Amos's River of Justice

Tag: Bernie Sanders

  • Donald or Hillary: a Calm Discussion

    The election conversation gets narrower and narrower the closer we get to November 8. I’ve already told you what I plan to do. I’ve also urged my readers to vote for Hillary, even though when she was first nominated I said I wouldn’t talk about my plans. This began out of loyalty to Bernie but I stuck with it because I don’t see another way. However judging from the polls many people don’t agree with me.

    We now know the WikiLeaks emails came from a faction associated with the U.S. intelligence community. As I’ve already said, I have a problem with the timing of this so-called coup. I’m also afraid that once the word coup is associated with our electoral process it will open the door for more of the same in future elections. Something similar has already happened. In the short time since George W. Bush openly stole the presidency, the electoral process has become a sham. I’ll hold both parties responsible for any future incidences of the dueling-coups approach to elections.

    The details we’ve been given in the emails have been a diversion from what we should be talking about—our interests. Donald Trump has plenty of nefarious associations, so electing him will hardly be a vote for virtue. We should be strategizing over which candidate best serves our real interests.

    Peace is one of our interests. The driving force behind the world’s conflicts today is foreign policy–and not just U.S. foreign policy. The leaders of the world are locked in an infernal struggle for supremacy, and whatever you may have heard our interests are not their interests. We were outraged by Hillary’s actions abroad and her seeming lack of concern for the consequences, but she didn’t do those things on her own account. She was only serving the status quo, which will continue on its merry way regardless of who wins this election. (The status quo was one of the things this conversation was supposed to address.)

    Donald talks a good game about making peace with Russia, but what will he do when confronted with the machine? I’ll leave it to his supporters to figure this one out. One of the things they like about him is his feistiness. What do they think he’ll do when it’s explained to him that Russia stands in the way of ‘our’ victory? (I put ‘our’ in quotation marks because regardless of who wins it will be a victory for the wealthy interests behind the scenes—not for us.) Trump’s supporters might be divided on the question of what he will do, but his vice president has already said he’ll be another Dick Cheney. And Mike Pence is definitely part of the machine right down to his allegiance to Israel. Trump was strongly encouraged to choose Pence as his running mate by the way. And Russia aside, many other places in the world are ripe for intervention.

    We don’t even know how Bernie Sanders would have dealt with these pressures, but we do know that if he had been elected he would have listened to us. That’s the choice he made when he turned his back on the billionaires. But Bernie intends to be influential in a Clinton Presidency–an important difference between the two candidates.   Some might discount his influence in future military decisions, but the point here is that a Trump presidency will serve the machine too, and without the influence of Bernie and his progressive allies in Congress. For these reasons the candidates cannot be clearly differentiated by their foreign policy.

    Domestic policy is also in our interests. Clinton has positive economic policies and they are not all due to Sanders’ influence. For example she’s been talking since January about increasing the estate tax–an important step towards correcting economic inequality. Trump’s economic policies on the other hand will increase the advantages of the wealthy.

    Social policies are in our interests as well. Trump has gone all socially conservative in this campaign. Some of his followers might expect him to relax this stance if he’s elected but that doesn’t seem likely because his running mate’s social policies are downright terrifying. For example as Governor of Indiana Pence signed an abortion bill that required parents of an aborted fetus to give it a funeral. However the law was blocked by a federal judge.

    According to an article on politifact.com Clinton’s campaign website lists 32 topic headings, some as specific as Alzheimer’s disease and animal welfare. Trump’s web pages offer broad statements without details. In addition, Trump is known to shift his views even from interview to interview.

    While Clinton changes her views, for example on the TPP, trump sometimes reverses positions within minutes. Still it’s possible to see a difference between them.

    Trump has been consistent on three big economic policy items, according to Gary Burtless, an economist with the Brookings Institution: raising barriers to immigration; imposing potentially large tariffs on goods from Mexico and China; and enacting large tax cuts. Clinton is more cautious. Clinton proposes a fairly small increase in taxes that would be borne almost entirely by the wealthy. Her plan would increase revenues over 10 years by $1.1 trillion. Trump’s plan, across-the-board tax cuts (but favoring the wealthy) would lower revenues over 10 years by $9.6 trillion. Moody’s Analytics predicts that Trump’s proposals would make the U.S. economy less global and would substantially increase the federal debt, benefit the wealthy disproportionately, and push unemployment up.

