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Neven

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The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« on: March 29, 2017, 10:36:31 PM »
Okay, I've been having these ongoing discussions in the Trump thread, even though I perhaps shouldn't (I'm not American and I don't have the time or the knowledge to give such a discussion the attention it deserves), but I'm just constantly frustrated to see how people fall into this groupthink that is mainly served up by mainstream media and focuses on any spectacle that turns the attention away from the real problem: The iron hold of corporations on American politics.

Of course, we all know how effed up the Republican Party and how they lie and cheat people, while serving the interests of the military-industrial complex, Big Fossil, Big Agro, and so on.  The problem is that the Democratic Party isn't any better. In fact, I would say it's even worse, because these Corporate Democrats act as if they represent the opposite of the Republican Party and are the party of the (working) people, whereas in fact, they too mostly serve the interests of Wall Street, Big Pharma and the military-industrial complex and so on.

And that's how you get Trump. First, he ate the Republican presidential candidates' lunch and won the primaries (with the help, as it turned out, from Clinton and her mainstream media network) and then he clinched victory away from the vastly unpopular Clinton who paid millions and millions for ads, outspending Trump 2:1, mostly smearing Trump instead of presenting ideas and inspiring people to come and vote for her. It was an absolute strategic disaster, so bad that I sometimes think they did it on purpose.

The problem is now that everyone is so anti-Trump that they're unwilling to look at how all this came about, and unwilling to try and change that, while taking on Trump at the same time. It's all Trump, Trump, Trump. That's the current message from the Democratic Party: We're not Trump. No ideas, no vision, no values, just 'We're not Trump'.

By constantly focussing on Trump's character and things like Russian influences (McCarthyism all over again, never mind the beam in thine eye) things are probably set up in such a way that Trump stays firmly in power and the Republicans keep their majority. And even if they don't, it's the Corporate Democrats that get some power back again to serve special interests again. So, corporations and rich people win either way.

What I and others have tried to make clear in the Trump thread is that some of that energy channeled towards Trump, needs to be use to either start a third party (which is very difficult) or sweep the Democratic Party clean, and get some true progressives in that can win back the trust of the people.

And so I've opened this separate thread to try and discuss with others to see if they agree, and if not, why not and what should happen instead. Why choose to die from the lesser poison, if the end result is the same?
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Neven

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #1 on: March 29, 2017, 10:44:06 PM »
So, maybe I'm wrong to do this, but I get a lot of my information from the Jimmy Dore Show, as I mostly trust comedians, because if they're funny, they're usually smart and take different perspectives on purpose because that's how comedy works.

I also watch some The Young Turks and vloggers like Sane Progressive (can't watch for very long, but she almost always makes good points) and Secular Talk, but mostly The Jimmy Dore show.

Now Jimmy Dore keeps repeating the same things about the problem of Corporate Democrats and how they are mostly to blame for the current political situation in the US, and so I will be posting his videos here that I think are most pertinent to the thread subject.

Today there's a really good one on a letter that Franklin Delano Roosevelt wanted to send to the Democratic National Convention, and how what he writes there, applies to the current situation (click the 'no longer available' link at the bottom if the video doesn't show up) :

! No longer available
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Neven

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #2 on: March 29, 2017, 10:57:40 PM »
Another good one, called Keith Ellison Scolds Progressives - 'Buck Up!' and Take it!:

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Neven

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #3 on: March 29, 2017, 11:10:06 PM »
And yet another good one (these are all recent ones, BTW, Jimmy Dore has hundreds of excellent videos), called Cartoon Reveals Exactly How Democrats Gaslight Progressives:

! No longer available

Quote from Jimmy Dore:

Quote
That's the thing that people mistake. They keep saying: 'Well, we've got to get rid of Trump, Jimmy, why don't you get rid of Trump?' We're going to get rid of Trump, but we have to have something to replace him with once we get rid of him. And right now, what we have to replace him with, is more corporatist bullshit, more wars, more bank deregulation, more tax relief for billionaires. Right now, that's what's happening.

(...)

It's the Democrats we have to fight against. We know the Republicans are going to be in the tank for corporations. It's the Democrats who give fealty to the left, but that's just rhetoric. The know all the words, the know all the populist words, like Barack Obama.

(...)

So, this is the problem with the Democratic Party and they need to have something to replace him with. They don't. What they're doing now, is gaslight their own base, which is a losing strategy. As much as 2018 should be a bloodbath for the Republicans, I don't see it happening, because the Democrats are bent on staying shitty.
« Last Edit: March 29, 2017, 11:16:08 PM by Neven »
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DrTskoul

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #4 on: March 30, 2017, 12:26:57 AM »
How about we find a way to do the same with similar politicians in Europe and Canada and Europe too. Or are they innocent and perfect there?

TerryM

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #5 on: March 30, 2017, 02:16:59 AM »
How about we find a way to do the same with similar politicians in Europe and Canada and Europe too. Or are they innocent and perfect there?
As a Canadian I can say that Trudeau has been, in some regards, a disappointment. He is doing as well as can be expected on the climate front, but is following his predecessor's belligerent stance against Putin and Russia. He was elected with the understanding that Russian relationships would be normalized, then fired his strongly pro-Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs and replaced him with a Pro-Ukrainian Russophobe.
As it stands I will be campaigning for the NDP during our next election cycle.


Terry

DrTskoul

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #6 on: March 30, 2017, 02:22:52 AM »
So everything is good and rosy in Russia that you use them as a yardstick for measuring the effectiveness of western politicians?

TerryM

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #7 on: March 30, 2017, 03:49:43 AM »
So everything is good and rosy in Russia that you use them as a yardstick for measuring the effectiveness of western politicians?
No
Canada has a long history of opposing the most horrendous aspects of the McCarthy era. We went so far as to sell wheat to starving commies when their crops failed. Cost us a lot of American good will, but goosestepping can be hard on the thighs.
I complain when politicians campaign using one story, then switch plots when elected.
Terry

budmantis

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #8 on: March 30, 2017, 04:24:04 AM »
Neven, I applaud you're starting a new thread dealing with problems in American politics. But I have to ask, why are you so interested in American politics? Although I disagreed with you for the most part late last year, I have come around to some degree with what is happening and why.

Corporate Democrats are a big part of the problem, but it is so easy to hate Trump, that most of us lose focus on what is really important. Thanks again for your efforts.

sidd

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #9 on: March 30, 2017, 06:23:28 AM »
First, a conventional but effective approach. Select your target, then think "Money." Politicians respond to nothing but money. They're sucking dick for money for re-election from day one of their term. Find their funding and attack it. Find their opponents and support them. Send faxes of every check you write to their opposition to their office, that gets their attention quick. If you include a letter stating why, suddenly the guy might take your calls and repent of his position ... don't laugh, I have had that happen before (once).

