress and following its passage, intimate partner violence against females fell 53 percent up to 2008, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The 1994 Crime Bill
This is perhaps the most controversial aspect of Biden's career.
Senate Judiciary Committee
As ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1986, Biden urged then President Ronald Reagan to withdraw Jeff Sessions as a nominee for the federal district court in Alabama amid allegations that Sessions had made racially insensitive comments to staff while he was U.S. attorney in Mobile, Alabama. Sessions was not confirmed but went on to be a U.S. senator and attorney general under Trump.
Biden became chair of the Judiciary Committee in 1987 and served until 1995. He was instrumental in preventing the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. Opposition to Bork centered on his views about the court's decisions on civil rights and abortion.
He also presided over the confirmation hearings of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1993. She was just the second woman to ever sit on the court.
That's just a snippet of Joe Biden's accomplishments telling us which side of the center line he sits.
He is Centet Left. A Democratic moderate. And in his own words, "I am not a socialist".
His accomplishments on behalf of fairness, women's rights, foreign policy to gun legislation &, Climate/Greenhouse gasses, make the case for why Joe Biden became our President on Jan 21, 2021.
No one can stake a claim in moving Biden anywhere.
Joe Biden moves as he sees fair & fit. And he has alwayse been capable of that.
That absolute trust, is why Joseph R Biden is President & no one else is.
No one moved Joe Biden off the course he successfully walked for 40 years.
Tom Rinaldo
(22,911 posts)Many have long called him a liberal. Others have called him a moderate. Some previously called him progressive, but there is pretty much a consensus among political observers that Biden has embraced positions in his platform and now his administration that are left of where his own political center of gravity had long been.
I like President Biden. I support President Biden. I am very very pleased with his leadership. Still I disagree with you that he has not moved to the left. The fact that he clearly was a liberal all along does not dissuade me from that view which is shared by a great many people, many if not most of whom are not Sanders supporters.
But this topic does not move me to engage in further debate. My original post as you recall was essentially one sentence. We can agree to disagree if you like, while still agreeing that we both are grateful that Joe Biden is our president.
Cha
(295,899 posts)that position and now Sanders is supporting Nina Turner who doesn't know the Difference between trump and Now Pres Joe Biden.
Sanders Campaign Co-Chair Nina Turner Rips Biden: Choosing Between Him and Trump is Like Eating From a Bowl of Sh*t
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213815901
Budi
(15,325 posts)Expected nothing less.
Cha
(295,899 posts)Predictable.
LizBeth
(9,946 posts)as we all told them, they were not being pragmatic and it wouldn't get done. Just maddening and all the damage they did in 2016.
lapucelle
(18,037 posts)They spent 5 years condemning Democrats for the type of pragmatism that they are now claiming to embrace.
That nonsense helped elect Trump. Too little, too late.
LizBeth
(9,946 posts)Paladin
(28,202 posts)Not just for putting trump in office, but for the damage they did, here at DU. To this very day, I switch channels whenever Bernie Sanders turns up.
Cha
(295,899 posts)Paladin
(28,202 posts)But I passed my 20th anniversary at DU a few days ago, and the ugliness of the 2016 campaign was a definite low point at this place. Hope it never ever gets that bad, again.
Cha
(295,899 posts)I just had my 19 year here in early July.
LizBeth
(9,946 posts)Paladin
(28,202 posts)...currently trying to end our democracy.
Yes, the damage from 2016 cannot be minimized.
Kahuna
(27,310 posts)I knew it would be ugly.
Paladin
(28,202 posts)LetMyPeopleVote
(143,999 posts)lapucelle
(18,037 posts)lapucelle
(18,037 posts)by executive order during his his first week in office and that his budget goes even farther? Don't they watch the news?
https://grist.org/politics/biden-is-eliminating-fossil-fuel-subsidies-but-he-cant-end-them-all/
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/sujatha-bergen/market-warping-oilgas-subsidies-way-out-biden-budget
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-treasury-tax-energy/biden-tax-plan-replaces-u-s-fossil-fuel-subsidies-with-clean-energy-incentives-idUSKBN2BU2HL
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-07/biden-tax-plan-targets-fossil-fuel-subsidies-worth-35-billion
https://www.vox.com/22363539/oil-gas-subsidies-biden-solar-wind-tax-reform-infrastructure-bill
Link to tweet
George II
(67,782 posts)betsuni
(25,122 posts)No checking or researching allowed. No reading the Democratic Party platform. Obama campaigning for president on a Green New Deal and a public option and his regulation of Wall Street, Hillary running on a public option and Medicare at 55 and all of her plans, Biden running on the most progressive platform in history and putting together the most diverse administration in history. All of that's not real! They don't REALLY mean it. I've been assured this many times.