    In energy policy Clinton would wean the U.S. from fossil fuels by setting targets for renewable energy, while Trump would ‘revitalize’ the domestic oil and gas sector.

    They agree however on increased spending on infrastructure, with Clinton offering more specifics for the budget.

    Trump opposes the TPP. Clinton has moved away from her former support of it mostly as a result of her campaign against Sanders.

    Clinton would increase the minimum wage nationally to $12, and in some locations, $15. Trump would leave this to the states. She would offer tax incentives for companies to bring back jobs to the U.S. She also favors increased policing of trading partners. Trump would use aggressive trade enforcement and possible tariffs. She would enhance worker training options. He has no public stance on this. She would boost federal investment by $275 billion over five years and create a $25 billion infrastructure fund. Trump hasn’t offered any details on his infrastructure expansion. She will propose a goal of renewable electricity ‘to power every home in America within 10 years. He’ll revive the fossil-fuel sector, including decreasing regulations. She would increase funding for scientific research at agencies like the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. He has no public stance on this. She would create a 15 percent tax credit for companies that share profits with workers on top of wages and pay increases. He has offered few details outside of a tax plan and a comment criticizing CEO pay. She supports keeping the Dodd-Frank law and in some cases would tighten rules for Wall Street, such as taxing high frequency trading. Trump would dismantle Dodd-Frank. She would ease regulatory burdens on community banks and support innovative financing methods. He has criticized government regulation but has offered no specific proposals. She Advocates equal pay, paid family leave, earned sick days, and expanded child care. He has no public stance on these things. ((Louis Jacobson, Compare the Candidates: Clinton versus Trump on the Economy. Politifact.com, July 22, 2016.))

    We still haven’t found a solution for this momentum toward war. I’ll talk about that in the next post.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Shady Business in North Carolina

    Did you ever wonder how Bernie could raise so much money from ordinary people and still lose the vote in some states?  Watch this video on Tim Black’s YouTube channel.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl-mHhH4qS0

  • Bernie Sanders and the Supreme Court

    It’s my theory that Merrick Garland will be confirmed to the Supreme Court. I think this is inevitable for the reason that everyone involved in this process has an interest in maintaining the Court’s conservative majority.  Then if the next president has to replace a liberal justice he or she will be able to be magnanimous and appoint another liberal since it won’t affect the conservative majority. But if the Court loses another conservative, a conservative will be appointed to replace him.

    Bernie Sanders is the only candidate who says he will ask President Obama to withdraw his nomination of Merrick Garland if he’s elected to the presidency. He’s the only candidate who has said he’ll nominate a justice who will overturn Citizens United.  He’s the only candidate who will be willing and able to change the majority on the Supreme Court.

  • The Valiant David Brock

    When David Brock criticizes Bernie for being too hard on Hillary it almost sounds like he wants to give her a handicap. He might be right—if not for Donald Trump Hillary Clinton would be out of the running by now—however Brock’s criticism of Sanders is nonsense and I think everyone knows it. About his claim that criticism will weaken Hillary in the general election, maybe we should just do away with the primary elections and carry her around on a pillow.

  • Yes Virginia, There Really is The People

    I”m not sure what Curtis White had in mind with his recent article for Salon Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and the Real Reason Why Change Never Seems to Come. Salon, Jan. 30, 2016). https://www.salon.com/2016/01/30/this_is_an_oligarchy_not_a_democracy_donald_trump_bernie_sanders_and_the_real_reason_why_change_never_seems_to_come/I agreed with his argument against regime change which is carried out through the back door of democratization, but after that he plummeted into a fatalistic downward spiral.

    “Among the conspicuous realities of social life in the United States, this reality should be the most conspicuous: we are not one and never have been. There is no We. There are no Americans.”

    He argues that regardless of whether you’re talking to a social conservative or a follower of Bernie Sanders, if they refer to the electorate as ‘we’ they’ve hit the ‘high-water mark for political naiveté’.

    This is bad enough, but if we keep reading we still have a ways to fall before we bash our brains out on the bedrock below. We soon learn that it’s not really naiveté that worries him at all. It’s the secret stealth of those who appeal to ‘the people’.