Next, here is a list of potential allies:

1) Talk to the kids (and elders and ...) that did Occupy. They have good ideas, and they have felt and fought  the power of the State on the streets and on the net.

2) Black Lives Matter

3) First Nations

4) Unions. These ain't so party line, vote the ticket Democrats anymore.

Lastly, if and when you decide to become an activist, you will be under closer scrutiny by more agencies than the usual ones. Mind how you go.

sidd


gerontocrat

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #10 on: March 30, 2017, 11:40:05 AM »
I am English, but the USA still matters to us on this side of the pond because
- the USA is the richest country in the world and is still rich in natural resources,
- the USA economy is still the strongest in the world by far,
- the USA has the first and still the only truly global military machine in the world,
- the USA still has the best science base in the world.
So when the USA sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold (or even pneumonia).

The Supreme Court decision that allowed the super PACs to be funded without limit was, for me, the worst that could happen for democracy in the USA.

Corporate America now rules both sides of the aisle (democrat and republican). Corporate America owns the media (including facebook, twitter etc). PSB was the only media channel that at least tried to talk about the environment during the Presidential election. Trump is going to defund it.

The prospects are not good. On bad days like today it is hard to see a way forward. Anybody out there with something to cheer me up?
"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
"Damn, I wanted to see what happened next" (Epitaph)

Neven

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #11 on: March 30, 2017, 01:18:15 PM »
Neven, I applaud you're starting a new thread dealing with problems in American politics. But I have to ask, why are you so interested in American politics?

For the reasons gerontocrat quotes. The USA simply is the leader of the world.

Second, I'm a victim of American cultural imperialism.  ;) That makes me at least 40% American in how I think and act.

Third, the AGW issue is one that is mostly fought out in Anglo-Saxon countries. I think almost 90% of visitors to the Arctic Sea Ice Blog and Forum hail from the US.

Quote
How about we find a way to do the same with similar politicians in Europe and Canada and Europe too. Or are they innocent and perfect there?

Sure, and you're free to open a thread, but I think the US is also leading in this form of corruption. Do you agree with me that things can only be solved if the Democratic Party is swept clean first? Or do you prefer a third party?
The enemy is within
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johnm33

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #12 on: March 30, 2017, 02:00:20 PM »
Back when the US took over the Spanish empire an american politician or general made a speech about the system to be imposed on Cuba, along the lines of "Oh they can have democracy they can vote for whoever they like because all the candidates will be our men". This is the model you have since imposed everywhere, even at home [well almost, Russia, Iran, China and North Korea are holdouts but your working on them, and some others are works in 'progress']. So everyone has some interest in how this works out for you.
I'm a benthamite so populist if you like, and think that life is about more than money, and that we should not have our lifespace/world defined by the needs of deathless entities. The simplest way to democratise the evolution of our lifespace would be to create money as needed backed by the promise of individual citizens, that is that Gov. lends money into existence as debt to each of us. This is how most  money is created anyway but by those same deathless entities, who presently levy a 'tax' of 40% in upstream interest charges on every transaction. With the political will we could create 'money' on a bitcoin type protocol where everyone has a similar credit limit [in the Gov. bank] and could draw on it as necessary, lets say at 2% interest and impose an unavoidable charge of 5% on every transaction to be deducted from the debt. The US currently has about $250 trillion of debt and unfunded liabilities i'm suggesting you should divide that by the number of adult citizens and lend it to them incrementally over 12-15 years, allow them to draw up to the annual amount to pay down any existing debt, the liabilities are after all to be born by the citizens on e way or another.

TerryM

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #13 on: March 30, 2017, 09:37:11 PM »
Gaslight and Benthamite in one thread!!
I take a modicum of pride in my vocabulary, and to have two additions in such short order is an impressive indication of the level of discourse we sometime attain.


kudos


I've always loved the movie, but was unaware that gaslight had crept into the language, probably stealthily, through an opening in the attic. As far as Benthamite goes it's a philosophy I've long espoused without knowing that it had a name.
"The greatest happiness for the greatest number", it has a nice ring to it.


When I was ~10, my father sent my to the local library with instructions to come back with a philosophy to live by. I scanned through as far as Hedonism, then paused.

The concept of having pleasure as ones primary goal appealed then, and still does.
If living under a vow of poverty gives you pleasure then by all means renounce what wealth you have.
If debauchery is your thing, have at it.


My parent was horrified by my choice, I in turn wondered why he was asking a 10 year old to consider such things. I hadn't even discovered the fairer sex.


If Benthamites are advocating maximizing everyone's pleasure, they'll get no resistance from me.


Thanks John
Terry

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #14 on: March 30, 2017, 11:11:21 PM »
"The USA simply is the leader of the world.".

While it is correct to say the USA is presently dominant in economics, sciences and the military, the first two are under challenge and the last is not perhaps as much of an asset as a drain. Of course the military does superbly what it is designed to do, which is to siphon money directly from my pocket to that of defense contractors. However, that design also hurts the economy of the USA.

"Leader" is a strong term. I, for one, do not wish to be "led" anywhere in the direction the USA is going. Rather, I would say, the USA is merely the latest bully on the block, one that is becoming more dangerous today as its power declines.

As to whether a third party is needed, I think reform of the Democratic party is probably as difficult as establishing a third party.

sidd

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #15 on: March 30, 2017, 11:18:35 PM »
Thank you Terry, I've long appreciated your contributions here too.

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #16 on: March 31, 2017, 01:42:58 AM »
The notion of extracting business and corporations from American politics is a tall order indeed.  A 19 trillion dollar economy by realistic definition is pervasively embedded across all elements and structures of US society, and by extension throughout the world.  Really, there are very few places to hide from the almighty $.

Reversing Citizens United would be a start, although that is very unlikely in the near future.  But even if you shed that high court ruling, you still have the entrenched lobbying industry and culture that has accompanied US politics for generations.  And there is an interplay between government and business that will always persist even with changes to the influence of dollars on politics.


 

sidd

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #17 on: March 31, 2017, 05:39:44 AM »
Re: Citizen's United decision

A more liberal supreme court might find grounds to change their minds, but i think real change will come from the ground up. I am quite impressed that the republicans only need 3 or 4 states more for enuf control to call a  constitutional convention on their own.

Susan Anderson

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #18 on: April 01, 2017, 11:31:35 PM »
I've been shy about entering into this argument because I knew I would have to commit some real time to it. I've been struggling with these issues for years, and while not disagreeing about the need to make these changes, I strongly disagree with the assumption that circular firing squads, buying into Republican and Russian victim-blaming tactics, and wholesale condemnation of pragmatists and moderates is practical, or even in some cases desirable, as it will keep the perpetrators in charge. They are not "the same". Democrats are appalled at Citizens' United, which was actually a case about an attack movie on Clinton. HillaryHateTM is a thing. I'm not thrilled by her affect myself, but she's not the monster opposition work has made her out to be.

