January 22, 2016

"I said, 'Be careful that old man is really a commie...'"

Said SteveR in the comments to yesterday's post about the very effective Bernie Sanders ad that uses the brilliant Simon & Garfunkel song "America." The ad only uses the first verse:
Let us be lovers,
We'll marry our fortunes together.
I've got some real estate
Here in my bag.
It's funny, because you can't have real estate in your bag, so the speaker is either a huckster — not a good image for a politician — or, most likely, a poor guy comically conveying the fact that he's got nothing, so his offer to "marry fortunes" is, we realize, early on, nothing but the proposed love. The lyrics have to stop there because the next line is "So we bought a pack of cigarettes," and no one's going to be smoking in a political ad. But if we were to keep going, we learn that the man is on the bus with his girlfriend, Kathy, and to pass the time they are "playing games with the faces"...
She said the man in the gabardine suit
Was a spy.
I said, "Be careful,
His bow tie is really a camera."
Hence SteveR's "I said, 'Be careful that old man is really a commie...'"

If we go on with the song we get to the most evocative lines:
"Kathy, I'm lost", I said,
Though I knew she was sleeping.
"I'm empty and aching and
I don't know why."
In the comments, Meade quotes that and adds:
Then Kathy woke up and looked out the window.
Alarmed when she realized where we were.
"Art" she said,
Though she knew my name is Simon.
"We're somewhere near Greece!
Why didn't you wake me up?
We should never have made that left turn back there.
We need to make America great again!"
Mrs Whatsit drew attention to the same "Kathy, I'm lost" passage:
That song is an awful choice for a political campaign. It's not about hope and promise. It's about looking for America and not finding it.

The lovers hop on the bus hopefully enough, but by the end they're out of cigarettes and out of things to talk about, and she's flipping through a magazine rather than looking out the window at the country rolling by. Last verse:
Cathy, I'm lost, I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and I'm aching and I don't know why
Countin' the cars on the New Jersey turnpike
They've all come to look for America, all come to look for America
A sad, superannuated song for a sad, superannuated candidate.
Ah, but that's why I like it. There's this deep feeling we have about America. It makes sense to speak of looking for it, longing for it. Obviously, we are right here in America, so what's to look for? But that obviousness is obtuse. We understand the idea of looking for America, finding the real, more essential, more beautiful America, the America that fulfills our dreams and lives up to our ideals. Donald Trump says "Make America great again," as if there's one America and sometimes it's good and it can go bad and it can become great again. But another, more poetic way to put that would be "Make America America again" or "We'll find our way back to America."  I don't recommend that as a slogan for Trump. Too easy to call him reactionary and racist. But you see my point: Americans understand the idea of searching for America: We've all come to look for America.

Now, bagoh20 said, referring to the point in the ad when we see lots of faces in tiny squares:
Oh man, the dinosaurs are swooning. Lets all do a little more Baby Boomer damage before we go. If you want socialism, you specifically, and adamantly don't want America, but there are many places to go join the Borg - the huge cube of faces, all equally too small to see, drab, helpless and dependent. Please leave us individuals a home on this planet not ruined by guilt, fear, and sloth.
I said, Be careful that old man is really a commie....

85 comments:

David Begley said...

945,000 views. More than Maddow.

Michael K said...

Boomer song. I like their work but "Bridge over Troubled Water" might have been better,

wild chicken said...

That song tore me up when I was 18. It stoked my wanderlust when I needed to stay put and finish school. I really did want to see the country I'd heard so much about.

It was our kind of patriotism.

samanthasmom said...

Like a lot of Simon and Garfunkel songs, it's a real downer. But the ad isn't directed at anyone who might question using a song about looking for America and not finding it in an ad for a candidate who wants to turn the USA into Sweden but without all the tall blondes. He's hoping the old folks never really listened to the words, and he's only giving the young folks a couple of lines from it. They'd have to go look it up to find the rest of the words, and that involves research and some work for which they won't get paid. So they just take the ad at face value. "People like me, white folks from Iowa and Vermont, like Bernie, too, so stop staying he can't get elected."

rehajm said...

