''In January of 1991, one of the first votes I cast in Congress was against the war in Iraq.''

[Donkees]

Link to tweet

[comradebillyboy]

1. Too bad he hasn't accomplished anything else in 30 years.

[handmade34]

4. he helped get funding

for the rail trail that goes by my house...

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

28. He got a couple of post offices named.

[Paka]

2. He has the foresight to be right ahead of the pack.

Truly the sign of a real leader. A quality I look for in my vision of a President.

[brooklynite]

3. Who did he "lead" to also oppose the war?

[UniteFightBack]

6. Do you really think Bernie Sanders is able to bridge divides or create larger chasms? It's pretty

obvious where he falls and fails.

[Paka]

9. I really do think he is a uniter.

The only think what is obvious is that we disagree, because I do not see where he falls and fails.

[Hortensis]

5. It was among the few votes Sanders had EVER cast to that point.

Before that, he was middle-aged before he finally voted for the first time -- FOR HIMSELF. His name on the ballot as a potential third-party spoiler was the first time he voted, as he's explained, never finding enough difference between Democrats and Republicans to bother. And he's found precious little since, as he constantly explains.

Most of the civil rights era passed without his vote, not even for civil rights and labor rights, or even just to oppose lynching and beating activists in the streets. Medicare was passed without him, and all the rest of two decades of progressive advances.

But in 1991, at the age of 50, he was hired TO vote.

[Paka]

10. Sinking pretty low there.

A lot of people who weren't in Congress didn't vote for the things you list. I marched and fought for civil rights but not being in Congress I didn't get to vote either. Ditto for medicare and other progressive advances. He had to get elected to Congress before he could vote in Congress.

[Hortensis]

13. I do think citizens not bothering to vote is low, yes.

Even for people with viewpoints that vary so extremely from those of most people that they believe neither party is doing anything worth voting FOR (for Sanders in the 1960s and 1970s according to his own statement), surely there's almost always some evil people could and should vote AGAINST?

[Paka]

15. And now you are twisting my words.

My reference was not to individuals who don't vote, but the fact that only those elected to Congress get to vote when a bill comes up in the Congressional Chambers. You faulted Senator Sanders for not voting in Congress before he was elected to Congress and yes, I took umbrage at that.

For decades I have voted against evil people and when "push comes to shove" I will always do that. That doesn't mean I prefer it that way. To have someone I'm enthusiastic and excited to vote FOR, is by far the better situation. Candidate Bernard Sanders offers me that privilege.

[Uncle Joe]

7. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread Donkees.

[The Valley Below]

8. I'm not impressed by his vote.

Part of a pattern of being soft on (if not supportive of) authoritarian (and worse) dictatorships.

Saddam used WMDs on his own people (and on Iranians) and was in violation of UN resolutions.

HRC, Kerry, and Biden did not want a war, they wanted compliance with well-justified UN resolutions.

[Paka]

11. So you are one who believes in preemptive war?

[The Valley Below]

14. Your invention.

[Paka]

18. Not mine at all.

It is now universally accepted that the Iraq War was a preemptive strike against mythical WMD's. A war that was sold to the American public with an endless barrage of lies.

From your statement about Saddam, you appear to be one of the holdouts that still think that war was a good idea.

[The Valley Below]

20. LOL. Saddam had and used chemical weapons and was not in compliance with UN resolutions.

I do not think the war was a good idea (and STOP making up BS please), but nor do I think a policy of appeasement is a good idea either.

Kerry, HRC, and Biden make the right votes for the right reasons. Sanders did not.

[Paka]

22. A choice to go to war based on lies,

is not my idea of a "right reason." I am fully with Senator Sanders in the belief that war should never be the first action taken, but only considered after all other options have failed. Prior to the second Iraq war, we refused to even wait until the UN backed inspections were completed.

[The Valley Below]

23. The people of Halabja were aware that Saddam had (and used) chemical weapons.

It is a lie to pretend that he didn't.

