BERNIE SANDERS: A HERO FOR OUR TIME

I despair that American politics will never see another like him!

Try finding anyone in American political history like him….just one. An un-ambitious politician seeking the Presidency representing the middle class…trying to expose the Truth and uncover a rigged economy for the benefit of you and me.

He decided to enter the race for President…in the age of Citizens United, when money was greener than ever…..when victory could never be had without the support of giant SuperPacs and big donor support---without giving lucrative campaign speeches to Wall Street and big corporations….certainly you couldn’t win an election without pandering to every ethnic group and special interest....and certainly, and perhaps most of all...you couldn't dare be so honest as to label yourself an unabashed democratic Socialist.

But, Bernie Sanders…with a boldness and conviction that is breathtaking, said that he wasn’t going to sleep in the same bed with the others…he was going to “bare knuckle” it …no brass under the gloves…no kicks to the groin, no taking the referees out to dinner the night before….he didn’t even insist on a level playing field….who does that? What 74 year old, bald, Jew from Brooklyn with white hair and glasses can afford to not play on a level playing field.…..Bernie Sanders, that’s who!

Some things are more important than a level playing field…Integrity and democracy are two of those things. Bernie knows that SuperPacs and Big Campaign donors go against democracy…they give some voters much more power than others..and that is not what democracy is all about...Bernie knows that! Bernie “walks the walk”. One Presidential election ago a very principled Barack Obama didn’t have the courage to run a campaign without accepting lots of Wall Street money and Super Pac money. He didn’t believe in democracy as much as Bernie Sanders. Obama, and Hillary today, just shrugged their shoulders and took another swig of Malt Liquor and went to the Strip Clubs with all the other candidates.

Bernie insisted on climbing Mt. Everest without supplemental oxygen, he would breath the air that was up there....to do it any other way was “chicken shit”..and lacking integrity, and corrupt….

But, it wasn’t enough….There was not enough oxygen at that rarefied altitude…Bernie was like George Mallory climbing Everest back in 1924 with a tweed jacket and hob nail boots… and darn it if he didn‘t almost make it to the very top before falling to his death...only to leave his preserved frozen body on the south slope of Everest. In the end Bernie got passed by a team breathing supplemental oxygen, with gore tex jackets and gloves, and capilene underwear, crampons, state of the art walkie talkies, and a fleet of sherpas…..and Huma Abedin taking up the rear to pick up any dropped candy wrappers or water bottles.

Hillary is part of the machine, a part of the machinery, like IBM in their time.…her name has been almost synonymous with the democratic party establishment for the last quarter century…she is practically Santa Claus to Christmas. How hard would it be to supplant Santa Claus as the secular face of Christmas? Bernie Sanders is finding out that Barack Obama’s don’t grow on trees. People like things the way they are, at least the democrats do. The Republicans are a decade ahead of the democrats, I guess. The Republicans have had it up to their eyeballs with cronyism in politics…they are so desperate to storm the castle that they are willing to nominate a charlatan, a vile, narcissistic imposter who plays looser than usual with the Truth.….because he "sticks it to the man". But, perhaps to their credit the Republicans would have none of another Bush…they drove a stake in the heart of that legacy before Jeb had a chance to call for his mom. He never had a chance. Jeb is lucky they didn't tar and feather him in the town square.

The democrats, I guess, are willing to move into the slow lane for the next 4 or 8 years….they don’t want to be in a hurry to get anywhere…they want to take things nice and slowly…they aren’t willing to refuse to sit at the back of the bus…not this election…electing a woman may be the only memorable thing about a Hillary Clinton Presidency. I want a woman President as much as anyone but I am not that desperate..and why are the democrats putting a lot of weight into name recognition….don't they know that Bernie beats Trump nationally by 18 points...far more than does Hillary in most polls.

Nobody remembers that FDR was the first handicapped President. He couldn’t walk under his own power…yet he wasn’t elected President as a gift to the handicapped.

What is it that a Hillary voter has found in Hillary that they see lacking in Bernie?

