Sanders’s Rigidity

Donald Trump announced he wants to arm (the rest of) Asia with nuclear weapons, nuke Europe and jail women who have had abortions.

In response, Bernie Sanders gathered a huge crowd and told it. . .that Hillary Clinton has received donations from the fossil fuel industry.

It would be such a relief to believe that he’s been bribed by Republicans to help them win the election. But I know he wasn’t. Sadly, this is one more manifestation of Sanders’s worst quality: his rigidity. He gets stuck on something and can’t get out of the intellectual rut. No new information will get him to reconsider or move on from a mistaken position. We’ve seen it in the case of his 1972 views on Cuba that he won’t change in the face of mountains of new information and we are seeing it in the way he runs the campaign.

Rigidity is the quality I battle the most in myself because I know I’m prone to it. But I don’t think Sanders is likely to start trying to become less rigid if he hasn’t considered it necessary in his 74 years of life.

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42 responses to “Sanders’s Rigidity”

Jones

April 1, 2016

Yes, but when Jimmy Carter rode through the crowd on a horse with Spiro Agnew’s face on it, I knew this had to be 1 April and that someone’s trying us on with an April Fool’s joke.

🙂

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Editor (Retired)

April 1, 2016

Bernie Sanders is very up to date on the latest information from around the world. What you cite as rigidity is a coherent political philosophy based on a set of human values that he has held throughout his adult life. At his age I certainly hope he wouldn’t change his values, but he can interpret new information in the context of his political philosophy.

Yes, Bernie repeats the same major points about Wall Street political contributions and income inequality. Over and over. He’s not an entertainer, not trying for new news for every day’s news cycle. He refuses to be distracted by the political fools around him. He understands that repetition is often necessary in order to teach and to motivate change.

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Clarissa

April 1, 2016

What values can motivate one to keep repeating the ancient myth about Cuban education and medicine being good when it’s been known for decades that it’s not the case? What set of principles motivates him to keep saying that “maternity leave is important because mothers need to be at home with the babies” when everybody in the progressive world has already recognized that the goal is parental leave? What set of values makes him insist that Putin is likely to give up on his reliance on fossil fuels when there are mountains of evidence to the contrary?

I could continue with these questions but I know the answer: rigidity.

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1. Editor (Retired)
  
  April 1, 2016
  
  😀 going a bit overboard with political correctness when you criticize an old man for using the words “maternity leave.” No serious person doubts that Sanders supports all forms of family-care leave, including care for sick teenager or an ill parent.
  
  Putin is not going to give up fossil fuels? Reality check: the US isn’t going to give up fossil fuels either, but we are having some success in reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. I have no problem with Bernie’s opposition to fracking.
  
  Cuban in education and medicine?
  
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  1. Editor (Retired)
    
    April 1, 2016
    
    I was about to add that your views about Cuba seem to be rigid 😀 and one-sided. I think education and healthcare in Cuba are neither as good as Bernie might indicate, not as bad as you would have us believe.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      April 2, 2016
      
      What is your opinion on Cuba based on? How many times have you visited the country? How many Cubans currently living in the country have you spoken to?
      
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      1. Z
        
        April 2, 2016
        
        But I have questions for you on this, Clarissa. You seem to have done some tourist trips. One can make observations based on these and I wouldn’t say your perceptions are wrong, or that the kinds of perceptions that one can get with that level of personal experience anywhere are necessarily wrong. But I also wouldn’t say they give enough of a global view to allow for an authoritative, final estimation — although you may see more, faster, than some people because of recognizing things from the USSR.
        
        I recognize different things there, because of having spent so much time in other poor Latin American countries and also in Spain and Portugal when they were still under the dictatorships. These experiences make me more sanguine in Cuba because I end up not putting everything up to Castro — there are too many problems that are too similar to those elsewhere, especially the sugar country in Brazil…
        
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        Clarissa
        
        April 2, 2016
        
        I’ve been to the DR. It’s demographically and geographically close but it’s night and day compared to Cuba. The DR is poor. Not as poor as Cuba but still very poor. Yet people there are entirely normal. Good, bad, but normal. In Cuba, on the other hand, everybody was irredeemably Soviet. I literally did not manage to have a single normal human interaction with anybody in Cuba. In the DR or in Mexico I never have this problem. If I put on my Soviet persona – mean, angry, condescending – I can communicate with Cubans. Otherwise, it’s not happening. Everybody will behave as a regular Soviet jerk. In all of these trips to different parts of the country, there should have been a single not horrible interaction with somebody, don’t you think? And there’s been none. There’s got to be a reason for that. And it’s not me since I don’t have this problem with anybody else in the Hispanic world. I can even communicate with Chileans pretty well.
        