    “Beneath the call to communist solidarity and the reign of the people’s Party Congress, Stalin understood that there is no “we,” no “people,” no “everyone” and got on with the execution of “right-Trotskyite” plotters, and generally on with egg breaking for his invidious omelet. What Stalin understood that we try to keep hidden from sight is the certainty that the bedrock of every form of mass social organization—including democracy, including our democracy—is force.”

    White presents this as the first of democracy’s three ‘fatal ironies’. If you’re wondering how he ended up at Stalin, he got there by assuming that we will eventually flock to strongmen. We flock to strongmen because we believe that we need a strong guiding hand.

    We might want to inquire as to how on earth Stalin became a democratic archetype—or an archetype of any kind. Stalin seems to have been squished together with 1. the idea that the use of force is inevitable and 2. that all force is Stalinesque. Until we get a clarification on these points I think we can safely ignore this part of the argument except to note its common sense disguise. It didn’t get past us this time but unfortunately, the sheer volume of ‘common sense’ in this article could lobotomize any unwary reader. On second thought I guess it’s necessary to talk about the strongman after all.

    He first mentions the strongman when talking about non-democratic governments.

    “We often hear it reported that in some benighted countries the people believe that “Democracy is a nice idea, but it’s not for us. We need a strong guiding hand.” So convinced of this are these people that, given the opportunity, they will in fact vote for this strong hand and all that comes with it, making democracy an oxymoron.

    We tend to think that these foreign skeptics just don’t understand, and so some of us think that we ought to help them to understand. As my representative, freshman Republican Darin LaHood, said during a recent visit to a local high school, “The goal of our foreign policies is to try to make the world more like us.” (LaHood, son of Ray LaHood, was elected to the seat vacated by disgraced Republican Aaron Schock, he of the Downton-red office walls.)

    A default neocon, LaHood wants to bring democracy to the heathens, an even worse idea than trying to convert them to Christianity. The appeal to democracy, coming from the lips of politicians like LaHood, is a paternalistic fraud—at the best! At the worst, it is no more than what it was in the colonial Middle East after World War I: the preparation for a “great looting.”

    Again with the inevitability! So he’s saying there are countries where ‘the people’ reject democracy and vote for strongmen. Or is it that they start with democracy and throw it away? It’s not clear. And who are ‘the people’, I thought there were no people? But either way we’re told that Americans do the same thing. Hence Stalin.

    Okay, I think we can dispense with the fiction of inevitability. Our electoral process is based on Plato’s premise that ‘the people’ can’t be trusted to rule themselves. One answer to Plato is America’s electoral college. This is not inevitability! This is a purposeful solution to a supposed problem—the problem of a self-ruling population.

    Next, I think we can dispense with the notion that there is no ‘us’ or ‘we’. In Plato’s scheme ‘we’ are the ones who can’t be trusted to elect the candidate of our choosing. So either Plato was delusional, or ‘we’ really do exist. I think the real delusion is the belief that our needs and priorities are so opposed that we must each elect a different representative. We should be asking ourselves what we can do about that. I think most differences come from artificial divisions created by the ruling class, as well as a poor understanding of our political responsibilities.

    Now on to the second of democracy’s fateful ironies—the ‘fooled again’ syndrome. This is White’s term for what happens after the election is over and we find that our candidate has become one of ‘them’.

    First, I don’t think that’s quite how it happens. Take the example of reining in the corporations. Even if they’re cooperative, which they won’t be, the biggest ones are tangled up with foreign policy. So if a president is determined to shake things up, he’ll have to shake very carefully. The whole world is connected, and anything we do will affect everyone else. And don’t forget the hostile Congress and all the unelected people with their own agendas and influence.

    If Bernie is elected, we will have already accomplished something important by electing someone who isn’t owned by the oligarchs. At that point we can work on reforming campaign finance so that we can elect more people who will do what we want them to do. I think it can be done, but if you’re expecting the miracles to commence next January you’ll be disappointed.

    White gives us examples of candidates who became one of them: Greece’s Alexis Tsipras, Putin, and the candidates who have failed to satisfy the Tea Party, but he talks as if these people are all free agents who could have done whatever they want to do but chose to betray the voters instead. Talk about naive! Our representatives are constrained by the system. Yes, even the representatives who aren’t corrupt. The most we can hope for is someone who will listen to us rather than the oligarchs. Once we accomplish that we’ll need to make sure we understand how the system works so we can be part of it. That should at least keep us from flailing around and wailing when things don’t go our way.

