Rachel Maddow did not position Bernie's comments correctly

[emsimon33]

Nor did Bernie for that matter.

The executives of Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and Human Rights Campaign gave the support of the organizations, for which they receive very comfortable salaries and from which they draw significant personal and professional power, to Hillary Clinton without taking a vote of their members. As a person who in the past has financially supported these groups, I will not do so in the future (as they are not democratic in their behavior) and have sent the money that I would have given to them to Bernie.

Where the membership has been asked to vote on which candidate to support, the membership has overwhelmingly voted for Bernie. Herein is the difference that I believe Bernie should have articulated, although I do believe that Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and even HRC have become more Democratic establishment than grassroots progressive/liberal.

That in their hubris, the executives of these organizations did not anticipate the blow back and now are using Bernie's comments on the Maddow show yesterday to fight back, I find as despicable than their original endorsement.

There is a revolution in this country. Either you are for the revolution or you are not.

Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and Human Rights Campaign are not. MSNBC is not. Rachel Maddow, like very one else at MSNBC, wants to keep her comfortable salary, her power, and her bully pulpit so she and they sell out.

[IllinoisBrenel]

1. Exactly!

[99th_Monkey]

2. Exactly!!! Thank you for writing this, you saved me the trouble. You are SPOT-ON

I just wish Bernie was a fly on the wall of this OP, because you've put your finger on the crux of the
issue. It's NOT about these groups being "establishment" per se, but it IS about how undemocratic
their endorsement process is this year (has it always been this way? I don't know, but would like to).

Anyways, yes, it's about how virtually EVERY group or union or organization that has polled their membership
so-far a least, they end up endorsing Sanders; and when they Execs with the huge salaries decide, they
tend much more to endorse Hillary. This can be documented, and should be, laid out in some kind
of visual graph illustrating that organizations who endorse democratically tend to endorse Bernie, and
those that don't, end up going with Hillary.

Thanks again for your insightful OP.

On edit: I know these groups polled their members & endorsed Sanders based on that:
MoveOn.org, Democracy for America, and Progressive Democrats for America. (Actually PDA ran a member-
driven petition drive to help convince Bernie to run in the first place, so a poll would have been redundant).

As I recall, there may be several others of Bernie's endorsements that were based on member poll, but
I'm sketchy on their names, but maybe a couple of unions? like that nurses union?

[emsimon33]

3. Thank you!

I just send an email to Rachel and to Bernie saying the same. Perhaps if enough of us contact Rachel she will stop her false comparisons.

[zeemike]

7. Not a chance.

Her big bucks job depends on her doing what MSNBC wants...and they are the insiders.
Did you ever hear Cenk Uygur explain why he left MSNBC?

[glinda]

4. You really need to send this out there to Rachal and lots of people.

[zentrum]

5. Yes, please do that.

Not to mention that Richard's daughter works for the Clinton Foundation. It's all too clubby.

[PatrynXX]

6. PP is doing way more damage to itself than the videos ever could

nevermind I have no idea why they are connected to Big Oil. ie a big cancer causer Komen for the Cure got in trouble for that which is why I have boycotted them since..

[kath]

8. I also stopped my monthly donation to PP, and am giving it, plus a little extra, to Bernie's

Campaign instead.

[kacekwl]

9. Now she is talking about Bernie has a "beef" with Planned Parenthood.

He just stated facts as he sees it. i did not take his comments as a "beef". of course they will push back , they endorsed Hillary.

[bkkyosemite]

10. Agree with the OP completely.

[Akamai]

11. Yup! Absolutely! If I had read your post earlier, I would not have posted mine.

Rachel's words rankled me tonight and you expressed it more clearly than I did.

[Bernblu]

12. She's in the tank for Hillary

[Kalidurga]

13. Nor did Bernie...

I was about to go off. I love Bernie make no mistake about that. He has made so very few missteps in the minefield that is DC politics, the media, and in the fight with TPTB. This was one of those few missteps IMO. He framed the issue sort of like it's us against them and it isn't. The issue is that Planned Parenthood is necessary and Bernie and most of us want a world where a sliding fee scale clinic isn't needed. I went to PP when I had no insurance and while my job paid okay at the time it was not a lot of money either by a long stretch of the imagination. I did not make enough for paying out a large sum for insurance, plus an apartment, plus food for four people, plus transportation, plus a those things that go on with kids in school, plus clothes, and many other things that just go with living life. PP made my birth control affordable and the doctors visits affordable. Single payer a system where you just go to a GP any GP would be better. I think that organizations that cater to uninsured people like PP and organizations that cater to people who are otherwise neglected like minorities definitely are, feel a little threatened by the changes that are being proposed.

Personally I don't know what they are worried about there are a bazillion problems in the world. So what if PP has to become a GP clinic most of what they do is general health care only slanted on reproductive issues instead of all issues. So what if the Human Rights Commission becomes somewhat obsolete as they achieve goals like gay marriage, equal housing, and employment opportunities, never fear the bigots will always be with us. But, we can do something about the institutions. Change can happen and it can happen in a big enough way that most people won't have to face crippling discrimination it might make em limp for a minute, but then we go on. The point is we will always need watch dogs. We will always need sentries. Proof of this is what happened when the GOP f'd this country up royally in the 80's and early 2000's. I don't know all of history of course. But, that shows what a profound effect the government can have on people's attitudes toward people in poverty that go to clinics like PP for health care and toward minorities like the LGBT community. The government finally making gay marriage legal will eventually cause that to be a non issue for a lot more people, just as interracial marriage has a lot less of a stigma now than it had in the 1950's.