My inner journey with Sanders (to date) Phase 2
Dear diary,
I left off Phase 1 of my journey with Bernie's announcing informally on Thursday, April 30, 2015, that he would run for the Democratic nomination for President. http://caucus99percent.com/content/my-inner-journey-sanders-date#new The informal announcement was amazingly terse and rushed, ending with Bernie's saying something like, "I have to go to work now," as he headed toward the Capitol building. Jon Stewart mocked the manner of the informal announcement with the already played out "grumpy old man" schtick.
The purpose of such an announcement, I assume, was to get people donating. Certainly, no directions were given to his supporters. I had thought he had a great chance of winning as an Independent, but much less a chance as a Democrat, but a chance, nonetheless. However, I was willing to donate to a long shot, just to make sure Americans heard Senator Sanders' message.
By the time of his informal announcement, I had already made one or two donations. I kept donating and started fundraising, But, things already seemed .....odd. His supporters were to meet with each other and decide how to support him and then to meet with each other to watch his debates. As a supplementary tool this would have been fantastic. As the only tool, it was.....puzzling.
People were scrambling to write their own leaflets, to get them translated into Spanish and other languages. As I met one obstacle after another to jumpstarting my own participation and enlisting others, I began to wonder why, for example, his campaign was not putting leaflets online in various languages for us to print out. Where was his Correct the Record website? Obama had had one; Hillary had one. Where was Bernie's?
Although Hillary kept her hands clean, as she had in 2008, Hillary's surrogates and supporters were all over the place attacking Bernie. Where were the facts about Hillary? Where was the campaign's fight against the ludicrous campaign schedule? While thousands of people stood on line for Bernie's rallies, why was no one handing them voter registration forms to fill out for collection as they entered the venue and a leaflet about primary voting in their state. Wasn't I donating and fundraising precisely so that his campaign could do these kinds of things?
Why was Bernie just writing off the early South Carolina primary and not paying enough attention to the other early states? His criss crossing the country and holding early rallies in places like L.A. when the California primary was not until June had me scratching my head. So many question that went unanswered. I formulated a variety of my own theories so that at least some of these things made sense in my own mind. Mostly, I just kept my mouth shut about them and continued donating and fundraising, attending meetings, etc.
After the California primary, I came across, for the first time, a New York Times article that had been published April 3, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/04/us/politics/bernie-sanders-hillary-cli... Is it true? As we all know, media vacillated between ignoring Bernie and undermining him and the NYT was among the worst offenders. Also, given the timing, the motive for the article could certainly be: "No, no one is cheating. Bernie has been losing this primary 'fair and square.' No, it's not media's fault, either. Bernie doomed his own campaign from the off by never actually intending to run to win." Nonetheless, dear diary, the article rang true to me because it seemed to answer all my questions. I got uneasy, then angry.
At first, I could not reconcile my reactions to the New York Times article with my willingness all along to do all I humanly could, just to make sure as many people as possible heard his message. What was my problem? Then it came to me. Bernie asked me to donate, raise money, attend events, etc. to support his run for President, not simply to support his promoting his message. I always knew he could lose, but I never knew he assumed he would lose. I never knew that he was not doing all he possibly could to win and giving his Senate duties a greater priority than his wife and other campaign advisors wanted. His fundraising emails certainly gave me no clue of all that.
In a different context, taking money for a reason other than the stated reason or the reason conveyed implicitly to the mark is a crime, namely, taking money under false pretenses. Worse, because I solicited donations from others without disclosing that Sanders had gone in not actually intending to do more than spread his message, I feel that I induced them to donate under false pretenses; and I feel I owe those donors an apology, maybe even a refund. Dearest diary, I still am not sure how to feel about all this.
Comments
Oh come on!
You know the answer to this: " Where was his Correct the Record website? Obama had had one; Hillary had one. Where was Bernie's?"
He didn't have one because he didn't have a SuperPac.
That doesn't, however, answer all the questions.
My view: I don't think Bernie really believed he could win the Presidency until things started picking up and he starting drawing large crowds, particularly in flyover country.
I believed, still do, that his main motivation/goal was to build a persistent, nationwide movement pushing his policy ideas; to create a renaissance for the left, or at least for liberalism. That said, once it became clear that he could win, I believe that he started trying to.
I doubt he ever thought he'd win 23 states.
All this is speculative, of course.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
That is what the NYT article says. That and his not giving his
all from the off doomed his campaign: He could not recover. Both parts of it seem plausible to me.
I don't agree with the second part.
Sanders doomed his campaign like I doomed my house that got smashed in a hurricane.
The fraud increased in intensity, as did the voter purges, starting in AZ, going through NY and into CA. There needs be no other explanation for why Sanders "lost."
Although he still had enough delegates for a brokered convention, and the only reason we didn't get that is his early concession. Speculation about which abounds, and continues to abound.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The odds may have been insurmountable, but most things I cited
in my blog entry were acts and omissions of the campaign, not acts of nature. No one can prevent a hurricane. I am not informed enough to know if they as yet have ways of diminishing the force. Bernie certainly could have run a better campaign, even if he lost. But the issue for me is really only whether he tried his best from day one. If he did, any foot faults are irrelevant to me personally. If he didn't, I have an issue.
