Who won the first TV debate between Democratic Party presidential hopefuls: Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton? Almost to a person the establishment pundits plumped for Clinton. She was “the clear victor” according to the New York Times, while the Guardian, the Boston Globe, Time and CNN also said she won.
Yet all the public opinion polls showed that Sanders was the overwhelming winner, with the viewers warming to his trenchant attack on vested interests.
How did media commentators (even from the liberal press) get it so wrong? I am reminded of the words from an early Bob Dylan song, Ballad of a Thin Man: “You try so hard, but you don’t understand… because something is happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr Jones?”
What these pundits don’t understand is that that millions of Americans are rejecting a political system beholden to corporate interests and will support a candidate like Sanders who is putting the people’s interests first.
It’s not “politics as usual”, simply with the prospect of one liberal-sounding politician (Clinton) replacing another (Obama) but little really changing.
Sanders won the debate by challenging the neo-liberal economic orthodoxy. He opposed the TPPA, targeted the rich with higher taxes, promised electoral finance reform, and said he would break up the big banks. With extra money in the treasury he would provide all Americans with medicare, free tertiary tuition and paid parental leave. Taking a pro-union stance he supported pay equity and a $15 minimum wage. He was also strong on human rights, opposing mass NSA surveillance, supporting the legalization of recreational marijuana, and attacking the racist criminal justice system.
The most important thing about Bernie Sanders (as it is about Jeremy Corbyn) is that he is not just a “vote for me” politician. His final comment in the debate was that “nobody up here [on the stage]… can address the many crises facing our country unless millions of people begin to stand up to the billionaire class that has so much power over our economic and political life.” This is starting to happen in America with active support for the Sanders campaign growing by the day, particularly among young people.
Jeremy Corbyn won the leadership of the British Labour Party with the same message, for the people themselves to step forward. Hundreds of thousands joined the Labour Party to support him, and are being encouraged to stay involved to shift the party to the left.
When he entered the Labour leadership race, Corbyn was disparaged as a “hard left” outsider. But he won. Sanders is now disparaged for identifying himself as a “democratic socialist”. No-one with that label can win in America, the pundits all declare. Maybe, maybe not. Sanders will have all the corporate-controlled media against him. But don’t forget about the people
I will say the democrats debate is way different from the GOP debate. It’s not full of stupidity and insanity.
And when Bernie wins Iowa and North Hampshire and starts winning states that matter while Hillary soaks up the redneck/racist vote just like she did last time, we’ll see who laughs in the end.
So asking the tax payer to fund someone else’s fine arts degree isn’t insanity?
Both sides are insane – just ‘different’ insane.
Oh Andrew, we can all put up money on our walls and in our galleries cos is that what life is all about in Neoliberal land.
Forget about reading! That is not enjoyable! What a waste being an author!
All degrees should be to become bankers and economists because they are SO important.
What a sad passionless world some people live in.
Go Bernie, man of the people.
What’s that undies? Your not trying to sit on the fence are you?
Still, the first democrats debate is more professional and enlightened then the Republican debates. :p
Ah, there we are. An ad hominem attack on arts students. Shouldn’t you be out yelling at those kids on your lawn?
Andrew, do you know the expression; a cynic was ‘a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing’ ?
I’d hate to live in your world.
I’m saying that totally uncontrolled expenditure on education is just another socialist pipe dream.
There are two reasons for this:
Firstly you’re effectively saying to the long distance truck driver that you’re going to confiscate part of his hard earned pay packet to fund some rich kid’s daughter to study drama. Because “free for all” means a free-for-all.
Secondly, to motivation and focus the students they need some ‘skin in the game’. Failure needs to hurt them a bit. If it was all free it wouldn’t be long before we developed a class of perpetual students – as was the case decades ago when it was all free.
You are seeing education through neo-liberal eyes, Andrew, where user-pays except for “deserving poor” is your twisted concept of “fairness”.
You’re creating what you perceive as a negative situation deliberately to make a case that, frankly, is an ideological construct that does not stand up to reality. Why didn’t you say;
Why indeed? Because it doesn’t fit your narrow ideological vision that user pays should be our guiding principle.
Indeed, a free for all education means everyone gains personally, as does society at large. If you doubt that, look at countries where education is not universal and simply learning the basics is a major effort.
What arrant nonsense.
John Key had a free tertiary education. Are you telling us he had no ‘skin in the game’? What ‘failure’ did he experience?
This country produced doctors, nurses, poets, teachers, engineers, writers, artists, architects, scientists, etc, through free education up till 1992. Our free system produced the nation you live in and the social benefits you enjoy. It most certainly was not built on “user pays” which is an ideological late-comer and is parasitic on what has been built up over generations.
