US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2698

On December 27 2015 01:58 Mohdoo wrote:


People like to complain about the US and how it wields its power. People like to forget how much peace has been brought to our planet by having such a dominant superpower.

On December 27 2015 06:24 Broetchenholer wrote:
What? The second half of the 20th century was not very peaceful. It was just very peaceful. For western Europe and northern America. Just because we did not have a world war 3 does not mean the time was peaceful. The first half of the century was just the escalation of a trend to globalize war and while Europe understood that as a sign to stop war altogether, USA and Russia were thankfully too afraidof each other that they did not attack each other the way they really really wanted. Meanwhile the dominant world power does not give a damn about wars as long as they don't influenece their interests.

It's certainly good that there was a counterweight to the Soviet Union, but that's basically it on a global scale.

My question from a few pages back hasn't been answered yet, has Bernie Sanders a chance to be nominated or absolutely not? Is there a presidential candidate that is not seen as a parody or clown by the opposing base?

On December 27 2015 07:47 Nyxisto wrote:
I don't really understand why Bernie brands himself as a socialist continuously. For the most part he'd probably pass as a moderate Social Democrat especially given that the word pretty much seems to enjoy insult status anyway.

Would you vote for a socialist? He is a generally well-qualified person who has been nominated by your party.
47% yes, 50% no.
59% yes among democrats
49% yes among independents
26% yes among republicans

 When the Berlin Wall Fell, Bernie Sanders Didn’t Respond Like Other Politicians
Instead of heralding “the end of history,” Sanders called on Americans to take the revolutions of 1989 as a model.

Glasnost is usually translated into English as “openness,” but Sanders’s description of a collective, society-wide “soul searching” is much closer to the mark. While perestroika (“restructuring”) referred to a series of institutional political and economic transformations that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev proposed in the late 1980s, glasnost became a signifier for the widespread loosening of censorship rules, travel restrictions, and government secrecy, which ultimately played a role in the end of the Cold War and of the Soviet Union.

Glasnost, as Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev conceived it, was intended to promote a vigorous public debate about the serious problems plaguing society, to expose and disempower corrupt and ineffectual functionaries (the universally derided “apparatchiks”), and to make the government more responsive to the people. In his Harvard Crimson article, Sanders made explicit his belief that glasnost was synonymous with what he now calls “political revolution.”

“Enormous credit must be given to Mikhail Gorbachev and the current leadership of the Soviet Union,” Sanders wrote, “for helping to bring about an extraordinary, non-violent revolution which is forcing citizens of the Soviet Union to rethink, in almost every way, the basic foundations of their nation.”

Without glasnost, Gorbachev believed, there could be no perestroika; without a popular outpouring of anger and dissent, the powerful and the privileged, those who profited from the status quo, would continue to block the thoroughgoing systemic reforms he had proposed. Similarly, Sanders acknowledges that the sweeping political changes necessary for making the United States a more just and equal nation are impossible—he is, indeed, that much-abused word, “unelectable”—without a groundswell of support among the marginalized and the disillusioned.

With increasing access to the outside world, Soviet citizens in the 1980s became aware of how profoundly their government was failing them. Throughout his campaign, Sanders has broken the taboo against politicians telling Americans how far they lag behind other developed countries in terms of providing education, healthcare, and employment benefits—indeed, in general satisfaction with life.

In the Harvard Crimson piece, Sanders suggested “four issues (out of many) at the heart of our existence as a nation which, within the context of an American Glasnost…need to be discussed vigorously…wherever Americans come together.” These are the four questions he raised:

Do we need radical changes in our economic system to provide a fairer distribution of wealth and economic decision-making?

How do we create a real democracy in which the average citizen has the opportunity to vote in elections in which meaningful choices are presented? Further, how do we create a political climate in which citizens play an active role in the affairs of their community?

Do we need a new political party in this country which represents the interests of working people, poor people, minorities, women, environmentalists, peace activists and all people who are not being adequately represented by the Democratic and Republican parties?

How can we create a media in this country which allows for a wide diversity of viewpoints, when ownership of the media is currently in the hands of very wealthy and powerful corporations which are primarily concerned with protecting their own economic interests?

