2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumbeam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)lmao I've never seen such whining. Camp Weathervane's internal polling must be dismal. Good indication NY will be a plus.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)And when that little bird landed on Bernie's podium, they're still obsessing over that.
Response to HooptieWagon (Reply #12)
Name removed Message auto-removed
DesertRat
(27,995 posts)The candidate who has actually met the Pope. Twice.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)Honestly I wish all of them would stay away from the popes and the church but it's politics, at least tonight will draw attention to the plight of the poor.
MBS
(9,688 posts)As the article below (see link) explains, as a matter of policy, Pope Francis goes out of his way NOT to get involved with political candidates, only with sitting office-holders (Francis was bamboozled on the Kim Davis front by the former Vatican ambassador to the US- that ambassador was recently fired (or allowed to "retire" by Pope Francis). If anything, the media and political buzz surrounding Sanders' visit insured that the pope would be sure to be "too busy preparing for his trip to Greece" to visit the conference.
Further, Bernie was invited (sort of - again, see the article) to an academic conference, never for a papal audience; and even his conference invitation came via Sanders advisor (and conference speaker) Jeffrey Sachs, Sachs' own communications person and one of the conference organizers (but not the other organizer, who was in fact incensed by the insertion of electoral politics and media buzz into this academic conference).
Also (as we now know), during their Vatican visit(s), Obama (and his diplomatic team, including Sec. Kerry) were conducting bona fide diplomatic business at the Vatican. Among other issues, the Vatican was acting as a key, discrete mediator in engineering the delicate, initially secret discussions between US and Cuba.
The best reporting on the history of the Sanders visit to that conference is here: https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/what-does-sanders-invitation-say-about-vatican-and-sanders
See also the online comment by religion reporter Peter Steinfels (posted April 14, 3:30 pm).
Great that Bernie admires Pope Francis, who is worthy of admiration; and good that the problems of poor people got some publicity because of the extra media buzz . But not good IMO that Bernie exploited this invitation (and, I suspect, also encouraged this invitation, through Sachs) for campaign purposes; and not appropriate IMO for campaign funds to be used for this trip (except for the fact that use of those funds is at least an honest acknowledgement of the trip's purpose).
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)You guys just cannot stand that Bernie was invited, as much as I wish Bernie wouldn't have anything to do with the pope I am LOVING how much this is causing camp Weathervane's collective panties to bunch.
Please do go on.
renate
(13,776 posts)"... how much this is causing... collective panties to bunch."
morningfog
(18,115 posts)dchill
(38,492 posts)Good to know!
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)...for all the butthurt it's giving the Hillarians.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)Ain't that the truth!
Renew Deal
(81,859 posts)More poutrage from Hillary & Co?
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)They're like little children.
Silver_Witch
(1,820 posts)Am I missing something.
LAS14
(13,783 posts)HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)Hillarians have been screaming for a couple weeks now it's all a political stunt.
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,328 posts)The more they find, the more they can charge off to the campaign.
pat_k
(9,313 posts)If he was invited as a pres. candidate, it's related to the campaign. If invited in his capacity as Senator, it should come out of the 2 to 4 million senators get to cover running office, travel, etc.
Seems to me he was invited in his capacity as presidential candidate.
I'm guessing you wouldn't be too happy if he had gone on the taxpayer's dime.
On Edit:
Also, forgot to mention. Seems to me the need to get there and back quickly has 100% to do with the campaign. If he weren't campaigning, he could have taken a more leisurely trip.
Don't know what all the fuss is about. Do your really think the designation as a campaign expense wasn't cleared in advance?
Silver_Witch
(1,820 posts)Bernie is running for office and he was invited to speaker. His campaign decided it would be good media attention and decide it was covered. Good enoght for me.
Avalux
(35,015 posts)Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)When I tell people here in Japan that Bernie was invited by the Vatican to address global economic issues, they are really impressed.
MgtPA
(1,022 posts)Were you one of them?
dchill
(38,492 posts)All their "criticisms" are SO freepish!
Bjornsdotter
(6,123 posts)....and I approve the trip.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)And here goes another $10
pugetres
(507 posts)Off I go to ActBlue.com
angrychair
(8,699 posts)Sounds like we'll need to donate more though. Thanks for reminding me.
QC
(26,371 posts)lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)No one?
bjo59
(1,166 posts)commentary at that conference (and before and after) served to inject a ray of positivity about the US abroad. I think many Americans don't realize just how much our country is reviled for its government's visitation of so much mayhem and misery in the once stable countries of Libya, Iraq, and Syria as well as the horrendous resultant refugee crisis.
DesertRat
(27,995 posts)The trip was organized and paid for by Sanders campaign.