Quite simply, everyone deserves a free education. If we start putting a price on such a basic right, that is simply morally wrong. (Morality is not a concept much in vogue in neo-liberalism, it seems.) It is also self-defeating in the end.
You can call it “socialism” if you like. I call it common sense. (Again, something desperately lacking in your bleak vision of ‘reality’.)
If a person wishes to invest in ‘intellectual equity’ in the form of education, it’s their investment decision and so they need to carry the ‘moral hazard’ of that decision.
Education is but one possible route for their personal advancement and they need to weigh their options carefully.
Asking the taxpayer to foot the bill just distorts the economy – just as we now have with the many billions of dollars owed for university degrees that, in many instances, aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.
It use to be earn or learn. Now it’s just earn.
A lot of the new jobs are self employ gigs.
Your education doesn’t start till you leave school.
Undrew, the things you write about in digital land, has little to zero association with not the digital land.
No we’re not and here’s why.
The skin that students put in to the ‘game’ is their interest and passion.
No it doesn’t as there’s no such thing as failure.
More lies from the right-wing. We’ve never had a perpetual student class and if we did it would do us a hell of a lot more good than having people unemployed as is the case now due to a failed economic systems designed to enrich a few.
What is so great about the taxpayers funding Rugby and Movies etc. yet not much for Fine Art Degrees and talented Fine Artists.
We need more artists nowadays not less ! ! !
We need more art scholarships, not less ! ! !
Enough with the corporate greed in Rugby and movie productions –
LETS SEE A TON ! MORE MONEY GOING TO FINE ARTISTS AND THOSE THAT MAY ALWAYS NOT BE IN THEATRE OR PERFORMING ARTS.
The true and genuine fine artists are usually at the forefront of advanced thinking and have been leaders in very good things happening worldwide. Take some $ away from rugby and contribute what is right and fair to the Fine Arts. More scholarships. Andrewo, glad to have someone to expose.
Yet again…another pearl from Black Sabbath… the blue collar , much misunderstood and maligned grandfather band of metal…
“It’s Alright”
Told you once about your friends and neighbours
They were always seeking but they’ll never find it
It’s alright, yes it’s alright
Where to go and where to see
It’s always been this way and it can never be
It’s alright, yes it’s alright
Give it all and ask no return
And very soon you’ll see and you’ll begin to learn
That’s it’s alright, yes it’s alright
Don’t you know that it’s so good for you
You can be making love and see it all go through
But it’s alright, yes it’s alright…
As a chap who was crucified 2000 years ago for those beliefs of community and interpersonal relations and love towards each other maintained…to give …and those things will come back to you in good measure…pressed down , shaken together …
And as the Maori saying is…” its the people . its the people , its the people”…
The moment I saw Ezra Klein leading the chant for Hillary, I knew Sanders had won. How does that knob still have a job (Klein, that is)?
Notice that Sanders was the only one who reached out immediately to African and Spanish American communities too.
O’Malley is clearly pitching for VP, but he still outdid Clinton in some polls.
Of course, there should be no surprise here. The NWO globalists are using their media possessions to get what they’ve paid for, a second Clinton oiligarch presidency. They will do what they can to gaslight the public towards the prize.
“How did media commentators (even from the liberal press) get it so wrong? ”
and
“What these pundits don’t understand . . . ”
Well they probably didn’t get it wrong, and they probably didn’t misunderstand. Reporters are not stupid people.
But just like the mainstream media here (but probably more so in the great U.S. of A), they have vested interests in maintaining the political status quo. (for reasons that aren’t entirely their own fault).
So they lied in what they reported. It’s called the “survival instinct” in some circles.
This: https://www.facebook.com/NowThisPolitics/videos/1039640349400788/
Time Warner who owns CNN gave Hilary more donations than Sanders top 15. The above video explains it pretty well. Also included is censorship of poll results showing Sanders wining by 80%
CNN has been manipulating the system…unfortunately they donate towards Hillary Clinton’s campaign hence the support for her in “winning” debates (we don’t need another fox network!)…Sanders is real and raw, Compassionate and doesn’t hit below the belt…But the best thing is that he is bringing hope and encouraging it…nothing better than that in a human being. #feelthebern
Maybe.
Maybe he is all of those things. [hope.change]
And maybe he ain’t.
He makes a lot of big promises. [hope.change] Breaking the banks that create TTP and global war and networks that control entire historic narratives so that we don’t even know what truth IS[IS] anymore ? Bernie is going to bust them. [hope.change] But thinks Saudi Arabia should ‘get their hands dirty’ in the Middle East ?! How does anyone get dirtier hands that Saudi Arabia ?
