Tag: Congress

Feeling the Bern, Taking a Stand, and Zealotry

On By Swarn GillIn Commentary, Philosophy, Politics, Pop Culture10 Comments

Bernie Sanders is my guy.  He is a true politician no question and to see he is without strategy would be incorrect, but that strategy I think is an honorable one.  He is trying to have important conversation about real problems that are impacting this country.  He puts forth solutions to those problems.  They are from the perspective of democratic socialism.  As a Canadian I adore democratic socialism, but I can tolerate people having different points of view on the matter.  There are those who have different political ideas.  I would love to see more politicians like Bernie Sanders coming from different sides of the political spectrum.  Actually they exist in the likes of candidates like Gary Johnson and Jill Stein but for a large part, well you know what kind of candidates we got this election cycle – panderers, double-talkers, hypocrites, liars, and those who are ethically questionable at best.  It’s a real problem.  Should we all fall in love with, what I think is at least a good model of a politician.  While my heart tells me yes, I know it’s only because I agree with him.  In the end, for many, it’s still a hard thing to do if you disagree with his ideas.  As I wrote before, among his qualities, ideas and principles I admire is that he tries to be inclusive.  He has reached out to evangelicals, he has spoken in some very conservative areas that some democrats dare not go, and he has even tried to empathize and connect with Trump supporters.

So why should such a man have supporters who are much more extreme than the man himself?  As I’ve watched his message reach people and move people there is no question that he is reaching many people on both an intellectual level and an emotional level.  Ultimately, Bernie like any politicians does play to people’s emotions too.  And there is nothing wrong with that.  While I do think he also have some very intellectual things to say, he knows that to move a large group of people in favor of your ideas it isn’t all going to be done with logical arguments.  It’s going to have to start with emotion.  Many of the things that Bernie Sanders talks about are things you should be mad about, are things you should worry, are things you should be passionate about.  But as I’ve watched people “feeling the bern” over the course of his primary run it’s been interesting to see how many Bernie supporters have become very similar to Trump supporters.   I know I am going to get backlash for saying that.  But many pundits, writers, and just people in general have noted how much anger one gets any time there is criticism of Bernie.  First I’d like to say that I’m not criticizing Bernie, I’m criticizing a portion of supporters who worry me a little bit.  Now let me also qualify when I say “like Trump supporters” I am not saying that you’re racist, misogynist, or stupid.  It should also be noted that such a generalization of Trump supporters is not that helpful, but I am speaking in terms of stereotypes intentionally.  What I mean by “like Trump supporters” is quite simply zealotry.  A zealot is a dangerous thing, regardless of how righteous the cause.  You can be 100% right about something and still be a dangerous person.  If you’re in a state where you cannot be reasoned with or compromise, if you’re in a state where you are willing to go to any length for your cause, if you are in a state where someone is quite simply for you or against you just because they disagree with a portion of your argument, that’s a dangerous place to be and it can be extremely destructive.

I have seen the emergence of the Bernie or Bust movement and I honestly find that movement a little troubling.  People have chosen to take their stand.  Taking a stand at times is very important, but I think we need to ask ourselves, whenever we take that stand, “what do we hope to gain?”, “what is the best way to make my stand?”  and “what are the consequences of taking that stand?”  I truly believe that Trump is an extremely dangerous man to have as president.  His policies, if enacted jeopardize religious freedom, increase the suffering for the poor, minorities, and women. Refusing to vote Democrat carries that consequence.  Are we ready to hand over the judiciary branch to the conservative platform?  Refusing to vote Democrat carries that consequence.  And there are a lot of important issues that get decided by the Supreme Court as we have seen over the past decade.  We know how important the supreme court has been for issues like gay marriage, the ability for public teachers to unionize, gerrymandering, affirmative action and health care. And who knows what decisions might get overturned.  Roe vs. Wade?  Marriage equality?  I am not trying to convince you through fear but only ask that we all carry these ideas in our heads and understand the full weight of our decision.  Also can we not make changes even if Bernie doesn’t get elected?  Can we support more grass roots candidates for the legislative branch?  At the municipal or state level?  Can we do a better job of participating in mid-term elections?  Does the DNC really think they need to make changes when most establishment politicians are already rich, and even when not in the majority still enjoy a great deal of wealth and power? Again maybe Bernie or Bust is the best call right now, but I see less and less reasoning and weighing of the evidence by Bernie supporters as this primary comes to a close and it looks like Bernie will not be the choice to run as president for the Democratic Party.  So again I only ask that we carefully weigh the pros and cons of sticking by our guns at all costs.  Bernie was never going to be our savior.  At best he is sowing the seeds of some positive change and if he became president we could see those seeds grow a little bit more, but we would still be a long way from seeing the flowers bloom.