Bernie Sanders was interviewed in 2017 and asked: now that Republicans control congress what about Medicare for All? He said the best thing would be to try for a public option and Medicare at 55.
Nixie
(16,920 posts)This is a sad and pathetic admission here. It's just stunning how much disruption they cased over nothing just to promote themselves through some deceptive "brands." Wow.
Nixie
(16,920 posts)All they accomplished by disowning previously "pragmatic" progressives -- also known as Democrats -- is to elect Trump. Now look at how much they have to morph their brand into mainstream ideas. Maybe some "green new deal" headbangers will now find a way to give Al Gore credit for the information he brought to light some 25 years ago. It's a pathetic reach for this exposed and rejected "Revolution." I'm still waiting for their apology tour.
betsuni
(25,122 posts)and their supporters believed it. The party's over, though. The brand isn't selling anymore.
Me.
(35,454 posts)our revolution
Good thread lapucelle...
comradebillyboy
(10,119 posts)to pragmatism. There's nothing pragmatic about their darling Nina Turner. If they can be counted on to support Democratic candidates in national elections they might start building up some credibility. But they have a long way to go.
lapucelle
(18,037 posts)I'd like to see them take responsibility and apologize for the the damage they've already done.
comradebillyboy
(10,119 posts)jalan48
(13,797 posts)lapucelle
(18,037 posts)I wonder when they'll update their website to reflect their rebranding. It doesn't seem right to try to collect money by continuing to tout policies that you've already abandoned.
https://ourrevolution.com/issues/
jalan48
(13,797 posts)lapucelle
(18,037 posts)I'm sure their supporters will be just as glad about the rebranding as you are.
jalan48
(13,797 posts)lapucelle
(18,037 posts)Rebranding can't disappear that fact.
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https://sunlightfoundation.com/2016/08/26/bernie-sanderss-new-political-group-wont-have-to-disclose-its-donors/
Budi
(15,325 posts)A lot of this cannot ever be shoved to the renmants of history.
The damage has been immesurable.
lapucelle
(18,037 posts)jalan48
(13,797 posts)Budi
(15,325 posts)George II
(67,782 posts)Cha
(295,899 posts)Party.
20. As long as they don't start shilling for Wall St I'm good with the rebranding.
38. What's funny, that Democrats don't shill for Wall Street or that OR is a dark money group?
48. I'll go with yes and no.
George II
(67,782 posts)Last edited Thu Jul 29, 2021, 09:42 PM - Edit history (1)
Cha
(295,899 posts)20. As long as they don't start shilling for Wall St I'm good with the rebranding.
38. What's funny, that Democrats don't shill for Wall Street or that OR is a dark money group?
48. I'll go with yes and no.
George II
(67,782 posts)LetMyPeopleVote
(143,999 posts)George II
(67,782 posts)lapucelle
(18,037 posts)Last edited Thu Jul 29, 2021, 05:19 PM - Edit history (1)
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https://upload.democraticunderground.com/100215676023#post48
betsuni
(25,122 posts)That's my interpretation. The myth that FDR/LBJ were democratic socialists and that's why Democrats must be replaced with democratic socialists (transformed) and get back to their true progressive roots. Why it was fashionable for a while to call yourself an "FDR Democrat."
George II
(67,782 posts)They have a whole page of dozens of candidate endorsements.
Cha
(295,899 posts)now.. and Not "pro Sanders".
lapucelle
(18,037 posts)to change the way that an organization, company, or product is seen by the public
Link to tweet
Cha
(295,899 posts)getting shit done " with President Obama and VP Biden.
Welcome to the Democratic Getting Shit Done Party, whatever they're calling themselves now.