    The third fateful irony is White’s claim that any change will have to be bloody and in the end the oligarchs will win anyway. Really? I’m sorry but this is just not an option. It’s not an option because lives are at stake. Our country is on the rampage as we speak. People are dying. Natural resources that belong to all of us are being squandered by criminals who never had the capacity to really appreciate them, and never will. It would be bad enough if this agenda had a beginning, a middle and an end, but it doesn’t. These people will continue to go from one terrible thing to another for as long as we let them. So I’m gonna have to call BS on this whole stream of self-indulgent sophism.

    Is change going to be hard? Yes, but I can promise you that if we do nothing it’s going to be much worse. This election is only our first step. It’s natural to be overwhelmed by a fight like this but it’s far too early to go sit in the corner and sulk. By the way, doesn’t it make you the least bit suspicious that a Democrat would write an article like this before we’ve even seen the results of the Iowa caucus?

  • Wasserman Schultz, Hillary Weave A Tangled Web

    For many of us the data scandal scenario that was being presented to us in which Bernie Sanders was the offender and Hillary Clinton the innocent victim had an aura of unreality. But then we were told that the behavior of Sanders’ staffers was even worse than we knew. Heck, even Greg Mitchell tweeted that considering what happened, it made sense for Wasserman Schultz to shut Bernie out of the voter database. Even so, I still had nagging doubts, never mind the terribly calm and reasonable way in which Mitchell phrased his argument. For one thing, it was all too convenient coming as it did after Bernie received two important endorsements, not to mention right before the Democratic debate. And strangely, Mitchell didn’t mention that Wasserman Schultz violated her contractual obligations which include among other things the obligation to give the offending party time to correct the problem.((Ralph Ruchiano, DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz Unfairly Attempts to Damage Sanders Campaign? Engineering Evil, Dec. 18, 2015. Available: http://engineeringevil.com/2015/12/18/dnc-chair-rep-debbie-wasserman-schultz-unfairly-attempts-to-damage-sanders-campaign/)) Are we to understand that Greg Mitchell thinks the Democratic Party’s violation of its obligation to a candidate ‘makes sense’? Surely he can’t think that! We should probably delve a little deeper, don’t you think?

    At the center of the whole crisis is data technician Josh Uretsky, who has said that he was only trying to assess the security breach and that there was no way the campaign could benefit from anything he did. Uretsky believed his actions were appropriate, and he has not been contradicted by those close to the campaign. Ted Devine, senior advisor to the Sanders campaign said Uretsky was fired because he hadn’t immediately reported the problem to top staffers.

    Uretsky’s Philadelphia friends and associates are also finding the story hard to believe. Adam Bonin, a Philadelphia election-law attorney, said “It’s just impossible for me to imagine that he would be looking at this situation and say, ‘Let’s figure out how to exploit it for the campaign’.”

    Dan Fee, a political consultant who runs the Echo Group in Philadelphia said that Uretsky has dedicated his life to trying to implement things that he believes in. Fee got to know Uretsky when Fee was managing a successful campaign in 2009 for District Attorney Seth Williams. Fee calls Uretsky, who was a field worker in the race, a man of ‘integrity’.

    Kati Sipp, director of Pennsylvania Working Familes has worked with Uretsky on voter targeting efforts on various races over the past six years. Uretsky was Pennsylvania data and targeting manager for America Votes from November 2011 until September, when he left to join Sanders, but before that he was co-chair of Philadelphia for Obama, a grassroots group that formed separate from the Obama campaign apparatus. Sipp said she has always trusted him with important data. ((Maria Panaritis, Fired Sanders Staffer With Phila. Ties Not a Cheat, Associates Say. Dec. 19, 2015. Available: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20151220_Philadelphian_Uretsky_at_center_of_Dems__data_breach.html))

    If this drama can’t be explained by questioning the character of either Bernie Sanders or Josh Uretsky, perhaps we should pursue another line of inquiry. The DNC would probably be the next place to look for answers.

    The Sanders campaign has accused the DNC of favoring Clinton. Their evidence is the limited number of debates, as well as timing of those debates. Some of them have been held on weekends, assuring that many people won’t be watching them. The most recent one was held on the Saturday before Christmas and although it was supposed to begin at 8:00 at the last moment it was moved back to 8:30. And now we have the DNC’s curious handling of the data breach which resulted in a shut down of the Sanders campaign for an entire day.