What bothers me can be summarized in two points:
1. Sanders supporters and other disenfranchised Americans need something to unify them around a single objective. He should know most of us aren't going to vote for Hillary, but no single alternative has been suggested. We are all over the place, voting for Stein, Johnson, Trump, not voting, writing in. If we can't win, we sure want and need to make a statement. No one has reported on the results of DemExit, which would lead many to believe it was ineffective. But the fact it hasn't been reported on at all leads me to believe someone doesn't want us all to know just how effective it was.
2. The primary was so obviously rigged in so many different ways. This implies the death of democracy. Bernie, who has a legal basis to sue the pants off a bunch of people is doing nothing. Shouldn't the restoration of democracy be our absolute first priority?
I have no idea what forces came to bear on Bernie as the primary wound up. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on many things, but I sorely wish he was fighting to legitimize our votes, at a minimum.
Per a Gallup poll of party affiliation the Dims dropped
from 29% of all registered voters to 25%. Indies went up from 39% to 44%. Republicans are holding at 28%. This is as of the first week in January.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx
Dims mrmbership was already at a historic party low. Now they seemingly lag behind BOTH Indies and Repubs. The Dims had to go to the feds begging for money for their shit show in Philadelphia. This should really play hell with their balance sheet.
EDIT: I meant to hit Preview...
And as for your point numger 2, I've come to believe that he never intended to win. And he took money from people, many who gave money that they needed for themselves, under false pretenses. His "all the way to Philly" was just an "all the way to the bank". He may not see that as being dishonest but I sure do.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
I don't think anyone
with any political savvy whatsoever thought he'd win. Let's not forget that were there not clear manipulations of the primary vote, if not outright rigging, coupled with the built-in weakness suffered in closed primary states, along with the super delegate debacle, not to mention the DNC corruption, the MSM spin and ignorance, Sanders would have won. Handily. The fact that he did as well as he did despite these handicaps is more than an anomaly.
Sorry, Henry Wallace -- but I think you are way off base on this one.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
I think you owe reading what my post actually says
before claiming I am "way off base," What specifically does my post actually say that you think is wrong?
I never said I had been assuming he'd win the election running as a Democrat. In fact, I said quite the contrary, in both the first part and the second part.
This
"Worse, because I solicited donations from others without disclosing that Sanders had gone in not actually intending to do more than spread his message, I feel that I induced them to donate under false pretenses; and I feel I owe those donors an apology, maybe even a refund."
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
That does not say what you claim, though.
No one gives to any primary candidate on the assumption he or she will definitely become President. However, I think we did give on the assumption that he or she is trying his best to win from Day 1. Did you read the New York Times article?
Speaking only for myself,
I initially donated because he had a message that I believed voters desperately needed to hear.
It wasn't until after Iowa & New Hampshire that I thought he could win. I *really* thought he could win after Michigan. Damn Ohio! worst state ever.
Do I regret going all-in after Super Tuesday? A little; that was a lot of money. But then I think about everything that was accomplished - not just by him, but by the grassroots. Hopefully the genie does not get put back in the bottle and collectively we all are able to build on this: in the general, in 2018, in 2020 & after.
I've been researching a diary, driven by all the pessimism against being able to change the dem party from within. And found that when you step back and look at things from a distance significant changes can be made in a relatively short time. Take conservatives (not meant as a synonym for Republicans). The father (or grandfather) of the modern conservative movement is Barry Goldwater. He suffered an ass whooping in the 64 presidential election. Won less than 40% of the vote, only 52 electoral votes. 16 years later, in 1980, The Reagan revolution swept into power. This timeline is very personal to me: I was barely walking when Goldwater lost, and by the time I could get my driver's license they had swept into power. That's no time at all on a geological scale, one might say.
But think about the ramifications of Bernie's campaign with this perspective! Those 20-30 year olds that supported him by huge margins, *who out number the baby boomers*, who don't remember Bill Clinton's administration, look at the ideas they were exposed to and support! Every 2 years, coupled with his 30-45 supporters (and us older fewer) they are going to become a larger share of the democratic electorate and in 16 years they are going to comprise the great "likely voters" contingent of 35-60 year olds! Bernie is *not* wrong that he sees so much potential in that!
*a couple of points. 1) When I use "democratic" I mean the mainstream party of the left. Who knows; it might change. 2) I believe in hedging my bets. So I plan to work within the party, by supporting good candidates, and from without by supporting the Green Party. Which I never would have done but for Bernie. *
I respect your views and share some of them. I will look forward
to that diary because I don't think we've had enough time pass to measure change yet. I don't really count as what people say or hear as change. I go by results, like changes in laws and policies. For all I know, some of the people who heard Bernie are more disillusioned than ever, now that he lost. We'll see. (Because I do measure by results, not words, "We'll see" is something I often say.)
As my blog entry said, I, too, was willing, from before the informal announcement, to donate, believing he would probably lose, just so that Americans would hear what he had to say. That is why I could not understand my reaction to the NYT article at first. Then I identified it as disclosure that he was not really "in it to win it" from day one. Win by a squeak, lose by a landslide, I think he owed us trying his best to win from Day One, if he asked us for money to run for President.
