Friday, June 24, 2016

"This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought" Come On Sanders, Say It

Bernie Sanders has finally said that he's going to vote for Hillary Clinton, which you would think was exactly the same thing as endorsing her but NPR and other media are saying that it isn't an endorsement.   I don't know how you can avoid seeing that as an endorsement but, then, they are all bending every which way to try to defeat Hillary Clinton, disappearing her from media coverage, most notably.  If Sanders really wants to defeat Trump he could spend his time pointing that out instead of wasting it on transparently meaningless poses.

As noted here yesterday, the Bernie or Busters are still all over the comment threads and a few idiots among them seem to be turning Hillary Hatin' into a career venture.  Thomas Frank, some of Salons' click-bait generators, they're still churning that out.   Sanders should also tell them to can it.

I challenged Bernie Sanders to test the loyalty of his self-appointed biggest supporters by endorsing Hillary Clinton, the only person standing between the world and a Donald Trump presidency and will be curious to see what they're saying about his declaration that he will be doing what so many of them are declaring they won't do.   I wonder how many of them are going to discover, all of a sudden, that they hate the guy they love.

Sanders is still making a big deal of the entirely unimportant platform - from what I've seen about the platform hearings, they aren't any less useless than they have ever been.  Platform fights are grandstanding especially by those who love to grandstand, no more important or principled than that. If Bernie Sanders can recover his status as a serious person will depend on how long he keeps this stuff up.  A truly serious person would have stopped it by the end of April.

I really wish they'd cut the platform crap.  It's no less a holdover from the less democratic 19th century than caucuses. Which makes me think of this.





 'In that case,' said the Dodo solemnly, rising to its feet, 'I move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies — '

'Speak English!' said the Eaglet. 'I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and, what's more, I don't believe you do either!' And the Eaglet bent down its head to hide a smile: some of the other birds tittered audibly.

'What I was going to say,' said the Dodo in an offended tone, 'was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.'

'What is a Caucus-race?' said Alice; not that she wanted much to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that somebody ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.

'Why,' said the Dodo, 'the best way to explain it is to do it.' (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)

First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, ('the exact shape doesn't matter,' it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no 'One, two, three, and away,' but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out 'The race is over!' and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, 'But who has won?'


This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, 'everybody has won, and all must have prizes.'


Really, look at the rules for any caucus and Lewis Carroll got it pretty much nailed and he described the results of platform fights, as well.

Sanders, just say it.  No one is going to care about the platform the day after the election, no one will ever mention it again for any positive purpose.

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