Bernie_Sanders

There may come in a day where a large majority of us are happy with a more democratic socialist way of life, and today is not the day.  And I’m not trying to just single out Bernie Sanders fans here, it just seems interesting that what started as one of the most thoughtful, passionate, and intellectual movements and devolved into something that it should not in a country that has real problems and needs to work together to solve them.  Continuing on a path of divisiveness and stereotyping the other side doesn’t lead to revolution, it leads to civil war, and I’d rather take a peaceful piecemeal progression towards a better way of life than a bloody one, which by the way, in the end, your side might actually lose.  The idea behind a democracy is not one of…”hey we won…suck it you losers who disagree.” Whoever become President becomes leader of the country, of which, regardless of our political views, we are all citizens and have the right to be treated with humanity and civility by that leader.  We also must demonstrate that towards each other.  Does attacking Trump supporters really teach them a lesson, sway them towards reason or a better way of government?  The most important quality, to me, of Bernie Sanders besides his ideas is his principles for inclusion.  If we truly support Bernie Sanders, I think we must carry that torch more than any other if this country is going to reverse our decline in quality of life and heal a nation which continues to grow ever more divided.

Why you should feel the Bern: A non-partisan viewpoint

On By Swarn GillIn Politics11 Comments

I don’t often write too much about politics.   I think the main reason is that it has become so seriously flawed that no matter what I think is right or wrong, and I have yet to find a candidate who sincerely represents my views.  More importantly, it is even harder to find a candidate who I feel I can respect.  These two things are different.  But then along came Bernie Sanders.

If you haven’t heard of, you should at least learn about him.  He’s a politician.  He’s a socialist democrat.  As a Canadian I love that about him, but I don’t want this post to be about why I agree with his views, but rather I want to talk about why he should be respected as a politician.  I’ll do my best to keep my views out and just simply state my case for why I think he’s an important politician for both democrats and republicans. So here we go:

