Bernie Sanders — Halfway There?

[Uncle Joe]

http://billmoyers.com/2015/08/14/bernie-sanders-halfway-there/

What Sanders has done is to establish himself as a force in the Democratic Party’s selection process. He has done so by demonstrating two qualities that have largely disappeared from America’s political life over the past few decades. One is conviction and intellectual honesty. The other is articulate statement of a progressive creed that was the party’s heart and soul when it dominated the country’s electoral life, before lapsing into the “me-too” wing of our current Establishment uniparty. Sanders, thereby, has flinted a spark of life into those nominally liberal circles whose lazy and complacent inertia had led them to declare the compromised Hillary Clinton as their latest champion.

None of this was foreseen by the commentators and strategists who set the tone for our political discourse. Their domination of the electronic airways generates the Washington Consensus that few dare dispute. That consensus is invariably wrong – on almost every matter of electoral and policy consequences. They boast a record of unrelieved obtuseness that does nothing to undermine their authority in delimiting what or who qualifies for “serious” discussion. One could amass a fortune simply by betting against the Washington Consensus. A quicker and more socially responsible alternative to joining in the corrupt shenanigans that pass for finance these days.

The “experts,” in their typical blinkered way, overlooked or grossly underestimated some stark truths. Most Americans are poorer today than they were 45 years ago. Stagnant salaries may have left them on a par with or very slightly ahead of where they were in 1970 in absolute terms, but they have lost all purchase on the kind of lives led by those who are infinitely better off in relative terms. In America’s status society where well-being is measured in lifestyle terms, that counts for a lot. Especially so, when the outlook for your children is a struggle even to keep up with their parents. Moreover, tens of millions of earnest workers have seen themselves degraded and downgraded as “temps” and part-timers, shorn of job security and benefits, in the name of “productivity” and “efficiency.” They are marooned in a limbo just a layer above migrant agricultural workers. This is taken by their leaders to be the inescapable price to pay in order to keep up with the Malaysians and the Chinese. Democratic President Barack Obama rubs their noses in it by promoting the Trans-Pacific commercial Pact, largely written by big business, which will undercut the authority of the United States government to alleviate their condition.

For the cognoscenti of the political class, this blunt reality is a revelation — ignored for decades and now filed away under the label “inequality.” For them and for the candidates they promote, “inequality” is just another abstraction about which nothing practical will be done — like the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process.” So long as they themselves are comfortably off, all is more-or-less right with the world.

There is much more on the link.

[roguevalley]

1. bill moyers is spot on. thanks for this. :D

[libdem4life]

2. Quite a tome there. I was hoping for a more snappy ending.

But he sure lays it out in black and white.

[appalachiablue]

3. K & R. Bill Moyers always gets it.

[Doctor_J]

4. If the black people won't vote for him due to some made-up slight, it's their loss

I love how it's just fine for blm to threaten not to vote for Sanders (a lifetime civil rights warrior), but if liberals say they won't vote for Morgan Stanley/TPP/keystone Clinton, everyone is suddenly concerned about the supreme court.

Excellent opinion by Moyers as usual. I guess he's not that popular among the turd way and the BOG, who now believe that the CRA, VRA, and war on poverty were not such a big deal.

[sorechasm]

5. Where can Hillary buy some of Bernie's integrity?

Third, Sander’s manifest commitment and integrity places in stark relief the evasive, manipulative manner of the current crop of politicians — Hillary outstanding among them. The psychology of this is elusive. There seems little doubt, though, that her lack of forthrightness on matters ranging from her home basement server while secretary of state to her cozy and dubious dealings with big money donors will cost her more now that there is an example of a quite different conception of public responsibility on the screen.