        And this is just interpersonal communication. I have a lot more to say on the entirely Soviet belief that any kind of work is shameful unless it’s prostitution. People sit amidst mountains of dirt and shit but will not clean their own space because all their energy goes towards fantasies of whoring themselves out.
        
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        Z
        
        April 2, 2016
        
        I didn’t have this experience of irredeemable Soviet-ness, but I talked to Cubans who complained about it! And I saw that there were jineteros around, and was accosted by a few, but they weren’t the majority. I had lots of normal interactions. And some mediated interactions, with people who were concerned there might be a minder around.
        
        I haven’t been to the DR and am sort of afraid to go, I don’t know anyone who’s really liked it except those who go to the resorts because they like those, and they like the Dominican ones. I get the impression that the combination of the Trujillo legacy and the plantation culture cast heavy shadows.
        
        What is hard about Chile and Chileans, why do you say you can “even” communicate with them?
        
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        Clarissa
        
        April 3, 2016
        
        In my experience, Chileans are the most insupportable of Latin Americans. And the accent, God, that accent. I can’t stand it.
        
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    2. Shakti
      
      April 2, 2016
      
      Nobody flocks to Cuba and people don’t extol education and healthcare in Cuba. Not even Mother Jones does.
      
      Whenever I hear about medical tourism, Cuba does not come up as a major destination.
      
      Whenever I hear about people who want to become a doctor but can’t get into U.S. medical school but seem to have plenty of money, Cuba does not come up. And this is taking to account that people have to go through residency again if they want to practice in the US.
      
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      1. Clarissa
        
        April 2, 2016
        
        I suggest people go to Cuba and try to get even just routine, simple medical care. Go to a hospital and complain you have a stomach ache. And even if you pay serious money in US $, you will be treated like the greatest pike of garbage known to humanity. This is Soviet school of medical care. You’ve got to experience to know what it is like.
        
        As for education, I’m really in a position to judge because I get students from the Dominican Republic and I can compare them to Cuban students I met. There is no comparison. Nor can there be if Cuban students are not allowed to read anything outside of the party approved swill. How can there be education if there’s censorship?
        
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  2. Clarissa
    
    April 2, 2016
    
    Let’s not imitate Trump by screaming “political correctness!” whenever we encounter a fresh perspective on the world.
    
    Bernie’s opposition to fracking is very good for Putin. I’d love to see Bernie demonstrate he’s aware of this and present an actual plan of dealing with Russia’s aggression. No such luck, though.
    
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Dreidel

April 1, 2016

“Bernie Sanders [told the crowd] that Hillary Clinton has received donations from the fossil fuel industry.”

Well, a good politician pokes his opponent where she squeals — and Hillary has lately been losing her cool whenever anyone dares to bring this issue up. 🙂
http://www.salon.com/2016/03/31/watch_clinton_goes_off_on_greenpeace_activist_i_am_so_sick_of_you_bringing_up_my_fossil_fuel_money/

I hope good old grandpa Bernie wins Wisconsin!

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Clarissa

April 1, 2016

That’s precisely the problem: Sanders is fixated on the idea that his opponent is Clinton. But it’s not November, it’s April. Time to move on, start thinking about the general election. And he seems incapable of doing that. I will not be surprised if I hear him harp on about Hillary’s Wall Street speeches a month from now. Or a year from now.

I don’t object to his age per se but this lack of mental agility is not a good sign.

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1. Dreidel
  
  April 1, 2016
  
  Bernie won’t reach the general election if he doesn’t beat Hillary first.
  
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  1. Editor (Retired)
    
    April 1, 2016
    
    Hooray, I have an opportunity to agree with Dreidel. You have to win one election at a time. And Bernie does not hesitate to point out that he would likely do better in the general election against trump than Hillary. Clarissa, it is a virtue for Bernie not to be constantly distracted from his important points. So many of our politicians have attention deficit disorder.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      April 2, 2016
      
      Everybody else in this race has managed to switch to general election mode. Only Bernie sounds like a broken record repeating the same old things. I have not seen a single instance of him having learned something new, having absorbed some new information, having modified his position. If anybody has examples showing he has, I welcome them.
      
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    2. Clarissa
      
      April 2, 2016
      
      Dreidel wants Bernie to be the nominee because he knows how easily a Republican will beat him. Let’s not be naive here.
      
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      1. Editor (Retired)
        
        April 2, 2016
        
        Actually, we have new information nearly every day indicating that Bernie will be a stronger candidate in the general election than Hillary. I think Hillary is possibly best qualified to be president. However, sad but true, she has a heavy burden of baggage. Too many voters don’t like her or don’t trust her for any number of reasons. That is not going to change, no matter how hard she campaigns or how much money she races. Polls indicate that nearly everybody trusts Bernie, and that independent voters are far more disposed to voting for him and for Hillary.
        