Heck, according to the NYT article, even his own wife was mad at him for not trying hard enough at first. Asthe blog entry says, it was not even all a matter of trying harder, but trying smarter. The leaflets, the voter registrations, the absentee ballots, etc. This is all stuff Bernie knows from all his prior campaigns.
agreed
one of the reasons I'm watching what the millennials do after this. If they stay engaged on issues, then I see this scenario playing out, and the Dem party gets kicked into the reboot they need. Also watching the Republicans, because they're going to hell faster and thus will be reborn into something else before Dems are.
I did read it and
by and large it is a 'woulda, coulda, shoulda' bit of 20/20 hindsight. I think you're being too hard on him and yourself.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
I haven't said a single bad thing about bernie. The worst
thing I have said is that "if" he entered the race without intent to try his best, I would have a disclosure issue. That you read that as being too hard on Bernie is surprising.
Ironically, His YUUGE Success and Post Primary Response Harmed
the fledgeling movement.
Too close to the win and too quick to toe the Establishment line makes for some awfully poor optics.
He lost me, for sure, and I'm really pretty forgiving.
I am very happy for his run and have no regrets about spending, a bit more money on his campaign than I could afford, but his rep as no bullshit Bernie Sanders took a yuuge hit in my eyes, which means I am less apt to trust his judgement and the judgement of "his" organizations.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
That is a problem.
No matter what Bernie intended, I think his run and post-primary course has the "left of left" more divided than ever--and it's always been divided. In addition to all the usual divisions, it now has the crowd that will follow Bernie, even it means voting for Hillary; the crowd that will follow Bernie, but draw the line at voting for Hillary; the crowd that is now so disillusioned that it won't vote at all, maybe never again; and the crowd that is going its own way, whether it votes Stein or not.
Well, sabotage works that way.
But it's not just the "left of left" unless by "left of left" you mean however many millions of people supported Sanders. This is not a fringe issue; we're not just talking about activists and socialists and anarchists and other weirdos. That was a mass movement beginning around Sanders. And yes, now it's divided along multiple lines, and it's a waste, but once your leader gets compromised, whether by intimidation or corruption, that's how it goes. That's why it's nice to have a leader who actually understands what they're fighting from the beginning, and makes plans for their own redundancy, in such a way that the movement can continue on fruitfully once they've personally, er, had their battleship sunk, if you see what I mean.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
"Sabotage" suggests an intent I am not imputing to Bernie.
As I posted elsewhere on this thread, I've been left with a lot of feelings I am trying to process by posting.
By the "left of the left," I mean the same thing Rahm Emanuel meant when he said it when he was Obama's chief of staff: the ones who were not swooning over the ACA without at least a strong public option, the ones to the left of Democrats like Obama, Rahm and Hillary.
Those who voted for Sanders is a different set of people, though some of the ones Rahm meant definitely voted for Sanders.
No, no. Bernie is not deliberately sabotaging his movement.
In my view--and I emphasize this is only my opinion, not fact--others are sabotaging it and Bernie is going along with it because, well, because of whatever threat they used on him in late June. He obviously has little or no power to affect anything, in his current state. Though I admit part of me is with Debbie Lusignan: why the hell don't you just NOT do the work, rather than doing FAKE work more pleasing to the oligarchs?
Most likely is that Clinton, or her surrogates, or her allies (Obama, Biden, Reid) have explained to Bernie what will and will not be tolerated, and he's trying to make the best lemonade out of those lemons he can. I see those lemons as riddled with citrus canker, and maybe rotten as well, but that doesn't mean *he* sees it that way.
thanks for clarifying "left of the left." I make it a point to try to forget everything Rahm Emanuel ever said, and in this case I succeeded.
BTW, please continue processing your feelings--I find these diaries interesting, and oddly helpful.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I am not in the "Bernie must have received a threat" camp.
From early on, if asked if he would support Hillary Clinton if she got the nom, he said enthusiastically, "Don't worry. I will do everything in my power to defeat Donald Trump." He said something to that effect every time, even well before Trump locked down the nom.
That's fine. I don't argue about that.
I put my view out there, and that's that.
Because there's no solid evidence for any position.
It's all speculative.
Agreeing to disagree is the only sensible thing to do, IMO.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Perhaps Bernie will explain
Perhaps Bernie will explain himself after the election? Or he'll explain himself in the book he's writing? Bernie has integrity and I trust his decisions here, but I do really want to know his rationale!
Principled and Committed Leadership Needed Going Forward
I agree totally with your point that a leader must plan for his or her redundancy. People are speculating a lot about what happened because of their disbelief and pain about how this run ended. Also because there was no plan for going forward. The SuperPac called Our Revolution seems like a Clintonesque joke at this point.
The left has to examine itself and to develop and work from a clear set of principles about how to struggle in the midst of tremendous suppression of voices and votes. Although Bernie argued that change comes from bottom up, he didn't run his campaign in a way that empowered forces beyond his own -- uh, his battleship sinking.
