If Bernie should never have spoken at Liberty U, HRC should never have praised Kissinger

[Ken Burch]

If Bernie doing the first thing "legitimized bigots", HRC doing the second thing legitimized war crimes.

[hrmjustin]

1. Oh Lord! This place is just ridiculous at times!

[Ken Burch]

13. If Bernie "legitimized" Liberty Baptist just by speaking there

then, logically, HRC legitimized everything Kissinger did by praising him as a statesman.

(If it doesn't matter that Bernie opposes everything that HRC stands for, as we all know he does, than it doesn't matter that HRC protested ONE thing Kissinger did back in 1970.

[hrmjustin]

16. Oh knock it off!

[Ken Burch]

25. You offer only heckling, you have no rebuttal.

Bernie's Liberty U. speech(a speech in which he made it clear he opposed everything Falwell and Co. ever stood for) was trivial compared to HRC's validation of Kissinger. Bernie never appeased homophobes in his speech...HRC treated a war criminal as a revered elder statesman and said she largely agreed with him.

And people who still think we were right to be in Vietnam, bomb Cambodia, instigate war between India and Pakistan, murder democracy in Chile and greenlight the Indonesian invasion of East Timor are never going to be allies of the LGBTQ community.

As the IWW said years ago "An Injury To One...Is An Injury To ALL!"

[hrmjustin]

27. Hillary is her own person and is not a warmonger.

Keep harping on it all you want but I don't care about him. I care about today's ssues and I think Hillary is the one to handle them.

[Ken Burch]

32. Bernie is his own person and is not an appeaser of bigots.

And his speech at Liberty U. is not one of "today's issues", because he didn't betray anyone or anything in giving it.

[hrmjustin]

34. Never said he was an appeaser of bigots.

[Betty Karlson]

47. Don't you mean: "Cut it out"?

According to Mrs. Clinton, those three words are enough to force compliance from all of Wall Street. Surely they will work just as well on a DU poster?

[Kalidurga]

2. Meh

That's one of the least of my concerns. Hillary is a politician and politicians often do the expedient thing. At some point Bernie is going to meet up with some slimy characters and the optics may not be so great, cuz that is what leaders do. I just wish she didn't look so darned happy. That is about my only problem with the whole thing. Oh that and we have like 20 threads going on with this subject.

[Ken Burch]

26. There was no expedient necessity to validate Dr. K.

Nobody who still supports his worldview is going to vote to elect a Democrat as president.

[JaneyVee]

3. Ok fine. If you say so.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. More to the point, she should not have gone to Saddleback Church and praised Rick Warren

which she most certainly did. Lavish praise for the man.

[peacebird]

6. ^^^this^^^

[Ken Burch]

14. That, too. Thanks as always for the observation. n/t.

[ljm2002]

17. Not only did you beat me to it...

...but I was going to lead with "More to the point..."

Anyway great observation!

[jeff47]

5. Uh, she didn't just "praise" Kissinger

She's met with him several times, and has said that Kissinger's view of the world aligns with hers. She also claimed to "rely on his counsel" as Secretary of State.

[Ken Burch]

23. Indeed.

So it's totally inconsistent to be ok with that but be outraged by Bernie giving ONE speech at Liberty U...a speech that gave no ground to homophobia or in any way at all appeased any form of hatred or ignorance.

[MaggieD]

7. LMAO. Okey Dokey!!

[Ken Burch]

24. Validating a war criminal is massively worse than speaking at Liberty U.

Noting Bernie did there was in any way an endorsement of anything Liberty U. stood for, and Bernie has never been weak on LGBTQ issues. The most progressive overall candidate is always going to be the most anti-oppression candidate.

[MaggieD]

38. I'm here to assure you

Bernie doesn't give a damn about LGBT issues. He never did jack for us.

And as for "validating a war criminal" everyone should be clear that you're upset that she reviewed his book.

Any port in a storm, I guess.

[Ken Burch]

39. Bernie has an perfect congressional and senatorial voting record on LGBTQ issues

He has no betrayals to your community on his record comparable to defending DADT and DOMA.

Basically, you're holding a grudge because one time he didn't return your call. News flash...over the years, HRC has probably not returned a ton of calls from people.

And she didn't support same-sex marriage until it was too late to matter. It doesn't count for somebody to support you once everybody else is already doing it. Just marching in the pride parade(which is the only pro-LGBTQ thing HRC did before 2009) is trivial.

Why would you ever give greater trust to the LESS progressive candidate? If you're less progressive overall, it's not possible to be more anti-oppression.

And it's not about just reviewing Kissinger's book. She made it clear in that review and by posing with him that she pretty much agrees with him on everything. And there was no practical political reason to do that, because nothing Kissinger did(other than the China thing, which would have happened around that time anyway, without extending the Vietnam War for four more unnecessary years and bombing Cambodia, or any of the other things Dr. K did) still retains any significant popular support. It tells us what her global mindset is.

And it means she can't be trusted not to bomb Iran.

[MaggieD]

40. He didn't return anybody's call

That's why he has few endorsements.

But thank you for eloquently straight 'splaining my life experiences to me as if you actually know my life as an LGBT activist better than I do. It's quite impressive that you believe you can do that.

