At least not for me. Reading isn’t
just a matter of recognizing words for me. In order to get all I can from those
words, I must engage my intelligence, my experience, my gut, my gag reflexes,
and my BS meter. Just as writers should know their audiences, readers should
know their writers. I can’t assume that the writers I read will say what they
mean because I know some purposely try to deceive me. But, I can read with purpose and hold them to meaning what they say.
I offer the following example of how
I read an article. If I read your comment, post, article, blog, book, or letter
this is exactly how I read it. The text in black are the words of the author of
this article. My thoughts are in red, exactly as they came to me while reading.
Berniemania! Why Is
Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders So Popular? This is going to be difficult. I didn’t even get past the title
without questions. Often, I read no more when this happens but I’m doing this
for a purpose. So, here goes. What does so popular mean? Popular compared to
what? Is it possible that this writer considers his subject popular because
social media and internet have been flooded by the mad meme machine? Does he or
any of us know how many people are actually represented by those memes or how
accurate they are? Is he popular in a good way, or a bad way? Sometimes people become
popular for all the wrong reasons, or get discussed for a combination of positive
and negative reasons.
Brooklyn-born, Vermont-fueled, Vermont-fueled? Weird words
that mean nothing to me. Wonder why he chose them. Bernie Sanders promises a revolution if he's somehow elected
president next year. Presidents are supposed to call for revolutions? Do revolutions
work? Long term? Isn’t that a bit negative and scary? Somehow is revealing. This guy doesn’t really think Sanders has a
chance but he wants to make me think he might by using words like mania and popular. Does Hillary have to watch her back? WTF? Very strange
to stick this here behind a negative, promise of a revolution. Could be
interpreted as a backdoor threat but I’m not ready to go there with it.
By Ross Barkan [Ross Barkan is a senior political reporter at The New York Observer]|
06/16/15 10:50pm
Brattleboro, VT.—Of all the people buzzing at the start of
the Strolling of the Heifers parade on a recent Saturday morning—the clowns,
the teen stilt-walker, the theater kids in witch’s garb—the 73-year-old grandpa
in khakis and Adidas sneakers did not seem like the most probable candidate for
a selfie. Huh? Were there other candidates among all the people buzzing?
But even tweens more used to fawning over Ariana Grande can
barrel toward Sen. Bernie Sanders to beg for a picture. Yes, because tweens snap
selfies when they are together, and alone, of themselves, of themselves with
anything that does or doesn’t move . . . third read and still can’t imagine
what he means by barrel toward. And,
show of hand of the person who might think they had to beg the man who has
flooded the internet for months with pictures of himself, like a selfie-tween.
“Can we get a selfie?” members of a marching band, holding
trumpets and saxophones, squealed. Squealed? You don’t
say. Guess members of marching bands are like tweens.
“I think we can!” the Vermont senator replied. Oh, no.
Tomorrow Sanders fans will flood the internet with memes about how he is the
first and only candidate to ever say, “I think we can,” or to be nice to squealing
marching band members holding trumpets and saxophones. I might not look at
Facebook or Twitter because I have so little self-control that I’ll make snide
remarks like, “Seriously? He actually talked to those kids? No one else has
ever done anything quite so remarkable. Let’s all praise him now.” Truth is, it
is sorta nice to see him do something other than shout.
“Oh my God. You guys. Mr. Sanders, Mr. Sanders…” Now you
blew it Mr. Barkan. Informed people who don’t even know the man they’re
admiring is a Senator. Cool. (After I was accused of being insensitive to the
Senator’s Jewish heritage and/or history last night, guess I should point out
that Mr. Barkan and this fans apparently aren’t either. We do have one thing in
common.) Sorta makes me wonder if those tweens and squealing marching band
members just wanted selfies with parade walkers or old men in sneakers.
A dozen marchers clenched their smartphones. Mr. Sanders grinned. He was running
for president and having a pretty good time with it. Yep, clenching and grinning
does make for a good time.
Yet Mr. Sanders, with his slight stoop and cloud of white hair flaring always hate
when my hair flares but apparently it’s newsworthy so I might have to rethink
that off
his ruddy he didn’t think to use sunscreen?
scalp, sometimes suffers on the stump. Later that day in a rec hall
across the border in Keene, N.H., packed with about 700 people, some wearing
homemade T-shirts Magic Markered Enjoying this writer now – made-up words mixed with hilarious
adjectives take the sting out of suffering through an article about a man I
don’t like much with “Bernie 2016,” he lamented the plight of a
young teacher he had just met. “Obviously in our society we desperately need
teachers,” Mr. Sanders said to his audience. “And her crime for wanting to get a master’s degree was
that she is now $200,000 in debt and he thinks it’s criminal for someone who wants to teach to go
into debt for her education? What a jerk. She did what millions of other people
do, and it is not a crime to borrow money. paying interest rates between 6 and 9 percent.
