There’s also the simple fact that Sanders lost to Clinton who lost to Trump. For him to win against Trump, we’d be counting on people switching votes.
The guy created a lot of people who don’t like him, same as Clinton. He’s gonna face what Clinton faced. And we learned last time that you can’t count on that to be overridden.
We need someone who can reasonably be seen as uniting people in the party. We should be trying to make sure no one feels they need to hold their nose and vote for the nominee. Supporters of any of the Democratic candidates should translate to votes for the eventual nominee.
I just don’t think Sanders can pull it off, and I honestly think worse of him for running. Say what you want about Clinton: she realized that she would just harm chances against Trump and bowed out. And Sanders is in a worse position, because more people on the left didn’t like him.
The reasoning behind not labeling GMOs is that the label in and of itself communicates the idea that these foods are different, and, well, less safe. The thing is, GMOs are just doing the same thing we’ve been doing for millennia, just in a more direct way. There’s no reason to believe that they are any less safe–if anything, because of the science involved, they’re more safe. If they resulted in chemicals that were unsafe for consumption, we’d know about it.
If companies want to go out of their way to avoid them for whatever reason, they will of course label their foods with anti-GMO markings. So it’s not like people can’t still decide. The difference is that those markings aren’t mandated by the government, and thus don’t carry the implicit idea that the FDA thinks that GMOs are unsafe.
I for one would prefer that they have those labels with an asterisk, with the FDA requiring a blurb saying that no studies to date have shown any negative affects from GMOs. That’s the correct direction, having the labels match the science.
People still get the choice, but then they also get the facts. Seems win-win. Labeling GMOs seems more about stigmatizing the science used to produce them.
Again with the “end of history” mentality. We have made plenty of food alterations in the past that we didn’t figure out were harmful until we had people acting as guinea pigs and eating them for decades and contributing their cancer or heart disease deaths to longitudinal population studies. Why should we be confident things are so different now?
I’m trying to figure out whether 4 pages of thread in less than a week is significant or irrelevant to the chances of a strong Sanders’ showing in the primaries. I mean the passion shown in this thread is indicative of something, isn’t it?
Speaking of passion, I always wonder what 2016 would’ve been like if it’d been a Hillary/Bernie ticket.
In one of the Dem debates where the two of them are shaking hands and beaming, I turned to the wife and said “Are we looking at the winning Democratic ticket here?”
It seems that like in the case of not knowing about proper sources and how far science has investigated issues like global warming, that you are also not aware of the testing and research done to GMOs.
Again, GIGO: it took much longer to figure out that curing meats, hydrogenating oils, and processing flour is super bad for us. Many scientists still push reduced fat dairy despite the mounting evidence of its unhealthfulness. Low fat, high carb diets were touted just 20 years ago. Scientists are just beginning to realize that telling people to stay out of the sun or slather on SPF 50 sunscreen may not have been the best advice. Why do you think you live in the end of scientific history? The lack of evidence of harm is not evidence of a lack of harm.
Hillary was the ultimate technocrat. She saw how Bill had picked Al Gore who could have reasonably stepped in as president on day one should be need be.
I’ll say some good things about Bernie, he’s passionate, he inspires people, he promotes ideas .
But he wouldn’t be ready to assume the presidency on day one and I think he’d be as bored as Trump is with all the detailed policy wonk aspects of the presidency. Let’s assume some NRA madman assassinated Hillary early on, like the Reagan assassination attempt but successful. Can you see Bernie getting the presidential daily briefing when it features details about a coup in The Gambia?
So, no, I don’t think Clinton considered Sanders. Tim Kaine seems like the exact type of person for Hillary and I’m glad I voted for both of them.
Nope. Your point here is the end really, because you are demanding prohibition with no evidence to support such a move. What is needed (and it was seemingly furnished many times before by critics of GMO and debunked as the studies show) is research that points to the harm, or demonstration that the mechanisms theorized for the harm you talk about actually doing that harm.
The problem here is that you are going as if that research has not been done before or that it continues. And the research that pointed to possible harm has been very weak or worse, fraudulent.