  1. He is the most authentic candidate that we’ve had to choose from in a long time.  Alright, maybe Trump rivals Bernie here, but I suspect that is the source of Trump’s popularity right now.  Authenticity is such a refreshing thing to see in a candidate.  Bernie, even before becoming a politician fought for the things he believes in and still does today.  Thought riding right now under the Democratic Party ticket he has been an Independent or alternate party candidate through much of his career and does not tow party lines.  This means he has courage, and courage is something we should expect out of every politician even if we disagree with them.
  2. He doesn’t want to play the system, he wants to dismantle it and turn it into something better. Republican or Democratic I haven’t met anybody who is educated about politics and government who thinks that government is working as efficiently as it should.  Everybody talks about reforming this or that, but no politician talks enough about reforming Washington.  We love shows and movies like House of Cards where we see political wheeling and dealing done in order to affect change, but why should it have to be that way?  What if we as voters actually demanded politicians with integrity and who actually want to serve the people over themselves?
  3. He is addressing income inequality. Income inequality is one of the biggest threats we face in this country and goes hand in hand with many of the social injustices that we still face today as well.  Whether you agree with his solution to dealing with it, this is not something that many Republican candidates even address.  The solution simply isn’t to tell half the population of the country to work harder, given how hard many of them already work.  Even if it was somehow true that all poor people were lazy it would still require some sort of solution to change that state of affairs because as the top 1% continues to siphon money away from the rest of us, we will all start to drift towards that growing portion at the bottom.  Whether you agree with his solution for dealing with the growing income inequality is not the point, but it should be one of the top issues for whoever your candidate of choice is.
  4. He wants to take money out of politics and he lives that creed. There is only one candidate in this election that is not in the pocketbooks of corporate America and that is Bernie Sanders.  In this politifact article they analyze a meme that has been going around showing Hillary Clinton’s top 10 donors compared to Bernie’s over the course of their career and it is quite telling who has the most money and why.  Bernie Sanders has also pledged to not use a SuperPac.  As I mentioned in point 2, he refuses to play the system.  This may eventually lead to his downfall as it is clear that other candidates will raise far more money in the end, and money wins elections in this country.  Republican candidates have already started sucking up to the Koch brothers who have openly said they are willing to spend a billion dollars on a Republican candidate to win the election.  It is estimated that this election cycle will be the most expensive one so far with candidates raising on the order of 10 billion dollars.  Just to put that in perspective that’s the same amount of money to put a quarter of a million college students through their entire 4 years of undergraduate education.  Seems like a steep price to be stuck with a government that doesn’t seem to be doing its job.  We’d probably be much better off with 250,000 people who were debt free and with an education starting out their lives.  The money in politics is literally driving this country into the ground and turning the country into a democracy by name only.
  5. Bernie routinely draws massive crowds. This doesn’t seem that remarkable, but let me tell you why it is.  In reference to my last point he isn’t running his campaign on a whole lot of money.  Thus he hasn’t had nearly the same media coverage as Hillary Clinton or many of the Republican candidates.  Largely he uses social media (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc) and it’s working.  He speaks to a lot of younger people who are facing an uncertain future, high college debt, lower good paying job opportunities, health care, climate change, etc.  He has had massive crowds at his events and still the media gives him little coverage.  Thus he also exposed the media for what it is.  Also a pawn for big business.  It focuses on the money.  It focuses on negative campaigning.  It focuses on gaffs.  It focuses on fundraising.  It focuses on polling.  What it doesn’t do is focus very well on the issues.  Furthermore it doesn’t give equal time to all those who are running for President so the voter can learn how different political philosophies address those issues.  You may remember last national election where Jill Stein who was running for president as a Green Party candidate was not even allowed to enter the debate for President, and was actually arrested by police when she tried to enter.  While the decision to not let them participate was made by the Presidential Debate Commission, the media could have ensured fairness and pressured the commission to let all candidates speak.  When the government is broken and in the pocketbooks of big business, the media is the one that is supposed to be the watch dog.  Unfortunately that watch dog has rich owners and only wants to keep a watch on the money.  In a country of 300 million people you need the media to fairly distribute the message of all candidates to the people so that people have real choices about who to vote for.  Currently this is not done.
  6. Bernie will still be exactly the same should he win the primary. You see it time and time again, a candidate says different things during the primary election to win votes from the extremes of their party and then shifts their views to be more centrist during the national election.  How can we trust such a politician who is clearly pandering to win votes instead of being authentic?
  7. He loves America but is not for American exceptionalism. The idea that America does everything best and that we have nothing to learn from the rest of the world is a dangerous one.  In many of the speeches and interviews that I have seen with Bernie he recognizes that we do a lot of things well but that other countries also do some things well and then we might actually be able to learn some things from them.

I am not sure if Bernie can win, but the fact that he is having so much impact without having a corporate sponsor is impressive.  The large amount of support he is receiving is hopefully a lesson to whoever wins that there is a large population of people in this country who are tired of being left behind while politicians and corporations swim in money while the middle class shrinks away into poverty.  Even if Bernie were to become President he would still have to face a congress that would have a hard time supporting the changes he wants to make, especially since those changes would lighten their own pocketbooks.  As this video indicates he knows that the reform we need can’t come from one man alone.  But Bernie should be an inspiration to all voters, not because of his views but because of the issues he brings to light.  One that weaken our entire political system, and takes away from the people’s will for self-determination.  Bernie shows us that you can get your message out effectively even without large sums of money and that the people are ready for authenticity in a candidate and one that actually seems to be concerned with them instead of their own pocketbooks.  I hope for more candidates that have attitudes like Bernie in the future, not only for President but for the house and the senate, and at all levels of government.  And we need to do a better job and making sure that those are the kinds of candidates we get.  Feel the Bern everyone and participate in your democracy.