[Ken Burch]

41. If that's the case, how do you explain that there are a lot of LGBTQ Bernie supporters?

A phone call is just a phone call. How can not getting called back matter more than a candidate who defended DADT and DOMA until it was too late to matter? Who did nothing but march in the Pride Parade(which meant nothing and achieved nothing)?

Even if he didn't return anybody's call(which I seriously doubt)he was with you. How are phone calls more important than refusal to support same-sex marriage until the entire Democratic Party did? What was so freaking important about the phone calls when you already had his vote for everything you wanted?

I could see backing HRC if she had ever, even ONCE, stuck her neck out for you...if she had ever risked even a slight drop in personal popularity ratings to back you under fire(as Bernie did on vote after vote throughout his career-his support of SSM in the Nineties, before DOMA was passed, could have caused his defeat in Vermont), but, by any objective measure, she has never been on your side until after the major battles were over.

Beyond that, your hostility towards Bernie seems to be based on a trivial breach of etiquette. That's all a non-returned phone call is, when the person who didn't return your call was already on your side.

[MaggieD]

43. Oh please - just give it up already

He. Did. Not. Do. Shit.

He's about as much a "champion" for LGBT as he was for latinos and AA. As in not. fucking. at. all.

[Ken Burch]

44. Really?

http://www.advocate.com/politics/election/2015/04/30/bernie-sanders-most-lgbt-friendly-candidate

A much better record than HRC...who only backed LGBTQ rights after most of the battles were over...when it no longer mattered...

[MaggieD]

45. He doesn't have ANY real record with LGBT

Becuase he didn't do shit. You want us to genuflect to him because he didn't vote like a rethug on the issues? Really?

And I can see now why you all aggravate the hell out of AA when you all pretend he's the second coming of MLK.

[Ken Burch]

46. What real record does HRC have?

How can you cite someone who opposed same-sex marriage until supporting it no longer mattered(it means nothing to support it AFTER the Supreme Court ruling) and who never did anything but march in the Pride Parade before 2009(marching in a damn parade isn't anything) as having a SUPERIOR record?

In any anti-oppression fight, or any other struggle for justice against long odds, only support at personal political risk is of any value.

took those risks in Vermont(a state that was Republican until the Eighties). HRC NEVER EVER TOOK ANY RISKS FOR YOU...not ever.She never put anything on the line for you. Marching in the parade was totally risk-free in New York. Hell, Giuliani marched in the NYC Pride parade. HRC isn't even any more electable than Bernie anymore...the polls have totally destroyed the "only HRC can win" narrative.

What more could Bernie have done that he didn't do? He publicly supported same-sex marriage back in the early Nineties, at a time when it looked like that cause would never get majority support.

There has never been a time in any anti-oppression struggle when the oppressed community in question gained more by backing the LESS progressive politicians. Calculating, centrist fence-sitters never vote to anyone's oppression.

[AgingAmerican]

8. The only ones who complain about his speech al Liberty U

Are those who didn't bother watching it. Liberty U got their asses handed to them in an irrefutable manor.

[bvf]

10. Funny how that works, isn't it? n/t

[R B Garr]

9. Ah, the transitive properties of The Revolution...

[okasha]

11. Sanders was shilling for evangelical votes.

Hillary was being polite to an official of a former administration. Any President, as part of the job, will have to shake hands and make nice with some rather awful people. The same is true of Secretaries of State and Defense.

[Robbins]

12. Um

she was being more than polite to Kissinger.she f-ing praised him several times.

Remember this.The clintons worked on the texas part of Mcgovern campagin,and later praised Nixon's National security adviser turned SOS.Bill Clinton didn't want to go to vietnam but since then the clintons love war as long as their family isn't fighting In it.

Powell endorsed Obama but you never saw me prasing him.Anyone In Bush administration who went along with pushing iraq is scum to me.and that is me using polite words.

Prasing Kissinger,and her 2002 Iraq war speech are enough alone to get me to vote against her In primary.add to Bill's being cozy to both poopy and w.Of course i have plenty more reason to oppose her.

[seabeyond]

15. Too fuckin' funny.

[Ken Burch]

22. Praising a war criminal and endorsing his worldview is "funny"?

There was no practical political necessity at all for HRC to validate Dr. K. . His era is over. Nobody who agrees with Kissinger's actions is ever going to vote for any Democrat.

[seabeyond]

35. What is funny is that you actually see this as a valid argument

[Dem2]

18. This is important.

[murielm99]

20. This is important?

[Dem2]

21. .

[Major Hogwash]

19. Bernie spoke at Liberty U once, while Hillary adopted Kissinger's foreign policy positions.

Big difference.

[Thinkingabout]

28. Praising Liberty University and Jerry Falwell is exactly what RW does, he is one of

Their heroes, just what we need is RW leaders. You can't get much further to the right than Falwell.

[Ken Burch]

33. Bernie didn't praise Liberty U. or Jerry Falwell.

He went in their and challenged them on their hatred.

[Thinkingabout]

36. Did I say he praised them?

[onecaliberal]

29. Or campaigned for Goldwater, or voted for the Iraq war. I could go on...

[TSIAS]

42. Right back at you

I don't like Hillary or her supporters either.

[tk2kewl]

37. well Sanders clearly stated the he was in disagreement

with many of the university's positions while Clinton stated she was in agreement with many of Kissenger's positions

I have had enough of Kissengeresque foreign policy