We'll see how "pragmatic" they are.
lapucelle
(18,037 posts)https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2016_DNC_Platform.pdf
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/01/27/fact-sheet-president-biden-takes-executive-actions-to-tackle-the-climate-crisis-at-home-and-abroad-create-jobs-and-restore-scientific-integrity-across-federal-government/
https://grist.org/climate/everything-that-happened-on-the-first-ever-climate-day-environmental-justice-national-security/
https://grist.org/politics/biden-is-eliminating-fossil-fuel-subsidies-but-he-cant-end-them-all/
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And how did President Biden "fail to keep good union jobs in the US"? Is Larry Cohen still blaming Biden for not having all his requests met by President Obama in 2011?
Yet it is the Alabama video that most clearly highlights the differences between Mr. Biden and Mr. Obama on labor. When state workers flocked to Madison, Wis., in 2011 protesting Gov. Scott Walkers plan to roll back their bargaining rights, union leaders pleaded with the White House to send a top administration official in solidarity. The White House declined, though Mr. Obama did say the plan seemed like an assault on unions.
We made every imaginable effort to get someone there, said Larry Cohen, who was then president of the Communications Workers of America and is now chair of the progressive advocacy group Our Revolution. They would not allow anyone to go.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/business/economy/joe-biden-unions.html
Cha
(295,899 posts)their job to know what's really going on in the Getting Shit Done Dept.
Thanks for all the information!
lapucelle
(18,037 posts)Cha
(295,899 posts)to see if there's any substance to that "change"!
George II
(67,782 posts)ShazzieB
(15,952 posts)I mean, it's obvious that what they're doing is rebranding, but they genuinely don't seem to realize that's what it is. 🤷♀️
betsuni
(25,122 posts)I had to study them to figure it out.
Status quo = money in politics, the idea that all dysfunction in government is due to Congress being bribed.
Progressives = anti-establishment, the establishment being the Democratic Party, the true roadblock to progress because corrupt.
Neoliberal/Third Way = blaming Democrats for the right-ward shift in politics rather than the true cause, the radicalization of the Republican Party. Mistaken belief that 90s trade deals destroyed manufacturing, which had peaked in the 60s. Union membership peaked in 1955. Presidents Clinton and Obama couldn't get progressive things done not because Republicans controlled Congress for six out of their eight years, they just didn't want to.
Donor class = idea that all wealthy people only think about money, so they must all be Republicans. When they donate to Democrats they make them have the same economic policies as Republicans. Democrats always have to do what they say because all they think about is money, too. Used to be "millionaires and billionaires" then it changed to just billionaires.
Centrist = capitalist.
FDR Democrat = fantasy that FDR/LBJ were anti-capitalism democratic socialists. After McGovern's loss, it was decided that progressive New Deal policies didn't win elections. Democrats turned to Wall Street for money and have shifted Right since then, have same economic policies as Republicans because they are Wall Street shills. A revolution will return the Democratic Party to its supposed democratic socialist roots.
Trump voter = forced by economic anxiety to vote for Republicans because Democrats abandoned the working class.
Democratic Establishment = beholden to Wall Street/lobbyists/wealthy donors/corporations/billionaires/oligarchs/everybody, don't care at all about the working or middle classes, despises and fears progressives, will do anything to stop them. Corporate Democrats. Elites.
DNC = powerful secret organization rigging primaries and (of course) hating and fearing progressives.
Republicans = who?
Budi
(15,325 posts)Sure sounds A LOT LIKE JOE BIDEN's campaign policy plan. Except for the desperate line about "call out Biden for failing to keep good union jobs in the USA." umm. You're talking about Union Man & Made in America Joe Biden here.
Ok. That accusation is just stupidly embarrassing now.
As for the rest of "Who they NOW are, ...
Did they lift it ?
Omg, that's not Rebranding, thats plagerism!
Fking desperate
May as well just cash in and find another line of work.
Go sell make-up on youtube.
Just stop it.
The adults in the Democratic Party will carry on as we always have.
Without you,
WOW! Watching the implosion....
CYA
lapucelle
(18,037 posts)They're a little late to get on board. The mistrust they sowed and the damage it caused cannot be undone.
George II
(67,782 posts)Looks like they're going to continue to remain the divisive organization they were under their previous "organization". They're going to "call out Biden for failing to keep good union jobs in the USA"? HOW MANY UNION JOBS have left the USA since Biden became President?