We have been here before. [hope.change.]
I don’t buy yankee doodle any more.
Are you kidding? You question the Saudis getting envolved over the current situation were the U.S arms, trains and funds, even fights along side known terrorist groups such as al quiada in Syria and ul nasra in Iraq.
When you align yourself with the same group that launched the 9/11 attacks. That’s about as dirty and stupid, moronic as it gets.
not sure I understand you Sammy. If you are suggesting I am arguing FOR fascist wahabbi saudi arabia; then my writing needs SERIOUS attention ! Its the yankee doodle dandies allied with fascist Saudi and Ukraine Svoboda/Pravvy Sector anyway., not me.
Sanders “insisted that Saudi Arabia should “get their hands dirty” and take a much bigger role in a war against ISIS and generally lead the [M.E] wars with U.S. support.” which I found disgusting coming from Sanders since ISIS are Saudi run through Erdogan and CIA,. Plus the egregious Saudi genocidal murder in Yemen means their human rights leadership is so corrupt, so completely devoid of all morality and humanity, that it redefines the word.
Anyway. 911 was an inside job. Even the morons know that.
I agree with your statements. Also that U.S foreign policy is in such a miss, every where candidates turn is a poisoned chelos.
Hillary made a boo boo saying Libya was ‘smart power’. Its ridiculous that she wasn’t attacked hammer and tong for that. The collapse of Libya into the Somalia of the Mediterranean, the strengthening of Islamic extremists, the proliferation of Libyan arms throughout Africa (including but not limited to Boko Haram[1]), and the US humiliated by the entry into the foreign policy lexicon of the Libyan Pool Party[2]. By any reasonable measure, the glorious humanitarian intervention in Libya was a disaster.
Sanders position sounded more well thought out, while Clinton just said the more exciting thing. Same problem with the Republican, the quicker and more bold the statment better it sounds.
[1] http://www.aa.com.tr/en/world/boko-haram-using-weapons-looted-from-libya-diplomat/82491
[2] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JfpIJJCtjK0
Libya was a Pentagon designed mass-murder event utilizing mercenary jihaddists to provoke R2P response under NATO ‘strategy of tension’ auspice. Or P2OG. Just like Syria. Only they screwed up in Syria. The Syrian army held back over 250,000 of these mercenary fascists dredged from the slums of arabia and caucuses
now Russia steps up.
NATO flew 26,500 sorties bombing TF out of Libya, eradicating all the gains achieved by Ghaddafi, who was anally raped by knife, on camera, before being shot. CLINTON laughed, said :”We came, we saw, he died.”. I am saying, either of these two, and all of the others republican or Democrat, are just variations of the same madness. USAMO.
Hilarys incompetence got a U.S. ambassador killed and she lost an embassy. I’m really not looking forward to her in the White House.
By contrast sanders has voted against these non UN sanction escapades.
Agreed, the silence on the Left about Sanders’ Middle Eastern war plans is deafening. Your writing doesn’t need attention Roger.
thanks.
We’re not as selfish as we think we are. Here’s the proof
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/14/selfish-proof-ego-humans-inherently-good
Maybe this debate just shows people are fed up with the same old, same old and are looking for something different.
The media moguls just want it to go their way to keep the control and money in their hands. What would happen if more than 50% of the US population realised this fact…
The (US and our own government mouthpiece) media can spout all the corrupt corporate, fraudulent, politically influenced spin it likes. It can throw up all the lying, toxic dirt it possibly can. But it’s no competition for the people’s voice, which seems to be getting stronger by the day through Bernie Sanders!
Ordinary Americans, are beginning to listen to what Bernie is saying, with many realizing he’s speaking on their behalf.
A positive sign of things to come? I hope so, because something has to break the backbone of the dirty, venomous, vile US corporate monster, tainting and consuming everything within reach, to satisfy its insatiable appetite for corrupt greed at every opportunity, regardless who or what falls in the process of its vicious rampage!
Go Bernie. I wish him well 🙂
Hillary stated that the Snowden documents got into the wrong hands.
As if her hands are the right hands ?? What a joke she remains to be and part of the upper 1% and full of BS and what a dynamic and vibrant candidate Sanders remains to be.
======= >>>> He won the debate – hands down ! !
I would not trust Hillary as far as I could throw her. She will say whatever she can and will to get nominated and Bernie Sanders is full of integrity and his history tells the truth.
===>>> He is in another league – the PEOPLES LEAGUE.
This just tells us more about the “pundits” than it does the candidates.
Wait and see…
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