I'll be expanding materials about this and returning to check responses. I'm not an absolutist about it; Neven's criticisms are valid. There are reports, on my side of the pond, of people with serious health issues - heart attack level anxiety - and the increase in hate crimes and abuse is staggering.

Outside the US, intelligent reporting is available from http://www.newyorker.com/ (monthly limit of free material), the original home of Jane Mayer's Dark Money and Elizabeth Kolbert, for example.

I am troubled by accusations and absolutism that are likely to keep Democrats divided. I was disappointed to see Republican- and (we now know) Russian-driven attack language about Hillary Clinton and "they're all the same", repeated by naive, young, or simplistic thinkers. That's how Trump was elected; he's a genius at advertising and used progressive language when he saw how successful it was.

There are plenty of good public servants on the Democratic side (I am represented in Massachusetts by Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, true blue). We should not be so eager to accuse pragmatists doing their best. Blaming victims doesn't help.

This might keep Republicans in power for many years to come. Jill Stein was a terrible candidate, not a true green, and would have been much shriller and more exploitative than Hillary given opportunity.

Kurt Eichenwald spelled it out here: The Myths Democrats Swallowed That Cost Them the Presidential Election

Quote
A certain kind of liberal makes me sick. These people traffic in false equivalencies, always pretending that both nominees are the same, justifying their apathy and not voting or preening about their narcissistic purity as they cast their ballot for a person they know cannot win. .... liberal Democrats—just like too many Republicans—have been consumed by provably false conspiracy theories. They have trafficked in them on Facebook and Twitter, they have read only websites that confirm what they want to believe, and they have ... unknowingly gulped down Russian propaganda with delight. In other words, just like the conservatives they belittle, they have been inside a media bubble that blocked them from reality. So before proceeding, let’s address a few fantasies about this campaign:

1. The Myth of the All-Powerful Democratic National Committee

Easily the most ridiculous argument this year was that the DNC was some sort of monolith that orchestrated the nomination of Hillary Clinton against the will of “the people.”
....
Next, the infamous hack of DNC emails that “proved” the organization had its thumb on the scale for Clinton. Perhaps nothing has been more frustrating for people in the politics business to
The “scandalous” DNC emails were hacked by people working with the Kremlin, then misrepresented online by Russian propagandists to gullible fools who never checked the dates of the documents. And the media, which in the flurry of breathless stories about the emails would occasionally mention that they were all dated after any rational person knew the nomination was Clinton’s, fed into the misinformation.

There's plenty of detail in the article but this post is already too long. The material under this header covers potential Republican opposition materials etc.

Quote
2. The Myth That Sanders Would Have Won Against Trump
« Last Edit: April 01, 2017, 11:47:38 PM by Susan Anderson »

sidd

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #19 on: April 02, 2017, 08:31:58 AM »
In reply to Susan Anderson:

1)"I disagree with the assumption that ... wholesale condemnation of pragmatists and moderates is practical, or even in some cases desirable ... "

Agree on that clause. Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown have my support for example. Cory Booker, not so much.

2) I am not convinced by available evidence  that "Russian driven attack" swung the election.

3) Division within the Democratic party is inevitable if corporate/PAC influence is to be purged.

4) I have read Eichenwald  and to me he remains an uncredible voice of the Democratic Party power structure.

5) After thinking about it, reform of the Democratic party seems harder than setting up a new party.

Other thoughts:

This was a very close election which was swung by democrats disgusted with Clinton staying home and desperate rural folk showing up to vote, many for the first time, for Trump.I see no attempt by the democratic party to reach out to those recalcitrant democrats other than abusing them for swallowing russian propaganda, or demanding "impossible" purity from their candidates No attempt to reach out to the poor sods in places like Shamokin, PA or Bucyrus OH who actually showed up an pulled the lever for Trump. No attempt to win back the union vote in Marion or Mansfield or Lordstown OH where all the union reps toed the democratic party line supporting Clinton and all the rank and file did not.

When you get accustomed to voting for the lesser evil, eventually you wind up with candidates like Hilary Clinton. I think she was possibly the only democratic candidate who coulda lost to Trump. Don't get me wrong, I also think Trump was the only Republican candidate who coulda lost to Clinton, someone like Jeb Bush would have won in a walk, because as Ms Anderson has pointed out, she carries a lot of baggage, many dont trust her. But he couldnt beat Trump so he quit, and that says a lot about the people voting in the republican primaries.

I have asked elsewhere before and I repeat my question: does anyone else here know a person that voted for Trump ? I dont mean on  the net, I mean in real life. And have they asked them why ?

sidd

Bruce Steele

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #20 on: April 02, 2017, 04:30:35 PM »
Sidd, In answer to your question I believe Trump was a populist and said a lot of things , people heard what they wanted to hear. I have several friends and relatives that voted for Trump. I have talked to them. They were republicans before the vote and each has a different reason for voting Trump. A fairly well educated one told me he didn't support Trumps climate views but he was voting for a restriction on Muslim immigration. He has married someone who comes from a part of the world where there is a history of Christian / Muslim divide and violence.
 I have been a fisherman most of my life and fishermen tend to vote conservative. Many of us feel we have been dealt with unfairly by liberal politics, lawyers and the environmental community in general.
I get some of those same problems even here on the forum. You can deal with what you feel are injustices by getting angry or by trying to push the stone back up the mountain one more time. That is injustice and an angry response revolves around your belief in your own ability to change the system or other people's opinion....pushing the stone. There are however plenty of angry people I know and breaking things to them is better than the status quo. They voted Trump. Things may break, I am not sure they will be happy with the results.

mati

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #21 on: April 02, 2017, 04:58:23 PM »
You cannot fix american politics until you get rid of the insane amount of money funneled to the politicians.  Or funneled to sock puppet organizations.

and so it goes

Susan Anderson

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #22 on: April 02, 2017, 06:50:54 PM »
I wouldn't engage here if I weren't desperately worried that splitting Democrats down the middle is likely to enable continuing Republican domination. In the end, I hold close one principle, despite all the argumentation: the only person I can really change is myself. That makes much of what I say hypothetical. I straddle the fence; were it possible to wave a magic wand and enact Warren's ideas I would do so in a heartbeat. But ignoring practical reality and the "sausage-making" of compromise and governing is and remains a losing strategy. And for heaven's sakes, Jill Stein is an opportunist waving the flag of attack; there's no healing there.

Michael Moore's Stupid White Men talked about the way money in elections and power-hungry entities (the Kochtopus, the Mercers, before them Rove; the Randian rot beginning with Reagan about cutting taxes for the rich being something that works; the throbbing tones used to claim the superrich are "job creators") has become an American export. History is full of takeovers by the wealthy and powerful; it seems to be the norm rather than the exception. Other useful takes on the media/wealth nexus are Orwell's 1984 (sales are way up) and Al Gore's The Assault on Reason, which came out shortly after AIT.

