A remarkably moving thing happened at a Bernie Sanders rally today in Iowa

[Uncle Joe]

Bernie Sanders did a town hall event Monday morning in Iowa Falls, Iowa. He asked the crowd for testimonials about the difficulties of sustaining a life off of $12,000 a year.

What happened next is both hard to watch/listen to and important. A woman is called on and she emotionally tells the story of her life -- minimum wage jobs despite a degree, on disability and living with her parents. Here's a snippet of what she said:

It’s so hard to do anything to pay your bills, you’re ashamed all the time...when you can’t buy presents for your children it’s really really really hard – and I work 3, 4, 5 jobs sometimes, always minimum wage, I have a degree, divorced and it’s just I’m waiting for disability to come through so my parents have to support me – it’s just hard.

Sanders thanked her and the crowd applauded. Then he said this: "It is not easy for people to stand up and say that but the truth is that until millions of people who are experiencing what you’re experiencing do say that we don’t make change."

(snip)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/25/a-remarkably-moving-thing-happened-at-a-bernie-sanders-rally-today-in-iowa/

A video is on the link.

[cali]

1. Gut wrenching, and I just had a duer tell me

Bernie wants a dictatorship of the non-moneyed. Really.

[Gore1FL]

11. Dictatorship of the non-moneyed?

So their concern is that 99%+ will rule by will? In some places of the world, they call that sort of dictatorship, dare I say it? "Democracy."

I'm shivering at the thought!

[mountain grammy]

18. Seriously? Dictatorship of the non-moneyed??

I'm speechless.

[cali]

44. Seriously.

Read my thread on Hillary's speaking gigs.

[Warren DeMontague]

28. If A liveable minimum wage isn't fascism, I dont know what is.

Yeah, Ive read posts on here about people "wanting free stuff" that look like they came right out of scribbled pages in grover norquist's nightstand.

Unbelievable, and then they have the temerity to bleat about how they "dont recognize this place" because everyone isnt lining up to support the candidate they're ordering us to.

[tecelote]

33. Yeah - There can be 100 single mothers that need help and...

one hippy looking guy playing and the system and eating lobster on food stamps.

The Republicans want to take aid away from all of the single mothers just so they are sure that dirty hippy doesn't get his free lobster.

[Warren DeMontague]

36. I look like a hippy, and Ive never got any free lobster. Maybe I'm too clean.

I want my free lobster!

Eating lobster on food stamps sounds a bit logistically tricky, though. Must be a very small lobster.

[tecelote]

39. I used to be a bit of a hippy.

But, I'm referring to a Fox News segment where they found a "hippy looking" guy that said he was able to get lobster on food stamps.

They used it for a week to show why we need to reign in entitlements.

[Warren DeMontague]

40. Typical. Back in the Reagan days it was the sterotypical AA "welfare queen" eating bon-bons and

Buying fancy vodka.

Same shit, different year.

[KentuckyWoman]

60. In my neck of the woods it was

assumed every black person had a Cadillac they bought with "my tax money".

[cannabis_flower]

42. Yes, you can eat lobster on food stamps..

But not all month. Basically you get a certain amount for the month and that's it. If you spend it all the first week, you will be eating beans and rice the rest of the month.

[DaGimpster]

48. Let them eat...

Crawfish.

[Warren DeMontague]

55. "...And when there was no crawdad, we ate sand.."

"you ate SAND?"

"we ate sand."

[Ed Suspicious]

38. The well healed will have just as much say as I will in Bernie's ideal world. The thing that hurts

his detractors is that they want more say than me. They think they earned it. They think their fortunes, their good fortune, proves they're good.

[Hoppy]

56. The present dictatorship is one of the money class.

The problem is that most people conceive of a dictatorship as storm troopers in your town square, show your papers everywhere.... stuff like in the WW II movies.

Dictate means to talk to... the 1% talk to Congress. You don't. I don't.

We may try, but Congress ain't gonna listen to the likes of us.

[sadoldgirl]

2. With experiences like this all around us

there is only one wish all of us should share:

We need drastic changes in this country, and
not incrimentalism.

[appalachiablue]

57. +1. This am on MSNBC JoeScar they showed this film. Mika asked guest NY Mayor De Blasio

how the candidates could help a person like this, disabled and living on 10K. Bill said HC has the experience, can fix it, usw. One of the poorest responses I've ever seen, esp. by a 'progressive'.