Saddam was not complying with UN resolutions. It is a lie to maintain that he was.

We should have had complete inspections. That's what Biden, Kerry, and HRC wanted.

They are statesmen.

[Paka]

30. Senator Sanders supported the inspections as well.

It was the Bush administration that chose to cut short the inspections and go to war baed on the lies of WMDs.

[The Valley Below]

32. What was Sanders prepared to do about Saddam's defiance of UN resolution? Anything?

It wasn't a lie that Saddam had and used chemical weapons or that he was failing to cooperate with UN inspections.

[Paka]

35. Like many of us, Senator Sanders wanted to wait until...

the inspections were complete. That lag time would give opportunity for more discussions of what action should be taken. There was a clear rush to war by the administration that cannot be denied. War is much too serious to be rushed.

[The Valley Below]

36. How were the inspections going to be "complete" when Saddam wan't cooperating?

That was the whole point.

[Paka]

38. Without Saddam's cooperation, the inspections were continuing.

That was basically my point, which would give more time for stragic planning. There were no immenant threats and no Al Queda cells operating in Iraq. There was no need to rush to war.

[The Valley Below]

39. The inspections were thwarted by Saddam. The Democrats who voted for the IWR did so to unblock

Saddam's violation's of UN resolutions and to avoid war.

[Hortensis]

17. Speaking of supporting dictators, Sanders recently condemned

Bolivia's removal of a leftist president, Evo Morales, who both stole the election and refused to go when his term was up, attempting to keep power by possession. Sanders called stopping this a "coup." Not the attempted coup by a ruthless and corrupt president, but Morales' resignation and departure, forced by the military, so the elected president could take office. Morales thanked his "brother" Sanders for his support in his attempt to overthrow the will of his people.

Sanders, also recently, is shockingly sympathetic to leftist Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, who's similarly fighting for dictatorial powers by ruthlessly smashing his nation's democracy in order to keep power over his failed and ruined socialist nation.

Commonality: Both dictators were attempting to keep control of broken governments that claim to be socialist, and Sanders supports them even though that requires supporting destruction of their democracies and their people's right to choose.

This pattern of support for anti-democracy leftist dictators, even torturers and mass murderers, is four or five decades old.

And there's also always been his unusual support related to Russia.... Russia's only pretend leftist now of course as kleptocrats have sacked all that supposedly was owned communally. Nevertheless, Sanders has recently refused to vote for sanctions against Russia and spoken out in favor of Putin's wish to dismantle NATO -- even as European nations are forced to rearm against the threat of Russian invasion. It's okay; Sanders also supports the proposal Putin favors for a new "NATO" that includes Russia and has nothing to do with containing Russia's aggression, in Europe or anywhere else.

[Paka]

19. Eva Morales was indeed forced out by a military coup.

Morales didn't do anything different that Bloomberg did as Mayor of New York City arranging for the term limit law to be changed that allowed him to run for a third term. Morales was beloved by the people but hated by the elites, much like Senator Sanders here.

[The Valley Below]

24. Did Bloomberg try to stuff ballot boxes and steal an election?

Did Bloomberg defy a referendum of his people denying him a 4th term (as Morales did)?

Why so soft on democratic socialist dictators who act against democracy?

[Paka]

29. You can chose to believe what you want to.

The report that he stuffed ballot boxes was a right-wing bold faced lie.

[The Valley Below]

31. No it wasn't. Morales was trying to steal an election that was in itself a flap in the face

of the Bolivian people who voted against his unconstitutional power grab. The people said no to a 4th term. He defied the people's will.

Morales is just one more "democratic" socialist dictator who has no respect for democratic institutions.

Total abuse of power.

[Paka]

33. We both have a different set of facts.

Mine come from direct communication with Bolivians. The only thing we can do at this point is to agree to disagree.

[The Valley Below]

34. LOL. The Bolivian people voted against Morales being able to run for a 4th term.

There are no "alternate" facts. That's the truth.