All and all, the group will spend fewer than 22 hours on the ground in Rome, and will be departing Saturday for a weekend of campaign events back in New York City.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bernie-sanders-brings-family-trip-vatican/story?id=38416805
Contrary1
(12,629 posts)Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)slipslidingaway
(21,210 posts)and he has been working his ass off for us, very happy to oblige.
You can contribute here if you feel people coming together on the issues of a moral economy is something to champion.
https://go.berniesanders.com/page/content/splash
https://berniesanders.com/urgency-moral-economy-reflections-anniversary-centesimus-annus/
"The Urgency of a Moral Economy: Reflections on the 25th Anniversary of Centesimus Annus
I am honored to be with you today and was pleased to receive your invitation to speak to this conference of The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Today we celebrate the encyclical Centesimus Annus and reflect on its meaning for our world a quarter-century after it was presented by Pope John Paul II. With the fall of Communism, Pope John Paul II gave a clarion call for human freedom in its truest sense: freedom that defends the dignity of every person and that is always oriented towards the common good.
The Churchs social teachings, stretching back to the first modern encyclical about the industrial economy, Rerum Novarum in 1891, to Centesimus Annus, to Pope Franciss inspiring encyclical Laudato Si this past year, have grappled with the challenges of the market economy. There are few places in modern thought that rival the depth and insight of the Churchs moral teachings on the market economy.
Over a century ago, Pope Leo XIII highlighted economic issues and challenges in Rerum Novarum that continue to haunt us today, such as what he called the enormous wealth of a few as opposed to the poverty of the many.
And let us be clear. That situation is worse today. In the year 2016, the top one percent of the people on this planet own more wealth than the bottom 99 percent, while the wealthiest 60 people 60 people own more than the bottom half 3 1/2 billion people. At a time when so few have so much, and so many have so little, we must reject the foundations of this contemporary economy as immoral and unsustainable.
The words of Centesimus Annus likewise resonate with us today. One striking example:
Furthermore, society and the State must ensure wage levels adequate for the maintenance of the worker and his family, including a certain amount for savings. This requires a continuous effort to improve workers training and capability so that their work will be more skilled and productive, as well as careful controls and adequate legislative measures to block shameful forms of exploitation, especially to the disadvantage of the most vulnerable workers, of immigrants and of those on the margins of society. The role of trade unions in negotiating minimum salaries and working conditions is decisive in this area. (Para15)
The essential wisdom of Centesimus Annus is this: A market economy is beneficial for productivity and economic freedom. But if we let the quest for profits dominate society; if workers become disposable cogs of the financial system; if vast inequalities of power and wealth lead to marginalization of the poor and the powerless; then the common good is squandered and the market economy fails us. Pope John Paul II puts it this way: profit that is the result of illicit exploitation, speculation, or the breaking of solidarity among working people . . . has not justification, and represents an abuse in the sight of God and man. (Para43).
We are now twenty-five years after the fall of Communist rule in Eastern Europe. Yet we have to acknowledge that Pope John Pauls warnings about the excesses of untrammeled finance were deeply prescient. Twenty-five years after Centesimus Annus, speculation, illicit financial flows, environmental destruction, and the weakening of the rights of workers is far more severe than it was a quarter century ago. Financial excesses, indeed widespread financial criminality on Wall Street, played a direct role in causing the worlds worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
We need a political analysis as well as a moral and anthropological analysis to understand what has happened since 1991. We can say that with unregulated globalization, a world market economy built on speculative finance burst through the legal, political, and moral constraints that had once served to protect the common good. In my country, home of the worlds largest financial markets, globalization was used as a pretext to deregulate the banks, ending decades of legal protections for working people and small businesses. Politicians joined hands with the leading bankers to allow the banks to become too big to fail. The result: eight years ago the American economy and much of the world was plunged into the worst economic decline since the 1930s. Working people lost their jobs, their homes and their savings, while the government bailed out the banks.
Inexplicably, the United States political system doubled down on this reckless financial deregulation, when the U.S. Supreme Court in a series of deeply misguided decisions, unleashed an unprecedented flow of money into American politics. These decisions culminated in the infamous Citizen United case, which opened the financial spigots for huge campaign donations by billionaires and large corporations to turn the U.S. political system to their narrow and greedy advantage. It has established a system in which billionaires can buy elections. Rather than an economy aimed at the common good, we have been left with an economy operated for the top 1 percent, who get richer and richer as the working class, the young and the poor fall further and further behind. And the billionaires and banks have reaped the returns of their campaign investments, in the form of special tax privileges, imbalanced trade agreements that favor investors over workers, and that even give multinational companies extra-judicial power over governments that are trying to regulate them.