[kenfrequed]

58. Yeah

To me this is clear evidence that De Blasio doesn't really believe in Hillary at all and has been pressured into endorsing her.

[dorkzilla]

59. She endorsed him for mayor..

You know how they are with quid pro quo...submit or get on their "enemies" list.

[MgtPA]

3. And this is who Obama just referred to as a "bright shiny object"...

That poor woman...

[Uncle Joe]

4. On the other hand this was the last paragraph in President Obama's comments.

Meanwhile, in a separate interview Sunday with CBS’ “Sunday Morning,” Obama said he wouldn’t run for a third term even if he could. He said the presidency takes a toll on family life, and the office "should be continually renewed by new energy and new ideas."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/25/obama-defends-clinton-likens-sanders-to-bright-shiny-object.html

I don't see Hillary as having either.

[MgtPA]

6. I agree with that!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

21. That's because she doesn't. n/t

[senz]

24. True. Wonder if he was giving a "message" there?

[artislife]

5. People are hurting

and none of the other candidates on both sides satisfy me in their responses to it. They either say it is too much, or that we shouldn't give to people in need. O'Malley is the closest to Bernie but I know what h and the repubs want.

Makes me so mad.

[onecaliberal]

7. People are hurting, and just because I am not one of them doesn't mean I don't care.

That's why I am voting for Bernie, and shame on every one whose comfortable and torched the ladder they climbed behind them. I thought we were supposed to be democrats.

[Uncle Joe]

10. That's why we have two hands.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

8. This can't be right....

The pundits on TV claim the Democrats don't want things to change that much so they're going to vote for the status quo.

[mmonk]

9. Welcome to sensible centrist America.

[TIME TO PANIC]

13. +1

Yep, fighting for a living wage isn't pragmatic.

[TIME TO PANIC]

12. K & R !

[Segami]

14. Here is the video...

A woman in the audience of a Bernie Sanders rally in Iowa Falls, Iowa, breaks down while describing what it’s like to live on minimum wage. ‘It’s really hard,’ she says. Sanders praises the woman’s bravery in speaking out, and then rallies against Republican presidential candidates calling for cuts to social security

[Uncle Joe]

22. Thanks for the video, Segami.

[Segami]

43. You're welcome Uncle Joe.....

Kick it up!

[Duval]

37. Aw, made wet eyes here. Thank you for the video, Segami.

[navarth]

61. I so wanted to reach into the computer and give her a hug.

That poor girl. If I had been sitting next to her she would definitely had a hug. It's a national disgrace that she should have to deal with that.

[beam me up scottie]

15. How can anyone watch that and not tear up?

Heartbreaking.

Enough.

[berni_mccoy]

16. When I see someone like this in distress it makes me ANGRY!

Hell YES I'M ANGRY! Why should the wealthiest country on the planet have anyone struggling like this?! It is unacceptable, unAmerican and for those who are religious, unGODLY!

It Is TIME FOR A REVOLUTION! It is time to fight for a LIVABLE WAGE. It is TIME TO FIGHT FOR SOCIAL SECURITY!

I'm so sick and tired of the compromises of the Democratic Party. I'm voting for Sanders BECAUSE FUCK THIS SHIT!

[mmonk]

29. Yes (your last four words).

[nolabear]

17. I wonder if anyone did anything to help her.

I know, working for change helps all the hers, but still, her life could have been changed considerably if all those people had given her a bit of money or some contacts to resources or a decent paying job. I wonder if anyone did that.

[libdem4life]

19. Life changes when you have kids. Child care is prohibitive. And school only for certain hours.

You patch work jobs together...I just had one and had the ability to work online from home and rent out rooms. I was in Northern California and Craig's List had just started and there were jobs on there I could do, as I had a good Resume.

Other than that, and as my ex-husband hoped, I would not have been able to care for my son. Even as it was, he used my low income against me and ultimately...after $30,000 in legal fees from his parents and the Child Welfare folks just gave up...got 1/2 time...even though he put him in child care while I was at home.

[Warren DeMontague]

25. The Manhattan fancy dog people'll you that it is hard balancing a live in nanny & private preschool

Dont discount their suffering!


http://www.urbanbaby.com/topics/55010785

[libdem4life]

26. I just glanced and saw $200,000 twice...so didn't bother to read. I'm guessing this is

sarcasm, no?