So the old point stands: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” And in this case it is about not only finding good examples of the alleged harm, but also examples of mechanisms that can make it harmful, on that the evidence is very weak. What it is a bit silly is to act as if checking for safety is not done also by the researchers of GMOs. The evidence is that GMOs are indeed tested a lot, and some can make the point that they are tested too much. But I do agree on the testing part already. There is however, after testing was done, a point when one has to trust the experts and not the fearmongers.
We’ve been curing meats since the dawn of civilization and figured out processes had carcinogenic issues maybe 15 years ago. Is that the timeframe you think we should wait on judging GMO products?
Yes, but he has described himself as a Democrat in the past, as I quoted. Obviously he hasn’t been consistent in that, and can be legitimately criticized on those grounds.
I was only rebutting Elvis’ claim that he has NEVER claimed to be a Democrat.
That’s about how long I’d wait (as in, permanent hard pass), but everyone can decide for themselves—IF they are labeled. Which is what we were talking about (that’s Bernie’s stance, correct?), until GIGO invented from whole cloth this notion that I was in favor of prohibition. :rolleyes: GIGO prefers to deal with straw men that are easily batted down, you see.
I’m really starting to worry about the emerging religion of Scientism. I’m an atheist and am glad for militant atheists, even, but I wouldn’t want to simply outlaw religions (tax 'em bastards, though!!!)…
I’m also okay with GMO for myself but have no problems if folks want to know for themselves thanks to labeling and choose accordingly.
It’s not an “extraordinary claim” that something may turn up later because current science is not as advanced as we imagine it to be – never mind the well-documented cases of science colluding with industry on numerous occasions throughout history.
I don’t fear GMOs myself but I have no problems with the sensible compromise BigT here had proposed for those who do.
Heck, racism and sexism were once “science” – and now everyone’s supposed to be all against it with equally fervent certainty, despite indications that there may be demographic-specific treatments, etc.
:rolleyes: Scroll up and find out what they are. Even CarnalK has taken a shot. Why don’t you try too?
Because your “questions” amount to “Bernie once left out the ‘socialist’ part from ‘I’m a democratic socialist’. Why don’t you admit you’re lying?” :rolleyes:
The essential facts have been laid out for all to see, in this thread, by multiple posters. The rest is up to you.
Ya know, I like Bernie. I do. But I feel he’s reaching too far, too fast, too much. Really, you don’t burn down the house because you have a clogged drain.
Fixing health care, education costs and the ridiculous tax structure, is not going to happen in a day. Sure focus on those things as a platform, but laser in on one of them.
There is less an emerging religion of science than there is an emerging cult of anti-intellectualism with anti-science as one of its cornerstones and unfounded irrational fear as its main tactic.
It is quite the hijack from this thread but just to Europe for one step further. Consumers choosing to avoid a product based on irrational fears is one thing (so long as that does not cause greater societal harms) and I would be open to listing on a label “GM crop-free” so long as no health claims are made in the process. But in Europe their zero tolerance ban results in digging up and destroying 20 million euros worth of crop after a recall noted trace GM crop contamination at less than 0.005%. That’s crazy. Meanwhile vaccine fears have resulted in emergence of measles.
The unifying theme is deep distrust and miserable misunderstanding of science. Of course throwing things about which there is no overwhelming consensus upon into the same baskets as those that there are is not helpful. FWIW the consensus among scientists about GM food consumption safety is as high as the consensus among scientists about human activity contribution to climate change; there is no similar science community consensus regard building more nuclear power plants.
Trying to rope this back to this thread - it would help to have a candidate who could communicate in a way that undercut some of the distrust of science and who got the differences. I do not believe that Sanders ticks off that box.
So Sanders is apparently finding foreign policy to be a tricky thing.
Venezuela comments v.1 were notable for his not supporting Guaidó as the legitimate leader of the country and declining to label Maduro as a dictator who should step down. A different stance than pretty much everyone else in the field who has made comments so far. Pretty negative reaction especially in Florida.
v.2 tried to tack a bit. Went to calling for the Venezuelan military to show restraint and for the Maduro government to allow humanitarian aid in … which gets him “savaged” by “his supporters”
International policy is not his strength. Clearly. He may have been better off being one those who resisted the urge to twitter off.