But as both Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis have warned us and the world, the consequences have been even direr than the disastrous effects of financial bubbles and falling living standards of working-class families. Our very soul as a nation has suffered as the public lost faith in political and social institutions. As Pope Francis has stated: Man is not in charge today, money is in charge, money rules. And the Pope has also stated: We have created new idols. The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.
And further: While the income of a minority is increasing exponentially, that of the majority is crumbling. This imbalance results from ideologies which uphold the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation, and thus deny the right of control to States, which are themselves charged with providing for the common good.
Pope Francis has called on the world to say: No to a financial system that rules rather than serves in Evangeli Gaudium. And he called upon financial executives and political leaders to pursue financial reform that is informed by ethical considerations. He stated plainly and powerfully that the role of wealth and resources in a moral economy must be that of servant, not master.
The widening gaps between the rich and poor, the desperation of the marginalized, the power of corporations over politics, is not a phenomenon of the United States alone. The excesses of the unregulated global economy have caused even more damage in the developing countries. They suffer not only from the boom-bust cycles on Wall Street, but from a world economy that puts profits over pollution, oil companies over climate safety, and arms trade over peace. And as an increasing share of new wealth and income goes to a small fraction of those at the top, fixing this gross inequality has become a central challenge. The issue of wealth and income inequality is the great economic issue of our time, the great political issue of our time, and the great moral issue of our time. It is an issue that we must confront in my nation and across the world.
Pope Francis has given the most powerful name to the predicament of modern society: the Globalization of Indifference. Almost without being aware of it, he noted, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other peoples pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone elses responsibility and not our own. We have seen on Wall Street that financial fraud became not only the norm but in many ways the new business model. Top bankers have shown no shame for their bad behavior and have made no apologies to the public. The billions and billions of dollars of fines they have paid for financial fraud are just another cost of doing business, another short cut to unjust profits.
Some might feel that it is hopeless to fight the economic juggernaut, that once the market economy escaped the boundaries of morality it would be impossible to bring the economy back under the dictates of morality and the common good. I am told time and time again by the rich and powerful, and the mainstream media that represent them, that we should be practical, that we should accept the status quo; that a truly moral economy is beyond our reach. Yet Pope Francis himself is surely the worlds greatest demonstration against such a surrender to despair and cynicism. He has opened the eyes of the world once again to the claims of mercy, justice and the possibilities of a better world. He is inspiring the world to find a new global consensus for our common home.
I see that hope and sense of possibility every day among Americas young people. Our youth are no longer satisfied with corrupt and broken politics and an economy of stark inequality and injustice. They are not satisfied with the destruction of our environment by a fossil fuel industry whose greed has put short term profits ahead of climate change and the future of our planet. They want to live in harmony with nature, not destroy it. They are calling out for a return to fairness; for an economy that defends the common good by ensuring that every person, rich or poor, has access to quality health care, nutrition and education.
As Pope Francis made powerfully clear last year in Laudato Si, we have the technology and know-how to solve our problems from poverty to climate change to health care to protection of biodiversity. We also have the vast wealth to do so, especially if the rich pay their way in fair taxes rather than hiding their funds in the worlds tax and secrecy havens- as the Panama Papers have shown.
The challenges facing our planet are not mainly technological or even financial, because as a world we are rich enough to increase our investments in skills, infrastructure, and technological know-how to meet our needs and to protect the planet. Our challenge is mostly a moral one, to redirect our efforts and vision to the common good. Centesimus Annus, which we celebrate and reflect on today, and Laudato Si, are powerful, eloquent and hopeful messages of this possibility. It is up to us to learn from them, and to move boldly toward the common good in our time."
renate
(13,776 posts)This has been a topic so close to Bernie's heart. I'm so happy, and clearly he is too, to see it getting the attention it deserves.
"The globalization of indifference"--so true. There is so much pain and suffering because of this inequality. I recognize that I don't feel it as much as I ought to. I have clean and safe running water, a roof over my head, a feeling of safety in my home... it's so easy to forget that so many people don't have those most basic of things. But Bernie hasn't forgotten.
slipslidingaway
(21,210 posts)and yes there is so much inequality and we do not feel it a as much as others. I cannot imagine living in a war zone or on the streets or .... there are too many choices too mention.
It is amazing that Sanders has not given up the fight, he could have done so easily once he was elected to Congress, but his core values would not let him take the easy road.
polly7
(20,582 posts)slipslidingaway
(21,210 posts)jillan
(39,451 posts)pat_k
(9,313 posts)Seems to me the expense is 100% campaign related. If he weren't campaigning for POTUS he could have taken his time getting there - for a lot less. The need to get there and back quickly -- and to charter a plane to do it -- was necessitated by the fact he is in the middle of the campaign.
jillan
(39,451 posts)You don't get invited to be a part of a forum at the Vatican everyday. I'm sure they were honored and felt it was worth it, even if it was in the middle of a campaign.