    There’s good news here and there’s bad news: The good news is that Sanders was probably right; the bad news is we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the shady dealings of the DNC in this campaign.

    1. Wasserman has also been accused of rigging debate audiences to be friendly to Hillary Cliinton. It was Tom Fiegen who leveled this charge at the DNC after the second debate.

    2. The Clinton campaign rented a campaign office within the local Democratic Party office in Nevada, a crucial early primary state. This was revealed by Pete Voelker in a recent VICE News report. According to Voelker, the walls are papered with Hillary Clinton signs but there are no signs for the other two Democratic candidates. Of course Clinton campaign spokeswoman Joan Kato denied there was any ‘co-mingling’ going on. However, the address of the campaign office is the same as the address of the local Party office. The campaign has also opened an office at the Carson City Democratic Party headquarters.

    3. In New Hampshire, Democratic Party staffers rushed to join the Clinton campaign before Hillary announced her candidacy. According to WMUR, Mike Ollen, Gene Allen, and Liz Wester left their positions at the state party to join the Clinton campaign in early April 2015.

    4. The DNC supposedly operates under strict rules of remaining impartial during the primary process until the nominee has been selected, but one top DNC official was just caught raising money for the Clinton campaign—Henry R. Muñoz III, who used to be a top fundraiser for President Obama, became the chief of the Party’s finance operations in 2013. He was caught fundraising for Clinton in San Antonio, Texas. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is directly responsible for this ethical (legal?) lapse, however she didn’t reprimand Muñoz;

    5. The DNC lined up superdelegates, or party bosses, for Clinton before the first debate. This means they subverted the democratic process in an attempt to preemptively win the nomination before all 50 states have held their primary election. Superdelegates are typically DNC leaders and current and former elected officials ranging from governors to members of the US Congress. In August, before the first Democratic debate had taken place, the Clinton campaign reported that she had one-fifth of superdelegates already committed to backing her at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. According to Wikipedia, roughly half of the 700 + superdelegates have already committed to backing Hillary Clinton. ((Amanda Girard, 5 Times Debbie Wasserman Schultz Violated DNC Rules and Stacked the Deck in Favor of Clinton. USuncut.com, Dec. 20 2015. Available: usuncut.com/politics/debbie-wasserman-schultz-hillary-clinton/))

    And finally, we can’t forget NGP-VAN, the company that hosts the Democratic Party’s database. The following information comes from Anthony Brian Logan at Greaterunderstanding.net. ((Anthony Brian Logan, Bernie Sanders Sues DNC in Federal Court, Follow the Rabbit Hole. Greaterunderstanding.net, Dec. 19, 2015. Available: http://www.greaterunderstanding.net/video-bernie-sanders-sues-dnc-in-federal-court-follow-the-rabbit-hole/))

    The cofounder of NGP-VAN is Nathaniel Pearlman, who was the chief technical officer of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign. At that time his company was called NGP Software, but it merged in 2010 with Mark Sullivan’s VAN (Voter Activation Network). Nathaniel Pearlman also has a graphic design Company, Graphicacy.

    In the 2008 campaign Nathaniel Pearlman supervised Brian Pagliano, the guy who set up the server in Hillary Clinton’s house. He’s the one who pleaded the 5th in the Benghazi hearings. Pearlman also went to school with David DeCamillis, director of business development for Platte River Networks. Platte River Networks employs David Goodfriend of PR Company Dovetail Solutions. Goodfriend is a lobbyist and friend of John Podesta, Chair of Hillary’s 2016 campaign. He’s also chair of Center for American Progress and a client of Graphicacy.

    At this point I think we at least have an explanation for why audit the documents relating to the data breach were provided to the Clinton campaign and not to the Sanders campaign. However, Logan provides some additional information which might be grounds for additional research.

    There is a donation form online for the Clinton campaign powered by NGP VAN. Is this company processing donations and therefore taking a fee? What else is this company doing for the Clinton campaign? Is it designing the website and campaign material as well as printing and direct mailing?

    The fact that the name of the head of NGP VAN is Aharon Wasserman is also a concern. It is not known if he is related to Wasserman Schultz.