Please leave us individuals a home on this planet not ruined by guilt, fear, and sloth.

This evokes the recurring legend amongst the left where despite best efforts the Earth's been ruined and the liberal elites board the spaceship to the nirvana now inaccessible to the demons back on Earth. It always seemed an opportunity for the long con to get the troublemakers off the planet so the rest of us can live in peace and prosperity.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I wish I could fit Bagoh's fine and apt statement on a bumper sticker.

Tank said...

The whole approach of looking rationally and logically at an ad like this is wrong. It's not made to be looked at that way. It's made to evoke a feeling in the listener (Althouse was literally, I think, crying 20 seconds in) and get passed your rational brain. It's making an emotional connection, especially for fossils like Althouse and me.

Although, it did not make me cry. Seeing a commie like Sanders as a viable candidate, that makes me cry (OK, not literally).

Tank said...

Simon and G's songs tend to be sort of melancholy. I like that (and, obviously, lots of others do too). I like it in song, movies and books. A lot of people will enjoy this sort of thing in a song, but not in a book.

Tank, how'd you like that book? Great, it was relentlessly depressing.

OK, it's an illness.

Hagar said...

Some people need to have it pointed out to them that the Communists, like almost everybody else, gave up on socialism decades ago, though they remain Communists, i.e. totalitarian thugs.

tim in vermont said...

Maybe instead of "America" he should have used "Share the Land."

Maybe I'll be there to shake your hand
Maybe I'll be there to share the land
That they'll be givin' away
When we all live together, we're talkin' 'bout together, now


Maybe that would be a bit too on the nose, though.

Virgil Hilts said...

We have lived so well so long. . . but you can't be forever blessed.
I think in the next 60 days the horror that we might elect someone like Trump as president is going to be replaced by the greater horror that we might actually elect a socialist as president. Does Bernie really beat Donald in a head to head match-up? That's terrifying.

Triangle Man said...

It's the "progressive" / "leftist" equivalent of jingoism. It is as devoid of substance as "make America great again", but lacks the humor of Palin's word salad.

tim in vermont said...

This is what comes of the hubris of the donor class that they believe that they can shove the Hillary/Bill shit sandwich down our throats.

Leslie Graves said...

Comic distancing in order to avoid being sucked into the great emotional vortex.

tim in vermont said...

Loved that song as a teenager learning to play the guitar, though. Playable, but still sounds good. It's singable too, doesn't force you up out of your range the way so many pop songs do.

Sydney said...

"I've got some real estate here in my bag," says Bernie is a communist to me. He got that real estate from us and he's giving it away.

Laslo Spatula said...

Try Simon's "Graceland":


He's going to the White House
White House
In Washington DC
He's going to the White House
Poorboys and Pilgrims with families
And we are going to the White House
My socialist is seventy-four years old
He has been the longest-serving independent in the U.S. Congress
But I've reason to believe
He will be received
In the White House

More or less.

I am Laslo.

Jim said...

1. I always thought "real estate" was a drug reference.
2. The song was released in 1968 just three years after Ted Kennedy's disastrous immigration law. Trump is more likely to take us back to this time if that's your thing.

garage mahal said...

When your economically illiterate and have no argument to make, bring out the "commie" card.

Mrs. X said...

Does liking the song translate to liking the candidate? It sure doesn't for me. The song is lovely, but it's also very sad - a kind of anti-anthem. I know the song really well, though, and I've already made up my mind about Bernie (um, no). I'd be curious to know how it works on those who a) have never heard the song in another context and b) are waffling between democrats (God help them).

Oso Negro said...

The ideals of socialism just do not square with our founding beliefs. You can have liberty or you can have equality, but you can't have both. And I am speaking of equality of outcome here. I understand socialism/progressivism in the USA as a perversion of Christian values. It is not enough for the compassionate to care for the unfortunate, they are called to force the rest of us to help them at gunpoint. Government mandated charity is evil, and can never be more efficient than private charity.

