You can’t stop an idea

Long before that “self righteous” (see May 19 Monitor editorial) Bernie Sanders “yelled” his ideas, other great American leaders have expressed similar concerns.

Louis Brandeis, Supreme Court justice, 1915: “We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”

President Eisenhower, January 1961: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.”

Bernie and his followers see these truths. The establishment knows it. His ideas threaten their hold on power.

Voter suppression efforts in Arizona and Puerto Rico prove how afraid they are. In Philadelphia, Bernie could use Fanny Brice’s response to Ziegfield’s “on high ultimatum” (Funny Girl): “You win – you don’t win fair – but you win.”

Bernie may be stopped, but an idea whose time has come can’t be stopped.

BEVERLY GRENERT

Contoocook