A vote for Bernie means a vote for peace
In response to the recent aggressive U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian general Soleimani, the only presidential candidate who has taken concrete action to prevent war with Iran is Senator Bernie Sanders. He has also consistently voted against war in the Middle East, starting in 1991 with the Gulf War. As a Jewish-American whose family fled the Holocaust, and whose candidacy has been endorsed by both Jewish and Muslim-Americans across America, Sanders is uniquely qualified to bring lasting peace to the Middle East. Ending our wars will free up funding for social programs, such as Medicare For All, that will improve the lives of all Americans. Your vote for Bernie Sanders in the California primary election on March 3 is a vote for peace and prosperity for America!
– Juliana Vidich, Kelseyville
Bernie is a sure loser
There are several Democratic presidential candidates who support Medicare for All who also happen to be viable general election candidates (unlike Bernie Sanders, who has no realistic chance of being elected president). If you actually want to see Medicare for All implemented, vote for Elizabeth Warren. Senator Warren can win, whereas Bernie Sanders is a sure loser.
Until these myopic, naive Bernie Bros. can provide a satisfactory explanation as to how Sanders would be able to successfully handle the following issues which would certainly be highlighted by the GOP in a general election, their irrational insistence that Democrats vote for non-Democrat Bernie Sanders should fall on deaf ears.
1. Bernie Sanders is on the record repeatedly having unreservedly and uncritically lauded lavish public praise on a number of anti-American communist dictators, like Daniel Ortega and Fidel Castro for instance. (Have you ever watched Bernie’s infamous videotaped interviews on these subjects from Aug. 8, 1985 and from June 13, 1988? You should.) In fact, Bernie Sanders is the only prominent American politician to express more love and respect for totalitarian communist tyrants than Donald Trump does!
2. Then of course there was Bernie Sanders’ still inadequately explained 1988 marital honeymoon in the Soviet Union, where upon returning to Vermont the Marxist socialist Sanders predictably and pathetically voiced his unabashed praise for the Soviet system. One would think that a reasonably intelligent man who is at least nominally Jewish would know better than to openly and unapologetically congratulate an anti-Semitic totalitarian regime for making their trains run on time. But no, Bernie is not nearly as intelligent as advertised. And furthermore, could you ever possibly imagine saying to your fiancé, “We’ll be spending our honeymoon in North Korea with the Dear Leader.” I didn’t think so.
3. Less well known is the fact that in 1963 Bernie Sanders lived and worked for several months on a Stalinist commune near Haifa in Northern Israel that explicitly saw the Soviet Union as its political role model. Sanders’ communal Israeli kibbutz actually flew the red Soviet flag over its compound, the very same red Soviet flag prominently displayed in Bernie Sanders’ office when he was mayor of Burlington, Vermont during the 1980s.
4. And then there’s that bizarre, incredibly disturbing “rape fantasy” article that Sanders wrote which was published in 1972 when Sanders was a 30-year-old far-Left Marxist gubernatorial candidate in Vermont. Where does one even begin in attempting to explain just how awfully atrocious Bernie Sanders views were on the subject of rape?
Why would you vote for someone like that to be President of the United States? We already have someone like that as President! We certainly do not need to replace one foolish, misogynistic, geriatric Russophile with another. There are more qualified, much less crazy Democratic candidates to choose from.
Get a clue, Bernie Bros. Senator Sanders is a sure loser in a general election, which is why (in addition to the 78-year-old’s recent heart attack) Bernie Sanders should drop out of the presidential race immediately.
Losing in 2020 is not an option. Democrats must nominate a candidate who can actually win.
—Jake Pickering, Arcata
Playing God with other countries’ political and economic systems
As you probably know, our president is trying to start a war with Iran, without Congressional approval. He’s assassinated a military commander whom Iranians considered a hero for keeping ISIS out of Iran.
Assassinating another country’s leaders is officially a war crime. Even if this commander was as bad as the establishment is telling us, the United States cannot simply assassinate every person in the world who does horrible things. We cannot be the world’s police.
Even if our “leaders” were saints, and always made completely justified and unbiased decisions, the next “leaders” may have a completely different idea of justice. That’s why it can’t ever be up to one individual, or group of individuals, to play God with other countries’ political and economic systems. We also don’t have the cultural context to make these judgments for every country.
Because of Iran’s geography, surrounded by high mountains and water, a war probably means bombing population centers, meaning not thousands of deaths, but tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands.
Keep in mind that, contrary to popular opinion, most Iranians are just trying to live happy lives, feed their children, etc. Most Iranians do not support their government. Iranian citizens are not our enemy. If we go to war with Iran, we will be killing children and seniors, families just like yours that have committed no crime against the U.S.
The Muslims of Iran, by the way, are 90% Shia Muslims and almost all of the American deaths in the Middle East caused by terrorism or wars were at the hands of Suni Muslims. Not Iranians at all. Iran, in fact, has been working with the U.S. and other countries to rid the world of ISIS. Trump simply decided this would be profitable.
And let’s not forget that our government lied us into Iraq, lied throughout Afghanistan (see: Afghanistan Papers), lied to us about Venezuela, lied about Bolivia, lied about Grenada, lied about Vietnam, lied about Cuba. Why would anyone believe what they are saying now?
—Jason Kishineff, American Canyon Democratic Congressional candidate