JAORE said...

Yeah, Garage, people don't like the Bernie plan because THEY are economically illiterate.



jr565 said...

Garage mahal wrote:
When your economically illiterate and have no argument to make, bring out the "commie" card.

really now. Can anyone who supports Bernie sanders really say they are economically literate? Have you seen the math behind his proposals? Is Bernie economically literate?

Ignorance is Bliss said...

...a poor guy comically conveying the fact that he's got nothing, so his offer to "marry fortunes" is, we realize, early on, nothing but the proposed love.

Well aren't you quite the materialist! Check the other definitions of fortune.

Marry our fortunes together means marry our futures together, for better or for worse.

JSD said...

I liked the Portsmouth NH shot of the tugboats sitting in the in Piscataqua River. I have the live webcam saved to my favorites.

http://www.portsmouthwebcam.com/index.php/tugboats/

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Note: This is a case of what you have repeatedly pointed out, artistic ambiguity. However, I would say in this case fortunes is clearly meant in the futures sense, with the wealth sense of the word only a humorous undertone.

jr565 said...

Bernie picking this song is like Reagan picking Born in the USA for his theme song.
Clearly the campaign managers only really care about one line or so from the song and don't really get it.


Robert Wohl had a really funny bit years ago where he talked about how Jersey picked Born to run as their theme song and he played some of the lyrics to show how anti Jersey it actually was.
"Baby this town rips the bones from your back
It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap
We gotta get out while we're young
`Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run"


A suicide death trap. Sounds like just the place to raise the kids. The only worse song might be something like The Animal's "we gotta get out of this place" as the theme song. We gotta get out of this place. If it's the last thing we ever do! Come to Jersey!

But anyway, back to Bernie. The lyrics are one of the problems I had with the commercial. People hear the song, remember they like simon and Garfunkel so there's nostalgia factor. And they highlight the line let's marry our fortune together. But that's the only thing remotely positive in the song that would be positive in Bernies favor. And I have no desire to marry Bernie, or mingle my fortunes with his. Since he wants to disperse it and spend it on dumb sh*t. If I marry my fortunes together with him I'm going to be reduced to taking the bus imagining what happened to America just like the guy in the song.

garage mahal said...

Oh the horror of those socialist snowplows, fire departments, and social security scheme that keeps old people from eating out of dumpsters.

M Jordan said...

Communism is the greatest evil humanity has ever known. Count the millions who were slaughtered by their own communist leaders. The faces of a generation of Eastern European men were wiped clean of any emotional expression as they went inside themselves, the only place where respite could be found. Art and culture were destroyed, replaced by a drab expression of ideology, always the ideology. I've lived in a country that was a founder Soviet theft. The sorrow sowed during those years still bears volumes of abject fruit.

And this great evil, this communism, always comes with soul-stirring promise. Sanders may not be a true communist but he's close enough to cause me to run.

Heartless Aztec said...

All in the abstract. We don't ride Greyhounds, Trailways or any of the numerous smaller regional carriers that once existed. Fifty years on we fly and drive. And that lovely little salty sweet pop gem from 1968? What a shelf life! Imagine if our parents in the 1960's had still been listening to songs from 1910. It is a lovely ad with a lovely song and that's about it. It certainly didn't change my mind to vote for Bernie. Can't it just be appreciated for what it is? Fine political ad craftsmanship.

jr565 said...

Garage mahal wrote:
Oh the horror of those socialist snowplows, fire departments, and social security scheme that keeps old people from eating out of dumpsters.

does it in fact keep old people from eating in dumpsters? NY is run by a socialist. And he's housing the homeless in run down tenements. We have plenty of people eating out of dumpsters, thanks.

jr565 said...

Garage might think of Sweden as his model. But Sweden is a tiny country compared to the U.S.and there is little economic growth. And the middle class pay a lot more in taxes. Liberals are o. Board for the rich paying their fair share. But if you told a lot of liberals that their salary would be capped at 70,000 and then they'd be socked with huge taxes they'd be like "yes! Higher taxes.... Wait, what?"
And of course if there is no economic growth companies are not going to be hiring people in vast quantities. So where are we going to get the taxes from?
We'll certainly need programs to prevent the people from eating out of dumpsters, that's for sure.

walter said...