We now have a takeover of the Supreme Court in immediate view, and defeating Clinton - for whatever reason (Russian enhanced Republican opposition work and Comey's attacks did influence not only those who voted for Trump but the wholesale hatred on display (I won't go into that here, but have materials to support my view); she did win by nearly 3 million votes) - means we will have a highest court invested in enabling money and power over people for a generation. A close look at Gorsuch reveals a man who has repeatedly ruled for corporations and wealth over victims and people.

It is easy to carp from the sidelines, demonstrate, and make extravagant claims, but breaking up our opposition into opposing camps will empower the kleptocracy.

In Europe, the same phenomenon is demonstrated most particularly in overt Russian support and hactivists working to create prejudice in favor of Marine le Pen, who is actively coordinating with Putin and receiving financial support as well. Brexit was supported by this hacking as well.

Their goal is to create exactly the distrust and division you see in operation here.

Susan Anderson

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #23 on: April 02, 2017, 07:20:39 PM »
I forgot to mention voter suppression and voting rights, another thing Gorsuch and our current Republicans are accelerating. This is something I've followed closely since the late 1990s. It's another way corporate money is shutting down the possibility of reform, and it is horribly much worse. http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/Democracy,_Voter_Rights,_and_Federal_Power. It's a big piece of the Koch operation.

Also, I just came across this: http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2017/04/uw-professor-information-war-is-real.html

Quote
It started with the Boston marathon bombing, four years ago. University of Washington professor Kate Starbird was sifting through thousands of tweets sent in the aftermath and noticed something strange. ....

“There was a significant volume of social-media traffic that blamed the Navy SEALs for the bombing, ... It was real tinfoil-hat stuff. So we ignored it.”

Same thing after the mass shooting that killed nine at Umpqua Community College in Oregon: a burst of social-media activity calling the massacre a fake, a stage play by “crisis actors” for political purposes.

“After every mass shooting, dozens of them, there would be these strange clusters of activity,” Starbird says. “It was so fringe we kind of laughed at it.

“That was a terrible mistake. We should have been studying it.”

Starbird is in the field of “crisis informatics,” or how information flows after a disaster. She got into it to see how social media might be used for the public good, such as to aid emergency responders.

Instead she’s gone down a dark rabbit hole, one that wends through the back warrens of the web and all the way up to the White House.

Starbird argues ... that these “strange clusters” of wild conspiracy talk, when mapped, point to an emerging alternative media ecosystem on the web of surprising power and reach.


Susan Anderson

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #24 on: April 02, 2017, 08:45:47 PM »
Speaking of corporate Democrats, Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse has come out with a new book on the direct connection between Citizen's United and climate inaction: http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/what-makes-sheldon-whitehouse-angry

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It’s unbelievably important to Rhode Island, ... Right now our coastal-resources agency is predicting nine to twelve feet of sea-level rise in this century. .... Whitehouse’s wife, Sandra Whitehouse, is a marine biologist ...

Whitehouse arrived in the Senate in 2007, at a time when the recognition of global warming, as well as the fight against it, often had bipartisan support. “When I was sworn in, we had Republican-sponsored climate-change bills all over the place,” he told me, “You had John McCain running for President in 2008 on a strong climate platform. You could see American democracy actually starting to work at solving a difficult problem.”

But the momentum on the issue stopped suddenly in 2010, he said, with the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United case. As Whitehouse sees it, the Supreme Court ruling in that and other related cases freed corporate interests, especially oil-and-gas companies, to browbeat Republican legislators into withdrawing support for any climate-change legislation. “The fossil-fuel industry acted like a sprinter off at a gunshot,” he said. “They told the Republicans, ‘Game over, no more crossing us or we will fuck you up.’ “ Whitehouse saw the 2010 defeat, in a Republican primary, of Bob Inglis, a congressman from South Carolina who had embraced climate science, as a critical event. “Americans for Prosperity”—the political organization tied to the Koch brothers—“said publicly that anybody who crossed them on climate change would be severely disadvantaged,” Whitehouse said. “They took credit for the political peril that they had created in stopping any Republican from going the green-energy route.”


sidd

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #25 on: April 02, 2017, 09:22:23 PM »
Thanks Mr. Steele, for engaging with Trump supporters. Apparently the two of us are the only ones here who know any.

Ms. Anderson: Re: fears of continued Republican domination: Do you recall, when Trump was rolling up the primaries, there was much jubilation among Democrats foretelling the breakup of the Republican party ? This was quickly forgotten after their loss in the elections, but i think they were correct.  This election has exposed the huge fissures in both Republican and Democratic parties, and that is why i think new parties have more of a chance than before.

In a larger sense, I think the USA must give up Empire abroad in exchange for comity at home. Very few Empires have done so successfully, and none have done so willingly.

sidd

Neven

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #26 on: April 02, 2017, 09:39:40 PM »
So, who are the Democratic politicians we can trust to serve the interests of the people. And who aren't?

Whitehouse is a straight shooter, as is Warren (because Susan says so, and my wife's name is Elisabeth as well ;) ) , but I really dislike what I've seen of Cory Booker, Tom Perez, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer. I don't know enough about American politics to know all the names.

Needless to say, I deem the Clintons and Obama to have been huge disappointments.

Sanders has shown the way to go, but I'm sometimes surprised at how much he puts up with, especially after all the trickery and gaslighting that has taken place to make sure he lost the primaries.
The enemy is within
Don't confuse me with him

E. Smith

sidd

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #27 on: April 02, 2017, 10:48:20 PM »
Sherrod Brown of ohio is a reasonable democrat also.

TerryM

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #28 on: April 02, 2017, 11:43:06 PM »
Susan A


I find little to argue with in your recent trifecta.
Before there was much of an internet I used to buy Michael Moore's latest in bulk, to distribute to those fence sitters I interacted with. I'd read everything Orwell wrote before I turned 20, protested Reagan when he was Governor Ray Gun, and even got "Clean for Gene".


As sidd noted their has been a split in both parties. Trump's greatest loss to date was when he fought the Koch Brothers on the health care issue. Proof that the enemy of my enemy is defiantly not my friend!


I read recently that those favoring Trump also favor Putin. This is certainly not true in my case. I loath Trump and admire Putin, primarily because I spent ~2 years following the Ukrainian brouhaha and couldn't help but notice Putin's actions in response to attacks.
I don't believe any Supreme Court Nominee could be any worse than Scalia, and as it's he who is being replaced the balance simply reverts to where it had been. Any further die offs and replacements on the bench will however swing the court for decades.
It wasn't Trump that blocked Obama's pick, rather the GOP.