  • The ACLU and Corporate America

    I’m afraid I’m still focused on the presidential campaign.  I didn’t intend to spend so much time on this subject, but it seems the activities of Black Lives Matter and the support they have received from the ‘liberal’ media need some kind of explanation.  The media pretends it’s a question of whether BLM members have a right to be angry about structural racism.  They do, but that’s not the point.  The point is whether it makes sense for progressives to shut down Bernie Sanders.  What can explain this mystery?  A word of warning: we can’t blame all Black Lives Matter activists for this. Apparently some Seattle members of Black Lives Matter were shocked when they learned that Bernie’s speech had been shut down.

    Strangely, the ACLU seems as untroubled by this spectacle as the media.  This organization has been sending emails asking for signatures and donations to fight government surveillance of Black Lives Matter.  They seem unaware that many of us don’t agree with what they are doing.  It turns out that the ACLU does not necessarily represent progressives.  In fact, since the 1970s the ACLU has been a leading advocate for the expansion of constitutional rights for corporations.  Its advocacy of corporate rights has actually served to diminish its human rights gains.((Nace, Ted, Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy.  Berret-Koehler Publishers Inc. San Francisco. 2003.))

    But the ACLU is an advocate for minorities, right?  Not necessarily.  Here is an example of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois response to a problem that Chicago’s black youth was trying to address:  The ACLU bypassed black activists and made a back-room deal with  Mayor Rahm Emanuel that has the potential to shut down dialogue on the issue of stop and frisk.  The ACLU was negotiating their own deal secretly while claiming to support the STOP Act that the activists were trying to pass.  The ACLU’s deal will not require the police department to release information about stops, as the STOP Act would have done.  In other words, the ACLU’s deal won’t solve the problem, it will only make things easier for the city.  ((Hayes, Kelly, ACLU of Illinois Sells Out Chicago’s Black Youth. Truthout, 14 Aug. 2015. Available: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/32361-aclu-of-illinois-sells-out-chicago-s-black-youth))

    The influence of the ACLU might also explain the curious fact that Black Lives Matter hasn’t shut down any of Hillary Clinton’s speeches.  Maya L. Harris, one of three senior policy advisers to lead the development of an agenda for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, was formerly a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.  From 2008 until she took her current position, she was Vice President for Democracy Rights and Justice at the Ford Foundation.  Prior to joining the ford Foundation, she served as the Executive Director of the ACLU of Northern California.  ((Wikipedia: Maya Harris. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Harris))

  • Do Black Activists Have a Beef With Bernie Sanders?

    It looks like Bernie Sanders’ campaign has already moved on in responding to Black Lives Matter.  I probably should make it clear that the following is just my opinion.

    On Saturday a group of people belonging to an organization called Black Lives Matter stormed into a Netroots Nation town meeting with the apparent aim of giving Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley heck.  Then on Sunday and Monday, there were ‘thoughtful’ articles asking whether Bernie Sanders can win over the black vote.  Black lives do matter, but in my opinion this story doesn’t add up.  Why the hostility?

    There were black people at the rally.  They weren’t storming around.  They were listening, like everyone else.  On the way out I asked a young black woman what she thought of the rally.  She said she liked his ideas.  She had thought she might vote for Hilary but she was reconsidering.

    When Senator Sanders appeared on stage on Saturday night he was obviously amazed at the size of the crowd.

    “Somebody told me Arizona is a conservative state. Somebody told me the people here have given up on the political process. That’s not what I see here tonight. There’s nothing we can’t accomplish in transforming America!”

    The thing is, the people who told him that Arizona is a conservative state were right.  In certain circles Arizona is conservative.  However, the conservatives were not there on Saturday night. Either that or they couldn’t make themselves heard over the cheering, because more than eleven thousand people liked what they heard.  Here’s the rally from my point of view.

    The Bernie Sanders rally from my point of view
    The rally from my point of view

     

     

     

     

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    After the rally

  • Agribusiness Meets Reality

    I recently said that the words of those who criticize Laudato Si’ have no substance. Now I’ll try to be more specific.  Laudato Si’ is a rebuke of current practices, including agribusiness, but it is not the only dissenting voice.  In this post, agribusiness meets reality.

    My concerns about the environment are based on an undeniable fact. Regardless of whether we manage to slow the birthrate, the human population will reach 9 billion people by 2050. The world has never had this many people before. Since we can’t see the future we have to plan according to the facts we do have. If our goal is to support the projected number of people, our first priority should be food and water.  However, current policy-makers are oblivious to this goal.

    (more…)
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