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Bernie Sanders

"We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections."

alasdair
 
socko said:
According to the IEEE, around 300000 (at the current limit) H1-B visas are issued in the US to foreign STEM workers each year, and they are good for 6 years. The majority are awarded to workers who come from undeveloped countries like India. They are happy just to be in the US so they gladly take tech jobs for a fraction of the pay that a US STEM graduate was reasonably expecting after graduating. There are around 1,8 million foreign H1-B workers making a total of around 5 million STEM workers in the US.

There is intense lobbying pressure on Washington to remove the limit. Apple and other corporations are pushing the myth that there is a shortage of US STEM workers. Even Obama claims that there is a shortage and wants to bring in more. BTW, there is no shortage. On the contrary, there is a surplus to the tune of 3 brand new STEM graduates in the US to every STEM job opening.

Up until Sanders and Trump brought up the issue last year, the Clintons wanted to remove the limit, so presumably the entire population of India could be issued one if they wanted. I get the impression that the Clinton is becoming evasive about the issue, but after consistently suppoerting H1B visas for 30 years I doubt her stance has changed. After 8 more years of the Clintons, STEM jobs could virtually drop to minimum wage. Trump wants to limit H1-B visas on account of the fact that these visas displace American workers with cheap labor
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There are definitely a lot of H1-B workers in the US, and some of them are probably taking jobs from Americans. However, I don't think that this is really driving down the salary of tech engineers. My impression is that there is actually a shortage of tech engineers and the Americans with the abilities that are sought after for the most part have very good jobs. I work in tech and the number of job postings right now looking for people with a computer science background is quite high.

My company has a good number of H1-B workers and part of the requirement for having them on staff is that you have to offer the job to Americans first. If an American comes in and is qualified and wants the job, they get it. In this way, it is actually quite a liability to keep a large number of H1-B workers on staff as the training you provide to them can easily vanish if a qualified American comes along and takes the job. There are certainly companies that operate by using H1-B workers to keep costs low, but given the liability that they impose, these companies are going to be companies that would struggle to exist by paying more for its engineers and that generally will employ some Americans in the course of their venture. This seems to me to have a net increase in the number of jobs for Americans, not a decrease.

I think the proper solution is to focus on better educating Americans to increase the supply of people educated in needed fields. Get some more students working with tech in high school so that the progression to CS and related fields in college is more fluid. Simply limiting the number of work visas is not logical.
 
mal3volent said:
I kind of hate Bernie for making me care about politics again. I feel like by tuesday night, i'll have passed my 5 year anniversary on bluelight and reverted back to my namesake personality trait.

At the end of the day, manboychef is right. We are ignorant as a people.
It would probably be best if the planet purged itself of us sooner rather than later, while it can still recover.
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I watch politics but don't "care" about them. Like bearing witness to how the empire finally collapses. And now with overpopulation and issues like global climate change causes by our actions to possibly a world wide dark age. Unfortunately I'm with manboychef also.
 
Quote Originally Posted by Cosmic Trigger View Post
And my question would be if Bernie wins what is accomplished within such a system? He might find himself unpopular with both sides like IMO Jimmy Carter did.
Well, the idea is that this isn't just a presidential election, but the start of a new political paradigm.

If Mr. Sanders can occupy the Oval Office, we will have 2 years to prep for midterms. By then, if we can blossom, we can fill both houses of the Legislature with our own candidates (same way the Tea Party did in 2010, except we won't be doing it out of bigotry).

Then there will be plenty of cooperation. We can hold onto the machinery of governance indefinitely if we do it right.
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I'm sixty three and have heard this all before and we found ourselves in worse shape than we started. It's an issue with youth that they believe mostly that history begins and ends with their lifetime. They don't see this shit was played out in Egypt and Rome of old. Where are those empires now?

There is no evidence imo that most Americans would want the kind of changes that the youth expect. And there is still a lot of youth that don't want it. They just want a chance at the material life of their parents and don't care how we get it. Thinking still that world domination is the answer.

Prove me wrong. I wish you could but I'll continue to play the odds.
 
Phil.McKeer said:
In attempts to moderate, they ask,
"Why we don't write love songs"
What is it that we sing, then?
Our love for life is total;
Everything we do is an expression of that,
Everything that we write is a love song!
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You are being used and abused
And will be discarded as soon as they've bled what they want from you!

You must learn to live with your own conscience
Your own morality
Your own decision
Your own self!

You alone can do it:

There is no authority but yourself.
 
RE: How will Bernie accomplish anything, a new organization called "Brand New Congress" has been formed by Bernie campaign staffers to get hundreds of Bernie-like progressives elected to the Congress and Senate over the next 4 years. Regardless of what happens in this election, this is only the beginning.
 
The beginning hasn't happened yet. Although Bernie has large support among youth in the polls they have a tendency to not show up to vote. Just listening to this on NPR. I think Bernie is somewhat a righteous dude as politicians go but he's still involved in the political culture so it's really an unknown what would actually happen were he elected. Look what happened to Obama. I saw that one coming and as usual didn't vote.

In the 60-70s many of the youth of that time mobilized in ways that were pretty amazing and the claims of a new world and this was just the beginning had us all in a tizzy of hope. Yet here we are with a world that bears little resemblance to the one we were contemplating.

For my part I've come to believe that real change is mostly divorced from politics and is a individual journey. Culture and society will likely play out the never ending circle of creation and destruction. Would love to be wrong of course.

Personally would love to see Burnie win however as I consider Hillary as frightening as Trump. More so maybe due to the fact that she is so into subterfuge. She seems to need to lie about or spin everything. Trump on the other hand is so arrogant that he often doesn't bother to lie so then at least we know what he's up to. With Hillary I doubt we know the half of what she's into.
 