Having once owned a business in the Umpqua region I can verify to any interested that these are unemployed lumber jacks, still pissed off over spotted owls. The shootings were not a total shock.


Re. Brexit I can't comment on covert Russian maneuvering, it's covert you know, but I remember well Putin's hands off approach leading up to the referendum. I think Putin favored Britain remaining within the EU, but he never publicly committed one way or another.


Would we be further ahead if we were fighting Trump about his environmental stance. It's generally conceded that this is what brought down Harper in Canada, and I for one believe it would have a chance in the US, if the opposition wasn't fixated on fighting on two fronts. Bringing down Putin as well as Trump may be a bridge too far.


Terry

sidd

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #29 on: April 03, 2017, 06:08:08 AM »
I think Tulsi Gabbard might be reasonable on some matters.

Susan Anderson

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #30 on: April 03, 2017, 08:19:03 PM »
Hillary Clinton had a whole lot more to put up with, over the decades, than Bernie Sanders. It is distressing to hear victim-blaming per Republican opposition work from outside the US. In fact, Bernie contributed to this problem by oversimplifying and blaming her for things she didn't do, and sticking to his simple narrative. He's terrific, but fanning the flames of conflict within the Democratic party continues to enable the real corporate party, the current version of the Republicans in power, and their billionaire networks (Kochtopus, Mercers, et al.). And power they have. Wholesale condemnation of compromise is easy until you get to work trying to actually do stuff.

My opinion is that burning down the house leaves you homeless, and that there are real enemies around. I could go, point by point, down the list of lies about Hillary, starting in the early 1990s, but it is frustrating that good people are still stuck in those weeds, which are deliberately fostered by Republicans. I'm not particularly fond of her, but I did a lot of hard work tracing down the sources of, for example, the idea that the Clinton Foundation is corrupt. It's a well respected charity and has helped over a hundred million people with health care and been very active with, for example, planting trees in Africa.

There are plenty of stories with a grain of truth about mistakes they made, and there is the "problem" of their acquisition of wealth, but using connections to the rich and powerful to do good should not justify anyone saying the Clinton Foundation is just like the Trump Foundation. The Clinton Foundation is complicated, imperfect, but in no way is the Trump Foundation in any way a vehicle to find better ways to help people. Those speeches on Wall Street and some of her participation before that were about things like promoting women. Sure, with 20/20 hindsight she should have at the least publicly donated her fees to charity.

We have reason to condemn Kissinger with perfect hindsight, and Hillary's alliance with him appears to be a bad sign. Her "militarism" is also not as represented. She did not single-handedly mess up the Middle East. If there is one party that made that worse, it is Republicans.

On Benghazi, it was Chaffetz and Republicans who voted to defund embassy security and spent millions and years trying to pin the result, with considerable success, on Clinton.

The email "scandal" about setting up a private server is pure bullshit, magnified and recycled and misrepresented by clever opportunists. The State Department and government servers were both hacked, leaving over 22 million IDs vulnerable in 2015. When Bush 2 deleted millions of emails, it was forgotten.

Yes, many of us find her hair and makeup, pastel pantsuits and kitten heels, less attractive than people like Angela Merkel, Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi. The sounds of her voice and speechmaking abilities left a great deal to be desired: a failure of charisma. But no man would be judged on appearance in that way.

As soon as people get elected (Bill Clinton, Barack Obama) they encounter the realities of how things are set up. It doesn't help, for example, that people have forgotten that it was not Bill Clinton who got rid of Glass Steagall, but the opposition.

There is a problem of entrenched power, kleptocracy, and stealing from the poor and public institutions that work to give to the rich. But there are very few democrats who approve of this. People's lists of not OK Democrats leave out a whole lot of stuff. Cory Booker, Chuck Schumer, come on! Hating people achieves nothing.

Blaming victims for what perpetrators do, and rewriting history, is not helping.

My next post, while will be separate, is all about a very fine and interesting new effort by Bernie Sanders. Though simplistic solutions are not as easy as he (and some of you) make them sound, this effort seems very much worth following.

Lastly, here is a link to an article that describes what Hillary actually did and stood for, and a sizable extract for those who won't go to the link. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/31/the-new-yorker-endorses-hillary-clinton

Quote
We are in the midst of a people’s revolt, a great debate concerning income inequality, the “hollowing” of the middle, globalization’s winners and losers. If the tribune whom the voters of the Republican Party have chosen is a false one, we cannot dismiss the message because we deplore the messenger. The white working-class voters who form the core of Trump’s support—and who were once a Democratic constituency—should not have their anxieties and suffering written off. Their struggle with economic abandonment and an incomplete health-care system demands airing, understanding, and political solutions.

Hillary Clinton’s vision and temperament are the opposite of her opponent’s. She has been a pioneer throughout her life, and yet her career cannot be easily reduced to one transcendent myth: she has been an idealist and a liberal incrementalist, a glass-ceiling-smashing lawyer and a cautious establishmentarian, a wife and mother, a First Lady, a rough-and-tumble political operator, a senator, a Secretary of State. Her story is about walking through flames and emerging changed, warier and more determined. In her intelligence, in her gimlet-eyed recognition of both the limits and the possibilities of government, she’s a particular kind of inspirational figure, a pragmatist and a Democratic moderate. We wish that Clinton faced a worthy opponent: she deserves a less sullied, more substantive win. But her claim to our support goes far beyond the nihilism of the alternative. It is also notable that she has chosen as a running mate Tim Kaine, a highly capable politician with a record of genuine compassion; by contrast, the Republican Vice-Presidential choice, Mike Pence, has tried to position himself for the future on the national stage but has distinguished himself as one of the country’s most fiercely anti-gay politicians, declaring that marriage freedom would lead to “societal collapse.”

What she does offer is a series of thoughtful and energetic proposals that present precisely the kind of remedies that could improve the lives of many working-class and poor Americans of all races. She would simplify the tax code for small businesses and streamline their licensing requirements. She would increase health-care tax credits through the Affordable Care Act, which, in theory, would both expand coverage and reduce the burden on employers. She would also seek to expand access to Medicaid and would extend Medicare to people as young as fifty-five. She would substantially increase funding for community health centers and provide significant federal support for child care. And her college-affordability plan would help students refinance debt, and support states that subsidize tuition.

Clinton’s tax plans are also designed to promote broader-based affluence. She would increase the tax rate on short-term capital gains for high earners, with lower rates for longer-term holdings; close the “carried-interest” tax loophole that favors hedge-fund managers; and levy fees on banks with high debt levels. She would impose a four-per-cent surcharge on incomes above five million dollars a year, and adopt a minimum thirty-per-cent tax rate on incomes above a million dollars a year. She supports an “exit tax” and other fiscal adjustments that would discourage so-called corporate inversion—the offshoring of companies to tax havens like Ireland. And she proposes tax incentives for investing in towns that have faced significant losses in manufacturing jobs. To address the compounding effects of trade and technology on displaced workers, she would promote training, and include a tax credit for businesses that take on apprentices. She would allocate $275 billion over five years to infrastructure improvement, focussing on transit and water systems, which should create employment while reducing inefficiencies.

