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Bernie Sanders Devotes San Francisco Rally To His Free Education Platform Plank

by Leon Kunstenaar (Photos and Text)
Students talk of their financial hardships and struggles to fund higher education
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The hall lighting was poor and the air got stuffy but this did nothing to inhibit the wild enthusiasm for Bernie.

The filled to capacity San Francisco SVN (South Van Ness) hall was devoted to Bernie Sanders' education plank that mandates national free education, from pre school to graduate school.  He spoke about what education costs in several other advanced countries – zero; of what it used to cost in New York and California fifty years ago - zero. He asked why the wealthiest country in the world could not do it now.

Young  people told of their debilitating struggles to fund their college education. To huge applause, Bernie demanded the elimination of student debt. 

No other candidate had addressed the public during the Democratic Party's three days of meetings in San Francisco and also during which the party's Perez-Biden establishment defeated pro environmental  resolutions.

Unlike the other candidates, Joe Biden did not even come to town.

Also at the event were activists for a cause not getting much attention.  This is the devastation inflicted on the lives of former inmates and their families; on those who have been through the criminal "justice" system.

This is the All Of Us Or None project, whose demands include "ban the box", the "have you ever been arrested" check box on employment applications, a virtual guarantee of rejection..

In politics, honesty is hard to define.  But in Justice Potter Stewart's famous phrase "you know it when you see it".  So it is with Bernie.

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Comments (Hide Comments)
by Unity Jack
Clearly clean organic world must live on.
by Register Peace & Freedom or Green
With a little more than 13 months to go, we now have a two-headed sheepdog for the Democrats, namely Bernie Sanders-Earl Warren, tied for first place with the Democrats with their anointed front runner, Joe Biden. Medea Benjamin of the peace group, Code Pink, has some insights into Bernie Sanders and his "lifeline to the war machine" which he is famous for promoting in his home state of Vermont. Here is her latest analysis at
“Are Sanders and Warren Throwing a Lifeline to the Military-Industrial Complex?” by Medea Benjamin, Nicolas J.S. Davies, 8/26/19 at
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/08/26/are-sanders-and-warren-throwing-lifeline-military-industrial-complex
Pertinent paragraphs:
"Among the frontrunners in the Democratic Party presidential primary, Senators Warren and Sanders not only have the most progressive domestic agenda, but also the most anti-war, pro-diplomacy foreign policy agenda. The sharpest distinction between them is that Sanders has voted against over 80% of recent record military spending bills in the Senate, while Warren has voted for two thirds of them.

But their pro-diplomacy worldview has blind spots. They have both tempered their calls for peace and diplomacy with attacks on Russia and China, framed as warnings against “authoritarianism.” These attacks—in the present-day context of bipartisan Russia- and China-bashing—carve out an ominous exception to their foreign policy agenda big enough to fly a squadron of F-35s through. This creates a pretext for continuing U.S. militarism and risks undermining their commitment to peace."

"But Warren also launched a fierce attack on Russia and China, lumping them together with Hungary, Turkey, the Philippines and Brazil under the umbrella of “authoritarianism.”"

"But, like Warren, Sanders made several references to “authoritarianism,” in particular in relation to Russia, and he has repeated that theme in more recent speeches."

"When Sanders catalogued the history of disastrous U.S. interventions in other countries, he neglected to point out that his examples nearly all involved U.S. support for the most extreme, authoritarian right-wing governments of their day. "
"In fact, throughout the Cold War, the U.S. consistently supported conservative, right-wing parties and politicians in Asia, Africa and Latin America, bringing dictators and mass murderers to power in many countries. The examples range from Syngman Rhee in South Korea and Suharto in Indonesia to apartheid South Africa and Mbuto in the Congo to military dictatorships throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
Current U.S. alliances with Saudi Arabia and the other absolute monarchies in the Persian Gulf, as well as Sisi's Egypt and Netanyahu's Israel, make it clear that the U.S. still does not choose its friends and allies based on their freedom from authoritarianism."

"Nor can we even claim that the U.S. is free of authoritarian tendencies, including fear-mongering by Donald Trump, "the best Congress money can buy," the rise of white nationalism, and two million Americans— disproportionately people of color—condemned to harsh prison terms and dehumanizing conditions in an American gulag."

"The presidential candidates should also recognize that U.S. efforts to impose its political will on other countries through economic sanctions or by the threat or use of force are themselves a dangerous form of authoritarianism, and flagrant violations of the rules-based international order that the U.S. claims to uphold."

"So if we are honest about it, Russia and China have not earned the hostility of U.S. policymakers because of their authoritarianism, but because they are large, powerful countries that have resisted U.S. ambitions for “global hegemony,” as Sanders described it."

"As a critic of those ambitions himself, Sanders should appreciate Russia and China's difficult position and the fine line they have had to walk to defend their sovereignty and develop economically without falling foul of this domineering, destructive U.S. militarism."
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So far, this election is very much like 2016. The Democratic Party only exists to make sure you never vote socialist or Green, so they have their sheepdogs mouth decent phrases at election time so that you vote Democrat, and then the Democratic insiders choose their presidential candidate, always a staunch supporter of capitalism, the war machine, the US military base called Israel, and thus a completely reliable mouthpiece of the capitalist class, who once elected, carries out the same anti-labor, pro-war agenda as the Republicans, supported by the Democrats' sheepdogs. We can put an end to that downward, deadly spiral by voting socialist, namely Peace & Freedom Party in California, or Green. Remember, we cannot have guns and butter. You can register online at https://registertovote.ca.gov/
For more information, see:
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home/
http://www.cagreens.org/

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