I doubt even they don't know the answer.
lapucelle
(18,037 posts)The new president of OR blames Joe Biden for some perceived slight by President Obama in 2011.
Biden May Be the Most Pro-Labor President Ever; That May Not Save Unions
Yet it is the Alabama video that most clearly highlights the differences between Mr. Biden and Mr. Obama on labor. When state workers flocked to Madison, Wis., in 2011 protesting Gov. Scott Walkers plan to roll back their bargaining rights, union leaders pleaded with the White House to send a top administration official in solidarity. The White House declined, though Mr. Obama did say the plan seemed like an assault on unions.
We made every imaginable effort to get someone there, said Larry Cohen, who was then president of the Communications Workers of America and is now chair of the progressive advocacy group Our Revolution. They would not allow anyone to go.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/business/economy/joe-biden-unions.html
George II
(67,782 posts)sheshe2
(83,327 posts)The damage is done.
brush
(53,467 posts)work towards it. They should consult with Rep. Clyburn who can show them how it's done.
Budi
(15,325 posts)And THIS is a good reason why she doesn't belong in Congress.
Our Revolution literally has to now rebrand the entire business to sound like Joe Biden, after she left it to run in OH-11.
Man, that's a lesson learned the hard way!
brush
(53,467 posts)Since then she seems to have lost her common sense. I mean stating that the Democratic Party's presidential nominee is no better than a eating a bowl of sh_t is cray-cray.
Guess she got a little power in Our Revolution and it went to her head. Power not only corrupts, power also reveals.
Budi
(15,325 posts)"Power not only corrupts, power also reveals."
And there it is~
George II
(67,782 posts)sheshe2
(83,327 posts)Budi
(15,325 posts)Wonder what triggered this rebranding?
Is the FEC looking into their finances or something?
I mean, its a bfd to rebrand an operation like OR.
Guess we'll find out!
lapucelle
(18,037 posts)they should also take responsibility and apologize for poisoning the well. And there are some who need to just stop poisoning the well.
We have someone in this thread clinging to the toxic, false narrative that "Democrats are shills for Wall Street".
And there are still some lobbing divisive, accusatory, bewildering, and counterproductive tweets that border on threats.
Link to tweet
brush
(53,467 posts)Sitting down at a table and talking it out, you give some, you get some. POC reps included.
It's not about making threats at this critical time. We're decades behind other countries in infrastructure and to threaten with "a three-vote margin" statement is, frankly, immature as we may never get this close again to a deal. Dem control over the House and Senate is at stake as passage of both of these bills means millions of good jobs across the nation.
This is disappointing. I expect better from her.
ismnotwasm
(41,919 posts)I fucking give up
George II
(67,782 posts)...."establishment Democrats" or "centrist Democrats", eh?
Budi
(15,325 posts)Is this a 'Follow the Money' kind of business move?
There's always an angle 🤔
betsuni
(25,122 posts)I start to feel bad for the people who donated over the years but then remember how the booing after "Democratic establishment" was much louder than after "Republican establishment" and stop feeling bad.
Budi
(15,325 posts)betsuni
(25,122 posts)Budi
(15,325 posts)lapucelle
(18,037 posts)a pragmatic approach for the 2016 general election, we might have avoided the damage that Trump, his acolytes, and his supporters visited on all of us and all our institutions and the havoc they continue to wreak.
Instead all we heard was that the Democratic nominee hadn't earned their commitment to the greater good.
betsuni
(25,122 posts)betsuni
(25,122 posts)beholden to wealthy donors-Wall Street shills-corporate-establishment-corrupt-elite Democrats they made up don't exist?
"I'm a progressive who likes to get things done." Hillary Clinton.
Populism requires a charismatic leader, an outsider with lots of enemies out to get him so all the members of the group enjoy that nice warm feeling of righteous anger, purity, morality in the face of evil. Can't keep it going without that leader.
Poiuyt
(18,087 posts)Pragmatism will win the day, but as long as the republicans are pushing American politics further into fascism, we need to counter with progressive ideas that help all Americans. Like single payer, universal healthcare.