In addition to the force of bottom-up change, the need for clear and principled leadership is paramount. Bernie's decision (forced or not) to support what he campaigned against has left a vacuum. That's why there is so much discussion and debate right now -- it's a hell of a position he put us in.
That being said, I believe that Clinton will win -- the voting machines have feet and will elect her even if the voters don't. Only then will the bankruptcy of voting for Clinton and of remaining within the Democratic Party become clear to many. Those who believe that Bernie's directive to stay within the party and to vote for Clinton has some strategic but incomprehensible merit will get to see the fruits of these misdirected actions. Objectively Bernie is creating a dilution of the support he mustered and urging a diversion of efforts for those who truly want to build a continuing movement; subjectively it is hard to imagine what leads him to do this.
Hopefully strong and principled leadership will emerge that will be able to provide clear analysis of some of these errors. We can learn from our mistakes, but only if we first recognize and admit to what went wrong. Telling the truth to ourselves is important.
Before whatever happened in June, Bernie was neither challenging fraudulent primary results nor preparing a base for the future that could replicate itself beyond his campaign. We are faced with picking up the pieces, learning terribly hard lessons, but continuing the struggle with truth and vigor. Thank you for your wise guidance.
Agreed
This is roughly where I'm at. I am not pursuing Our Revolution. Frankly, I don't trust it. When Bernie endorsed Clinton, that's where we had to part ways. I have no regrets for the money I gave Bernie. I'm all for demonstrating the left's power - and make no mistake we did that even though it was stolen. I am very disappointed in Bernie's response to that. That doesn't invalidate the message of the campaign.
? No one needs a Super Pac to tell the truth about himself.
He had staff, his own knowledge of the truth about himself and a website. That's all it would have taken, that and keeping up with the news, which his campaign had to do anyway.
That's not what CTR is.
They are an army of people based off a website, that take talking points from that website and spread them far and wide. They are paid.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I did not mean an exact clone of Hillary's Super Pac. I meant
what I described.
Again, that was such a small part of what my blog entry said, as you posted yourself. More importantly, it was not central to the my disclosure issue, which is the blog entry was about. I really don't want to dwell on it.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure what the question really is here
What is it that you needed to know, that you think you weren't told upfront?
I don't understand your question. You've excerpted a few
words from my reply to a post saying he could not "correct the record" when people lied about him because he did not have a super pac. Those words have nothing to do with my feeling that I needed to know more about him. That, I never said. Also, that has next to nothing to do with my blog entry as a whole.
The type of effort that CTR engages in
Requires resources. A SuperPAC gives you these resources. Bernie believed his would be an underfunded campaign (as evidenced by his repeated statements that they would need to raise $40-$50m to have a legit run for Iowa & New Hampshire). He & his campaign were not expecting to raise double that before Xmas. They have stated that if they knew they'd have that much money they would have made different decisions.
Correcting the record does not take a lot of money when you
already have a staff and a large website. They had to deal with those lies anyway. They just did not put their version of the truth up on the website where his supporters could have accessed it without reinventing the research wheel.
TV buys are big money. Correcting the record would have taken very little time or money.
However, I really don't want to make this thread about correct the record.
I think one of the reasons Sanders ran as a Democrat was
the possibility of winning some states and building momentum. As an Independent candidate, or third party candidate, how well a person is doing is poll-driven and doesn't have the impact of a win in a primary.
If Sanders was pretty sure the for-profit press was going to ignore him, his winning in New Hampshire(say) had to be reported, and victories tend to promote victories. Running as a Democrat meant that he could not be totally ignored if he won some states.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
My issue is whether he was trying his best to win, from Day One.
I mentioned my misgivings about his running as a Democrat only because they were were part of my inner journey with him. I never voiced a single negative while he was in the race. In fact, the only negatives I've expressed (so far) are the ones in these two blog entries.
If he threw his hat into the ring, to try his best from day one to win, no matter how slim his chances, I have no problem with any of it. If he threw his hat into the ring to get his message out, I have a problem with his failure to disclose that as he raised money over and over for a Presidential run. It's a matter of telling the truth to people when you ask them for money.
Yes, I understand, and I remember Jim Hightower introducing
Bernie at a rally at a union hall in Texas that drew 10X what was expected - this was very early - and both Sanders and Hightower agreed that something unexpected was happening.
I believe Sanders did his best to win given he started with little money and name recognition and the fact that he was putting together a staff on the run.
I agree that he could have started earlier and that he could have attacked Clinton at her many weak points. Does that mean he didn't try his best? Maybe. I come down on the side that he tried; can't argue much with those who say he did not.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Did you look at the New York Times article?
While the way the NYT covered Bernie angered me and I did not want to believe that article, it did answer the questions that had haunted me throughout. At first, I saw them as lack of money and experience. But my blog entry mentions some pretty basic stuff. Bernie has been in politics well over half his life. He know that leafletting is grass roots campaigning 101. Yet, we had to prepare our own leaflets and seek translators. Why?