[Warren DeMontague]

30. It got a lot of feedback when it first came out, but no, it was an actual post. Not sarcasm.

If you can believe it.

http://jezebel.com/5947300/life-isnt-fair-for-wealthy-parents-says-wealthy-mom

I earn 200k and my DH earns 200k. Total HHI is 400k. We have 2 children. We could afford to send them to private school, but we would have to scrape and forego a lot (especially since our HHI is only 350k after nanny) and we would not qualify for financial aid. However, if I quit my job and became a SAHM, we would have a HHI of 200k, which would put us in the realm of financial aid (AND we could save the 50k+ cost of having a nanny). I am not going to quit my job to orchestrate this, but I resent the fact that private tuition is so high, in part because the people who pay are financing the tuition of the people who don't pay (including families with 200k HHI and SAHMs). This is all just so screwed up.

Hell, Ive seen people make similar statements HERE with no apparent sense of irony. "You just dont understand, darling, simply everyone MUST send their kids to exclusive expensive schools in manhattan, and the necessary help is so hard to find so of course it is expensive."

Like, okay, we're relatively fortunate over here (but way below dirt poor for Manahattan, apparently) and as such i would never in a bajillion years think to piss and moan about how rough we have it, because of the "full time domestic help we cant afford" or the private schools we can't swing. We have food on the table, and that alone is pretty fucking fortunate in today's America.

And I sure as shit havent forgotten the minimum wage jobs Ive worked in my life, and I never stopped advocating that people who work for minimum wage deserve to be paid a LIVABLE one.

This is just another example of the massively out of touch bubble some people are existing in, and we see a lot of it, even here.

[libdem4life]

32. Got it...thanks. Unbelievable, yet not really.

[mountain grammy]

20. I have two friends currently trying to qualify for disability..

one has COPD. She could work if she gets her medicine, but can't afford the medicine when she's working. She had to quit her full time job to qualify for Medicaid so she could get the $600/month medicine. If she had access to medicine and health care, she could work, but can't have access unless she stops working...
My other friend, pretty much the same story. Ain't that great, America?

[DaGimpster]

49. Speaking from experience

Getting on disability is an incredibly lengthy and frustrating process. Suffice it to say, my wife first applied in 2009 (cancer diagnosis) and we didn't any assistance until 2011 after 3 denials. During that period we lost our house and what savings we did have.

My best advice, as much as I hate to say it, is lawyer up if disability strikes you.

[mountain grammy]

50. Thanks, I'll pass along your advice.

How awful for you and your wife. I hope her health is improving and things are better.

It's a terrible that Americans have to lose it all just because of an illness or accident. We are all so vulnerable.

[DaGimpster]

51. Thank you.

Also, the lawyer will be covered upon successful SSDI admission.

I am happy to say that after two chemotherapy regimens and a stem cell (BMT) transplant, she has been in remission since mid 2012. The ACA fixed a number of things that nailed us so hard, but I'd like to continue with advancing the state of our nations healthcare.

[mountain grammy]

53. Good news. I hope her health continues to improve..

and yes, the ACA is an advance that we need to build on.

[senz]

23. What Bernie told that woman is SO on point.

Everyone needs to tell their own truth. The media doesn't show these people except as objects of pity or censure.

[SoapBox]

35. And I would say mostly censure.

[CharlotteVale]

27. At the moment it's the most read article on the Wash. Post site.

[Warren DeMontague]

31. Good.

Maybe that will force some people to finally hop aboard the clue train.

[SoapBox]

34. And all this makes me think about that other candidate

and in a post earlier today, reminding us of back in the day when SHILL wanted the Welfare Queens to get some DIGNITY by getting a job.

Well...people do have jobs...minimum wage, part time, temp/no benefits...and guess what SHILL, they can't even afford to live.

My heart goes out to people like this gal...not to SHILL.

[Jefferson23]

45. Dear lady, don't feel ashamed, it is our elite and their supporters who should wear that emotion K&R

[Uncle Joe]

46. You nailed it, Jefferson.

[Jefferson23]

47. Thanks, I agree with Bernie, took a lot of courage to speak up as she did. n/t

[Odin2005]

52. I make about that much a year, this hit me right in the feels.

[DallasNE]

54. A Testimonial On How Transparency Is Really The Answer n/t