CMV: Pete Buttigieg is the most conscious, developed and loving nominee

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

He needs to be more like Jimmy Dore

No! That would be a bad thing.

Jimmy Dore is too angry, cynical, and obnoxious. That's not the kind of energy you want in a conscious leader.

[Sizeable Oof]

All the comments here changed my mind from "supporter" to "undecided". Also I supported Bernie before, just less than Pete.

[Vladz0r]

Unfortunately in politics, people judge too much by the "feel" and "likability of a candidate."
Go look at their policy and track record and you'll see a stark contrast between someone like Pete and Bernie. It's already been said anyway, but Bernie's the only one capable of improving this country. Anyone making under $500k is going to see benefits from this. At $100k a lot of people are going to have better healthcare overall even with the extra $3.5k they'll have to pay into the system. If you look at socioeconomic reasons for why crime is an issue, it's generally considered to caused with adjacent large socioeconomic differences, specifically between the bottom end and the middle class or upper-middle class, not necessarily between the very top and bottom or between the middle class and the bottom. To clarify, I'd say middle and upper-middle class are people who are financially independent, own assets, and are saving for retirement, even though the middle class can include people living paycheck to paycheck. Salary is hard to account for here.

You can observe this at the different between crime rates and safety in all of Latin America excluding Cuba, and comparing it with a country like Cuba and Spain. GDP per capita is similar, but crime is 10x off. There's dramatic wealth inequality as well, as they've inherited or otherwise utilized our same wonderful capitalist society. Do the same in neighborhoods in the US, and you'll see the racial device with classic redlining and quickly see it's those at the bottom who have no safety nets who have to result to this thing. Also see in the US that a big portion of this is drug-related. Decriminalizing recreational drugs like marijuana, improving housing costs and development, subsidizing things like internet and other utilities, improving public schools dramatically to reduce class sizes, investing in public transportation (especially greener public transportation, if we can manage that), switching to universal healthcare, etc. If all of these "dream-like fantasies" that other countries already have could be implemented in the US, crime and poverty would be reduced dramatically, and no, this would not reduce the drive to "pull oneself up by one's own bootstraps." 

 

It should be obvious to any of us that once Maslow's hierarchy bottom level is fulfilled, and people are in jobs that actually respect them and pay a living wage, and if we could have decent paid time off (again, like these mythical eastern European countries) we would have more room for reflection and consciousness work. I've talked to and worked with family and friends who have gone in and out of poverty, and been in this situation myself after losing a job, talking with people trying to get their disability or social security benefits setup, etc.  The difference between having your basic meeds met vs. not having them met is night and day. I've seen it go both ways. A lot of people who go into semi-retirement or obtain passive income find themselves pursuing self-actualization or self-reflection and philosophical pondering in one form of another. This freed up time is where the culture of the US will start to improve. But yeah, if it improved too much, we might actually have a functional political system, and might have to actually pay people fairly for the work they do, so any big business or company wouldn't want this.

Socialism, marxism, communism, etc. can continue to coexist with capitalism for the sake of stability until maybe we move onto a stage where there's true collective wealth owned by the people. Bernie's plans heavily promote small and medium businesses and entrepreneurship as well, as you'll actually have medicare and safety nets to fall back on as you pursue a career you actually want to pursue. I love capitalism for what it's done for me and my friends in the form of goods, services, and innovation, but with my city having tens of thousands living in the street, when we have some of the cheapest food and technology prices in the entire modern world, there's really something wrong here with our priorities. Non-profits have to fill the role of the government in keeping the homeless fed and sheltered, when the government could easily invest in some infrastructure (ex. an app) to keep track of homeless people, work with them, subsidize public transit for them, etc. We already have digital public transit cards and a good system here. I might have to start an organization myself at this point just so that it can be run optimally. I want to cry when I see my brothers on the street as I walk into my 11 storey corporate office each day.

Sorry for my long commie rant, but every other political candidate has given a mile to republicans before even trying to take back an inch. 

 

*edit* - Aaaand it looks like he's an Establishment crook in kahoots with CNN and Facebook.

 

Edited February 13, 2020 by Vladz0r