To be candid: I don't care what the New York Times reports
and do not read it. I would believe what individuals say has happened on a site like this before I'd believe the corporate press.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
I mostly agree, but people on this site don't have access to
all the sources to which the NYT has access. Weaver is never going to talk to me on a no names basis or give me an anonymous backgrounder. Were this the Nixon era, Deep Throat would not have called me or confided in me. So, as hard as I try to keep up, anyone who relies on me or people like me is likely to miss a lot--and you don't strike me as someone who misses a lot.
An oft-quoted comment from Reagan is "Trust, but verify." If I read something I cannot possibly verify, I weigh whether or not it makes sense to me, whether it resonates with me. In my blog entry, I tried to give both sides about the NYT article, to state my perception of its bias.
Yes, true, but I was also thinking about Truthdig; Truthout;
CEPR; Juan Cole; Counter Punch; World Socialist Web Site and similar places.
If you have a bit of truth, you're as likely to end up like Manning, Snowden, and Assange if your message goes against the ruling circles. I should probably trust the NY Times but I don't, and years ago I was a subscriber until I wised up.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
I love truthdig. Will Pitt is wonderful, in my opinion.
I don't agree with him on every topic, but I love reading him. Different opinions don't bother me. If the discussion is honest intelligent, I'm thrilled to read it.
I am not advocating that you trust the NYT. I don't trust it. I just weigh it in with whatever else I know. However, if you are looking at all those sources, they will likely tell you what the NYT said and what they think about it. In any event, you are certainly well-informed.
Thank you....Yes, I see the NYT &WaPo quoted in many places
so I have a feel for their stance on many issues and a feel for what their editors think is newsworthy.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
BTW, one of the Sunday talking heads asked Bernie why
he ran as a Democrat. I think it was Chuck Todd on MTP, but I cannot swear to that. Bernie replied something like "You. Media. I would not have gotten any media coverage if I had run as an independent." That may or may not be true. If so, it backfired some because the media either ignored him or did a hatchet job on him or made him sound like nothing more than the crotchety old, former Mayor of Burlington. They barely even mentioned his crowds and often understated the numbers.
Yes, but the media was forced to report his victories and his
gains in the polls. As an independent, he would not have gotten that small amount of coverage. As I understand his finances, Sanders could not afford large media purchases. As for the crotchety old man thing, Reagan showed that there's no such thing as bad publicity because your supporters get to see you and tune out the crapola. At least Sanders got some free air time.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
That is true. But it's undeniable that media wanted
Trump vs. Hillary. Trump got $2 billion in coverage, which did not turn really sour until after he had a lock on the nomination. Bernie got 1/4 the coverage trump did, most of it negative; and every single time I heard Bernie mentioned positively, I also heard "but Hillary will be the nominee." I think he may have had a better shot if he and his supporters got to create his narrative without a head to comparison with Hillary until the general. That's my opinion. But, again, I am not faulting him if he was doing his best to win from Day One. If not, I have a problem. I must not have put that across very well in the blog entry.
Agreed. Sisyphus had it easy compared with Sanders. I would add
that in spite of the cold shoulder and the slurs, his poll numbers continued to climb so I don't believe there was pressure on him to change.
If California had gone quickly for Sanders, it could have changed the history of the campaign. I think Sanders was surprised at the outright cheating that was documented and he didn't have an answer - maybe he should have been prepared for that. The vote count was so drawn out that it became convenient old news that could go unreported by the capitalist press.
I have problems with the endgame but that's his business and he's history anyway.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Jane Sanders has said he did not lose because of cheating.
She said the numbers were too big for cheating to account for Hillary's win, or they would have fought it. I don't know.
I don't know either but thanks for repeating what Jane Sanders
said.
Also, many thanks for sticking around and tending your excellent diaries.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Thank you for your valuable contributions to everyone's diaries!
I always look forward to reading the post when it has your name on it.
I'm ok with her saying that.
It's probably saner to think that way. And they checked in a couple of places where it was close - Missouri & Kentucky.
The thing is, I don't think it was any one thing. I think it was a whole lot of little things. And a lot of them had nothing to do - directly- with the ballot box.
And Hillary using the victory fund as a 2nd source of money after she maxed out donations to Hillary for America & spent all that money had to have had an impact. Can you imagine if her campaign was running on fumes around the time they left New Hampshire? (She had $22m on hand m/e feb & we know her burn rate was higher than that. But she had raised $23m for the victory fund by Xmas, and has raised $100m total to date).
Bernie was not running on fumes. He raised a lot of money.
Hillary raised more because she had soft money, such as the Victory Fund, and she had PACs and I don't trust her accountants. After all, the Clinton Foundation reported $10 million in donations from abroad as zero.
That said, I think a lot of things besides money went into Hillary's winning, like the brainwashing since 1972 that a liberal can't win a general; like the endorsements of almost every Democrat in the entire country, local, state and federal; like name recognition; like the fact that she and Bill have worked on Presidential campaigns and other campaigns since they left law school; like media declaring her the winner of the nomination since 2012; etc. Yes, she was awash in money, but that does not mean the money made the difference. We've been brainwashed that no one can win an election unless he or she receives as much money or more than his or her opponent, but there's never been a single proof of that. Granted, you can't run a campaign on a $5000, but Bernie had enough to run a good campaign.
No, it's not saner. It's much more insane.
