Let me tell you how BEAUTIFUL Bernie's supporters are for a minute...

[Bonobo]

Yes, beautiful. Really beautiful to me.


Why? Because these are some dark and shitty times we're living in, brothers and sisters. It's easy, EASY to give up and forget that part inside you that burned for justice, for something higher. That's KID SHIT, when we grow up, we get with the PROGRAM, right?

But you know, I have 3 kids and you learn a lot from kids. Kids actually don't change much as they get older. Their personalities stay the same, but what's in there can change. They can give up, give in to the weights and pressures to the perceived reality, to they POWERLESSNESS in the face of it all.

OR

Some of them don't. Like my daughter who literally inspires me. She's magic I tell you. It's her strength. She stands like a rock until the things that LOOKED solid start to bend around the justice and reality SHE demands. She is bisexual and the strongest feminist I know and has taught me a lot. But mostly what she has taught me is that you don't give in. Maybe, just maybe she learned that from me. She says she did.

But you all, you don't give in either. You're grabbing that spark of hope, and you're making that reality bend around you too. Don't be fucking pragmatic. Reality is just what is forced on others by the strongest and most determined.

You ALL know what is right and you are going for it. However this works out, keep with it. Stay strong. That false reality will show itself for what it was. Just scenery, We are the makers of reality. Let's stay strong. Be strong together.

THAT'S why you're all so fucking beautiful.

[merrily]

1. I love Bernie's DU supporters, too.

I really, really do.

The fake Bernie supporters, not so much. I prefer both real O'Malley supporters and real Hillary supporters to fake Bernie supporters.

I don't know what the fake Bernie supporters hoped to gain by faking it. They fooled no one. Neither did the fake undecideds. There are still some out there in both categories.

Pssst. We see you. We always did.

[Bonobo]

2. I think that's a funny thing, those fake Bernie supporters. It's fairly easy to see how it arose.

You see, it's all about the SOTRY they have of themselves. We all have stories about who we are. That's how our consciousness works.

The STORY they tell themselves is that they are all progressive champions.

As a result, they cannot attack Bernie on much. The gun thing is about all they could get but they tried for some really silly off-target shit. Racism is one of them, etc.

But mostly, they have to say they "like Bernie" or they "support Bernie" because if they didn't it would conflict with the story they tell about who they are. Identity is very important,

But the truth is that they are drawn away from Bernie for various reasons. Whether it is economic, or the giving up that they tell themselves is "pragmatism" or the gender motivation that moves some former PUMAs...

And there are still others who are simply deceitful and got a weird idea that they could launch a half-ass Trojan Horse attack and wound us with another "I changed because of the Bernie supporters!" attacks... and really that's just another in a long linf of attacks on bernie supporters and we already know why that is going on. Because bernie really has very little to attack if you are a person with Democratic values.

[merrily]

3. I don't think it's self-deception. I think they've known all along that they were not supporting

Bernie.

I

When I saw who ran to sign up for the Bernie Group when the first post or two went up about it.

[Bonobo]

4. Many of them are deceivers. It's true. I like them the best cause they are comedy gold.

It is the most easy to see ones, the ones that are as solid as rock, the ones that are the bane of what true progressives stand for.

Comedy gold.

[merrily]

8. You're joking me, right? Well, cry me a river, JT!

[senz]

10. "I changed because of the Bernie supporters!" <<< THIS

That transaction is pure manipulation. People who use that were never interested in Bernie Sanders, or anything beyond their own egos. The aim is to get you to beg them to stay, promise to change, elevate them above yourself and then, finally, end up feeling stymied and vaguely abused. It's called emotional blackmail and people in unhealthy relationships do it to each other all the time. Do not trust anyone who plays underhanded games like that.

I think Bernie supporters are an easy target for this kind of sicko because we hold values that are higher than wealth and power, which means we do not use fear and the threat of punishment to get what we want. This makes us appear "disarmed" and thus, easy marks.

[merrily]

18. I am so ashamed of being a Bernie supporter. He hs been against invading Iraq, against Gramm Leach

Bliley (aka repeal of Glass Steagall) against DOMA, against the bailout--unless wealthy Americans were taxed to pay for it, against the Patriot Act, for jobs, for equal rights, for the Bill of Rights, against money in politics.

