Sen. Bernie Sanders - The War Against Working Families

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As long as someone thinks they will become rich someday, voting to favor the rich is in their perceived self interest.

ruveyn

I said "support for the right here" - not in general... People who are supposed to have, well, more challenges than usual with social skills and office politics endorsing a cut-throat model under which they are disadvantaged. Even if someone fancies him or herself a genius in their field of interest in all likelihood they'll be robbed by someone or other.

The Republicans can still pass whatever they want in January, you are overlooking the situation.

We have about 20 some Democrats up for reelection in the senate in 2012, after the thrashing the Dems just received a lot of those Democrats will probably side with Republicans in an attempt to get re-elected. Don't be surprised to see the majority fillabustering.

I don't remember much of the details, but basically she was assisting Sanders in the argument that the tax cuts on the wealthy (over 250k and estate taxes) only help a tiny fraction of people and do little to harm the actual middle class.

She was making arguments saying those who make 250k a year in Louisiana are far well off, way beyond the wide majority there.

Yeah, if you make 250k/yr here you can live quite a life of excess.

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/12 ... enter.html


Not posting for the article so much as the embedded video for if anyone wants to listen to any of the filibuster.

If Democrats want to guarantee defeat then they should vote with Republicans. If they're going to be Republicans might as well vote for the real thing. The people supported the Public Option and oppose tax cuts for the wealthy, the polls make that clear, yet some bizarre filter was applied that says 20% are Liberal, 40% Moderate, 40% Conservative, and the Public Option is Liberal, opposing voodoo economics is Liberal, therefore only 20% support these things... never mind what the actual polls show. Selling out to the plutocracy counts as moderate bipartisanship, we are told. Then people wonder why there is disillusion with the machinery of politics.

To me, there is little difference between most Democrats and Republicans. The big difference is between sellouts and genuine politicians.

There are far too many sellouts in Washington, while there's only a couple of genuine ones. People like Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich. They may vary greatly on political thoughts, but at least they stand for convictions of the people vs. the corporations and the plutocracy.

good ol' harry truman said words to that effect 70 years ago. but this democrat will keep voting for democrats until the last one falls on their sword. at that point i will just acknowledge that there is no longer anybody to look after my interests in government, IOW me and mine would be totally disenfranchised. i hope i die before this happens. i would no sooner vote rightist than i would vote to slit my own throat- both those actions are equivalent.

The three you mentioned all aren't very good.

The main difference between Dems and Republicans is that the Democrat party can largely be summed up as the party of Voter Fraud, Acorn, Unions, and organized crime. Republicans have their issues, but they are nowhere near as corrupt as the democrats.

Furthermore, it looks like Republicans are serious about cleaning up D.C., unlike the Democrats which brought in Chicago Politics.

Stop drinking the koolaid.

The party of caging, of voter suppression, of Diebold... hmmmm....

Democrats cage people, too.

Look up the 2004 "Free Speech Zone" for the DNC. It's just as appalling as the republicans' "Free Speech Zone".

Punch and Judy show.

You have completely missed my point, but I should not be surprised.

A party which focuses its attention towards catering to voter fraud, organized crime, unions, corporations, lobbyists, the super wealthy - it does not benefit the masses. Government is supposed to protect the masses, not just the highest bidders.

Uh, I'm just looking at their actions. Like refusing to use a private jet to be flown around on the tax-payer's dime, pushing to halt earmarks, etc.

I actually don't drink Kool-aid, I pay attention to the facts.

@ Quartz

I know there are crooked Republicans, in fact some of them have been kicked out in the primaries. However, they are nowhere near the level of the Democrats.

Based on what we have seen thus far, the Republicans appear to have gotten the message and are changing behavior, the Democrats are just blaming the public and not getting the fact that their behavior is what got them kicked out.

For anyone thinking paying income taxes are socialist or whatever.



[QUOTE=The Heart Collector;3077917]Most capitalists support the progressive income tax, though.

In The Wealth of the Nations, Adam Smith wrote "It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more in proportion." That book was written in 1776 and is considerably older than The Community Manifesto or anything Karl Marx ever wrote. Since Wealth of the Nations is considered to be the the book that shaped the study of political economy, and the book that described capitalism, it would be an exaggeration to say that "progressive income tax" should be associated solely with Karl Marx and The Communist Manifesto.

The first income taxes in America were also progressive; they did not tax all income, just income past a certain point, which would allow those with lesser income to survive. So principles of progressive taxation have existed at all points in the history of taxes in America. Wikipedia says: "in 1954 the Congress imposed a federal income tax on individuals, with the tax imposed in layers of 24 income brackets at tax rates ranging from 20% to 91%". That's more or less at the height of the Red Scare. I was not aware that the Reds had infiltrated Congress at the time.

Thomas Paine, one of the founding fathers of the United States of America, supported progressive taxation in his famous book Rights of Man explicitly to prevent aristocracies or concentrations of power.

Is there any particular reason why you think America is against all these ideas, if even one of the Founding Fathers of the nation advocated them? Was Thomas Paine a follower of Karl Marx? Or was Karl Marx a follower of Thomas Paine?[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=The Heart Collector;3078093]lol.


Can I just ask you exactly who are the economists and political thinkers that you follow in order to come up with your idea of America and capitalism?

It clearly isn't the political economists that described and defined capitalism, as they follow a bunch of things you seem to consider socialist.

It clearly isn't the people that founded the United States of America, since they follow a bunch of things you seem to consider socialist.

It clearly isn't someone like John Maynard Keynes, who followed a bunch of things you seem to consider socialist.

It also clearly isn't someone like american conservative darling Milton Friedman, who followed a bunch of things (such as a basic government-handed salary for everyone) you would likely consider socialist.

I mean. I am kind of confused here.

The thing that bothers me isn't the beliefs you hold, it's that you advocate them as if they are the American way. Or the capitalist way. They are extremely fringe beliefs and they're way to the right of almost the entire country. So I don't really understand why you present them as if they have anything to do with some mythical concept of what America "is".[/QUOTE]