See my comment below.
In fact, Jane's comment--and most of the "oh it wasn't fraud," or "Well, it was fraud, but the fraud didn't really decide it" talking points are lies designed to help people sleep at night, then get up the next day and go to the polls and vote without going crazy and writing I HATE YOU ALL YOU MOTHERFUCKERS on the ballot in crayon.
I can (with help from my medicine) sleep at night, get up the next day, go to the polls and vote for Grayson, Byerly, Hutch, and Amendment 4 (yay solar!) without pulling out my crayons or starting to scream LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES at the top of my lungs at a bunch of innocent and well-meaning polling officials, but I've got a pretty strong constitution.
If we're gonna accept lies, we should at least maintain some kind of aesthetic standard for them. I mean, if people are going to lie, they should at least have to make the lie sound good. And we should refuse to accept any lie that doesn't meet the minimum standard of making some internal logical sense.
Otherwise, we end up in the left-wing/Sanders supporter version of believing things like "The Russians hacked the Democratic primaries, which turned out in favor of Hillary, so they hacked them in favor of Hillary, although they hate Hillary, and would do anything to keep her out of office."
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
That's a ridiculous statement from Jane, in the era of
digital voting, and, thus, digital election fraud. It's nonsense words.
Is it harder to digitally alter 5,000 pieces of data than 5? That's a real question, btw, but my understanding as a non-coder is that you can write code to flip, say, every 5th Democratic vote, or purge every 10th name on a list, and it doesn't freaking matter if there are ten million names on the list or 5,000 votes rather than 5. We are talking computer software here, not hauling boxes of paper ballots off and throwing them into the Atlantic like some did in 2000. It's not harder; it just takes the program a little longer to run. How long depends on the computer you have running the program. I'm guessing professional election-hackers for a price can afford to have really good equipment and top-notch software.
I really really hate this talking point because it makes no fucking sense. And it's been around since 2004. The idea that larger turnout and more votes makes it harder for your opponent to digitally rig the election in their favor is idiotic; the idea that, if your opponent has a HUUGE number of votes for them they must not have rigged the election is basically like saying, "I had a corned-beef sandwich for lunch, therefore I must not drive a Japanese car." These things have no relation to one another--unless, of course, you take an unexpectedly large number of votes for a candidate to be a possible sign that there's funny business going on, in which case it means the exact opposite of what Jane Sanders said.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
i used to be one of those coder guys once ...
anything you want to happen can be made to happen. The key is how you get around whatever checks there are to assure nothing outside of the piece of software you verify functions correctly has changed things.
I can tell you after watching "hacking democracy", I had to kind of laugh at what vendors were selling as secure election systems circa 2000. Christ, what a racket that was. Anyone with physical access to the machine and not a whole lot of knowledge would have been in.
See Jill Stein's coverage
For what a 3rd party candidate can expect media-wise.
Oh, and do you think he would have been included in any debates? Dream on. And Hillary would NEVER have debated him.
There's no comparison between Stein and Bernie.
Jill Stein is not a US Senator, has not been in politics for 50 years, has never held elective office and never had the $$ or crowds Bernie got. Moreover, sometimes, it's as though she's determined to lose votes. Bernie is far cannier.
No, of course, he would not have been in the Democratic debates if he had run as an indie, but he would not have been head to head with Hillary until the primary was over, either. Every news story about him would not have ended with, "but Hillary will be the nominee." Democratic state party heads would not have driven off with votes, etc.
He could have started his general campaign in April 2015, while everyone else had to contend with a primary.
Most importantly, as I posted http://caucus99percent.com/comment/164635#comment-164635 I do not fault him for having run as a Democrat. In any event, no need for snark.
He ran as a Democrat to get access to the mass media.
That's what he said, and I believe him. The mass media are the gatekeepers to electoral success, and they won't play if you're not from the duopoly. For the most part, anyway.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Thanks. The subthread that starts with this
post addressed that. http://caucus99percent.com/comment/164656#comment-164656
What did Bernie know and when did he know it?
Bernie's first decision to run as a Democrat instead of an Independent was probably a lock from the git go. lt looks like Bernie has always been an "establishment revolutionary" who genuinely wanted to reform the Democratic party and believed the Democratic party was capable of responding to the will of Democratic voters.
Bernie had to know he was fighting an uphill, losing battle. Did Bernie know how corrupt the Democratic party had become? Did Bernie know that DWS and the Democratic machine would fix the primaries so blatantly? I'm guessing Bernie was as shocked as the rest of us at the extraordinary lengths DWS and The Clinton Machine would go to to rig the vote.
Consider where we are at post - Bernie. We know to an absolute certainty that American voting machines and registration rolls are going to be hacked.
Think about that for a minute. We know to an absolute certainty that America is incapable of having an open and fair election. We also know the M$M is incapable of reporting the truth about the complete failure of the American political system.
Correction. Everybody on the planet knows America cannot hold fair elections and the M$M will not report the total failure of the American political system.
Where do we go from here? Beats the holy fuck out of me.
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
It's about his intent, not his knowledge.
http://caucus99percent.com/comment/164635#comment-164635
Most likely, he knew whether he was in it to win it or just to get out his message in 2014 or earlier.
