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| Before half of our precinct showed up, they had to move us to the hallway because we didn't fit in the room... |
After caucusing today, I got really riled up about why I chose Bernie. (121 people in my precinct, 93 for Bernie, 23 for Clinton – well over 1,000 for my district showed up!) Part of it was because I chose to get involved when it came time to give arguments supporting him after the Clinton candidates spoke, and the thoughts are bouncing around in my head now, so I feel like I need to get them out! So, here I go… A vote for Bernie is a vote for:
- Eliminating the health insurance racket, not reforming it.
- Eliminating the overpriced private school system we refer to as Universities and Colleges, in favor of updating our public school system to include a college education. Increasing access to grants and student loans has resulted in over a Trillion dollars of outstanding debt, and the 37th education system in the world in terms of quality.
- Eliminating tax loopholes, that allow large corporations like the NFL, Microsoft, Walmart, and Apple to shift profits to overseas tax havens, costing the American public Billions in taxes each year (I.E. $40 Billion from Microsoft and nearly $100 Billion from Apple every year!) Plus we all know the NFL should not be considered a non-profit tax-exempt organization.
- A vote to repeal citizens united, which Hilary has utilized in every campaign she has run in the past 6 years (thus, no way in hell she would change that.) I suppose rootstrikers.
- A vote for trying to confront Islamic extremists by disproving their argument (and primary recruiting tool) that the western world doesn’t care about them.
- The only hope for achieving peace in the middle east is to treat each of the countries involved as equal partners in a mutual resolution to conflict. (I.E. Remain neutral and not side with Israel and Saudi Arabia exclusively in opposition to Iran).
- We need to adjust our tax laws to remove tax caps for high income households; especially in terms of the 15% investment income tax, which almost exclusively applies to people with annual income above a million dollars.
- We need to ask the question of where the money to pay for war is coming from. This money is obtained by punishing the teachers and schools in this country with insufficient funding. It is obtained by punishing the citizens of this country by not maintaining our existing infrastructure. It is obtained by devaluing public transportation, and denying people a mass transit alternative.
- We need to recognize that we only have one planet, and if we break it we might not be able to fix it. Global warming is real, and regardless of how it is happening, we need to take every action possible to slow or reverse it’s effects. We need to reduce subsidies for oil, coal, and nuclear power production, and increase subsidies for solar, wind, and geothermal power production. There is no reason we shouldn’t have a 100% green power grid by 2020.
- We need to promote a more sustainable materials economy. Our buildings, electronics, and other consumer goods need to be designed to be broken down into raw components that can be used for the next generation of consumer goods. This type of technological ecosystem will reduce the burden of disposing of waste, and reduce the demand for destructively mining new raw materials.
- Electric vehicles are one of our best bets to reduce CO2 emissions. Even though the current electric grid would produce a similar or greater emission per mile than gasoline cars; centralizing the source of emissions increases the feasibility of eliminating CO2 emissions from transportation.