The Cost of War

On By Swarn GillIn Commentary, Philosophy, Politics5 Comments

I was reading a little note in history this morning that sparked my thinking.  It was the story of how Washington D.C. was born; a place that didn’t belong to any state, and was federally controlled.  Apparently it all started because of unpaid bills; particularly because a large majority of the soldiers in the revolutionary war never got paid.  In one military camp in 1777

From http://house.gov

George Washington (a general at the time) wrote that more than a quarter of the 10,000 men stationed there were suffering from malnutrition and did not even have shoes.  Not surprisingly they died.  The stories of how much the soldiers from the revolutionary war suffered are startling really.  Many of them used their own money initially because they weren’t getting paid and by the end of the war many were destitute and sometimes in debt themselves.  Once discharged from the army many of them faced debtors prison.  So a group of soldiers from Pennsylvania mutinied and marched to Philadelphia to demand their wages from congress.  The state of Pennsylvania refused to use the state militia to defend congress and sided with the mutineers.  The mutineers joined with troops in Philadelphia and surrounded Independence Hall 400 strong demanding their wages.  Though angry they never opened fire or killed anyone.  Congress refused to submit to them, considered them dishonorable and instead congress simply fled.  Eventually they decided that they wanted congress to convene in a place that did not have to depend on the states for their safety.  Thus Washington, D.C. was born.

In addition to finding this historical fact interesting, it made me realize that we haven’t changed a whole lot in regards to our attitude towards those who fight for us.  Although I am a pacifist, I am also compassionate.  I wrote a blog post before about how I don’t really understand why anyone would choose to have someone else tell them who they should kill, that doesn’t mean I think soldiers deserve to be treated inhumanely.  And the fight for independence from an oppressive state is a just cause to fight.  But I look at the 40 years of history and see how soldiers were treated after Vietnam and after our most recent and ongoing conflicts and it is clear that there is a fundamental disregard towards the soldiery who do make great sacrifices.  And don’t get me wrong, I am not one to believe that all military are heroes or that there aren’t people who aren’t heroic in other walks of life.  This disregard I speak of is not the rhetoric of clueless hippies who would spit on a veteran or jeer at them and call them killers, but I am talking about the disregard from those who would get them to fight and yet not suffer the same fate that many of the soldiers go through.   Soldiers going without proper nutrition, proper equipment, proper medical care after or during their service should be the shame of any civilized nation (and don’t worry I’m sure the U.S. is not alone in the treatment of soldiers).

Although not a shocker it really hit home, that with but a few exceptions, politicians are the true cowards.  Whether the conflict be just or not, they move the soldiery like pawns to where they want and then, fight the battles that they deem important (whether supported by the general public, or sometimes they lie to the general public to justify the conflict) while never depriving themselves of any of their needs.  I think back to those congressmen fleeing Philadelphia, never having to worry about their pay, their nutritional needs, despite the debt they had racked up for the fledgling country.  And nothing has changed since the country’s inception, including the fact that we still rack up massive amounts of debt for these military ventures.  John Fogerty’s song “Fortunate Son” is an excellent reminder about how even the children of those in congress were protected from going to war, while those that are poor are considered expendable and cannot get out of the draft.  I will never understand how

PTSD just one of the many injuries sustained by veterans during war, and one that is most often ignored historically.

those we elected to serve the people enjoy so many more privileges than those who they send to fight the wars that they deem necessary.  Maybe that’s why I have such a hard time understanding why someone would join the military because who wants to fight for a group of politicians, who for the most part demonstrate less honor and nobility than they expect you to have as you kill for your country?  Why should one sacrifice their one existence on this Earth for somebody who is unwilling to do the same, but is happy enough to send you to fight their battle?  Either way it seems to me that we should be taking care of our veterans properly.  Those politicians who treat the soldiers like pawns are easily replaced.  In fact that’s kind of the point of democracy is that politicians can and eventually will be replaced for one reason or another and the country will go on.  Thus there is no additional value to their life than is there is to the soldiers and vets.  And on a final note, let’s do something about the large amount of poverty, income inequality, weakening education system and deteriorating infrastructure so that those soldiers can at the very least feel like they fought for something.  I am not taking sides politically, I think the issue of taking care of those who need it the most is one that crosses party lines.  I am exhausted watching politicians speak rhetoric, distort the truth, outright lie, and play games while the world burns around them only to see them get pay raises, most of their expenses paid, receive kickbacks from lobbying groups and essentially walk away from Washington far richer than when they walked in.  So you can be mad at the Michael Moores or the Seth Rogens for their comments about the military (of course those comments are misinterpreted) but the ones that truly don’t really care about those that fight their battles for them are in Washington, D.C.  – the city built to absolve themselves of responsibility to their military.

