Seen posted in GD:P

[kjones]

Found this interesting...and amusing.
Someone posted this Sanders political video -

Now, what I find amusing is how it tries to draw assumed parallels of
Bernie and FDR/JFK. As many of Bernie's ads (either those put out
by the campaign, PACs, or supporters), it demonstrates his forward
thinking with...nostalgia throwback.

More importantly though, it draws on an extreme contradiction between
the image Sanders and his supporters want to cast of himself, and the
rhetoric they use to attack Clinton.
Sanders and his supporters would like to assume the mantle of figures
like FDR/JFK. At the same time, they portray Clinton as wealthy and
connected, and thus a tool of the 1%...because all people who fit
that description are tools, right?

There's the weirdness though, FDR and JFK were fabulously wealthy
(JFK, of course, much more so than FDR), and both came from background
of tremendous power, privilege, and political connections. Their families
were in the thick of the 1%.
Yet they are still the heroes of American progressive liberalism, and rightly so.
As much as Sanders can hitch his wagon to them, they are the perfect arguments
for why wealth, power, and connections don't make you a tool of the 1%. Apparently,
being a member of the 1% doesn't even make you a tool of the 1%.

So, when I hear Bernie folks name dropping FDR or JFK right before attacking Clinton,
what I really hear is that they don't actually know much about any of the three of
them (or for that matter, much about Bernie).

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. When I hear Sanders supporates claim FDR and JFK were socialist/Social Democrats

I shake my head at their utter lack of historical knowledge of these men, also.

[workinclasszero]

2. Bernie has been fighting against the democratic party

For his whole political life.

He's only a democrat now because it suits his purpose.
Which is why I will never trust Bernie Sanders

[Dawson Leery]

3. Bernie has never been a Democrat.

He was never an FDR/JFK Democrat.

He was openly repulsed by Kennedy's (rightful) opposition to the student revolution in Cuba (which brought Castro to power).

His supporters are as delusional as Trump's. They choose not to see their own hypocrisy.

They are middle class, yet hate wealth. They take the support of 1%ers such as Seth McFairlane and Danny Devito, yet decry the amount of wealth the 1% has.

His recent membership into our Party is only to serve his purposes. I will never trust him.

[kjones]

4. Yeah, why take the knock off when you can have the real thing, right?

And yes, both FDR and JFK were actually quite complicated. Both presided over some
points of poor judgement as well (let's not forget internment camps), because of course,
they were not actually symbols, they were people. Bernie's camp would like they to
just be symbols though. They'd like a lot of things in the world to be simple symbols,
but the world is a lot more complicated than that...which is exactly why Clinton
deserves, and will get, the nomination...because what we really need is someone
who can manage that complicated world.

[Dawson Leery]

5. Everything you said.

I would not volunteer for Bernie's campaign.

[Tommy2Tone]

6. Well stated..

I feel 100% like you.

They also hate PACS unless they are right wing ones attacking Hillary and then they are just fine.

[FloridaBlues]

8. Most may not the critical thinking skills to tell the difference

Neither one of these Presidents were like Bernie.

[MrChuck]

7. Some very unfair things being said in this and other threads...

...and let me just say this. That I have seen Sanders supporters full of righteous indignation engage in coarse dialogue with Hillary supporters and vice versa is not a point of pride for me, necessarily, as a Democrat. I value spirited discussion and I think that is mostly what I've seen but on occasion I have seen ugliness coming from either side. We will have to find a way, and I think it's possible, to heal those wounds when it's time to vote in a general election.

I think that our characterization of the 1% or the 0.1% as "evil" is uniquely relevant to the years after 1980. I think that wealth accumulation took a major hit in 1929 and that the road out of that was progressive taxation, responsibility and investment in the U.S. I admire that period of time for those reasons (and lament it for others) but I find it erroneous to characterize FDR or JFK in the same way one might characterize the Koch's or Sheldon Adelson or Rupert Murdoch today. The only similarities between those generational wealth holders are their relative wealth and their skin tone.

The comparisons Sanders' campaign might be trying to make is in reference to political ideology and goals. To draw the connection that OP attempts above is to ignore not only Sanders' campaign rhetoric but the differences between eras past and today.