Good grief..round two on this thing. I'll if S&G pops up in the Amazon sidebar.

Saint Croix said...

What's really funny is that whoever (Simon?) gave the rights of the song to Bernie, also sold it to American Express

You're a product, Bernie! Ha! You're a commercial! Double ha!

Big Mike said...

Hey! We can be just like Sweden, as soon as we ...

(1) Get rid of all our people of color except for Muslims (Sweden has hardly any)

(2) Get our Millennial women to agree that having the police turn a blind eye to their being groped and raped (sometimes gang raped) by Muslims is perfectly all right.

We'll also have to shrink some in area.

Until then we'll just have to be the United States I guess.

walter said...

Ocean Front Property by george strait

Chris N said...

WCW might have expessed similar sympathies. Not a happy vision of America, nor 'us' in 'To Elsie,'

More than a little empty aching....

'..No one to witness and adjust
No one to drive the car'

As for Bernie, I suspect neither people, nor this world can ever be good enough. Yet both people and the world can be made to fit inside the ideas.

If you got the old guy to admit it, you might find a familiar lament: 'Humanity is just no good. The World still isn't what I thought it was. I'm empty and aching and don't know why.'

The ideas and intentions will remain pure and 'true,' however, which is much of what ideologies do.

More art than science, but really neither.

Jason said...

Garage: When your economically illiterate,

LOL!

Jason said...

By the way, Garage.... that Social Security Scheme? The discounted present value of its UNFUNDED obligations is about $23.1 trillion.

That is, we have no idea how we're going to pay for it.

The reality is even worse than the accounting: The $23.1 trillion negative balance sheet credits the trust fund as if it had real assets. It doesn't.

PROGRESS!

William said...

There's a point in the maturation process when you realize that the sentiments of S&G songs are not to be trusted, but not everyone reaches that point. One rarely feels groovy when crossing the 59th street bridge.......If you have misplaced America, Bernie is not the go-to guy for missing continents.

walter said...

Brooklyn Bridge by Frank Sinatra

Brooklyn Bridge by Frank Sinatra audio

Mark said...

https://vimeo.com/152638496

Someone reset that ad to some Soviet music...very interesting.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Boomers can't force one more era of malice on America. Then, thankfully, they should be spent and we can get on with repairing the incredible damage they've inflicted on their offspring.

Static Ping said...

Countin' the cars on the New Jersey turnpike

In defense of the song, there is generally not much of anything to see on the New Jersey Turnpike. Most of its length is lots and lots of highway with an exit every 5-10 miles. That was the design: get from one end of the state to the other quickly. In the northern section near NYC there are things to see, but some of it is the sort of thing that gave New Jersey the "armpit of the America" reputation.

The Garden State Parkway is similar but it does have its points of interest, the "park" is pretty especially in the southern part, there are many more exits, and it hugs the desirable Jersey Shore for most of its length. The Turnpike's destinations are essentially New York City and Philadelphia, both in other states, unless you want to stop in Trenton a bribe a politician, stop in Newark to buy drugs, or stop in Camden to run for your life.

Bill said...

Hillary's campaign is working on an ad emphasizing her pugilistic political skills, backed by another S&G song: "The Boxer" ("Lie-la-lie . . .").

garage mahal said...

Today's socialists are yesterday's Republicans. Look at the platform on the 1950s. Love of union, equal pay, Social Security, clean air and water. Reaganmics destroyed this country.




Roughcoat said...

Then, thankfully, they should be spent and we can get on with repairing the incredible damage they've inflicted on their offspring.

When you say "we" are you referring to Millennials?

Millennials are going to repair the damage? Seriously?

It is to laugh.

Anonymous said...

GAG! This whole thread is solipsistic baby-boomers whinging. Time for them to leave the stage.