Please read
This post from Progressive Democrats of America. http://pda.nationbuilder.com/from_run_bernie_run_to_we_want_bernie_to?ut...
I did.
As to elections: that is a state and local matter.
I've posted that it's too late to worry about it for this election. However, starting January, we should be compiling a list of what a fair process looks like. One example: totally open primaries, meaning, in 2020 primaries, I can vote Green for President, Democratic for Senate and Republican for sheriff if I want. Right now, the parties dictate primary rules for their own primaries, but those who pay state and local taxes pay for the primaries. That should not be. Our society is run by "He who has the gold makes the rules" in every aspect, except when it comes to taxpayers deciding how their money is spent.
Anyway, that's only one example. Starting after the holidays, we should make a list of what we want and take it to our state reps, our local access cable channels, our print media, our neighbors, etc.
Check out election justice USA
(I think I got the name right) on Facebook. They posted something recently about an effort going forward to work towards clean & fair elections. Might be one way to attack the problem.
Thanks for the tip. I'm bookmarking because I know I will not
focus on that until after the holidays.
Russia! Because Only Russia Hacks Democrats and Democracies.
"Foreign agents are ruining American voting machines and there is no paper trail. We are DOOMed!
We need more secure voting machines and voting process. Maybe we could have Bill Gates or Elon Musk create some secure machines and firewalled voter registration software for us..."
I can't wait to see how ridiculous this shit gets over the next few months.
We're really breaking with reality. Like that comment above that the gap was too big to be fraud. Tell that to the Russian hackers! lol
Naive... spelled D E N I A L.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
Where do we go from here?
We move on and stop dwelling on Bernie's motivations. I support his Our Revolution but we can't make this too much about Bernie the person, important as he is.
Beware the bullshit factories.
I agree. I am honestly trying to process. I am not sure I can
respond to his request for money again until I do. However, one of my earliest posts here --a reply--stated my view that the revolution (whatever shape it takes) cannot be about Bernie or depend upon Bernie. I am doing both things simultaneously.
I'm in a similar boat ...
Bernie2016 was a different proposition than Our Revolution is, so I at least need to see the direction OR is going to go before donating.
There are honestly a lot of orgs that I could donate to, but I don't know enough about what they're really doing to give them cash.
I'll donate to some individuals this cycle and figure this out after the inauguration. I'd like to see a coming together of the progressive orgs, some working the inside (on electoral) others working the outside (on issues).
My Bernie Journey
I was a huuuge Bernie supporter. I donated modestly. But as soon as he endorsed Hellery, I stopped listening to him.
The debate will never end. Did Hellery put a gun to his head? Was he a DNC plant from the start, setup to play the 'progressive' with a planned sellout date? Was it something in-between those extremes? I'd like to know too, but it doesn't matter to me.
He is now campaigning for Hellery which means I cannot trust anything he says. That's why I don't trust Our Revolution.
That said I can understand why people who gave lots of cash and/or spend lots of time, blood, and sweat for his campaign are really pissed off.
I'm supporting the Greens this election. And if another, better party arises next year I will support it. I will never again vote for a party that actively works against me (Ds or Rs). Because I'm not their fool anymore.
Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.
I Agree That We Should Stop Donating To Bernie
"Our Revolution" is a foolhardy attempt to reform the Democratic party. Might as well donate to The Clinton Foundation or DNC.
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
It's easier to not donate to Our Revolution
when you understand it's not Bernie's org, no matter what he says. If that org is anything, it's a damned veal pen. I'm not even giving them the time of day. It's all Green, all the way...
After Obama 2008, a loved one made me promise that I would
never again donate to a politician's campaign. And I meant it when I promised. However, he and I both donated to Bernie's campaign. Each time, the amount would have made a difference in my life. Combined, it would have made a big difference.
A powerful wave
has broken against a seawall, damaging the wall and even breaching it here and there. Pieces have broken off, cracks have appeared. The wave retreats back out to sea. It is gone; it can cause no more damage. The storm at sea continues to build.
native
Thanks. How poetic and true.
A friend once said to me
There's never been a film that's been as good as the play.
There's never been a play that was as good as the book.
There's never been a book that was as good as the poem.
I don't know if I agree with all of what she said, but she had such conviction! And I do agree that a great poem cannot be beat.
Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world - Shelley
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Thank you kindly!
Sanders' retreat is just the ending of what has happened. I don't see it as a harbinger of what is coming - which could well be even Yuuger than he was.
native
Come on, really?
Anyone with any political IQ at all knew his chances of winning were EXTREMELY low. Virtually nil as an independent.
He said the whole time that this wasn't just about one election. It was a movement. Not him, us. This is what it looks like. And it worked, fantastically well. Better than anyone expected. And now you feel like you got deceived somehow? Child, please. He said all along that for all her faults, HRC was 100x better than Trump. And he'd support the nominee. He was right. And he's a man of his word.
Get involved. Raise money. Spread the word. This a LONG fight here. Did you think the neo-liberal establishment would be toppled with one campaign and one election? Seriously? We need to keep fighting. Not get all sad faced and disillusioned and back out. That's precisely the reason the establishment wing doesn't respect movements like ours, because of reactions like yours. They expect us to all go away. Don't.
