Bernie Sanders: A Man on Fire

     

      Tuesday night's debate on CNN with the Democratic Presidential hopefuls proved to all of us many things. It reminded us of Hillary Clinton's experience in today's political game; a verbal Jiu-Jitsu artist of the highest caliber. We were also reaffirmed of the fact that candidates Lincoln Chafee, Martin O'Malley, and Jim Webb, are absolutely nowhere near contention for our land's highest office.

      Another thing that became abundantly clear tonight, was that Bernie Sanders is truly a man on fire. Like him or not, the buzzard is passionate. He chose to use his opening statement not to introduce himself and his record like the previous candidtes, but to reiterate what he has being saying for years. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the middle class is disappearing, yadda, yadda, yadda... I agree with Sanders on many fronts, but he is far from perfect. His near-unelectability is severely depressing. The world needs to change in a big, bad way and this man is saying most of the right things. But alas, he calls himself a Democratic Socialist, and people are pissing their pants and grabbing their guns.

The candidates: Webb, Bern, Hill, Baltimore, and Chafed

      Sanders and his views for our nation are without a doubt, highly idealistic. It is the United States living in an alternate reality of no war, fair trade, cooperation between every and all countries, and a fair shake for all- a world without terror or greed. We do not inhabit that place in the space-time continuum.

      The moderator of the event was CNN's own Anderson Cooper, who I felt did a fantastic job seeing over the dog and pony show in front of the Washington elite. The front rows filled with the candidate's wives foaming at the chance to be First Lady. Cooper's first questions for each Democratic hopeful went for the jugular of each candidate. He may not have had a hand in writing the questions, but god dammit, the man is earning his money over there at CNN.



Jim Webb

      Bernie proved himself to be a class act in choosing to condemn the distracting questions about Hillary's emails, which prompted a fairly awkward handshake from Clinton amongst the raucous applause. If she broke the law, she should go to jail. If bi-partisan committees keep finding nothing on her, quit spending the money and let's move on to more important issues.

      I must say, though, that Jim Webb is beyond underrated. There is something about a decorated soldier that pursues peace- something that is difficult to describe at the moment, but it hits me right in the cockles. Despite coming off as a bit of a "Hank Hill", Webb would be a solid choice for Veep.

Lincoln Chafee

      Lincoln Chafee, a cross between Steve Doocy and a ventriloquist's dummy, seems like a nice guy. He gave a better showing tonight than I would have thought he had in him. He defended himself well when asked why he's changed political parties so much- he's actually competed the trifecta by going from Republican to Independent to Democrat in his political career. But Chaffee's skittish demeanor makes one feel that his voice may nervously crack while sitting in high-level meetings. He means well, cabinet material maybe, but he's out.

      Martin O'Malley was the Mayor of Baltimore. It is in my opinion, that a Democratic Socialist like Bernie Sanders has a better shot at being elected to the White House than a guy that once ran the city that turned into Kabul this year.

Martin O'Malley

      It hurts me to say it, but the clear front-runner for the Democrats in this "Definition of Insanity" race, is Hillary Clinton. She is a master of such an odd mix of spin, deception, and like-ability. She knows this maze; she has balls that are probably bigger than mine. Clinton is on home field with the scandals, the haters, and the praise. Clinton sparred with Sanders like a true master of her craft. She will more than likely grab the nod for the presidency and if she goes up against a guy like Donald Trump, she'll have it. It hurts to say, but I fear it may be true.

      With nearly all questions lobbed at him tonight ranging from the middle class, the wars in the Middle East, and economic and social "justice", Bernie Sanders had one hell of a fire under his ass and in his eyes. You can tell that the man really wants things to be better for people, regardless of how you feel about his methods for achieving such loftiness. His hair is fucked and he is an articulate bastard. He gives a damn about the environment and working people. I only wish we could find ourselves living on a version of Earth that these ideals are pushed to the forefront in debates like these. Sanders' political party title scares people and it may take the dying off of a couple more generations to get us there- that is if ISIS doesn't get us first (el oh el).


The Hill and The Bern

      Bernie gets himself in hot water when he is pressed on his true feelings of our capitalist society; not willing to say that he considers himself a capitalist (shriek!), but also echoing the populist feelings that today's capitalism sticks it to the little guy and disproportionately favors an elite class of money hoarding beasts.

      Like him or not, people, Bernie Sanders talks a big game and has a lot of people behind him that hold many of his same ideals. Never underestimate a determined man with crazy hair and an army of hippies. The country is inevitably going to need to move more to the left on many of these social issues in order to survive. We need a strong middle class and a clean environment, which is possible to achieve without becoming crazy commies like the devil Scandinavians.

      Get out there and vote, people. Use your brains.