MadisonMan said...

In defense of the song, there is generally not much of anything to see on the New Jersey Turnpike.

...or the Indiana Toll Road, or the Ohio Toll Road, or ....

dbp said...

Garage mahal wrote:
When your economically illiterate and have no argument to make, bring out the "commie" card.

When you're actually illiterate, don't presume superior knowledge of economics.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

It's been a while since I watched it, but wasn't Easy Rider supposed to be about two counter culture dudes hitting the road to find America? I mean, and smuggle some drugs along the way, sure, but I think the tagline was something like "They went looking for America and couldn't find it anywhere."
Trying to remember how that ended for the two longhairs riding the supermachines...
Hazy.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

LarsPorsena said...
GAG! This whole thread is solipsistic baby-boomers whinging. Time for them to leave the stage.


Well, I certainly don't take that view, Lars (some of my best friends, er, best parents are Boomers), but it is fun to note the pivot the Left has done from "good thing all those racists white Boomers are finally dying off and leaving America to the new vibrant diverse youth" to "hooray for Boomer hippie nostalgia, let's celebrate aging white people as they support the socialist Left!"
I mean, it's a fun shift, sure.

David said...

All very thoughtful and clever comments.

But the add assumes that it's targets will pay no attention to the lyrics, and the assumption is correct.

FullMoon said...

Triangle Man said... [hush]​[hide comment]

It's the "progressive" / "leftist" equivalent of jingoism. It is as devoid of substance as "make America great again", but lacks the humor of Palin's word salad.


Palin's word salad? Hmmm, Garage used that not too long ago. Google shows it is very popular with many, many lefty sites the past few days.

Garage is way more influential than I realized.

rcocean said...

I agree, most people don't pay much attention to song lyrics. That's why many people think "Born in the USA" is a patriotic song.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Ooh, ooh, Hillary Clinton's campaign REALLY ought to sew up the rights to "The Boxer," oughtn't they?

No, seriously. Omit the lie-la-lie refrain and the part about asking "only workmen's wages", obviously, but play the lyric about standing alone in a clearing as a fighter and carrying the reminders of every blow that laid her down our cut her till she cried out (in her anger and her pain) that she was leaving, she was leaving, the fighter still remains!

Sure, she's older, she's been around the block, she's been knocked down and kicked around, but she's still standing, she's still fighting...and she'll keep on fighting, for herself and for YOU!

Damn, why has no campaign hired me yet?

Laura said...

Oh, the horrors of those socialist lead pipes that go unaddressed until they are useful for scoring political points.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Blogger garage mahal said...
Today's socialists are yesterday's Republicans. Look at the platform on the 1950s. Love of union, equal pay, Social Security, clean air and water.


Strange new respect for the 1950's now! I thought it was a time of Red Scares, rampant evil patriarchy, racism, horrible oppression against homosexuals, etc, but apparently it WAS the golden era.

I'll admit, I can't keep up--it sure seems like when the Right likes/compliments a group, time period, or an era the Left is quick to bring up all of the flaws (as compared to modern, Progressive standards) in those things the Right likes...but when useful the Left his happy to ignore all of that for the purpose of some kind of attempted cheap shot against the Right. It's almost like the Left doesn't have any shame (nor any consistent standards). Almost.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

garage mahal said...
When your economically illiterate and have no argument to make,


It'll be fun to see people try and object to opponents calling Sanders a socialist when he's, you know, admittedly a socialist, but I don't think that fun is enough to compensate for the danger (in expected value terms) of Sanders actually winning.

With Obama his redistributive instincts ("spread the wealth around a little bit") were called socalistic by the Right and the Left heartily objected to that characterization. With Sanders how would they possibly object?

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Holy hell, I just looked up the Wiki for "The Boxer" and found this "missing" verse:

Now the years are rolling by me
They are rockin' evenly
I am older than I once was
And younger than I'll be; that's not unusual.
No, it isn't strange
After changes upon changes
We are more or less the same
After changes we are more or less the same

I mean, if that's not just Hillary Clinton all over!
She's older, but so is America (and her voting block!), she's different but promises more of the same 90's era Clinton prosperity...
Guys, guys, guys, just hire me already; throw some money at HoodlumDoodlum and he can turn this thing around for you!