The discussion of your point occurred upthread, starting
here: http://caucus99percent.com/comment/reply/7345/164609 For me, it was never about whether he had a chance of winning or not and both my blog entries on the subject said that, as do many posts on this thread.
You are obviously not seeking discussion, Searching For Pericles, or you would have read the blog entry and your post would read very differently. I will respect your wishes.
Not him, us.
The speed with which "Not him, us." changed to "Not me, you." bothers me. It seems to me that the plan was for Bernie to be part of us. I find the amount of time he plans to work on a book between now and the election problematic. He could be doing a lot more for progressive candidates than turning Jeff Weaver loose on liberal billionaires in an organization that can't work with candidates.
yeah, i'd admit
... to feeling somewhat similar. Feels like a real anti-climax, so we're waiting for either another high, or another low.
I am conflicted on courting billionaires, but leaning towards it being OK. It's one thing to fund a focused campaign on donations, it's quite another to run an ongoing organization with staff and budgets. Two entirely separate things. The more important thing is what they end up doing.
Jeff Weaver made the most
Jeff Weaver made the most disingenuous comment as he was justifying taking money from billionaires for "Our Revolution". He said that now that they are not campaigning for office, there is nothing that these billionaires can gain from contributing, so why not accept their money to do good work? But, we are not stupid, so we understand what a sell out strategy that is - If you take money from big corporate donors, you will never fight for an end to corporate wars and a foreign policy based on social, racial, economic and environmental justice because war and resource extraction and enslavement of the poor is big money and power. The issues brought forth will have the stamp of corporate approval and all else will be silenced. Jeff knows it, Bernie knows it, Jane knows it, we know it and all the good folks who quit OR know it. Jeff thinks we are stupid.
what if they take it ...
... from concerned individuals and not corporations? There are progressive multimillionaires, if not billionaires, too.
Would you commit to a 27/week, or 27/month, or 27/biannually for the rest of OR's life? I think in your response you've already answered why they need to be looking at it: because after a campaign, a fair percentage always drift away.
Campaigns run mostly on volunteer labor. You can't do that in the long game that's in front of us. Organizations like this are going to need budgets and paid support.
Go in peace, man. Do what looks right to you, I'll won't have anything to say about it.
I disagree. People volunteer
I disagree. People volunteer all the time. OR wouldn't have to bring in but a very small percentage of the money raised monthly by the campaign. I have run NGO's. Fairly small paid staff, lots of volunteers. There was so much energy to be harnessed. With possibility of transformative change, people coming together for the commons, the momentum would have grown. I believe OR will not create the fundamental change this country needs, what looked promising and possible, even, during Bernie's run. I am not saying it won't do good work - I imagine it will. I won't be contributing to it.
You mean take from Buffet not the businesses Buffet owns and
runs? In my opinion, that is a distinction without a difference.
Then what are you guys waiting for?
Start the organization that will adhere to your principles! Why waste time talking about or working in one that doesn't?
I'm content to watch and see how OR evolves, and if it evolves in a direction I can support with my newfound "wokeness" as the kids might say, then I'll help out. If not, I'll do something else.
There is no one, right, pure answer to any of these questions. That's the situation we're in, the situation we'll always be in. Find a ball, take it, and move it forward in a way that works for you.
To me, it's always important to multiply effort with probability of success to statistically ballpark what I think my chance at actually accomplishing meaningful change.
Jeez. It's only been one week!
I agree w/diversity of tactics, and in fact, my recent diary was mainly a plea for everybody to accept that some here would, and some would not, support OR, and no amount of discussion will change that, and we should just agree to disagree.
But criticizing the critics by saying we should have started another org already is a little premature, isn't it? Of course, we all gave Sanders the benefit of the doubt by waiting till the launch and hearing what he had to say. That was one week ago, exactly.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I think that's my point, too ...
but the thing that usually tears the left up and distributes effort into the void are disagreements about tactics and relative purity, which I'm beginning to detect here.
The problems we face are vast, and will not yield without a fight. You guys may have figured this out before me, but before Sanders I would have made a sizeable bet that if presented with an FDR Dem, those that consider themselves Dem would have flocked. I was completely mistaken. I see that now, so I am realigning my thinking.
You can be critical all you want, but being critical of someone else's motivations isn't getting things done. If you see a better, more productive way, then do it, and if you're right, they may follow you.
It may look like I'm yelling, but I'm really not.
I am not looking for one right "pure" answer.
I am honestly looking for honest answers.
As a billionaire (if I were one)
and if I wanted to help this country, there are about 4 million things I can think of to do that don't involve direct contributions intended to influence our elections. For instance, these charitable fellows could come together--two or three of them--and actually start a media which, while it could not be considered "independent," could at least attempt to be truthful, and exist in opposition to the billionaire-funded lie machine we currently have. If Steyer, for instance, really gives a shit about climate change, he might want to consider getting a couple of other rich people on board and, I don't know, systemically countering the Koch's 24/7 lie barrage.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
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