MoveOn.org

Do All Potential Presidential Candidates Represent The Wealthy And Powerful? NO, Not Bernie Sanders And Elizabeth Warren!

What does a person do if he or she is disgusted with our political system, and the growing theory that no matter who we elect, Wall Street and the wealthy gain?

Well, what he or she can do is promote the Presidential candidacy of two United States Senators, who have made it clear in their time in public office that they are enemies of Wall Street and the Establishment!

Those two Senators are Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren!

One problem that Bernie Sanders has is that he will be 75 years old in 2016, and has totally white hair, and he will be a year older than Vice President Joe Biden. He also is a Capital S SOCIALIST, and the vast majority of Americans think Socialism is evil because of their ignorance on the term, while not realizing how much of our social and economic reforms in the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and Great Society years are Socialist ideas! This nation has benefited greatly from “Socialist” programs, but there is a fear of anything which is to the advantage of the middle and lower classes, much of it implanted in the minds of Americans through wrong headed propaganda!

But Bernie Sanders, the longest serving Independent in the history of the Senate and House of Representatives, is the real article, a sincere, genuine, authentic, articulate advocate for the middle class and the poor, and every criticism he makes and every idea he enunciates cannot be refuted if one really examines the facts! But facts often seem not important, as mythology and promotion of fear reign instead!

Bernie Sanders would be a revolutionary President, in the sense that he would truly change the direction of the nation in a positive way, but of course, the conservative right wing and Republican Party would fight him tooth and nail, and accuse him of every sin possibly conceived, and with a viciousness matching Barack Obama in the White House, because, after all, Sanders would be a “real” Socialist, not the phony one painted on Barack Obama, and in the distant past, Franklin D. Roosevelt! Sanders has made it clear that he will not accept large contributions, and will have, therefore, great trouble in raising money, so it is not clear if he will, ultimately, run for President.

At the same time, Elizabeth Warren, former Harvard Law School professor, became controversial for her advocacy of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s creation, and could not be confirmed to head that agency that was created under Barack Obama’s Presidency, and instead ran for the US Senate. She has become a great favorite of those on the left, and now is being boosted for President by many, including the Boston Globe and MoveOn.org, along with many other groups.

Warren is seen as better than Hillary Clinton, because Clinton is seem as too cozy with Wall Street, and too hawkish in foreign affairs, so Warren is seen as a more ideal choice for the Democratic Party liberals, who worry that Clinton could be a disappointment in the Presidency. Warren has resisted running, however, so just like Sanders, may not be willing or able to run a national campaign, and she knows she would gain vicious attacks as Sanders would, and as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have experienced too often!

But there is no certainty that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren will announce for President, so we may not gain the opportunity to have either of these talented legislators offered to us for the Presidency!

The Republican War On America Since Obama Became President

In the three years since Barack Obama became President in January 2009, the Republican Party has done everything possible to make Barack Obama “a one term President”, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared in 2009.

They have been proud of their efforts, so it is time to show how they have worked against the interests of the American people as they have fought against Obama and his initiatives.

MoveOn.org has made up a list of the “wars” waged by the GOP, and they are worthy to note.

The Republicans have waged war against the reproductive rights of women.They have declared war on child labor laws, unions and collective bargaining rights; war against marriage equality for gay men and women; war on science, the environment, and public health; war on education; war on historical truth, promoting mythological revisionism; war on immigrants; war on the Islamic world; war on the right to vote; war on racial desegregation; war on National Public Radio and PBS; and finally, war on Barack Obama, claiming he is born in Kenya, is a Muslim, is a Socialist, is a Fascist, and other lies and deceptions to vilify a President worse than anyone since Abraham Lincoln, including even a much vilified President, Richard Nixon.

With this record, they want us to give them power to go backwards on so many social areas, economic policy, and foreign policy. Forward looking people cannot allow this to happen!

Two Hopes For The Future Of Politics: Elizabeth Warren And Ilya Sheyman

Many Americans are turned off to politics, and have the growing feeling that it makes no difference who you put in office, as they will be beholden to the “special interests”, rather than the citizenry who elects them.