In general, Clinton’s tax plan is less advantageous to the financial industry and more conducive to jobs-intensive enterprises. Despite her reputation for being overly solicitous of Wall Street, Clinton has strong proposals to prevent large financial institutions from taking on risks that could derail the economy again. She promises to defend the Dodd-Frank reforms (which Trump, like all the Republican candidates, has pledged to overturn) and to build on them. She would impose new fees on risk; strengthen the Volcker Rule, which prevents banks from making potentially disastrous bets with government-backed deposits; and bring regulatory light into the so-called shadow banking system, where much of the 2008 financial crisis began. She would demand that hedge funds and other large financial firms provide far more information to regulators about their trading activity, and her Administration would prevent those firms from becoming so overleveraged that a faulty bet could bankrupt them and lead to widespread economic crisis.

Susan Anderson

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #31 on: April 03, 2017, 08:43:53 PM »
Yesterday I was informed that Bernie has opened up a new TV Channel. Great stuff! I don't do Facebook, but no doubt one of you can provide a more direct link to the actual show:
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/democrats-vs-trump/sanders-show-welcome-bernie-tv-n741571

In case NBC has blocked overseas, here's another link: http://www.salon.com/2017/04/03/forget-trump-tv-bernie-sanders-has-struck-gold-with-his-new-online-show/ "Forget Trump TV. Bernie Sanders has struck gold with his new Facebook Live show"
--
I think I've pretty much said my piece, and perhaps some are thinking, "enough already".  For those too ready to condemn Podesta, I don't think his Earth2100, which aired on prime time TV (ABC) in June of 2009, when we were all still hopeful, can be viewed overseas. So I provide the Wikipedia link. His Center for American Progress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress was and is a fine resource and continues to get the truth out about climate and global warming.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_2100

Quote
It's an idea that most of us would rather not face -- that within the next century, life as we know it could come to an end. Our civilization could crumble, leaving only traces of modern human existence behind.

It seems outlandish, extreme -- even impossible. But according to cutting edge scientific research, it is a very real possibility. And unless we make drastic changes now, it could very well happen.
 
Experts have a stark warning: that unless we change course, the "perfect storm" of population growth, dwindling resources and climate change has the potential to converge in the next century with catastrophic results.

bosbas

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #32 on: April 03, 2017, 10:07:16 PM »
Having lived in the US for 13 years, I think I learned a lot about what in EU we call corruption is totally legal in US. I was hopeful when Scalia died that we could finally get a progressive to replace him, something needed to overturn Citizens United, but I was never sure Obama''s choice would make that happen. Now it seems we're going back to again decades long lack of progress.  And I agree we need more Elisabeth Warren (my wife''s name is Elisabeth also) but it will be hard as the whole electoral structure is so supportive of a 2 party system that they need to make changes to those outdated formulas.

TerryM

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #33 on: April 04, 2017, 01:16:06 AM »
I think Tulsi Gabbard might be reasonable on some matters.


A very good candidate in my opinion.




Hillary lost even though she outspent Trump by 2/1, or some such figure.


https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/2016/11/09/another-way-trumps-bid-changed-politics/93565370/


This is encouraging as it shows that a huge war chest, and having a highly recognized political name isn't enough to win an election.
This time it worked in Trump's favor, but in 2020 it's Trump that will probably have these advantages. If Hillary could lose to an upstart with no political background, it's possible that Trump could also fall to the right candidate. If Hillary lost even with much deeper pockets, perhaps wall street money isn't as important as it once was.


Tulsi seems to have some support from both sides of the aisle, almost uniquely so. Once a soldier, now a peace advocate with strong green credentials.


https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/2016/11/09/another-way-trumps-bid-changed-politics/93565370/


Perhaps our best prospect for 2020, recognizing that 2020 is a long way off.


Terry

sidd

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #34 on: April 04, 2017, 06:06:17 AM »
Either purging corporate democrats or starting independent movement is uphill climb. I will stick to the first since that is the topic of this thread. I would begin with finding primary opponents to the most obnoxious corporate democrats and send money, time and effort their way.  This includes state and local elections. You might elect a good president, but have the same corrupt legislatures.

Although, the more I think about this, the more I feel that both major parties in the USA are beyond redemption. Both parties are parties of Empire. Change must come from the street.

sidd

Jim Pettit

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #35 on: April 04, 2017, 12:45:32 PM »
I think Tulsi Gabbard might be reasonable on some matters.
A very good candidate in my opinion.

Hillary lost even though she outspent Trump by 2/1, or some such figure.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/2016/11/09/another-way-trumps-bid-changed-politics/93565370/

This is encouraging as it shows that a huge war chest, and having a highly recognized political name isn't enough to win an election.
This time it worked in Trump's favor, but in 2020 it's Trump that will probably have these advantages. If Hillary could lose to an upstart with no political background, it's possible that Trump could also fall to the right candidate. If Hillary lost even with much deeper pockets, perhaps wall street money isn't as important as it once was.

Tulsi seems to have some support from both sides of the aisle, almost uniquely so. Once a soldier, now a peace advocate with strong green credentials.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/2016/11/09/another-way-trumps-bid-changed-politics/93565370/

Perhaps our best prospect for 2020, recognizing that 2020 is a long way off.

Terry

There were a number of reasons Clinton lost the electoral vote. Many of the reasons were her fault, of course, but nowhere near all of them were. After all, it's tough to go up against centuries of misogyny; against a lazy/complicit press obsessed with the horse race, one which by their own admission tended to grade Trump on a curve, setting the bar for decorum and experience and policy chops far higher for her than for him; against that same press that, by objective measures, granted Trump the equivalent of about $2 billion worth of free and mostly positive air time and column inches; against a coordinated and widespread Russian disinformation campaign; against unprecedented and absolutely baseless last minute meddling by the FBI director; against a man whose name is emblazoned in huge gold letters atop upscale properties around the globe; and, of course, the electoral college system, which undemocratically withheld the trophy from the candidate who received millions more votes and instead handed it to the one who received millions fewer. So of course Clinton outspent Trump by a wide margin; she had to in her attempt to overcome his many built-in advantages. Given that, I think the writer of that USA Today article was a bit premature in that assessment.

Having said that, and lest anyone misunderstand: I absolutely want the Clintons to just fade away. I appreciate their decades of service. But now they need to go, and take Chelsea with them. Despite their many stances that align with my own, the Clintons remain the embodiment of the corporatist Democrat, and that just isn't working for us. Period.

