In a week scarred with personal and public bad news, what a joy it was to follow the heroic exploits of Bernie Sanders on the Senate floor. Our own “Mr. Smith” did us proud once again, fighting the corruption of power and defending the little guy. I am sure he will now be smugly relegated by the right to Poster-Boy-in-Chief of left-wing crazy. That was to be expected. With all the irresponsible wing-nuts the Republicans have steering their agenda these days, they’ll point to any demonstration of independence on the other side as somehow being equivalent. They’ll say, “There goes Vermont again, getting too big for its britches. Remember Howard Dean?”
But that won’t sell much beyond the filthy rich and “take-back” right. This country is bleeding fast, filled to the brim with the walking wounded, as Wall Street and the banks divvy up the spoils from their economic empire-building. If Congress doesn’t listen with empathy to the words of the Independent Senator from Vermont, the vast majority of Americans who are looking at a future of diminishing returns for their toil in the bleeding classes will.
The tired old arguments for extending the Bush Tax Cuts for the rich are so lacking in economic merit and substance that it is only the arcane gymnastics of Congressional deal-making that have allowed extension of these entitlements to get serious consideration at all. Resigned to their lot as insignificant place-holders in an increasingly unjust society, most people are too busy just treading water to invest time and energy in closely monitoring the senate process. So they simply accept that, once again, the rich will get richer and the poor will get the shaft.
It may just be a glorious tilt at the windmill of inflexible power, but Bernie’s eight-plus hours of scorching rhetoric yesterday cannot help but reach the minds and ears of the suffering masses…and that is a start. It’s what every one of us would do if we found ourselves in his position, but how rarely does that happen in “real life.”
Have a good lie-down this weekend, Senator Sanders. You’ve earned it. I’m not one of those who hope Bernie runs for President. I hope he stays right where he is and continues to do what he does best, bringing truth and justice to the seat of power. One bruised and busted hero in a generation is enough for me.
all of it !
I read the comments about Bernie’s speech on several blogs. Admittedly they were mainly left of center. But it was heartening to read so many people talk about watching for hours and many feeling they really got educated and others that this was the first truth they’d heard out of Washington for years. Some complained it wasn’t a real filibuster but useless theater. But the educating and inspiration that so many got from this speech is far from useless. People from all over the country watched and some previously reluctant to call senators and representatives changed their minds and did so.
We have so many mealy mouthed and fully bought politicians that everyone has forgotten you can’t really move people with carefully wrought speeches to offend no one. It takes something real to move people. Of course that is only half the problem the other half being most of these guys are fully owned subsidiaries of corporate America. Bernie did us all a great service yesterday.
When you say, “I hope he stays right where he is and continues to do what he does best, bringing truth and justice to the seat of power.” I can’t help but wonder: to what end at this point in time? Bernie is surrounded by a coterie of corrupt narcissists and sycophants that are too busy sucking up to various special interests to look out for their constituents or the nation as a whole (and don’t even get me started on the Republicans. What good is it for Bernie to point out the folly of their ways, if even the more progressive Democrats can’t muster the courage to stand with him when the time comes to do so? The kabuki is so complete that Bernie really has become reduced to the amusing but irrelevant diversion during intermission.
While it certainly makes this Vermonter endlessly proud to “lay claim” to Bernie, it’s also beyond depressing to realize that 1) he is the exception to the rule, and 2) that we are, therefore, pretty much screwed.
As much as I really liked Bernie’s rhetoric, politically it is, so far and unfortunately, only good for his re-election purposes. A near-filibuster is like near-beer… mostly unsatisfying.
I would have been more impressed if he had added that along with his verbose traditional attempt at a historical “filibuster”… he was also going to “vote against cloture”, and had enough Senate friends with him (41) to block the legislation.
I would think that we would have all learned our lesson from Prez. Obama….
great moving progressive rhetoric does not equal real progressive action.
I’m still for Bernie but would like to see some real progressive acts come out of his political theater.
… wanting this to have even more impact, and asking Bernie to vote against cloture is fair enough. But what’s with being impressed by the number of people he can get to go along with him? Or only wanting the people who work for us to stand up for us if all the other cowards and fat cats agree? I’d say that this moving piece of political theater (political theater is not a bad thing in and of itself)was his best chance to: A) show other senators the value of standing up, and B) show voters that they can demand that THEIR senators stand up. The other senators will show his courage or they won’t; that’s not up to him. Please notice the comment above citing comments on other blogs where people spoke of what they LEARNED from this.
It will also be possible for Dems to reform filibuster rules in the Senate in January — so far, they’ve been very reluctant to even think about it. Bernie proved that it’s feasible to return to a form of filibuster where someone has to WORK for it.
So, let’s see: he got TONS of press for his principles, his endurance, and his POV. (That would be the principles and POV that support US, btw.) He taught people things that they didn’t know about our economic system. He proved there is widespread public support for principled political action by elected officials. He showed the timorous Democratic Party that there is plenty of room for filibuster reform. He even got some of the media to talk, briefly, about issues that matter to actual people.
But I’d be more impressed if he flew his magic sleigh to Never-Never Land and brought home a new and better Congress, so I can really understand the disappointment. Not.
Interesting comments. So what was the real goal of the Sanders speech?
How come so many people nationwide support legislators that would provide enormous tax benefits to those that need it the least?
Hard for us in Vermont to understand because we don’t support people like that.
So, Bernie has to reach people in other states and get them concerned about the aspects of this bill that would be a real loser for the country. That’s not easy to do.
This was a valiant attempt in that direction, in my estimation. It wouldn’t surprise me if many people that caught just a small portion of his speech learned something their legislators, their newspapers, their radio stations and their blogs never told them.