•  adarza   ( @adarza@lemmy.ca ) 
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      511 month ago

      bernie’s been ‘fighting the good fight’ his entire life. he’s a decent, compassionate, caring human who genuinely just wants what’s best for his country and the planet.

      but that’s no good for corporate profits or the continued and unchecked accumulation of wealth, which is why the ‘powers that be’ wouldn’t let him have a real shot at the presidency.

      • what’s best for [their] country and the planet

        maybe the best that can be achived in the US, via reforms.

        social democratic societies are better for their people than rampant capitalism, but they are still deeply hierarchical. they still leave state and capital with too much power, while apeasing worker with the sham of parlamentary democracy, and benefits, that are controlled by the state. this is already not a great end goal, but its also unstable, because capitalists still have enough power to take away the reforms that were made, and they will eventually.

    • He’s been fighting his entire career for specifically universal healthcare. The other democrats are terrified of him.

      My understanding is that the reason they’re terrified of him is that he’s not playing the same game as the rest of them. The career track for a Democrat on the national level goes something like this:

      1. Have rich parents to fund your first campaign, or a politician dad with a recognizable last name.
      2. Get funding for future campaigns through corporate lobbyists.
      3. Be a fence-sitter so you never have to pass actual legislation and risk offending your corporate backers
      4. When you get tired of politics, retire and become a lobbyist.

      Bernie is doing none of that. He is as grassroots as grassroots gets. His campaigns are crowdfunded. People vote for him because he has repeatedly proven that he is honest and has integrity. If he ever gets his way, they can be sure their corporate backers will run for the Republicans as fast as they can, and then they won’t be able to have that cushy retirement as a lobbyist! In contrast, Bernie is only beholden to the voters who he represents, so his game is all about performing honesty and integrity constantly for the rest of his life. He doesn’t get to retire. He’s going to die on Capitol Hill.

        • Yeah, actually. This is mostly because his decades of consistent integrity has earned him a cult-like fanbase of rabid superfans. Don’t get me wrong, he’s earned it, but I’ve met a suprising amount of fans of his IRL who seemed totally ready to throw hands with me after I made the mistake of saying that AOC might be a decent successor to him. A fanbase like that means money. Not anywhere near as much as his peers, of course, but combine the money from rabid supporters with the fact that word of mouth is the best kind of marketing and you get a very affordable campaign.

          Also, the fact he’s not playing the game his peers are means he doesn’t have the lifestyle inflation his peers suffer. He seems to live cheaply.

      • oh wow, he really sounds like a genuine human in a political position. why have i not heard more from him?

        i only knew him from that one meme…

        i’m so happy someone like him exists, i thought in America politics it really would just be evil capitalists either going yeah, let's make moni or eh, living is important too i guess but apparently not! vrrrry happi to hear this <3

  • What I think you all need:

    1. A manifesto with surgically specific changes you want done that will be guaranteed to permanently fix things (so healthcare reform along with a pre-prepared legal framework etc.). With as broad concensus as possible (so eg. with unions on board probably)
    2. A general strike to force whichever party is currently in power to implement that manifesto.

    Pros:

    • Still constitutinal. On paper it’s the politicians that opted for this and nobody forced their hand.
    • A surgically specific manifesto will make it blatantly obvious whether your demands have been met or not – and hence whether the strike may cease. No space for watering down. This is why being specific is crucial.
      • Yes, it’s what unions currently do over here. It’s tax free but lower that normal wage.
        During media coverage of negotiations you sometimes hear, “the union has a large strike fund” to imply they are in a strong negotiating position, because they could strike for a long time.

        Going of the fact that Wikipedia only has articles on strike funds it in German and French, I think it’s not done much in American.

        • I know the big old Unions like auto workers and railroaders tend to have deep strike funds, but I think the smaller ones tend to focus funds on recruiting and benefits.

  • This guys gonna rot in jail. His best years of life - gone. Dreams and aspirations, destroyed. Worse than death isolation that will change handsome young guy to a traumatised mental wreck, permanently. All for a minute of feeling good, achieving nothing.

    Instead of living fully, finding love and pursuing the dreams he chose bleak walls of concrete. Where other people have memories of familial warmth with their loved ones he will only have memories of rusty prison faucet and grey stone.

    Instead of helping someone he ruined two or more lives. His own and the ceo family. Negative force in the cosmos. Nothing but the suffering is the result.

    And of course internet people are amazed because millions of silent volunteers that actually work in healthcare and elsewhere, help every single day to make this world better place, are not as clickable and sensationalist as someone shooting smoking guns on the street “fighting the bad guys”. That girl that helps the old lady with the groceries ain’t no batman but every single day she does more than this Luigi guy will ever achieve.

    Truly a “hero” of the internet

    • He’s a martyr is what he is.

      He is going to rot in jail. This is not a good thing. It’s just the same complete monsters that built this evil system flexing the power on plebeians like us.

      What you advocate for is nothing more than complacency, accepting one’s lot in life and never complaining. And this is a lot more cruel than you realise.