… All of this stuff is crazy stuff.” If the country does not reform its
environmental policies, he said a grim fate awaits: “more drought, more famine,
more rising sea levels, more floods, more ocean acidification, more extreme
weather disturbances, more disease and more human suffering.” Am I
missing something? Do those sentences about tuition and environmental policies
go together?
This is not morning in America but mourning in America—and
the crowd loved it. Wonder how they would have reacted if he said, “It’s a lovely
day for a parade and a marching band?” Or, guns are killing people every day
and I’m not interested in trying to stop that? Bet they would have loved either
of those just as much?
Toward the end of the rally, the Brooklyn-born liberal icon
leaned into the microphone and quieted his distinctive voice, Nice way to
say the screaming maniac tried to control himself for once which sounds like Larry David playing George
Steinbrenner on Seinfeld. “Let me tell you a secret,” said Mr. Sanders, who
hopes his audience helps him pull off what would be the biggest upset in modern
political history. Really? An angry old white man beating Hillary Clinton would be
more of an upset than an optimistic, young, black man beating Hillary Clinton
in a primary race? That
doesn’t make any sense to me. Not going to pass my BS meter or gag reflexes
but, I’m assuming that his fans who shared this article so many times I decided
to take a peek swallowed it.
Bernie Sanders with human and bovine constituents at the
Strolling of the Heifers parade. [Photo not copied] Bovine constituents? Note to
self: check later to see if Vermont citizens use those weapons he protects to
shoot bovine constituents. And why Vermont doesn’t have groceries.
Even Mr. Sanders’ supporters concede that his odds of
toppling front-runner Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, let alone winning in November 2016,
Here we go. This is huge. are
long. But with a progressive favorite, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, declining to run,
a void on the left opened and Mr. Sanders filled it. No, a void didn’t open. The
Democratic Party had a liberal (more liberal than Sanders or Warren) candidate
already. Hillary Clinton, on record, has been and is more liberal than either
of them. She was liberal before liberal was cool, when Warren was still a
Republican, even. Injecting Warren’s name here is deceptive. Sanders crashed
the Democratic primary not because there was a void, and not on a whim. He had systematically prepared for it for
a couple of years. I pointed that out long before he announced he was running. Taken
piece-by-piece, his campaign platform—a higher minimum wage, more vacation
days, mandated sick pay, free public colleges—polls well enough to sand some of
the radical edge off him, or at least pack more town halls in Iowa and New
Hampshire. Another note to self: find links to show that these are things
that President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and many Democrats have supported forever, but that this party-crasher has
convinced his fans are ideas unique to him. The
magic behind the early Sanders surge Surge? He has been flooding the internet with propaganda and
misinformation for months. What is happening now feels like more of the same
self-serving misrepresentation to me. If this references attention to his
campaign, going from zero to something, doesn’t seem to qualify as a surge,
either. is not so mysterious: what he
says, invariably, is popular with the Democratic base at a time when many feel
fatigued by promises of hope and change. Now you’ve angered me, ridiculous writer. You don’t get to puke
out this trash about the Democratic base without some proof (which you can’t
possibly have). A few emoprogs and a bunch of people who call themselves
progressives, many of whom are not registered Democrats at all but are instead
trolls who jump into every Democratic group and claim to be while they
criticize every single Democratic candidate. Every. Single. One. I call them G.Young Democrats.
Mr. Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats,
violates most laws Really want
to say that about your guy? of American
politics. He
proudly calls
himself a socialist, a label vilified by Republicans and avoided by most
Democrats.
Nope. Actions speak louder than rhetoric. A proud socialist registers and runs as a
socialist. Most Democratic politicians, or most Democrats? What is the
percentage and how was this determined? He is not outwardly charming; he
rarely glad-hands and his speeches are often mirthless. Not
charming and mirthless is probably true. I’m thinking his systematic,
two-year-long meme campaign should count as glad-handing. Like a modern day Jonathan Edwards, who found Eugene
V. Debs rather than Jesus Christ, he thunders about the dying middle class and
oligarchies eroding democracy.
Bunch of useless filler? Cross him, like one
camera-holding man who yapped at
him in Keene to take a position on the Edward Snowden affair, and earn a
stern rebuke.
Why wouldn’t
he answer the man’s question? “Because you’re rude, and you’re shouting out
things and I don’t really like that,” Mr. Sanders groused. Not professional. Not at all presidential. I want to know his
answer to the question but will bet--before I read farther—that this writer
didn’t bother to find out.