Anyway: Gabbard is okay. She hasn't done everything I would have, but that's a pretty impossible standard. ;-) Not so sure she has as much bipartisan support as you state, however; her pro-choice, pro-immigrant, pro-LGBT, pro-environment stances will *never* go over well with the Fox News crowd, though I suppose her occasional out-of-character anti-Muslim mumblings might endear her to a few of them. But we'll see...

So far as being our best prospect for 2020, I'd say this: if Democrats don't take back a bunch of seats in 2018, winning the White House in 2020 won't mean much of anything at all.

Susan Anderson

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #36 on: April 04, 2017, 05:16:50 PM »
I spent some time and energy supporting Tom Wakely, who challenged Lamar Smith. It supports the arguments against "corporate" Democrats, as they didn't support him, though to be fair one might acknowledge that the odds against him were so large that it was a losing battle.

Another good example is Col. Applegate (D), who lost to Darrell Issa (R) by 1500 votes. There was an unintended consequence, which is that Issa has shifted his position and is now one of the few Republicans publicly acknowledging climate change (in California, as in Massachusetts, it is likely that Republicans, like my Governor Charlie Baker, would accept reality).

The four Democrats supporting Gorsuch do so for reasons of their constituencies, but I'm inclined to take a firm line about them. For me it's the ultimate test of morality, and exemplifies for me the line that cannot be crossed, no matter how practical it might be for getting a Democrat elected on their home turf. You could say that I simply draw the line a little to the right of some of you, and can be just as impractical when my principles are breached. (Gorsuch is for torture, voter suppression and opposing voting rights, corporations over people, against women's independence, and no doubt opposed to action on climate change. He's one of the worst.)

I'm all for shifting towards firmer action on all this horrible stuff in primaries, but Bernie attacked one of my heroes, Barney Frank, and that is characteristic of his scorched earth tactics towards people he opposes. People who work to overturn the real villains should not then be lumped in with the villains because (a) they didn't succeed and (b) the real villains find it convenient to blame the victims and recruit allies from amongst people who should be opposed to them or (c) they aren't "pure" enough. It's taken getting old (I'm 68) to realize that my strivings towards perfection could be part of the problem, and that doing one's best and sometimes failing is human and the solution is tolerance.

Social networks are now constructed so that people don't have to hear from or talk to anyone they don't agree with, and my complaint is that in some regions of the internet (and geography) people who say the kind of things I've been saying here are ostracized and what is valid about what I am trying to say is dismissed out of hand.

Overall, we need to do a much better job of working together to solve problems. One good example is the Tea Party's espousal of solar energy.

Tom Perez is one of the good guys, not one of the bad guys. Bernie bullied people about that, and it doesn't help.

Susan Anderson

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #37 on: April 04, 2017, 05:33:16 PM »
There was a good summary of Hillary's history and ideas in the Guardian yesterday:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2017/apr/03/the-destruction-of-hillary-clinton-sexism-sanders-and-the-millennial-feminists

Other "dueling" articles are characteristic of the angry oversimplifications and self-righteous victim-blaming. https://www.google.com/search?q=guardian+hillary+clinton

sidd

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #38 on: April 05, 2017, 08:55:19 PM »
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/democrats-are-still-ignoring-the-people-who-could-have-helped-them-defeat-trump-ohio-party-leaders-say/2017/04/04/405295e0-0428-11e7-ad5b-d22680e18d10_story.html

No change by Democratic party seen in the Rust Belt. Until they listen to the rank and file, they will keep losing.

"The party’s comeback strategy was being steered by protesters, consultants and elitists from New York and California who have no idea what voters in middle America care about."

“It doesn’t matter how much we scream and holler about jobs and the economy at the local level. Our national leaders still don’t get it,”

"Since the election, Democrats have been swallowed up in an unending cycle of outrage and issues that have little to do with the nation’s working class ..."

"Most people around here don’t care. They are living paycheck to paycheck, just trying to hold on. After everything that’s happened, if we as a party still aren’t speaking to them, then we are never getting them back"

" ... 18 of his own Democratic precinct captains had crossed party lines to vote for Trump."

" “Saving jobs used to be what our f---ing party was all about,” he said, pounding his fist into the bar. "

"That geographic disconnect has translated into policies that alienate the heartland, Kaptur said, overlooking, for example, the devastation of globalized free trade on places such as Ohio. “They paid lip service to it, but the underlying attitude was, ‘You’re not modern enough, not educated enough, not willing to adjust,’ ” Kaptur said. "

Read the whole thing.

sidd


Neven

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #39 on: April 08, 2017, 12:30:02 AM »
There was a good summary of Hillary's history and ideas in the Guardian yesterday:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2017/apr/03/the-destruction-of-hillary-clinton-sexism-sanders-and-the-millennial-feminists

Reading that article I then followed a link to this Guardian article titled Everyone loves Bernie Sanders. Except, it seems, the Democratic party:
Quote
If you look at the numbers, Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in America – and it’s not even close. Yet bizarrely, the Democratic party – out of power across the country and increasingly irrelevant – still refuses to embrace him and his message. It’s increasingly clear they do so at their own peril.

(...)

One would think with numbers like that, Democratic politicians would be falling all over themselves to be associated with Sanders, especially considering the party as a whole is more unpopular than the Republicans and even Donald Trump right now. Yet instead of embracing his message, the establishment wing of the party continues to resist him at almost every turn, and they seem insistent that they don’t have to change their ways to gain back the support of huge swaths of the country.

(...)

But hand wringing by Democratic officials over 2018 candidates is really just the latest example: the establishment wing of the party aggressively ran another opponent against Keith Ellison, Sanders’ choice to run the Democratic National Committee, seemingly with the primary motivation to keep the party away from Sanders’ influence.

They’ve steadfastly refused to take giant corporations head on in the public sphere and wouldn’t even return to an Obama-era rule that banned lobbyist money from funding the DNC that was rescinded last year. And despite the broad popularity of the government guaranteeing health care for everyone, they still have not made any push for a Medicare-for-all plan that Sanders has long called for as a rebuttal to Republicans’ attempt to dismantle Obamacare.

Democrats seem more than happy to put all the blame of the 2016 election on a combination of Russia and James Comey and have engaged in almost zero introspection on the root causes of the larger reality: they are also out of power in not the presidency, but both also houses of Congress, governorships and state houses across the country as well.

As Politico reported on the Democrats’ post-Trump strategy in February, “Democratic aides say they will eventually shift to a positive economic message that Rust Belt Democrats can run on”. However: “For now, aides say, the focus is on slaying the giant and proving to the voters who sent Trump into the White House why his policies will fail.”