And yet, there is growing hope that some people running for public office in 2012 actually cannot be controlled or owned by lobbyists and special interests, and two of them are: Elizabeth Warren, running for the Massachusetts Senate seat of Scott Brown, who replaced Ted Kennedy in a special election at the beginning of 2010, but who is one of the most “owned” candidates by the big corporations; and an unknown Illinois Congressional candidate in the Tenth District north of Chicago, Ilya Sheyman, attempting to oust a Tea Party Republican freshman named Robert Dold.

Warren is famous for having promoted the passage of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, one of the major accomplishments of the Obama Presidency. However, the Republicans made it clear that they would oppose her appointment as its head, so Warren turned around and decided to challenge Brown for his Senate seat, and this will be one of the premier stories of 2012, as she inspires many progressives who have hopes for change from the old system that has dominated Washington, DC for so long.

Just as inspiring is the story of 25 year old Soviet Jewish immigrant Ilya Sheyman, who migrated with his parents at age 4 from the Soviet Union. Appearing on UP-WITH CHRIS HAYES on MSNBC this morning, we learned of his motivation to promote the progressive movement, after experience as a community organizer in Waukegan, Illinois; service in the office of Senator Barack Obama; and national Mobilization Director at MoveOn.org.

Warren and Sheyman are both very impressive in their sincerity and commitment at a time when cynicism reigns supreme, so all who care about the future should work to elect Warren and Sheyman and like minded reformers!

Student Loan Forgiveness As Method To Revive The American Economy!

A proposal by Moveon.org to have the federal government pass legislation promoting student loan forgiveness as a method to revive the American economy is a great idea that needs to be strongly considered and acted upon!

We have millions of American students who have been saddled with thousands of dollars, sometimes tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands in debt, in the pursuit of their education to acquire a bachelors degree, a masters degree, a doctoral degree, a medical, law or dental or other professional degree.

The advancement of these young people toward their educational accomplishments is not just good for them as individuals, but for the entire nation, as we NEED more educated people, and more professionals in all fields!

But by burdening them with onerous debt that many cannot pay, or cause them to struggle to survive economically, we undermine the growth of the economy, as this makes it difficult for these students to buy homes and cars, spend money on consumer goods, and generally to add to the economy because of the heavy debt payments, which only enrich greedy financial institutions who have no concern about the “slavery” they are imposing on the future generations!

There is no better cause than to liberate the future generations, and allow them to contribute positively to the economy of the future!

So instead of having millionaires and billionaires continue to acquire wealth and not give a damn about their country, let’s invest in the young, the future, and do what other countries do–fund education beyond high schools, see education as the most important job of government along with health care, and in so doing, revive the American Dream that we hear so much about, but do not do anything to advance!

Barack Obama, The Pragmatist Against Howard Dean And The Ideologues

If you listen to talk radio or watch Fox News, you would term Barack Obama a “radical”, a “socialist”, or “extremely liberal”.

But that is not what you hear from Howard Dean, the former Chair of the Democratic National Committee, former Governor of Vermont, and early front runner for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2004.

This is also what you would not hear from MoveOn.org or the blog website Daily Kos. They and Dean have denounced the health care bill as a surrender to the insurance industry and the conservatives, and have called for its defeat, although all 60 Democrats voted for it on the day before Christmas. They say that Obama has caved in, and not kept his promises during the campaign on so many things, including not just health care, but Afghanistan and the issue of gay rights.

They tend to interpret Obama’s campaign for President as promising more than he has done, when actually, Obama never promised to get out of Afghanistan, and never promised a “public option”, and pledged forward movement on gay rights, but not something that would happen overnight, considering the strong opposition to any change. Obama actually ran as a moderate liberal in the mainstream, although the controversy over his minister was exaggerated to make him seem overly radical.

Like every Democratic President in the past century, much more is expected of Obama than is realistic to expect to occur in just one year, and possibly at any point. The country is not anywhere near as liberal or progressive as left wing groups like to imagine, and the way to success is to stay in the middle of the political spectrum, with some tipping to the left on certain issues and at appropriate times.

If one goes by ideological purity, then Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton were all disappointments, constantly under attack by the left that existed at their time for refusing to go further left than they did.

And yet all of these Democratic Presidents made major contributions that are historic and long lasting in domestic and foreign policy. All made significant changes in America, on a much larger and positive scale than most of the Republican Presidents of the past century.

So Barack Obama is the pragmatist, and in the long run, this is the tradition of the American Presidency, particularly under Democratic Presidents!