Am I the only DUer who remembers,

back before DU 3, when DU self-identified as a "left-wing" discussion board?

Now DUers think it's okay to attack, marginalize, and disenfranchise the left.

THAT'S what neoliberalism gets us.

Bernie Sanders and guns

For the record, I have never owned a gun. I've never wanted to. I DID once, back in the 1980s, shoot at some tin cans because some people I knew thought I would have fun. I didn't. What I did, at that time, was go back without them to clean up the mess they left out in the desert.

That said, I live rurally, and am surrounded by a culture that uses guns. Many of my students and their families fill their freezers for the winter by hunting. Their hunting trips are family traditions; they all go, even if only a few of them are doing the actual hunting. I spend a lot of time creating independent studies for hunters every fall. It's a different world, and a different take, from urban and suburban areas. Vermont is the most rural state in the U.S., and Sanders' position about guns reflects that constituency, as it should.

This is what he said recently:

sigh

I don't remember the dogpile you refer to. Not that it didn't happen, but since, before there was no other choice, Clinton and Obama were tied for last place at the bottom of my primary rankings, I wasn't in the middle of that fight. Neither was I in the middle when they were the only two left standing. I didn't really have much to fight about, since I didn't support either one of them. I didn't bother to pay attention to the convention that summer, or the ge campaign. I had no "dog" in that hunt.

In the later primaries, I did lean HRC, simply because the constant mantra of Obama being "not dlc" was so aggravating, as his neo-liberal positions were on open display for all to witness.

Frankly, I found the devolution of the Democratic Party during the '08 primaries to be a public humiliation. Here was the party that was supposed to stand for the underdogs dividing along the lines of race and gender. THAT NEVER SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED. Supporting one candidate over another? Fine. Trying to postulate that issues of race were more important than issues of gender, or vice versa? Discpicable hypocricy, imo, reducing the issues to campaign talking points instead of real world problems.

When my primary rolled around in late May, it was all over but the shouting, so I cast a protest vote for HRC.

I haven't seen a dogpile at this point, either. But then, I don't read most threads about HRC. Again, she's at the bottom of my list, and I have a better candidate to focus my attention on. I HAVE seen legitimate criticism from her own party, and I expect Republicans to spew all kinds of shit, which, even though she's not getting my vote, I'll defend. Most of that shit, though, would come in the GE should she be nominated.

I'm a woman. I'm not angry when HRC is called on her neo-liberal policies. I won't be rising to defend her from those. I won't be supporting her. I save my angry energy for neo-liberals, neo-conservatives, and all those who support the erosion of social and economic justice.

Yes.

I think it's a reaction to threat; I've experienced it myself, although not about guns.

I think anytime we think that someone is threatening our autonomy we react defensively, and, in more extreme cases, offensively. It triggers an amygdala hijack.

It happens to all of us; when our emotions are engaged, reason is often short-circuited. Political and religious propaganda of all types take full advantage of this phenomenon.

People who live in fear and hate are particularly susceptible to this kind of manipulation. Which doesn't, of course, excuse acts of hate. I think hate is a mental illness, which is why I won't use the word lightly, and I do my best not to engage in hate.

Those obsessed with guns live in a state of fear and insecurity, and their guns can't cure them of that.

It might be a good conversation to talk about the purpose of, and a reasonable interpretation of, the 2nd amendment.

What was the original purpose? Does that purpose still apply, or is there another reasonable purpose?

"Arms" have evolved; what kind of "arms" fulfill the original OR evolved purpose of the 2nd amendment, and in what context?

I don't really have any answers. I've never owned a gun. I've been more concerned with other rights.

Why I don't:

If I campaign for, and vote for, a candidate with the right policies, then I've got a win/or at least hold the line situation. If I win, then I've got a politician who is actually going to fight for the right policies. If I lose, then my party is the opposition, and will mount some sort of opposition to the enemy.

If I elect someone with the wrong policies because she can win, I've surrendered before we ever made it to the front lines. I've got at least a whole term, and probably longer, of my party feeling like they have to support the wrong policies. There's no opposition to the wrong policies. There are policy shifts within my own party and the nation that move both further away, that move me further to the fringe, or throw me completely under the bus, and I'm supposed to shut up and take it out of party loyalty. Electing someone with the wrong policies from my own party doesn't hold any line. It's a lose/lose.

It's throwing my party, my country, and the 99% under the bus.

Reading through this thread again leaves me with one question.

I agree with many in this thread that the primary poses a bigger challenge for Bernie than the GE.

Since that's the case, why would Democrats who have a chance to nominate a winner who is better on every single issue than HRC, who have a chance to nominate someone who would actually work and fight to lead the country out of her neo-liberal degradation, nominate a neo-liberal instead?

Why wouldn't Democrats who align more closely with Sanders on issues not throw him their support?

The answer to that question is one I can't, while trying to honor the TOS, answer.

Of course not.

There is a massive chasm between opposing someone politically and laughing about, taking pleasure in, the death of that person.

There's a big difference even between deciding that the person should be taken down, taken out of power, and laughing gleefully about that person's death.

One is reason. The other is psychopathy: finding joy in killing people.

As for Sanders and Gaddafi? I don't find him having much to say about Gaddafi at all, except in reference to this:

If policy is not the first priority of politics,

I neither need nor want anything to do with politics.

The reason why the political game smacks of deception and manipulation is because it IS all about deception and manipulation. I'm not easily deceived, and I respond to attempts at manipulation with a large push BACK...not with acceptance, compliance, or tolerance.

A worthy goal might be to work to put politics into the correct arena...the policy arena.

A statement to that effect might be that Democrats believe in people and finding a way to bring social and economic justice for all, whereas Republicans believe in a belligerent God, unrestricted aggression and weapons to back up their bullying, and unrestricted greed. God, Guns, and Greed.

If only that statement were true. It's not. The power center of the Democratic Party is all about unrestricted capitalism/greed creating social and economic injustices in the form of neoliberalism.

Who's Ready for Hillary?

I found this an instructive read about HRC as a primary candidate several months ago. It's still instructive.

http://www.thenation.com/article/191281/whos-ready-hillary#

Kathleen Geier:

Senate Proposal Cuts Off Duncan at the Knees

There are other less incendiary articles, but I chose to post this one here simply because the idea of cutting Arne off at the knees satisfies a visceral need. I hope people will call their reps to urge support for "The Every Child Achieves Act of 2015."

Suck It, Arne

That "Hands off, feds" attitude runs throughout the bill. State plans are acceptable unless proven naught by the USED, and the feds only have 90 days to do so. The Secretary must approve a state plan within the 90 days unless the department "can present substantial evidence that clearly demonstrates that such State plan does not meet the bill's requirements." To whom will such evidence be presented? A peer review board composed of "experts and practitioners with school-level and classroom experience."

Yes, unlike the waiver system that requires state bureaucrats to bow and scrape for Duncan's official okey-dokey, now the secretary must go before actual educators and prove to their satisfaction that a state plan is not acceptable. And if they say it's not, the state still gets to appeal and resubmit. This strikes me a huge shift of the balance of power.

Also, "the bill affirms that states decide what academic standards they will adopt, without interference from Washington." The feds can't mandate a set of standards, and they can't "incentivize" one, either. "States will be free to decide what academic standards they will maintain in their states."

And! The bill does away with any federal requirement for states to develop and implement a teacher evaluation system. It even axes the definition of a highly qualified teacher.