Night Owl said...

"I said, Be careful that old man is really a commie...."

I like this. If we're are to be forced to endure a revival of hits from the boomer generation to prop up the leading geezer candidates, they should definitely be updated to reflect reality. With all due respect to the composers of the musical "Hair", an anthem of the 60s/70s has been updated for a new generation's campaign trail:

When the goons there in the Senate/House
Act stupider than we all are
When sleaze defines the glam-set
And Drudge leads his peers by far

This is the warning of an Age of Unserious
Age of Unserious
Unserious! Unserious!

Alarmingly with dumb grandstanding
And sophistry that's just astounding
Forcing falsehoods with precision
Boldly making bad decisions
With sick cynical elation
And in time it's true our nation is
Unserious! Unserious!

Let that Trump guy, let that Trump guy win; that Trump guy win.

Christy said...

The ad did little for this boomer who played her 8 track of Bridge Over Troubled Waters until it shredded. I most admired the genuine smile on Mrs. Sander's face. Compare and contrast with every other candidate's wife.

But then, I rarely hear the lyrics to songs, so I'm no barometer.

mikee said...

First mistake is that the lovers hop on a bus, public transport, forfeiting any free will about the route they would take on their journey. Government is the enemy of freedom to choose in one's own life.

Sanders, in his 60+ years of public life, has seen every socialist experiment on earth fail, some more dramatically than others. From Cuba and Venezuela, from Angola and South Africa, from China and the USSR, socialism fails. Yet it is the political philosophy he supports.

Why does Sanders so hate this country that he wants it to fail via socialism?

tim in vermont said...

If it took him four days to hitchhike to Saginaw, he should have thought about a bath and a haircut.

Unknown said...

Hillary should do a campaign ad based on "The Boxer." Pretty solid tie in.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...


"When you say "we" are you referring to Millennials?'

When I say "we" I'm referring to Americans.

tim in vermont said...

I love this "one drop rule" for socialism. If you think that the govt should maintain roads, you are a socialist... No, if you think the government should run the factory that builds the snow plows, you are a socialist. If you, like Bernie Sanders, thinks that the government's job is to tell the factory what to build when you don't actually own it, you are a fascist. That's the definition. Complaining that there are 17 kinds of deodorant (A vast underestimate, I am sure), like Bernie Sanders did, makes you a fascist in the sense of economics.

BTW, I ran into another Trump/Sanders supporter. This person is still frosted about Bush v Gore, to give you an idea about their politics.

Unknown said...

draft 1:

I am just a poor girl.
Though my story's getting old,
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocketful of mumbles,
Such are promises
Bill's lies and jests
Still, the man says what he wants to hear
And disrespects the rest.

When I left my home
And my family,
I was no more than a girl
In the company of lawyers
In the quiet of Wellesley,
Running scared,
Laying low,
Staying out of poorer quarters
Where the ragged people go,
Looking at those places
Only for the show.

Lie-la-lie...

Asking only woman's wages
I come looking for a job,
But I got no offers,
But a proposal from Bill Clinton
In Arkansas
I do declare,
At the time I was so
lonesome
That I took some comfort there.

Static Ping said...

In defense of the song, there is generally not much of anything to see on the New Jersey Turnpike.

...or the Indiana Toll Road, or the Ohio Toll Road, or ....


But yet the Pennsylvania Turnpike is very pretty, especially in the western half.

Unknown said...

“"Scandinavia happiest nations””” because, socialism.....

Or is it because they are turning away from socialism??

In 2006, Sweden elected its first Conservative-led coalition government since 1994. Led by a young moderate named Frederik Reinfeldt, Sweden was to undertake reforms on a scale not witnessed for some time. Comparing Reinfeldt’s programme for Government with that of our own (Great Britain).....

