The story of who we are as a culture is a myth having some of its roots in the 1950’s, spun to explain to us why we “must" accept some things that really don’t make sense. e.g the cold war*, the war on Iraq and a host of policies that are often misguided and counterproductive.
The incompetence and stupidity of George W Bush and Dick Cheney turned these right wing (Republican Party) myths into swiss cheese. And that is why the Republican Party is in disarray. Jeb Bush has not figured that out - he still believes in them - and that is why he is frustrated and flailing as a candidate. “Why don’t you pick me? Don’t you know I have assembled ‘Brownie’, George W Bush, Paul Wolfowitz....?
http://www.motherjones.com/...
That’s why Bernie Sanders voice in the wilderness is becoming mainstream. He’s been right all these years.
Even John Kasich is starting to point out the craziness of the political platforms that cater to the Tea Party and represent the bottom line of the Republican Party: feed the top and there will be trickle down for the rest.......
It’s just not true.
The right wing pundits cling harder to the myths than the rest of us. It’s hard for them to see the truth because they're hired to sell the myth. They cope comically with this, turning themselves into pretzels as they struggle to comprehend that peoples’ eyes were opened by the Bush/Cheney debacle.
These pundits dismiss Bernie because he tells us the truth about the real world we live in. A truth that conflicts with the myths they are selling.
Bernie’s political philosophy is real world, comprehensive and the pieces all fit together. And even though the Bush family is confused by the well deserved public rejection of Jeb’s promise to “carry on”, people who’ve suffered through the Bush years have become skeptics.
I trust Bernie because he has thoroughly thought through the reality behind the myth and he is very good at explaining it to us.
I’ll vote for Hillary if she becomes the nominee but I think Hillary has a hard time separating the myths from reality. It is a slow and plodding process for her. A clumsy intellectual effort where she has to be hit over the head with the disaster of Iraq before she can accept that “I made a mistake”.
Bernie is the only politician I know who, based on his record serving as mayor of Burlington VT proves that as an executive in office he broke the mold on the theory that its one thing to run for office and another to serve in office.
My diary containing a link to an article written by scholars, Peter Dreier and Pierre Clavel, see below**, covering Bernie’s stint as mayor of Burlington proved to me that his actions as mayor lived up to his candidacy; it is possible to make promises to the voters, based on reality and to fight for them, poking holes in the myths, when in office, so as to earn a consensus to carry out the policies you ran on.
If you’re smart enough, like Bernie seems to be, it can be done as long as he has the voices of millions of people to fight with him :
http://www.dailykos.com/...
The following brilliant article by Hajimu Masuda on “imagined realities” driving catastrophic political policies blew me away.
* Hajimu Masuda’s piece on “imagined realities” and the cold war. http://harvardpress.typepad.com/...
**This article “What Kind of Mayor Was Bernie Sanders”
https://www.thenation.com/...
was written by 2 scholars and originally published in The Nation:
"Peter Dreier teaches politics and chairs the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College. His books include Place Matters: Metropolitics for the 21st Century, The Next Los Angeles: The Struggle for a Livable City, and The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame."
"Pierre Clavel is professor emeritus of city and regional planning at Cornell University, and author of The Progressive City, Activists in City Hall, and Reinventing Cities: Equity Planners Tell Their Stories."