I don't know which penance(s) could possibly redeem my soul from that sort of....thing.

[Enthusiast]

15. Fake Bernie supporters use their status as Bernie supporters to steer the conversation

and manipulate our thinking. They do not fool me for a minute. I won't call them out but that doesn't mean I don't recognize subterfuge when I see it.

[merrily]

17. Some of them have admitted to "changing their minds." Some simply quietly dropped

their enthusiastic Bernie sig lines and/or avatars. But, a few are still quietly toughing it out (as unconvincingly as their initial efforts).

I don't think they fooled many, if any.

[SoapBox]

5. Yay!

Somebody thinks I'm pretty...well, fucking beautiful anyway.

[merrily]

9. Almost as good as someone thinking you're fucking beautifully.

Oh, dear. How embarrassing. The devil made me post that.

[roguevalley]

6. Bonobo, back at ya, honey. :D:D:D

[senz]

11. Thanks, Bonobo

I don't think I'm all that but I do know that Bernie Sanders appeals to what is best in me. That itself is a beautiful thing, worth having, worth living out. We have no guarantee he'll make it through the gates of hell to actually achieve the presidency, but his beautiful, noble effort is entirely worth supporting. Whether he makes it or not, I will never regret doing what I can (nowadays it's mostly financial and rhetorical) to help his mission.

I am reminded of an event that opened my eyes many years ago when I was an abandoned teenager staying with an incredible family so unlike my own that it felt like an "Alice in Wonderland" experience. The mother of this family was getting ready to attend an antiwar protest with the American Friends Service Committee. I asked her why she wanted to do that when she knew it wouldn't make any difference. She said that it meant something to her just to be there with them, just to weigh in on something that mattered to her. I had never heard anyone say anything like that before, and it puzzled me greatly. But it's been rattling around my mind ever since.

This is about so much more than any of us -- but acts like this are one of the ways we define ourselves as people.

[sabrina 1]

19. What a great post. I just went through the OPs in this group because I miss so many

and found this one, and then read the comments. I like what that mother said to you. And the thing is, we often give up thinking our single voice won't mean anything. But if everyone who FEELS that way but does something anyhow, we WOULD win.

Bernie is lighting that spark under people who pretty much had given up. I'm not sure what it is about him, other than you KNOW he's not just talking, he has always been fighting to what is right for the people, but unfortunately his colleagues in Congress haven't helped a whole lot.

Now he has the microphone himself and it looks like people were just waiting for him to come along. I'm so glad he did!

[senz]

21. Yes, it really is amazing, sabrina. It is very much a sense of "I've been waiting for this"

and finally, finally it is happening. The people of this country have been watching our hopes and dreams, our sense of "something good," slip away for decades, but no one has had whatever it takes to start turning it around. Bernie Sanders, with his simple honesty and integrity, has finally pointed the way. OWS tried valiantly, but what we needed was an unassuming person to articulate the truth of our shared existence, our pain, our hopes, and then outline plain, simple, pragmatic ways we can overcome the vast mistake that nearly ruined our country and begin to return America to a place we all can live in and believe in again.

Yes, this is a special time for all of us. But it's a cliff-hanger to watch how the "big bad boys" might respond. I hope Bernie is ready for that. Or maybe he will be happy to have lit the fuse of a political revolution that will play out in years to come. I guess we'll have to stay tuned and do whatever we can to help it along.

[sarge43]

12. Back atcha, Bo

[ancianita]

13. THIS. Hell yeah.

[jomin41]

14. Thanks for posting this!

" Reality is just what is forced on others by the strongest and most determined. "

I've been looking for that. Thanks!

[Enthusiast]

16. We will hang together, Bonobo.

[sabrina 1]

20. I missed this when you first posted it Bonobo. I miss a lot of good OPs so went back a few pages

tonight and saw this one.

I agree, Bernie supporters remind me of when we first found forums like DU.

I love your OPs, and always loved to see your comments.

And most of the Bernie supporters in this group are people I felt that way about also.

Thanks for saying it though. Because it's true!

Your daughter sounds wonderful!

[Bonobo]

22. Thanks, Sabrina.

I love you too and can feel your beautiful spirit all the time.