You only live once.
I was just going by what was reported in this article:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bernie-sanders-brings-family-trip-vatican/story?id=38416805
That is, "The trip was organized and paid for by Sanders campaign."
It made sense to me that the campaign would pay for it (for reasons stated in my post). If the report is wrong, abc needs to get the story straight.
cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)jfern
(5,204 posts)if the debate was April 10th-13th like he wanted. But he needed to fly charter to make it since the debate was April 14th like Hillary insisted.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)ROME U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders says he met privately with Pope Francis during his overnight trip here, his spokesman said.
The meeting took place at the papal residence early Saturday, according Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs.
A Vatican source said the meeting was not a chance encounter and had been planned.
The Sanders campaign had been vague about the senator's itinerary here following his address Friday to a Vatican conference. Francis left Rome later Saturday for Greece, where he is visiting migrants stuck on the island of Lesbos. The reticence about a Sanders meeting may be an attempt to avoid the perception that Francis is endorsing Sanders or otherwise involving himself in American politics.
Sanders was invited to address a Vatican seminar on income inequality and economic justice, and took an unusual break from the Democratic primary campaign trail to attend. He had said in a Washington Post interview last week that he admired Francis and hoped to meet him, but that nothing was set.
Sanders quotes Francis frequently in his address to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, and told reporters afterward that the pope has had enormous influence in airing issues of wealth disparity and climate change.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/04/16/italian-media-sanders-met-privately-with-pope-francis/
mythology
(9,527 posts)This is somewhere around when was the last time Sanders changed his socks.
All the complaining over this really isn't a good look for Clinton supporters.
Vinca
(50,271 posts)If he happened to use my campaign donations, I would be honored to know that's where it went. Given your post, I would guess it's highly unlikely any of your money is involved.
Maru Kitteh
(28,340 posts)longship
(40,416 posts)Pfffthpfffth!
glowing
(12,233 posts)Last edited Sun Apr 17, 2016, 08:58 AM - Edit history (3)
#1. The world gets to see a candidate who is speaking of a moral economy. One who believes around the world and in the USA, the meek should inherit the world.
#2. It was not a visual mistake on the part of the conference to have him sitting and interacting so well with President Evo Morales. This brings an eye to South American relations and being less "invasive" with our regime changes and nastiness we've interfered into.
#3. The Pope chose to go the next day to meet with refugees from Syria. And he flew a few of them with him. The media actually paid attention to his schedule and his direct contact with people who have been forced to flee their homeland due to war and violence. Which the USA and other countries are directly responsible for helping to create in their own chaos making regime changing, heavy handed interferences in that region. It's a big issue in Eurpope right now and has little recognition in the USA because basically we have Trump being reported on everytime he farts.
#4. That meeting of one another as they were both departing for their own "uphill battles" for morality and justice, was purposeful in stirring the media up as they parted from Vatican City.
So, what did the press do? Interviewed Bernie about the experience at the Varican with that back drop for the major networks. And of course the press wanted the Pope's take on all of it, and he focused on his cause. There is NO WAY that the press in America or maybe around the world, would have focused a story about the Pope helping Syrian refugees if Bernie hadn't been at the Vatican. And the US has done a great deal to help create those refugees. It's all a bit of politicking, but this time for really good, moral causes.
And no matter about all the crap people are trying to make this into as a negative, the world has a positive look at this, met an actually noble candidate, and having a Vatican invite over all other candidates is more than telling the world whom this Pope would prefer to meet next as President and that perhaps the world may just become a bit more fairer is possible. Hope!
LAS14
(13,783 posts)That visit to Lesbos was huge. It's been talked about for a week. You're living in a Bernie-bubble.
glowing
(12,233 posts)going to the Vatican for this meeting. It wasn't until the Clinton butt hurt about semantics of "meeting the Pope", getting a special invite, etc ad naseum regarding Bernie's going to this meeting, that the media looked into the Pope's schedule and that he was going on a special trip to highlight the Syrian refugee crisis. I have NO DOUBT that a single report would have been filed by the M$M media in regards to the Pope and his scheduled trip because they were trying to smear Bernie.
AND yes, this was politics on BOTH sides. Of course, the media isn't going to go in depths into the reasons for the Syrian refugee crisis... Analyzing the absolute mess the USA has been directly responsible for in the ME, would go against the MIC and Big oil... But attention to the crisis in Europe has at least been highlighted in the minds of Americans for the Pope. AND yes, I'm serious.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)Good, honest, upright, loyal citizens interested in a better Nation and World for all.
In other words, no one from the Clinton campaign. Those knots in your panties are REALLY bugging you, huh?