Despite a
thorny approach to retail campaigning, What does that mean? Can take a stab at the subliminal message
he is trying to pass through but this is laughable. Mr. Sanders’ quest
for the White House is on an upswing. Yep, from nothing to something is an upswing. Last week, a Wisconsin Democratic Party straw poll
showed Mr. Sanders trailing Ms. Clinton only 49 to 41 percent among delegates. They’ve
already voted on delegates? Ooops. I might not be as smart as I thought I was.
I could swear it was much later in the process last time I voted on delegates. On
Observer.com, Brent Budowsky wrote, “There is a very real prospect that Mr.
Bernie Sanders wins an outright victory in the Iowa caucus.” Donations are
flooding in; he raised $1.5 million in the 24-hour period after he announced
his candidacy in early May. He has since raised cash from more than 100,000
individual donors. Is this record-breaking?
“When I was a kid growing up, I think my instincts always
were for the underdog.” – Bernie Sanders Said? Wished he had said? Lamented? He thinks this is special,
and that most people have different instincts? (Possible I lost this in the
copy & paste.) Out of touch much? Don’t most people look out for the
underdog?
Berniemania already seems to be nudging Ms. Clinton to the
left: she has toughened her tone toward Wall Street, called for criminal
justice reform and avoided taking a stance on a controversial free-trade
agreement many liberals abhor. Once again, Hillary Clinton is and has been more liberal than
the party crasher. He has tried to take credit for everything the party he
bashes has said and done, and then pretends he has forced her (and they) to be
what she (and they) have been. What a jerk. The free-trade deal is only
controversial because party-crasher spent so much time misrepresenting it and
President Obama, and many intelligent liberals think it’s a
good deal.
A strong second-place finish by Mr. Sanders in either early
primary state will mean momentum, which will mean money. But, he wants money out of politics. Think he’ll tell his rude
groupies to stop their nonsense about Hillary’s money? “His kind of candidacy can live off the land for
quite a while,” said Joe Trippi, who ran Howard Dean’s campaign in 2004. So, why is
he petitioning the party he crashed to change course and have debates early?
Just to show he can? Doesn’t have anything to do with money? “With Bernie, there’s always a core liberal
wing, there’s grassroots activists to give him enough money for the next plane
ticket.” FEC
okay with this? It’s also not
clear how much grassroots love there is for the former first lady, either—a
recent CNN poll showed half of voters view her unfavorably, while 46 percent
have a favorable view. FOX wannabe CNN? Who did they poll? Voters, or viewers? What did
they ask? You think we can’t look this shit up? Or, you betting his supporters
won’t bother?
The challenge will come when the primary graduates to
mega-states like New York and California—and revolutionary zeal meets sobering
reality. Team Sanders admits winning beyond Iowa and New Hampshire will prove a
significant hurdle. Yet, he will risk damaging this race for self-serving,
egotistical gain? Not only do I not support him in this race, now, I don’t like
him anymore and want him to retire.
“We have to compete everywhere for delegates. We can’t cede Don’t you
have to own something before you can cede it? Another note to self: look up the
word cede in case you’re wrong. ground to Hillary Clinton,” said Tad
Devine, a top Sanders adviser who counseled Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry four
years later.
Some veterans of tough elections are taking notice. “To me,
the story so far is not how far ahead Secretary Clinton is, but the fact being
perhaps that even though she is the best known political figure in America,
there are still 40 percent or more Democrats polled who are looking for another
candidate,” said former Sen. Gary Hart, a Colorado Democrat who ran for
president in the 1984 and 1988—and is now supporting Martin O’Malley, the
ex-Maryland governor. “That’s the story.”
Meaningless.
Think he gets paid by the word.
That candidate may not be Bernard Sanders of 1525 East 26th
Street, Brooklyn. But he is promising a revolution, and if the raucous rallies
are any indication, the beginning, at least, will be televised. Can someone please help him out of the 60s? Or, maybe knock him
back to the 50s so he can run as a Republican next time?
Before Mr. Sanders was a presidential contender, senator,
congressman and mayor, he was really only known for one thing: running fast. And I
thought it would be talking loud. Those days are gone, my friend, we thought
they’d never end, we sing and dance, forever and a day. Sorry, I always have a
song in my head and heart.
<>
I think there was more. It was hard
to tell where one article stopped and the next started. Maybe it was a blog?
This was really more than I wanted to read. Shortly after tweens, I knew it was
going nowhere. I admit that it is possible, maybe even probable, that I misread
the words between the lines in this article/blog post, or whatever this was. If
so, it is because the writer presented it as news, not opinion, and invited me
to fill the huge holes he left.
The only thing a reader can know for
sure after reading this is that Barkan probably is a Bernie Sanders fan and I positively
am not.