Morales was another populist despot. Populism never works out well. Never. Ever.

[Paka]

37. You obviously talk to different Bolivians that I do.

I have spent time in Bolivia and have local friends there. I believe their first hand reports. I'm not an "alternate" facts kinda person.

[Hortensis]

40. Posts like yours remind me that not everyone could be

depended on to support democracy and that those people aren't all in other countries. You argue in support of subverting the will of the people elsewhere, and even compare Morales to Bloomberg to do so! Did I somehow miss that the NYCPD mutinied and joined protesters in the streets in opposition of Bloomberg's illicit occupation of city hall, the way Bolivia's police did against Morales?

Sanders is no Evo Morales, but since you support him you will presumably remember that he tried to illicitly have his fellow superdelegates vote to overset the popular vote and give HIM the nomination. Legal according to the rules, but dangerously illicit because the rules weren't meant to be used that way. All other superdelegates of course honorably fulfilled their duty to protect our election from Sanders' attempt to take it.

Given your loose use of the word "coup," would you call that an attempted coup? Don't try to compare Bloomberg to what Sanders attempted, either. I deplore changing term limits at a time when it benefits the person holding the office, but the law was changed legally by elected representatives, not smashed in a lawless grab for power.

[Paka]

41. WOW!! You are so far afield from me I suspect we live in different worlds.

I live in a country that had two military coups in one decade. Believe me, I know a putsch when I see it. So Bloomberg paid whatever bribes it took, are you really trying to tell me it didn't benefit Bloomberg? It is not the role of the US to step in and be the World's policeman. I never equated Senator Sanders with Evo Morales, so where do you get off saying that? I am in a state of bewilderment by all your accusations.

[Hortensis]

42. If Bloomberg had bribed ANYONE, we'd know it. In detail.

Btw, speaking of accusations, most of yours grossly misrepresent what I stated.

Spin is not truth. There's a huge difference between those who value truth and those who prefer their own versions of whatever. We see that difference very strongly between most DUers, who support candidates who don't try to sell themselves by lying to the electorate, and RW trumpsters whose beliefs now depend almost entirely on the lies they eagerly soak up every day.

[The Valley Below]

27. Correct. It is a very troubling pattern.

[Demsrule86]

12. Did it not occur to Sanders what would happen to oil prices if Iraq was allowed to stay in Kuwait?

I don't know if that was good judgement myself.

[crazytown]

16. Sander's is anti-war candidate.

No one can deny him that. War is not just a last resort for him, it is an evil tobe avoided at almost any cost. In 1940, Hitler was in Paris, Japan in China, and FDR ran on a platform of being prepared, aiding allies, but staying out.

I am more of an internationalist than Sanders but I respect his position.

[The Valley Below]

21. Being an isolationist is not an anti-war position. When global powers disengage from

Last edited Sun Jan 12, 2020, 10:11 PM - Edit history (1)

constructive engagement in world affairs it encourages bad-actors to fill the vacuums and wars and human misery are sure to follow.

The United States and the world needs an American leader who can engage the world.

FDR did NOT want to stay out of WWII. His position was forced by rightwing and left-wing America First isolationists, to the world's detriment.

Have we learned no lessons of history? Appeasement and isolationism are mistaken tactics.

We need neither war-mongers or isolationists at the helm, we need statesmen.

[rogue emissary]

25. Waiting to read his tweets on funding and supporting the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

[dem4decades]

26. Interesting his first vote against the war was 1991, when was his first vote against the NRA?

[myohmy2]

43. "... one of the first votes I cast in Congress..."

...there are times you must do what's extremely difficult, you must do what's right...

...you don't march along with or lead the pack, you don't do the expedient, you don't go with what's politically correct, you don't consider your career or any political advantage, you ignore your own self-interest...

...you do what's best for the people, you do what's difficult but RIGHT...

...Bernie has proven under fire he can make those hard correct decisions...