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        Clarissa
        
        April 2, 2016
        
        We’ve already discussed this. Bernie is pretty unknown on the national political arena. Bluntly put, nobody knows who he is, and it’s easy to have vaguely positive feelings about somebody who’s never been attacked by the Republican smear machine. Once that machine is turned against Bernie, there will be nothing left of those vaguely positive feelings. Hillary has “baggage” because people know her. They know what she’s done, who she is. She withstood every smear, every scandal that Republicans have thrown at her. Bernie has not withstood a single one yet. Do you really want his to start this learning process with so much at stake?
        
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Evelina Anville

April 2, 2016

@ Clarissa. I generally agree with most of what you say regarding Sanders. But I have a question for you on maternity/parental leave.

I completely believe that parental leave is important but between the two, I think maternity leave is more important. Not for any sentimental reasons regarding motherhood but because women need physical time to recover from childbirth. My sister is in excellent health and she said that she physically wasn’t ready to get back to work for about 6-9 weeks after childbirth.

To some extent, I think of maternity leave as a woman’s health issue and I am not sure how I feel about the entire discussion subsumed becoming subsumed by a vocabulary of parental leave and men’s needs as fathers. Fatherhood is certainly important but women’s health– a health that can really only be guaranteed by maternity leave– is fundamental.

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Clarissa

April 2, 2016

You are absolutely right, of course. But doesn’t FMLA already guarantee a maternity leave of 12 weeks?

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1. Evelina Anville
  
  April 2, 2016
  
  As far as I understand, it guarantees leave but it doesn’t guarantee paid leave. And of course, many women can’t go 12 weeks without getting paid. So lots of FMLA times ends up going unused.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    April 2, 2016
    
    That”s a different issue. An important yet a different one.
    
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    1. Evelina Anville
      
      April 2, 2016
      
      To me, it’s a similar issue. Unpaid maternity leave is akin to no leave at all. Only a few very wealthy people can go without getting paid for 12 weeks. I know I can’t afford to go without three months of pay! Fortunately, I get paid leave however and don’t have to worry about such things.
      
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      1. Clarissa
        
        April 2, 2016
        
        Unpaid leave helps women who have not just jobs but careers. For a woman with a career, the main problem is preserving the continuity of the working experience. Neither you nor I could drop out of the workplace for a year and then come back because there would be nothing to come back to. As for 3 months without pay, we already solve that problem every year because of our 9-month contracts. We either do deferred pay or save throughout the year but we all handle it in some way.
        
        My issue right now is that people shouldn’t have to choose between having a career and parenthood. The question of what society owes to people who can’t afford to have children is an important and interesting issue but it’s a different issue.
        
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      2. Shakti
        
        April 2, 2016
        
        I would also add the way FMLA is structured, if you’re going by the “women’s health” angle, it encourages women to have children later rather than sooner in their lives, simply because most people are more able to take the income hit later rather than earlier in their careers. We’re constantly warned of dire risks if we decide to reproduce after 30, but frankly I know of almost no woman with a career that could afford a baby at 25. The ones who can have family money of some sort.
        
        How big is your emergency savings fund? This guy thinks that if you don’t have a year’s worth of expenses you’re not really middle class.
        
        How much of an issue would it be for you if you had a surprise $2000 bill?
        
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        Clarissa
        
        April 2, 2016
        
        Yes, that’s precisely what I’m talking about. There is a huge, massive flaw in how rich Western societies are set up. There is such an irreconcilable contradiction between having children and having a career that people simply stop reproducing at above replacement levels, societies age, and there aren’t enough young people to pay taxes that would maintain the social safety net.
        
        In order to address the problem, these societies either bring in crowds of women in burqas who are supposedly going to procreate quietly and massively or, as an alternative, wage an extreme war on reproductive rights. Both strategies are idiotic. And nobody is even looking at the obvious alternative which is to make child – bearing compatible with rewarding, valuable careers.
        
        P.S. There is also the strategy of paying people to have children that has also failed pathetically.
        
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Clarissa

April 2, 2016

As for Sanders, I’d gladly let go of the maternity comment if I saw any evidence that he has moved in any direction on any position. I need to see evidence that he has emerged from the 1970s and I’m not.

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Shakti

April 2, 2016

To some extent, I think of maternity leave as a woman’s health issue and I am not sure how I feel about the entire discussion subsumed becoming subsumed by a vocabulary of parental leave and men’s needs as fathers. Fatherhood is certainly important but women’s health– a health that can really only be guaranteed by maternity leave– is fundamental.

