Getting Change Wrong

[noretreatnosurrender]

I just read an interesting opinion piece by Bill McKibben at Huffington Post. I was particularly struck by this passage:

By this token, Bernie Sanders has already changed the world more than Hillary Clinton, despite all her vaunted years of experience. She manages process, but he moves the argument. Because of him there's a reasonable chance now that the TPP trade agreement will fail (he's already moved one of its authors, Hillary, into opposition). He's made it necessary to take inequality seriously -- he's the next stage, after Occupy, in moving the issue to the center of the stage, and the longer he lasts and the better he does the more attention it will get.

No, none of his plans will pass Congress intact. (Nor hers -- see, for instance, her badly mismanaged effort at health care reform in the first Clinton administration). As the Prussian chief of staff once remarked, "no plan survives contact with the enemy." Instead, what survives is momentum, trajectory. Movement. If Sanders can keep building a movement, then he has a far better chance of changing history than she does. Hillary promises constantly that "I'll be there every day, fighting for you." Bernie's slogan is #NotMeUs. There's all the difference in the world.

I agree with Mr. McKibben.

In my view Sanders supporters seem to be people who don't just want a President who knows how to work within the system like Senator Clinton but one who recognizes the system is broken and must be challenged in order to have any kind of meaningful change. Anyway, I'd love to hear both camps discuss this piece.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-mckibben/getting-change-wrong_b_9188188.html

[Gregorian]

1. Thank you.

That's a very interesting take. One I share. I'm enjoying these various ways of predicting the dynamics of this race.

[NightWatcher]

2. What fool thinks the repuke congress will work with Hillary?

They've hated the Clintons since the 90's and have been investigating Hill for a few years now?

Hillary will be impeached for something by February of 2017 IF she manages to eek out a victory in November.

Her "pragmatism and realism" is bullshit. She'd fail before she took office. If she were so great how did a black guy with the middle name Hussein beat her in 08?

[Half-Century Man]

3. All this "free stuff" some people keep talking about....

What we have been promised by Bernie Sanders is hard work and lots of it. We have been asked to dam the flow of corruption flooding our country, clean up the mess left by forty years of profit motivated politics, rebuild the system so it will support millions of us instead of the few of us with millions, and keep doing it until the end of time.
I like free stuff, but I like challenges more.

[snagglepuss]

4. Bernie is a leader riding momentum he creates.Hilary is a manager, an efficient administrator,

not a leader.

“It takes a leader to create the momentum, it takes a vision to direct the momentum, it takes a massive action to build on the momentum, and it takes self-discipline to sustain the momentum. Momentum is the bridge between a vision and its results”
― F. Asl

[Armstead]

5. "Instead, what survives is momentum, trajectory. Movement. "

That IMO is the key to it.

[wilsonbooks]

6. Bernie did not create this movement

It was waiting for him. We are the revolution we have been waiting for.

"No army can stop an idea whose time has come” ― Victor Hugo, Les Misérable

[noretreatnosurrender]

7. Exactly

He joined us not the other way around. But we got a real good spokesperson for us. He has integrity.

[wilsonbooks]

8. Don't get me wrong. I love Bernie and was ecstatic when he announced.

But this has been building up for years. Thank God he had the courage to step up.

[noretreatnosurrender]

9. I agree

I agree with you. A great deal of his support comes from people like us who are supporting him because he is voicing what we have been saying.