The trains run on time.

[Mister Agenda]

I fear that the oppo research the GOP has on Sanders that they're waiting to spring if he becomes the nominee would sink his presidential campaign. They'll paint him as a hypocrite (millionaire socialist), commie ('praised' Castro, supported the Sandinistas, honeymooned in Soviet-era Moscow), and ne'er do well (stole electricity from a neighbor, never held a 'regular' job outside of politics).

If he gets the nomination he's got my vote; but just because someone's positions resonate doesn't mean they're the best candidate to field in a particular election. Swing voters, they type that voted for Obama and then voted for Trump, the ones who will make the difference in battleground states, may not 'get' the difference between social democrats and democratic socialists; but for the most part they know 'socialism bad'. The sad part is that Bernie is not a socialist in any meaningful way, just a Social Democrat, him embracing the title was shooting himself in the foot should he ever want to be president of the USA (given his likely remaining lifespan). The country is ready to expand healthcare benefits, but if you call yourself a socialist, not enough are going to trust you not to smuggle gulags in while you're about expanding Medicare; and this is still true largely of even Democratic voters.

OTH, if the economy tanks, any port in a storm....

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Just to pick a not insignificant nit, Sanders describes himself as a ‘democratic socialist’, not a ‘social democrat’ (there are significant differences between the two). 

This is going to make it even worse for him when the smear machine kicks into high gear.

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Omg......

If I used medieval I am sorry. I merely meant at the time he lived, his motives for spreading literacy are not what his apologists claim.  If you don't like my link, say that, but I did give you a source.

FYI It is a very common tactic in the world, where apologists look back in history and say, "This person contributed this", and they are not wrong. But our labels are not how change happens. Our species evolution drives us to try to make sense of life. That is not in a label, that is in our evolutionary curiosity.

Humans of every religion use past events and historical figures to say, "See my religion is correct". That argument is not a patent owned by one religion.

The point is to debunk the false argument that because Bernie argued Castro's literacy program was a good thing, in the same way. Literacy is a good thing, but it doesn't make Castro a good person.

Martin spreading the idea of literacy didn't make society think for themselves, anymore than Castro's literacy program made Cuba a free society. The world was still a far more religious superstitious place in Martin's time regardless. You cannot compare anything he did or said as being equal to our modern understanding of a open western society today.

Literacy growing in Martin's time did cause a split between churches, but it didn't get most to question religion altogether.

No, you did not give me a source, you simply changed your claim.

I’m unaware of anyone making the claim that Luther wanted to encourage freethought by enabling people to read the Bible in German. You’re tilting at a windmill that doesn’t exist.

Boru

[Mr Greene]

By the time that M Luther got around to doing any of that Europe had already had the old idea of the world shattered by Da Gama and Columbus.
This is why it can't be claimed as Medieval.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

By the time that M Luther got around to doing any of that Europe had already had the old idea of the world shattered by Da Gama and Columbus.
This is why it can't be claimed as Medieval.

He also didn’t publish his German language Bible until a year AFTER he’d been kicked out of the Church, so the claim that the Church promoted literacy doesn’t work.

Boru

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Hey, maybe it was just that nobody went to school for a THOUSAND YEARS.

[ReptilianPeon]

I fear that the oppo research the GOP has on Sanders that they're waiting to spring if he becomes the nominee would sink his presidential campaign. They'll paint him as a hypocrite (millionaire socialist), commie ('praised' Castro, supported the Sandinistas, honeymooned in Soviet-era Moscow), and ne'er do well (stole electricity from a neighbor, never held a 'regular' job outside of politics).

If he gets the nomination he's got my vote; but just because someone's positions resonate doesn't mean they're the best candidate to field in a particular election. Swing voters, they type that voted for Obama and then voted for Trump, the ones who will make the difference in battleground states, may not 'get' the difference between social democrats and democratic socialists; but for the most part they know 'socialism bad'. The sad part is that Bernie is not a socialist in any meaningful way, just a Social Democrat, him embracing the title was shooting himself in the foot should he ever want to be president of the USA (given his likely remaining lifespan). The country is ready to expand healthcare benefits, but if you call yourself a socialist, not enough are going to trust you not to smuggle gulags in while you're about expanding Medicare; and this is still true largely of even Democratic voters.

OTH, if the economy tanks, any port in a storm....

Do you think anybody would perform better than Senator Sanders? Joe Biden sometimes looks like he's forgotten what state he's campaigning in. He's also really racists, as I've outlined in previous posts. Although he's not as racist as Michael Bloomberg apparently. If people want to vote for a racist in the general election they can vote for Donald Trump, so why not give people a real choice in the general election?

Do you know that Obama also praised Cuba? He said the same things Sanders did but because it's Obama nobody on the Democratic side cared. In fact, Whoopi Golbrg even defended Obama for the exact same comments she attacked Sanders for, once again declaring that she is a hypocrite.

So did Obama "blow it" too?

Article from New York Magazine:
Bernie Praised Fidel Castro’s Education System. So Did Obama

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/...ooper.html

Video showing the hypocrisy on Cuba and defending Obama for saying the same things Sanders said:
https://youtu.be/uMFkH9kF9wE

The chief difference being Obama wasn't a democratic socialist, so people didn't already equate him with 5 year plans, gulags, and the ravening Red Horde.

Boru

People called a Obama a Communist all of the time, rightly or wrongly. I'm not really sure what you're trying to say. There are people in the USA who view anybody on the Democratic side as "Communist" regardless of their positions on issues. The ironic reality is, George Soros actually helped to end Communism in Europe (such as in his native Hungary).

Some of Sanders family, being Jewish, died in Nazi camps. I have a hard time believing he'd support Gulags. But true, the average American is pretty brain dead and especially so the pundits on the cable news.

Donald Trump and his lackeys have praised everyone's favourite bogeyman, Kim Jon Un, on a regular basis, therefore the Democrats need a strong candidate who will point the Republicn hypocrisy and not a weak one like Joe Biden or Michael Bloomberg, who are both proud of working with Republicans. Joe Biden seems especially proud of working segregationists like Strom Thurmond.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think his opposition to desegregation bussing in the 70's is going to be more problematic than his calls for civility towards the uncivil. Calling for civility toward the uncivil is the existential dilemma of liberalism.

I'll giggle if it tanks him since his opposition turned out to be factually accurate on every level, even if he'd only assumed it as political cover. A scant 4% of whites and 9% of blacks, at the time, supported the practice - as he faced reelection.

His objection being that it wouldn't work, was a racist policy of tokenism and tacit white supremacy, and parents were against it. I believe that his exact words were 'liberal trainwreck". It's actually pretty hard to argue against his objection, as anyone who's read up on the subject (or even watched an episode of last week tonight) might be aware.