General Politics Discussion [ARCHIVED] • Page 23

I had to wait an hour 15 to see him. I was well worth it, and the line people were nice and rowdy.

 

just looking at the crowds and lines in Brooklyn made me anxious so I get it

 

I saw a lot of people in downtown Baltimore headed to his rally. In a city that's sixty percent black, it was, uh, quite monochromatic.

 

yah while #berniemademewhite has a valid point, the numbers say that poc prefer Hillary. why do you think?

 

I can't speak to other groups, but I would say that the black petty bourgeois and political elites have outsized influence within the centers of black life. The message is that, whilst the previous Clinton administration made mistakes in the past, they're the best positioned to prevent what is the greater threat of a republican administration that promises nothing in terms of addressing the systemic and violent racism that pervades this country. Bernie, meanwhile, was slow to address race and was unable to convey an analysis that links things like police violence to his broader message of wealth inequality.
On a related not, I've already seen white supporters blaming black people and saying they don't know any better when the fact is, their candidate was just too slow to articulate his message in a way that resonated. Whereas Clinton is flawed and so obviously beholden to other interests, she had the black elite behind her to convey her message. They used identity politics to detach racism from economics, so their position as it relates to the broader community wasn't questioned or undermined, whilst Bernie engaged in economic reductionism that obscured how capitalism is intrinsically racialized.

 

yeah it was definitely a weakness on his part that he took so long to address race sadly. plus he still stuck to his general message so it feels tacked on...

 

Not all of that is true. If you really want to blame someone you should be blaming pharma companies.

 

i'm genuinely concerned we're going to elect Trump when he and Hillary go up and Bernie supporters choose to write in Bernie (which is literally something i've been seeing threatened)

 

Tons of people are going to write in Bernie.

 

yeahhhhh i'm not sure how much good that'll do though

 

Well after sitting at home for an hour and a half and seeing the speech wasn't going to be until 4, I decided to suck it up and head back over (It's a small city and if you took out redlights and traffic it would literally take like 5 minutes to get from my place to where he was). I had taken a xanax earlier and I am very stingy about taking them only when I need them, so I didn't want to waste the fact that I took one. I was still able to get in pretty easily and saw a lot of current and former students as well as some other teachers I work with.

Speech was nothing new but still a cool experience just to be there. Presidential candidates don't campaign in Delaware very often and I'm glad I didn't miss out on seeing it in person.

 

I've said it in here before, but I don't think I'll vote if it's Hillary and Trump. Call me part of the problem, but that's like choosing between getting shot or stabbed.

 

At the very least, vote third party.

 

I figure if I was American I probably would end up just voting for whichever Democrat, but I can't really blame people not wanting to vote for either Clinton or Trump.

 

Once again, I feel the need to reiterate that Bill Clinton is a rapist:

A Former Volunteer Just Resurrected Extremely Disturbing Rape Allegations Against Bill Clinton

 

If Gary Johnson is on the ballot chances are I'll vote for him.

 

#feeltheburn

 

Congratulations man, how are you liking it so far? Hospital setting is a different beast and I was really more referring to outpatient. I understand what you mean and the ACA certainly did not help in the regard to these patient satisfaction assessments and the need for "excellent" scores. We push that so much at my hospital.

It's definitely a tough issue and I don't think there's an easy answer. I feel that a lot of physicians are prone to over-treating by prescribing stronger medications than is needed in most situations. But like I said above, I was really only talking about outpatient settings. It's just depressing to see how acceptable it is for patients to be on multiple muscle relaxers (it's very common here to see a combo of flexeril, methocarbamol, gabapentin, and tizanidine), absurd use of benzos or IR opioids, and for patients to be able to flip flop between clinics and pharmacies.

I'm sorry but what parts were untrue? And I said that drug manufacturers (as well as pharmacies and pharmacists) should shoulder part of the blame, but it originates to the fact that there's a prescribing problem in this country.

 

No, the democrats specifically have utterly failed the left. They don't get off the hook by broadening the criticism to Congress. The left needs to move on from the democrats.
Congress has been pretty effective at passing conservative legislation, even when big legislation has been backed by the democrats overall we seem to move right consistently.

 

You can't be talking about a law that raised taxes on the upper class, redistributed revenue to the lower class, and expanded access to a free health care program to more people, and still say "we seem to move right consistently". And you'd have to ignore social issues altogether if that was your premise, too.

This country hasn't moved consistently in one direction since the 80's. It's been a tug of war back and forth since then. The problem was the Dems in the 90's didn't tug back nearly as far as they were pulled, and then Bush II continued the pull right. So you had hard tug right, status quo with tugs in both directions (Bush 1), status quo with tugs in both directions (Clinton), medium tug right, and then small tug left with Obama. We're all under 35, we haven't lived under a hard tug to the left yet, but history says it'll happen. But you're still talking about things like tax raises on the higher tax brackets (Bush I, Clinton, and Obama), expansion of social welfare programs (SSDI expansion, Medicaid expansion, Medicare Part D, health care premium tax credits), that happened during the post-Reagan era. It's hard to say that's a "consistent" move right.

I think the only policy point that has been consistent in one direction for the most part has been civil liberties/privacy issues, but even there you've had a couple of victories for the good guys here and there. Much less so than anything else I can think of, though.

 

Bill was at a diner near me today. Kind of sort of right up the road, actually.

I always wonder how these politicians pick and choose places they stop like that. The diner he stopped at isn't some local hot spot or anything like that. Obama and Biden have both stopped at that place, which is a quarter mile up the road where Bill was.

 

Sanders Returns: "It's Not Just About Me," Clinton Will Have To Change Her Platform To Earn My Support

 

just got home from bernie rally, bernie was playing the classics

 

Ted Cruz, John Kasich join forces to stop Donald Trump - CNNPolitics.com

 

dumber than not voting