Budi
(15,325 posts)No thanks
I dont think this group has forgotten about its big ideas, which would help the country a lot. They have just changed strategy. Even Bernie has been talking more like the President in public at least. If we had a greater majority, we might be pushing harder.
I am still for the vulture capitalist system being cured with a good bit of Democratic Socialism and a lot here used to agree.
mcar
(42,208 posts)Having their leader refer to voting for the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee as eating a bowl of sh!t?
Primarying good Democrats? Whining about not getting the perfect so the good gets trampled?
mvd
(65,148 posts)Weve also been working with President Biden to get more steps done. I see so much progressive bashing that I dont understand. Working to get more people in Congress helps our agenda.
That comment was from Turner, and I dont think that was a good of her say. It doesnt reflect on me and many progressives.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)with their foolishly obstructive and destructive radical behaviors, as they always have with any label they'd adopted.
So of course it's time for another label change, or at least restyling.
And as always they look to Democrats for clues to what most people want and will vote for.
If only it were real. Pragmatism is all about doing what can be to achieve real progress under real-world conditions. And that's incompatible with those wired to dissent.
betsuni
(25,122 posts)to get used to the change. Like the Knights Who Say "Ni!" changing what they say to something more complicated. "Ni!" was so easy, like the slogans.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Not that they could, and that's the point. If they were pragmatic progressives, they'd be Democrats.
ODing on hypocrisy here. Better to get away while still laughing and shrugging.
Skittles
(152,964 posts)whatever
LetMyPeopleVote
(143,999 posts)I was a day one contributor to Joe Biden and got to meet him twice at private fundraisers. Joe is middle of the road and pragmatic. I was on the Our Revolution mailing list and I am still on the Just US Democrat list (their emails are really sad but fun to laugh at). Joe is a real Democrat and I am glad that Our Revolution is changing
Link to tweet
The shift reflects a progressive movement that is at a crossroads. Biden won the Democratic nomination last year by offering more centrist alternatives to much of Sanders agenda. Since then, progressive candidates have faced a series of electoral disappointments and are contending with anxiety from moderate Democrats worried that the partys leftward shift could cost them control of Congress during next years midterm elections.
Cha
(295,899 posts)him!
DFW
(54,050 posts)The ruling Party that ran East Germany with an iron Stalinist fist, the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED), or Socialist Unity Party of Germany, had its diehard adherents, but figured they werent going to attract many more by keeping the old name.
So, they renamed themselves the Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus (PDS), the Party of Democratic Socialism. That fizzled pretty quickly, too. I think the fact that they had the same cast of characters gave them away.
Then they joined with those elements of the West German Social Democrats and West German Greens for whom their own parties werent far enough to the left, and formed Die Linken, or The Leftists. THAT, at least got them enough voters nationwide to at least put them back on the radar, and actually get them over the 5% hurdle required for parliamentary representation. Though a few holdouts from the old regime hang on there, they can at least finally claim to have a leadership that is not made up of people who actively supported killing their own citizens at the Berlin Wall. For those who never saw it in real life, I did, and the border wasnt called The Death Strip for nothing.
Pragmatic Progressives is just another label, but if some teeth are put into the pragmatic part, I find that a positive step. If it means nothing more than trying to make Nina Turner more easy go swallow, then it wasnt worth the effort, but if it means a more unified effort to get things done in the face of a monolithic, better financed extremist right, I say, bring them on. Comments about the party leader being equal to a bowl of shit to be left at the door, please, along with anyone unwilling to repudiate them.
ShazamIam
(2,559 posts)It's far from the worst thing that could happen to us right now.
ShazamIam
(2,559 posts)DFW
(54,050 posts)In Germany, the East German SED became the Party of Democratic Socialism became "Die Linken" for self-preservation, and not because they all simultaneously came to the conclusion that the decades-old policy of murdering people trying to get across the border to the West had been a bad idea after all.
Their sincerity will shine through (or fade into darkness, whichever) very shortly, I think.
ShazamIam
(2,559 posts)DFW
(54,050 posts)The huge irony is that the current generation, the one profiting from the fact that their grandparents and parents said "never again," think the safeguards are in place to ensure that they could never suffer under such a regime. They thus place themselves in dire danger of falling for the same scam their great-grandparents fell for in the 1930s.