Do they like Sanders except for the fact that he voted not to invade Iraq on the false assumption that Hussein had WMD’s? Is it her lack of wisdom and her "thumbs up" on the worst foreign policy decision since we seceded from England that is garnering her more votes? Sanders was one of only 156 Congressmen out of 535 who had the courage and wisdom to vote against it. Hillary voted with the "good ol boys", the 77 United States Senators who voted “Yes”. Let’s not forget that the vote to go to war with Vietnam was 98 to 2 in favor of that failed foreign policy.

No doubt Bernie is a fan of Mark Twain…who said “when you find yourself in the majority, think again”.

Maybe they prefer Hillary over Bernie because they don’t want a candidate who is going to do all he can to make sure that everyone who wants a college education in this country can have one….. to provide students with free college tuition by placing a tax on Wall Street transactions….maybe Hillary supporters want to be nicer to Wall Street…or they don't think college is that big of a deal to the underprivileged and underfunded. Maybe they don’t like the fact that Bernie wants to raise the minimum wage to $15/hour so that people can have a chance to live on what they earn....a glimpse at dignity.

Maybe people prefer Hillary over Bernie because Hillary has, for her entire political history, dating back to 1992, been a reliable and fervent supporter of NAFTA and every other “free” trade deals. She sat on the Board of Directors of WalMart for years...a company that is famously anti-Union. Maybe they prefer Hillary because they just aren’t comfortable with a candidate who is considered honest. Of Democrat voters who view honesty and trustworthiness as important, Sanders wins about 90% of those voters across the board. I guess trustworthiness and honesty are lost virtues as demonstrated by the preferences of both political parties this year. Lies are the new Truth....we are so desensitized to lies that there is no price to pay for telling them.....Lies just don't get you in trouble any more...just ask any politician, or Tom Brady or Donald Trump, etc..

Maybe people who vote for Hillary prefer a very vague and undefined message….in favor of simplistic campaign slogans like “let’s make things better”.

Maybe black voters in the south are just uncomfortable with a white candidate who has been arrested before (for protesting segregated housing while in college) or maybe they just don’t want another one of those white men who traveled to Washington in 1963 to listen to MLK speak in front of the Lincoln monument…ho hum….

HRC is getting a paltry 10 to 20% of voters under 30 yet she is getting the vast majority of those voters who are over 65…so, we can conclude that the democratic party is not looking to the future…but bowing to the past. HRC would never have asked us to “go the moon before this decade is out”. She would have said …”we can’t do that—it’s not realistic.....let's work on more stringent gun laws for Gun Show vendors".

I could see if HRC had the best message, an inspiring message that was powerful and transformative and that people could define and carry a torch for…I could see if she aroused support among the young voters.... I could see if she was considered a backbone of integrity….or if she was being transparent---not taking Wall Street money and Super Pac money….and agreeing (with nothing to hide) to release the transcripts of her speeches to Wall Street, (the $265,000 speeches). If she is so incorruptible (as she claims to be) then what does she have to hide?

I could see if any of these things were true.....but they are not, and Hillary has had more than enough time to make her case.

Nominating Donald Trump is quite disturbing…but nominating HRC over Bernie Sanders makes no sense if you are a democrat (of which I am not)….where is the horsepower? Where is the vision? Or as Bill Maher said recently….voting for Hillary over Bernie is like settling for chicken instead of fish…or what another pundit remarked…"Hillary is like using a Gatling gun when you have access to drone warfare." If you are trying to dig a big hole why use a spoon when you have a shovel?

Think of this…Bernie Sanders has been in the United States Congress for 25 years. The last 9 as U.S. Senator. Bernie Sanders will never get rich off being a politician ….he just doesn’t care….Hillary and Bill have gotten rich from politics…they are dripping in it…. JFK refused to take a single dollar from public service…he gave every dime he earned from the time he entered Congress in 1946 to the day he died--- to charity…and better yet….there is no record of him ever mentioning this to the American people.….he did it anonymously……the way Donald Trump would (LOL).

I'll raise a glass for Bernie Sanders...he may not get to the top of Mt. Everest, but in my book...he belongs on Mt. Rushmore.

my opinions...