In other words, they’re doubling down on the exact same failing strategy that Clinton used in the final months of the campaign. Sanders himself put it this way in his usual blunt style in an interview with New York magazine this week – when asked about whether the Democrats can adapt to the political reality, he said: “There are some people in the Democratic Party who want to maintain the status quo. They would rather go down with the Titanic so long as they have first-class seats.”
The enemy is within
Don't confuse me with him

E. Smith

Neven

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #40 on: April 08, 2017, 12:33:25 AM »
And that led me to this Guardian article, The anti-Trump resistance will fail if we don't ditch establishment Democrats , of which I quote the final two paragraphs:

Quote
Trump is bad and needs to resisted, we all know that. But the Sanders left and its allies are the only force in the US that have the ideas that can win an immediate majority in this country: a class-based movement for jobs and justice. That vision must triumph over not just Trump, but the Democratic leadership.

Because, frankly, it might be the last hope for democratic politics in this country. Now more than ever we need something to fight for, not just something to fight against.
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E. Smith

Neven

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #41 on: April 08, 2017, 12:39:28 AM »
And then this one, The Clintons turned the Democratic party over to donors. Can it recover?:

Quote
The people gathered for the glum get-together, including hedge fund managers and media titans, had built the most formidable fundraising network ever seen in American politics. They pumped more than $4bn into various Clinton campaigns and related political and charitable groups over four decades. Many of them have been cutting huge checks since Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign in 1992.

In 2016, they expected their $1.2bn infusion to catapult Hillary Clinton back into the White House and were astonished, like the rest of the country’s elite, to see all that money go down the tubes.

(...)

Back in 1991, I was one of the only reporters with Bill Clinton at one of his early Hollywood shakedowns. I saw how he loved schmoozing with rich people, how his body language literally changed as he mixed with the ultra-rich.

(...)

Bill and Hillary Clinton are the people responsible for turning the Democratic party into the party of Wall Street and their glitzy friends. During his time in office, Bill Clinton did little to change a campaign finance system that has always been fundamentally at odds with the party’s egalitarian message.

(...)

Hillary Clinton did not have a cogent economic message. This was the most serious failing of her campaign. It is also the biggest challenge facing the Democratic party as it tries to rebuild with an alliance of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren liberals and the financiers who have funded the party since Bill Clinton’s victory in 1992.

Of course, the Sanders-Warren economic message is at war with Wall Street interests.

(...)

Everyone I have talked to in the party is still too stunned and angry over Trump’s upset win to really get their heads around the daunting work ahead. Democrats are still obsessed with Russian interference in the election and with blaming the FBI director, James Comey, for defeating Clinton. These, too, are important subjects, but don’t help shape the future.
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E. Smith

Neven

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #42 on: April 08, 2017, 12:42:35 AM »
BTW, that last article was written in December 2016, but it looks as if it was written yesterday.

I like that those columnists at The Guardian call them Establishment Democrats instead of Corporate Democrats. It's very polite of them to do so.
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sidd

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #43 on: April 08, 2017, 01:36:42 AM »
The recent Syria action is a tell. Watch which Democrats support the action. I notice Clinton jumped on the bandwagon, Schumer, Pelosi, and many other usual suspects.

sidd

P.S.  Adam Schiff added himself to the list
« Last Edit: April 08, 2017, 01:51:14 AM by sidd »

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #44 on: April 08, 2017, 01:51:29 AM »
BTW, that last article was written in December 2016, but it looks as if it was written yesterday.

I like that those columnists at The Guardian call them Establishment Democrats instead of Corporate Democrats. It's very polite of them to do so.


I was verifying some Albright quotes earlier. One of my favorites below:


If we have to use force, it's because we are America; We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us.

The problem is that many of them still believe this paranoid screed. If someone in the bar was yelling like this he'd be out on his ear. But it's somehow expected from a Democratic party hack.


Are Democrats rising in the halls of congress to attack Trump for his attack on a sovereign country?
Are Democrats massing in the streets to oppose this breach of international law?
Why should any back their cause when they stand mute - or applaud.


The Republicans have now won every branch of government. We may have more success trying to influence Republicans than trying to convince the public that they need to elect Democrats if they care at all for the environment.


Democrats were once the party that fought against integration in the south.
Vietnam wasn't started under the Republicans.
Lincoln's portrait hung in many a colored living room.


Breaking the Koch brothers hold on the Republican Party may be easier than getting a Hillary elected. People want solar power, people want clean air, and streams they can swim in. They don't want Corporate Democrats so lets give them what they want, without the baggage.

I do reserve the right to change my mind.
Terry




sidd

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #45 on: April 08, 2017, 05:50:37 AM »
I was hoping for more suggestions on the "how to kick them out" portion of this thread, although I have previously expressed skepticism as to chance of success. Nevertheless, here are some ideas, and some explanation for my pessimism.

Following Sun Tzu:

a) Block their plans. Every politician's plan from day one is to get re-elected. To do this they need money and votes. Both are vulnerable. Find their current sources of money and choke them. Find their vote blocks and alienate them. Which leads into the next point

b) Subvert their allies. Find out who supports them and why. Peel them away one at a time. Which bills did they  favor ? which riders did they attach ? which ribbon-cuttings did they attend ? who signs the campaign checks ?

c) attack their armies in the field: Such as fund raising efforts, phone banks, door knockers and net campaigns. They hire companies to do this for them. Find out who and how much they are being paid. if you do a) and b) right, they cant afford much.

d) attack their walled cities: for example an election in a secure gerrymandered district. You dont do that until a),b) and c) are done

Of course, before all this, Sun Tzu does remind you that the superior general wins without a single battle.
So a) and b) might be enuf

Make no mistake, this will be a knife fight, The Democratic power structure slices and dices with the best, look what they did to Bernie. It will involve digging up every bit of history on targets forcing it into an attack narrative damning the target. It will involve sleazing up to powerful donors and doing deals with them to switch allegiance. And at the least, it will involve a long shower to wash off the slime when you are done. After that, when you look in the mirror, you will see that you have become the corrupt Democratic power structure.

Hence my misgivings. I have not the stomach for this. I would rather see change come from the street.

sidd

« Last Edit: April 08, 2017, 07:59:58 AM by sidd »

Neven

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #46 on: April 08, 2017, 10:55:02 PM »
I had heard about Elizabeth Warren before, but had never seen her. I like this:

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #47 on: April 08, 2017, 11:13:12 PM »
I had heard about Elizabeth Warren before, but had never seen her. I like this:



Wow!!
What will Warren's stance be when she is sniffing around the trough.


My trust in all of them has been shattered. H. Dumpty has fallen too far.


Terry

Neven

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #48 on: April 09, 2017, 09:43:47 PM »
CNBC Host Calls Out DNC Chair Over Primary Corruption

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Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
« Reply #49 on: April 09, 2017, 11:04:44 PM »
I'm watching this long interview with Noam Chomsky. He's saying some interesting things here wrt this topic and how the Democratic Party could win instead of lose (from 31:03 if the video doesn't start there):

The enemy is within
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