With the not-insignificant exception of the third, these are the same questions that Sanders is raising today.

ANCHORAGE — Oil money no longer pays the bills here.

The governor, facing a profound fiscal crisis, has proposed the imposition of a personal income tax for the first time in 35 years. State lawmakers, who recently moved into a palatial new office building here, where they work when not toiling in the far-off Capitol in Juneau, are now seeking less costly digs.

And a state budget that was a point of Alaskan pride — and envy from around the nation — lies in tatters as revenue that flowed from selling crude oil from Prudhoe Bay over the past four decades has been swept away.

With oil prices down along with oil production, the state is facing an Alaska-size shortfall: Two-thirds of the revenue needed to cover this year’s $5.2 billion state budget cannot be collected.

Many Alaskans are not old enough to recall times this bad. This is the nation’s least-taxed state, where oil royalties and energy taxes once paid for 90 percent of state functions. Oil money was so plentiful that residents received annual dividend checks from a state savings fund that could total more than $8,000 for a family of four — arriving each autumn, as predictable as the first snowfall.

Gov. Bill Walker, an independent, is proposing to scale back those dividends as he seeks to get Alaska back on a stable financial footing with less dependence on oil. “It will move us back to where we were before,” he said in an interview. “We can do it.”

Every resource-dependent corner of the globe is in stress these days as commodity prices from copper to soybeans have collapsed to multiyear lows. States like Texas and Louisiana are also grappling with the oil downturn, but Alaska’s situation is unique.

On December 27 2015 07:47 Nyxisto wrote:
I don't really understand why Bernie brands himself as a socialist continuously. For the most part he'd probably pass as a moderate Social Democrat especially given that the word pretty much seems to enjoy insult status anyway.

On December 27 2015 21:54 Mohdoo wrote:

Because at the end of the day, he's still an edgy teenager who thrives on the idea of making a big splash and being controversial. He possibly could be the front runner right now if he didn't insist on being some kind of martyr for the term "socialist". It's sad.

On December 27 2015 20:51 GreenHorizons wrote:
Just thought I'd add that Sanders is polling better than Obama was nationally at this time in 07.

. . .

Sanders is going to have to work harder for black voters but most black people who look at the issues/candidates and their positions, come to the conclusion that it's Sanders or no one (though, no one is doing pretty well).

On December 28 2015 00:03 zf wrote:


And I'm not sure where you came to the conclusion that black voters think that it's "Sanders or no one." Clinton leads Sanders among black voters by more than 50 points. (I've seen polls as lopsided as 80+% Clinton, 10+% Sanders.)

On December 24 2015 12:30 Nyxisto wrote:


So just to be clear, you don't think stuff like this is sexist:

Sarah Jackson had quit abusing drugs and had been sober for six months when she found out she had hepatitis C.

"That was weeks of not sleeping and just constant tears," she says. "I had already put a lot of that behind me and had been moving forward with my life and this was just a major setback."

To get rid of the infection, her doctor prescribed Harvoni, one of the new generation of highly effective hepatitis C drugs. But Jackson never started the treatment because her insurance, Indiana's Medicaid, refused to pay for it.

"There's nowhere else to go," says Jackson. "The doctor tried and now I have no other place to turn."

More than 3 million people in United States are infected with hepatitis C, a virus that can destroy the liver and cause liver cancer. The number of cases is increasing, and most new cases are attributed to injection drug abuse, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the last few years, new medications have come on the market that can cure hepatitis C with a more than 90 percent success rate. But these new drugs are famously expensive. A full 12-week course of Harvoni costs about $95,000. Because of that, Medicaid in many states restricts who receives the medication.

Medicaid in at least 34 states doesn't pay for treatment unless a patient already has liver damage, according to a report released in August. There are exceptions—for example, people who also have HIV or who have had liver transplants—but many living with chronic hepatitis C infection have to wait and worry.

"It is just not feasible to provide it to everyone," says Matt Salo, director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors. "States have to make sure that we're going to prioritize and that those who need it the most get priority treatment, and that's what you're seeing."

States get a discount on the drugs, but Salo says even if they could cut prices in half, treating everyone with hepatitis C would still cost too much for states' limited Medicaid budgets.