[murielm99]

10. I don't agree.

Many wealthy people called FDR a traitor to his class.

During the Depression, there was widespread disillusionment with our government. Banks failed and many people no longer trusted them. Unions came of age and union membership grew. Many people joined the Communist Party, looking for solutions there. They were idealists, and later vilified for this during the McCarthy era.

The difference was that that system came crashing down, and many people lost their wealth. Then WWII came. It took a long time for capitalism and the very wealthy to rebuild.

The real difference may be that people are trying to find a peaceful way to find some equality. A war and a depression are not the right ways.

Our country may be able to help and to lead, but it is going to take an international effort to stop the 1%. They need to be regulated in all countries.

[MrChuck]

12. I'm not sure where we disagree based on that comment.

And I've said all I really care to say, so....have a great evening.

[murielm99]

14. Okay.

You have a great evening, too.

[kjones]

15. A lot of weirdness in that right there.

First of all, I'm not characterizing FDR or JFK as anything (other than their wealth and
privilege, which are facts), I'm just pointing out the massive over-simplifications which
come over the fence every. damn. day.
Second, on what criteria do you get to decide who is a good 1%er and who is an
"evil" 1%er? It must mean their are other considerations than just money, right?
So why, when Sanders or a supporter wants to smear someone, it becomes all
about the money? I mean, essentially, in one meme/ad, a huge portion of
Sanders/supporters talking points are dismantled.

"Wealth protects wealth! 1%ers hurt the 99%.*
"*Except the ones we like."

Those wealthy presidents had connections, and yet it apparently didn't affect their
judgement or their ability to stamp down those interests. So why do Hillary's (tenuous)
connects damn her in Sanders and his supporters eyes?

Could it just be politics and maneuvering maybe?

Finally, Sanders' and Hillary's goals are very similar, I'd venture to say 90-95%, at least
as Sanders' goals stand now. They only differ in that ideology you speak of, and their
paths to get to results. Frankly, I have much more confidence that Hillary can get things
done (towards the same goals as Sanders has) than Sanders' can get done.

I just see a lot of contradictions, hypocrisies, and oversimplification.

[Cha]

17. No, I'm not accepting "both sides do it". You don't come into our Group and try to push that myth.

It's way imbalanced. End of that story.

[wildeyed]

9. They need to read some history.

FDR was Bill Clinton on steroids. He was hawkish on foreign policy, saved capitalism from the leftists and unleashed the corporations during WW2 so we could supply the war machines the rest of the allies needed. Which he gets away with because he was on the right side of history. Also, wildly racist policy implementations. But there it is....

JFK was also hawkish, Vietnam was basically his fault, even though LBJ gets left holding that bag. there is a bunch of revisionist thinking that he intended to pull out after his second election. But certainly not before, and that was for political reasons.

Both were wealthy and privileged..... Great men, but men of their times and hardly as perfect as the political rhetoric of Bernie Sanders makes them out to be. All this white male liberal nostalgia for men who never had to check their privilege is tedious, IMO.

[Rose Siding]

11. Do they even KNOW that JFK made Bernie want to puke? Literally?

SANDERS: President Kennedy was elected while I was at the University of Chicago, that was 1960. I remember being physically nauseated by his speech and that doesn't happen very often.....Kennedy was young and appealing and ostensibly liberal, but I think at that point, seeing through Kennedy, and what liberalism was, was probably a significant step for me to understand that conventional politics or liberalism was not what was relevant.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ilanbenmeir/bernie-sanders-despised-democrats-in-1980s-said-a-jfk-speech#.uwlYAX429

I think of that moving tribute to liberalism that Kennedy once gave and I identify with it strongly. But Bernie says he saw through all that. Hah!

I wonder if, while he trys to co-opt FDR's successes, anyone ever points out how incomplete SS was initially. Few were covered but in that incremental process with which our govt was designed to work, it was broadened and improved. You know, progressively -a term that can be used interchangeably with incrementalism. That is exactly the way the ACA will be expanded.

[kjones]

16. Good points nt

[Cha]

18. Facts don't matter. Thank you for that reminder, Rose.

[fleabiscuit]

13. Looks homemade.

Someone with too much time on their hands or had a full drink of the cool aide, or both.