I don't think we can make a congruent association between now and the late 60's, although I agree they spring from the same vein.

One problem is that most "social movements" are more "social" than "movement".

More importantly, I don't think the hippies had much ideological strength. There were a few intellectuals at the top of the movement but most of the rest were wayward youth following along without much cohesion, and to be frank, mostly in it for the "free love" or drugs.

The movement supporting Mr. Sanders has a totally different flavor. He identifies as a social democrat and we like it. We want universal healthcare, shifting of subsidies away from large private enterprise and into public services, etc. I don't recall too many hippies being concerned about that stuff.
 
trump supporters do the same things, droppers. you'd know that if you weren't so keen on selectively burying your head in the sand.

The Trump Supporters Hate Map: Tracing Acts of Harrassment and Violence at Rallies from Coast to Coast
Donald Trump Encourages Violence At His Rallies. His Fans Are Listening.
A Continually Growing List of Violent Incidents at Trump Events

and before you start with the lies, i condemn violence by anti-trump protesters at trump events.

and so does hillary: Clinton Campaign Condemns Protesters’ Violence at Trump Rally in California

and so does bernie: Bernie Sanders Condemns Violence at Donald Trump Rallies

alasdair
 
Lol trump supporters may have booted bernie supporter protestors early on they no longer do. There is no comparison to the violence and attempt to quell free speech perpetuated by Bernie supporters to any other candidates supporters. Yt isn't biased all videos go up pro and against I'll post some later and allow you to rebuff.

All this being said trump is such an idiot I am leaning towards not voting at all.b:\
 
Droppersneck said:
Damn this guys supporters are so violent. If trump supporters did the same things it would make headlines.
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Well, trump is a fascist (said that all mexicans are rapists, for instance, remember?) Someone who would have killed Hitler or Mussolini would nowadays be seen as a hero.
 
By saying trump is a fascist you are spitting in the face of those holocaust survivors.


The more I listen to sanders the more I like him. I hope he beats Hilary so if trump does lose we get him. How much damage could he do without the house or senate?? he would wreck the scotus but so would Hilary. Rip America
 
Droppersneck said:
By saying trump is a fascist you are spitting in the face of those holocaust survivors.
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Couldn't be further from the truth. The truth is, anywhere a fascist/fascism is detected attempting to enter our political system, it is the duty of all freedom loving and TRULY patriotic Americans to identify and neutralize him/her (and I don't mean murder, I mean divest and ostracize).

If this had been done by the German citizens in the 30's, there would have been no holocaust. The unfortunate victims of that terrible scourge of political history and ideology surely must smile down upon us from their high places in praise of our righteous vigilance in preventing the germination of fascism. Fascism is truly the most disgusting political ideology to be promulgated in the last century. It should have died with the fall of Italy and Germany at the end of WWII, but there will always be Hitlers, Mussolinis and Francos lurking the shadows, and it is up to the people to choose whether they will resist him or bend over and let him stand on their necks. Even not identifying a fascist as a fascist is tantamount to the latter example (bending over and letting him stand on your neck).


Droppersneck said:
The more I listen to sanders the more I like him. I hope he beats Hilary so if trump does lose we get him. How much damage could he do without the house or senate?? he would wreck the scotus but so would Hilary. Rip America
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Then just vote Sanders and let it be done with. You know deep down in your heart that he is right, and represents our true American heritage as it was practiced for most of the last century until deregulation, regulatory capture, and corporate control over our government began. This was how we began to lose our wealth, middle class, civil liberties, and overall happiness and morale as a country.

The government is an instrument of the People. Vote Bernie, Dropps. You know he's the only correct, logical, and reasoned choice.
 
I think maybe Droppersneck should run as an independent against Trump, I think he's the only one who could get as much coverage.
 
Phil.McKeer said:
Couldn't be further from the truth. The truth is, anywhere a fascist/fascism is detected attempting to enter our political system, it is the duty of all freedom loving and TRULY patriotic Americans to identify and neutralize him/her (and I don't mean murder, I mean divest and ostracize).
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I could say the same thing about communism, except it'd be true in the case of Sanders. (Trump is not a fascist, bigot, etc. Identity politics have pussified America to such a degree it is obvious they is meant to make us weak enough to enslave.)

If Sanders thinks for one second he is taking a penny from Zuckerberg, Gates, Buffet he is delusional. He will only redistribute wealth from hard working Americans to single mothers, layabouts and other dead-weights.

Divide and conquer is the tool being used to advance Marxism right now. Make everyone hate everyone else. Then fighting ensues, dictatorship commences, another 100+ million dead (probably over a billion) in the 21st century.
 
I hope certain people here *cough* that worship capitalism end up in their early 40's with their job and education completely useless and outdated when it becomes outsourced, automated and globalized, then their stocks and savings empty when the economy collapses and on top of that get a devastating illness that leaves them with crushing debt and unable to seriously pursue something else. Pull yourself by your own bootstraps from THAT. Assholes.
 
treezy z said:
If you're referring to me I don't worship capitalism. I just think it's the natural order of things, anything else involves dictatorship.
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I agree socialism has been used for evil in the past for certain historical reasons. Mainly being that dictators use it in poor countries to their advantage to overthrow capitalist regimes.

Capitalism was necessary in the past but slowly as society becomes more automated we will have no choice but to turn to a form of socialism, it will probably have to be a new ideology that we haven't seen before though. In the mean time it must be a gradual thing. The dog-eat-dog society will no longer be relevant as innovation will be done by machines.

Seriously read about Chile and how they where doing great under Allende until the U.S. manipulated the world bank and global corporations to tank their economy then they funded a military coup. The "Chicago boys" came in and it seemed like capitalism and the free market fixed everything, but it had more to do with dropping the embargo and the world banks and global corporations playing nice again.
 
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