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1102/for_conservative_success_look_to_sweden

The country eliminated the inheritance tax in 2005, the wealth tax in 2007, and taxes on residential property in 2008.

As pointed out by C. Fred Bergsten of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, “[Sweden] cut marginal tax rates and simplified its tax code so much that nearly two-thirds of Swedes simply confirm by phone that the declaration automatically prepared for them by the tax authorities is correct.” This Nordic country known for ABBA and IKEA has also cut its corporate tax rate to 22 percent.

In addition to reforming its tax policies, Sweden has moved to decisively overhaul its welfare state, opting for free-market solutions that advance economic freedom.

http://dailysignal.com/2014/02/19/mamma-mia-swedens-remarkable-rise-economic-freedom/

Lets see if they stay happy as their young women are raped by the invaders..

The number of rape charges in Sweden has tripled in just above twenty years. Rape cases involving children under the age of 15 are six - 6 - times as common today as they were a generation ago. Most other kinds of violent crime have rapidly increased, too. Instability is spreading to most urban and suburban areas.

http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=6251

Anthony said...

> jr565 said...
>really now. Can anyone who supports Bernie sanders really say they are economically literate? >Have you seen the math behind his proposals? Is Bernie economically literate?


In fairness jr565 math is hard. Especially the new Common Core math which is supposed to have some sort of purpose but which strikes me as something some mathematicians created one night after getting hammered at the Physics Department party,

Rusty said...

garage mahal said...
Oh the horror of those socialist snowplows, fire departments, and social security scheme that keeps old people from eating out of dumpsters.


Easy, hoss. Snowplows, and fire departments are something we agree to pay for. Social Security is taken out of your check at the point of a gun.

Saint Croix said...

awesome Unknown draft 1

FullMoon said...

LarsPorsena said...

GAG! This whole thread is solipsistic baby-boomers whinging. Time for them to leave the stage.
1/22/16, 10:00 AM

Yo' Mama a Boomer !

RebeccaH said...

The old man really is a commie, despite his attempts to rebrand himself as a "socialist" (like there's a difference). He wants everybody in the world to play nice and share their toys, and he simply does not understand selfish, grasping, but sometimes altruistic human nature. We're out for ourselves, Sanders, and if we can do good along the way, as long as we can afford it we will, and we don't need fuzzy-brained believers in unicorn farts to tell us how to do it differently.

Emerson Shiff said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Paul said...

Well Bernie is a commie, so what? You guys voted for a 'community organizer', so no big step to voting for a communist.

Just wave the 'free stuff' at you and we know that's the way you will vote. Vote for Bernie and they will take every dime from you and then send you to a gulag for 're-education'.

Come on.. free stuff!

Barry Dauphin said...

Trump has real estate in New York

khematite said...

Would've expected Bernie to find Steppenwolf's "Monster" more resonant:

America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now?
We can't fight alone against the monster

http://www.metrolyrics.com/monster-lyrics-steppenwolf.html

JamesB.BKK said...

This is just another example of state agents coopting a feature of society which has people in some areas living peacefully together and cooperating without outside compulsion, in order to trick voters into giving them power to change that with threats of violence. Or, in the case of Bernie's politics, deploying actual violence, as others like him did before. Your song choice doesn't have to make sense, because voters are apparently quite easily tricked.

Agree with Tank that the Yes version of that song is quite good.

JamesB.BKK said...

And the dude saying "marry our fortunes together" doesn't have one. There is a fraudulent premise here.

Micha Elyi said...

"I wish I could fit Bagoh's fine and apt statement on a bumper sticker."
--AprilApple

All Aboard the B Ship!

TerryA said...

When Daniel Boone goes by, at night,
The phantom deer arise
And all lost, wild America
Is burning in their eyes.

Bandit said...

Simon & Garfunkel song

Are you like a 1000 years old???

CJ said...

Tim in Vermont: Share the Land is actually a Canadian song, so maybe it could be used by Ted Cruz.

While we're at it, Bernie isn't a "boomer". He was born in 1941.