My Philosophical Disagreement with Bernie

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Clarissa

February 11, 2016

What do you think about this Bernie ad?

I don’t like it. The idea it transmits is “everybody is the same, everybody is interchangeable, everybody is easily manipulated and needs me to condescend to them and tell them not to be manipulated. I stand above the faceless, nameless, interchangeable masses.”

And it’s not just the ad, it’s the whole philosophical basis for Bernie’s campaign that alienates me. I don’t need more money, I don’t need free healthcare (I already have it and it sucks dick), I don’t need free college, I don’t need any part of what he’s offering.

What I do need he dismisses as trivial and unimportant. He wants to chase me back into the American 1970s that were peachy for people like him but shitty for people like me. In order to lure me back there, he tries to convince me that our interests are the same and being an immigrant and a woman has no special meaning. And that’s exactly the lie people like me have been buying into for 150 years with the same bad results.

I don’t mind paying more taxes even though I’m well-aware that I personally will gain absolutely nothing and lose a lot under Bernie’s system of wealth distribution. But I want to see, at least, the recognition that I have needs of my own and I’m being asked to be very charitable and magnanimous and sacrifice those needs for the benefit of others. Don’t shit on my head and tell me I should be grateful because the pile of shit is protecting my ears from freezing.

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11 responses to “My Philosophical Disagreement with Bernie”

lamestllama

February 11, 2016

Doesn’t you University have a funding problem at the moment? Will free education mean that Bernie has to find a way of funding your university? How isn’t that helping you in the small matter of employment?

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1. Clarissa
  
  February 11, 2016
  
  We are a state university. This means that the state of Illinois has to fund a percentage of our operations. The president cannot force our Republican governor to disburse the funds or sign the state budget.
  
  Yesterday, Obama came to our state to speak to the governor and the legislature about the budget. The result is nil.
  
  If we get more federal money, the state will simply reduce its funding by the same amount, as already happened many times, and we’ll have the exact same problem.
  
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Shakti

February 11, 2016

What I got from the visuals and the sounds of the ad.
“Something is tearing apart your identity, fracturing it in half. Your history and past are moving away faster than a blink. We will graft it on to some other identity that’s half of one and half of another, randomly. ” The sound of an old school film projector clicking conveys that all of these identities are past. The photos of people being ripped in half (along with the actual sound of paper ripping) is supposed to be uplifting but I find it disturbing. It feels like symbolic violence. The roar of the crowd at the beginning and the end is supposed to suggest a uniting identity as a Bernie supporter, but it reminds me of the ocean where every droplet is just part of another mass of water and it connotes oblivion. The piano music overlaid up top is positive but doesn’t completely obscure these sounds.

I suspect many people will find this ad disturbing but not be able to articulate why.

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1. Clarissa
  
  February 11, 2016
  
  That’s a very good analysis. I was also vaguely disturbed by the ripped and superimposed photos.
  
  The previous “wholesome American” ad was more on point even though it was criticized for being too white.
  
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2. Shakti
  
  February 11, 2016
  
  The zoom out on “together” to a sea of atomized halved portraits that blink while they’re being reshuffled doesn’t help.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    February 11, 2016
    
    Yes, it’s like, you are all interchangeable, you little creatures. Weird.
    
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Shakti

February 11, 2016

More Debates!
PBS and CNN air the Bernie and Hillary show at 9pm EST

Fiorina and Christie dropped out after the NH primary.

Republican Hunger Games airs at the Peace Center on CBC at 9 pm on Feb 13th

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1. Shakti
  
  February 11, 2016
  
  I mean CBS; it would be weird to see Republican debates on Canadian television.
  
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2. Dreidel
  
  February 11, 2016
  
  If CNN Go forces you to “sign in” after 10 minutes, try streaming the debate from CNN.com instead.
  
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Barbara

February 11, 2016

In the beginning of Bernie’s campaign, I subscribed to the popular theory that he was serving a useful purpose by moving the conversation leftward. But now I think his fifteen minutes are up. I hope he can find a gracefull exit strategy. Soon.

Togetherness? What does that even mean? One of my neighbors out here in Midwestern suburbia, a stereotype of a moderate Republican, voted for Obama because she really believed in health care for all. Togetherness is not going to move her. Heck, it doesn’t move me and I am as mushy-headed a liberal it is possible to be.

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1. Dreidel
  
  February 11, 2016
  
  “I think his fifteen minutes are up”
  
  Hillary had the chance to knock him off the stage in New Hampshire, and she blew it badly. Now her campaign is rocking on its heels, and both party primaries are going to continue to be interesting for a while.
  
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