2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: How Bernie Sanders exposed Democrats racial rift [View all]Fresh_Start
(11,330 posts)for those who aren't already still in a revolution...which they have been fighting for over 100 years with painfully slow progress.
Its also a much more comfortable concept when its absent personal sacrifice.
Unintentionally and unconsciously, white privilege allows some to embrace the revolution.
But people with the least advantages in our society, who we might expect to be the eager acolytes are not so inclined: and cannot afford to be seduced.
We applaud the idea of more advantages for some (e.g. free college) while failing to understand that many minority students don't even have the tools necessary for good elementary education, safe non-toxic buildings, textbooks, experienced high quality teachers.
Even something like higher minimum wage will likely backfire in lower employment rates for the groups which already have the highest unemployment rates.
The thing which I think is the most important to society is that thing that is almost completely absent from the from democrats, republicans, socialists, liberals for most of my life. ""ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
It will take a hell of a lot more than voting to fix this country: it will take sacrifice. That sacrifice cannot be limited to the 1%, it has to be inclusive of the 80%. I don't think you should be asked to sacrifice for the 1%,5%,10%...but you should be willing to sacrifice for the 99th percent.
Carter told us to turn down our thermostats and wear a sweater. Sanders and Clinton both want more clean energy sources and better technology: but those solutions are slow solutions. Make a sacrifice if you want lower pollution and to slow down global warming. Stop being an energy hog. And thinking 'someone else' is a worse energy hog is a nice deflection which does nothing to address the problem.
To get rid of fracking, we need to reduce the energy consumption of the country by approximately 20%.
Any technology change will take decades to have an impact: reducing your energy footprint can begin in the next day.
What are you willing to do starting right now to decrease the amount of energy we use?