Maternal leave is physically necessary. However, framing it as just maternal leave encourages people to see it as just the woman’s responsibility to care for small children and that only women take the hit of reduced career momentum and income. I see a lot of framing such as ” Oh their father is baby sitting the kids” and “I’m staying home because my salary (not his) is going towards daycare and taxes.”

The way FMLA is structured it only works if the woman has a tenure of at least a year at her job that employs at least 50 people at the location. Maybe that’s not something academics deal with but it definitely affects women who work at small businesses people who are misclassified as 1099 contractors. That’s a lot of people.

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1. Clarissa
  
  April 2, 2016
  
  There is also the issue of children’s rights. It’s not good for children at all to be deprived of their fathers’ care completely from the start. If early bonding doesn’t happen, good luck with trying to manufacture it later. There’s so much talk about family values, yet nobody is trying to do the most crucial and meaningful thing to promote them.
  
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  1. Z
    
    April 2, 2016
    
    Well, when my niece was born her mother got 12 weeks off, and after that my brother got 12 weeks off.
    
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thelyniezian

April 2, 2016

Frankly I’d have thought that it’s so easy to attack Trump (the guy doesn’t exactly make it hard) that every man and his dog want to get in on the action, unless they’re part of the Cult of The Donald. Possibly Sanders wants to be a change from that.

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cliff arroyo

April 3, 2016

“I didn’t have this experience of irredeemable Soviet-ness, but I talked to Cubans who complained about it!”

My guess is that Clarissa is super-sensitive to Sovietness (for good reason) and would have detected it in many of those folks who complained about it (complaining about Sovietness in others frequently occurs in those infected with Sovietness themselves).

Talking with Clarissas they would quickly feel (rightly) they’ve been made and launch immediately into preemptive attack mode as the mask fell.

I’m not saying that’s true of everyone you met but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was with some. Human relations are strongly mercantilized and very exploitative in a communist society and it takes a long time for that to begin to wash out.

It’s largely been blanched from Poland (which hadn’t been willingly communist since 1956) but not completely and it took over 20 years for the first steps in that process to even begin in Ukraine. Cuba is still officially enthusiastically communist so those who have experience with degraded relations typical of socialism will feel it acutely.

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Clarissa

April 3, 2016

“Human relations are strongly mercantilized and very exploitative in a communist society and it takes a long time for that to begin to wash out.”

Yes! absolutely true. Of course, many Western tourists are flattered by the servility used to mask the mercantilization and don’t mind.

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1. Z
  
  April 3, 2016
  
  On the Chileans, why are they intolerable? I have spent so much time with and around so many Chileans, warm, smart, dedicated.
  
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  1. cliff arroyo
    
    April 3, 2016
    
    Yeah I don’t get that either. Chilean Spanish is very weird (maybe the weirdest) but the Chileans I’ve known are mostly pretty nice despite that.
    
    If there’s a hispanic nationality I don’t get it’s maybe Puerto Ricans who IME vacilate wildly between extreme sensitivity and extreme condescending arrogance (the association with the US is a very mixed bag).
    
    Oh… and any Latino person that makes a huge deal out of their (often not real) European ancestory – they are the worst but they’re a minority spread out in different countries.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      April 3, 2016
      
      I haven’t been to Chile, so the Chileans I know are immigrants I meet here among students and colleagues. All have been insufferable but I admit there have been few I’ve met over the years. Their uniform insufferableness might have been just a fluke.
      
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    2. Z
      
      April 3, 2016
      
      Puerto Ricans, it’s the colonial difficulty.
      
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Shakti

April 3, 2016

There is a huge, massive flaw in how rich Western societies are set up. There is such an irreconcilable contradiction between having children and having a career that people simply stop reproducing at above replacement levels, societies age, and there aren’t enough young people to pay taxes that would maintain the social safety net.
It’s not even a career; it’s survival. I’m sure you’ve seen the The Two Income Trap which postulates the biggest predictor of bankruptcy is to be a mother. I remember reading Fortune (or some magazine like it) that it cost $1,000,000 to raise one middle class kid from birth to age 18 without paying for college…in the mid 1990s.

It’s almost as if having children is a class signifier
What are we going to do when the robots take over everything? I mean, it’s not as if we’re engineering society like the Jetsons

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Clarissa

April 3, 2016

“I remember reading Fortune (or some magazine like it) that it cost $1,000,000 to raise one middle class kid from birth to age 18 without paying for college…in the mid 1990s.”

I wouldn’t take this kind of thing seriously.

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