Do I have to vote?

On By Swarn GillIn Commentary, Philosophy, Politics2 Comments

Let me start by saying that I think voting in a democracy is important.  I never realized its importance when I was younger but as I’ve grown to learn and care more about the importance of governance (notice I didn’t say politics) the more driven I am to vote.  I am finally eligible for citizenship in the U.S. and will become a citizen before the next Presidential election.

Part of learning more about politics and governance has also left me pretty dissatisfied with the choices I have in our political system.  At the national and for most major positions at the state level you have two

A study by two political scientists at Northwestern University. (From http://media.chicagomag.com)

parties to choose from.  As if two philosophies had a chance of representing over 300 million people.  Washington right now is broken as there is no working together to pass laws that will help people.  A frightening statistic I just recently read said that public opinion has no correlation to the passing of laws right now in this country.  This would seem to be an odd thing to find in a democracy where our vote is supposed to represent the will of the people.  It would seem that the people do not control the government.

The media has also highlighted races between candidates where one seems completely incompetent and idiotic, while the other is a happy combination of bigot and religious that you can’t imagine either candidate being someone you’d want in office.  Is it then okay to not vote in that situation?  Is it always more ethical to vote for the lesser of two evils than to not vote at all?

So let’s say you believe government is broken and/or the two party system is broken, and you have terrible candidates to choose from and you wish to let the powers at be know that this is unacceptable, does not voting said that message?  Now a scholar may look at the level of apathy and say, wow nobody really has faith in our government or political system and so that’s why nobody is voting.  But of course that may be right, but it also may be wrong. There are other possible reasons for apathy.  One is that you are person who thinks everything is just rosy and so you really don’t care who is in power.  Or like many, you can’t afford to miss a day’s work to go an vote with everybody else.  Ultimately those in power though won’t really care as long as they are re-elected they just need at least somebody to vote in order for a candidate to be chosen.  Perhaps if everyone refused to vote that might make a difference, but that’s unlikely to happen.

So “not voting” isn’t really effective.  So what might be effective?  One possibility is that you could run for office yourself.  Of course you are likely to get “out-moneyed” by any of the two established parties, but you could still run.  The Tea Party movement, as misguided as they all are, was grass roots, and grass roots movements can grow into something big.  When they got big enough to try and make an impact in government, they got absorbed by one of the established parties and as a result it’s actually weakened the identity of the Tea Party and the Republican Party.  It should have remained its own party.  Anyway, that’s besides the point. The point is that a difference can be made even if you start from the ground up.  But maybe you’d like some encouragement that your movement might be successful.  This brings us to the second possibility of how you can protest and that’s simply to vote.  You don’t have to vote for Democrat or Republican.  You can vote for another party, you can even write in a candidate.  If the amount of people who seem dissatisfied with congress actually didn’t vote for the established two parties many would realize that there is actual need for some other party to establish themselves and that there are a bunch of people who are not apathetic about the process but actually really care, but think that the current two party system or current set of people we have to choose from are unacceptable.  So the answer is still to vote, but don’t feel like you have to vote D or R.  The right to vote means you have the right to vote for who you want and who represents your views.  You don’t have to always vote for one party, you don’t have to feel like you have to just vote for the other guy, because the current guy wasn’t great.  So your research, get informed, and vote for somebody you think will do the job well and represents your views.

The only true way to waste your vote is by not voting. Because if the current system of government is truly broken, then doing nothing changes nothing.  And remember that voting is only one way in which your voice can be heard, so don’t forget that caring doesn’t need to only happen at election time.