In case you don't know what to do ...

First I think this should show you:

[video:https://youtu.be/Ra8Tq5hbPVI]

Democratic National Convention Demonstrators Led by Chris Hedges, Cornel West (Multimedia) - Posted on Jul 25, 2016

On the first day of the Democratic National Convention, demonstrators—led by Truthdig contributor Chris Hedges and longtime activist Dr. Cornel West—marched from Philadelphia City Hall down Broad Street. Truthdig assistant editor Alexander Reed Kelly captured video footage of the march, originally streamed live directly to our Facebook page. You can watch the full video above.

I like this cartoon about that march a lot:


FishWestHedgesDNCMarch_590.jpg

Truthdig cartoonist Mr. Fish then created the illustration below based on the footage:

and this should tell you:
the video of the debate between Robert Reich and Chris Hedges is not yet available. It just finished the live broadcast of it. Today's Democracy NOW show gives a good round-up, imo. For the Hedges - Reich debate Go to TC 1:21:50 The whole two hour broadcast is worth watching.

Just can't help letting you know that I like both of them a lot, but I do believe that Robert Reich's argumentation is based on a hyper-evaluation of Donald Trump's danger to the world. I am on the side of Chris Hedges, who counts on the people to organize a movement, probably together with Jill Stein and may be with Nader now? I think that's all you can do, and for whom you vote is anyhow irrelevant, you can vote for Clinton AND work for the movement, if you feel like it. There is nothing else what I would support doing. As there is nothing what you can do, so I would say do all of the above if you have to. But the movement building is imo the most important.

And I would try to get out Hedges message to the masses of people. Because I don't think the masses have a clue and Hedges has too much academic integrity to spread his message in any other way as he does. I listened to C-SPAN Journal this morning and it seems that most Americans have no knowledge about the consequences the Clinton's actions in the nineties up til now had. The corporate coup is done. There is nothing else to do than fight the corporate powers from the outside. Of course, you can still try to figure out issue by issue and candidate by candidate whom to support in your electoral activities, as many try to do still their best. There is nothing wrong to vote those into office.

Trumps is just too involved in profit making to not make a deal with the fascists everywhere in the world to avoid war fare. He is in for the money, not for the bombs. And voting for Hillary Clinton will not protect anyone from getting thrown under the bus and be bombed. That would be an illusions. I think it's too late for that. I don't think HRC is a diplomat who can avoid tensions overseas to escalate into war fare.

If Trump wins and the predictions of Robert Reich of what his presidency will mean to the United States (pure fascism, Supreme Justice choices he would make), I guess then you will get a civil war inside the US. May be that's what the Clinton supporters are afraid of. I just can't see that a Clinton Presidency wouldn't mean the same thing in the end as a Trump Presidency, because the corporate powers control both the same way.

Cry for me, America... that's all that comes to my mind. It's such a pity.

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IMO we have two choices for 2016:

1. Vote Trump, the lesser of two evils. Trust me, he'll loose interest in the job by year two; too hard.
2. Vote Jill, no evil but can't win yet. Jill only on ballot in 25 states, still. The Greens are disorganized and amateurish and if you think they can mobilize a national campaign in three months against the Clinton machine, you probably believe that Bernie will still be the nominee. Trump will be Jill's placeholder until 2020, when Jill will have name recognition, money, supporters, and savvy organizers and political consultants.
3. Vote Hillary. No, she and Bill will never leave the White House once they get reinstalled there. See number 1 above.

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sojourns's picture

if Hillary wins, Bill will die laying about the property, probably with his dick in his hand.

If Trump wins, he will be every bit as busy fending of his legal and financial troubles as Hillary. I believe much, much more that Trump's unethical and perhaps even treasonous financial ties with Russian interests in addition to strong potential money laundering schemes organized by Trump Inc. on behalf of same Russian interests will sink him. The Trump University suits are peanuts in comparison. The most frightening thing about Trump to me, is that he will go bat shit crazy with the executive order pen.

Either candidate is a piece of stinking offal.

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

earthling1's picture

You mean like the DNC or the Clinton Foundation?

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

sojourns's picture

Sorry to have left that out.

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

elenacarlena's picture

point, though - I can totally picture that!):

If Trump wins, he will be every bit as busy fending off his legal and financial troubles as Hillary.

Have the Dems ever been as persistent and nasty as Repugs on a mission? And if Congress continues Repug, they're not going to investigate Trump. If Hill is in office with a Repugnant Congress, though, it'll be all hearings all the time. Lots of excuses for nobody to do nothin.

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sojourns's picture

will be with the DOJ, the FBI, the IRS and very possibly the FTC when the ties with Russian financing come to bear.

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

elenacarlena's picture

Or maybe not. Google says the FTC, at least, is independent, yet still places it in the executive branch.

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sojourns's picture

No-one is above the law. We know how that works for Hillary. Nonetheless, if enough pressure comes to bear, special prosecutors are hired, etc. And i think the pressure would come to bear.

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

aren't so much disorganized as decentralized. They are more organized and more professional in some parts of the country than others. Where I live in a blood red Deep South state, they've almost been defunct since Nader. But I got in touch with the state people, who put me in touch with the local folks, and we've been commmunicating about re-starting the local branch in this small college town (host to a 25,000-student state university - room for growth there!).

We've got to start somewhere, people. And I agree with, mimi, try *everything*, wherever your interests and skills sets take you, to avert the fools above decks on the USS Titanic, because ... what else are we going to do?

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mimi's picture

I have never searched for potential Green Party support, as I can't vote, but there are other things one can do to give a "helping hand". I like Jill Stein's stamina. She is kind of a "steelish" lady, isn't she?

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Hillary...and Bill will never leave the White House once they get reinstalled there.

The Grim Reaper will evict them eventually. But one has to wonder what the Mad Queen will have built there during her stay; and given that the Clinton machine has already demonstrated that it can choose its successors...

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She's being groomed for it, mark my words. Hill & Bill are aware that they won't live forever. Chelsea has been "working" at the Clinton Family Foundation for years, so she'll know what to do with the White House basement server. She's also being prepped for the political arena. Note her recent foray as Mom's attack dog against Bernie's plan for single-payer healthcare by characterizing it as "Bernie wants to end Obama's ACA." That's technically true; she just left out the replace it with single-payer part. And Chelsea will accompany Mom on stage at the Convention Center on Thursday, when Mom accepts the nom to thunderous applause. Those pesky and violent Bernie Bros will have been sent packing by then, so Chelsea will get a chance to exercise her speaking chops before a large, live audience. No stage freight in Chelsea's background. Then, there are the grandbabies, who will grow up in the White House before our very eyes. You can't beat the "awwww" factor and nostalgia, which will only enhance their electability.

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Big Al's picture

certain people getting together to plan the next steps in this "revolution" we're supposed to be having. They were of the professional left, the professional activists that some even call the "stars" of the left movement.
I thought, where are the poor people? We can't have a revolution without poor people. They're the ones that know what we need most, they feel it the most, they're less inclined to favor status quo solutions. It has to come from the bottom, not the middle or the upper middle. The people with the least vested interests in the systems.

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mimi's picture

and not a "political' revolution. The "political revolution" is a campaign to enhance awareness of the people, who are "at the bottom". Bernie might have succeeded a little bit in that, but not really. He enhanced awareness of the middle class, who starts to feel and fear they might go and end up at the bottom. But they are not there yet, so they tend to believe and cling a long time to solutions offered by "the reasonable people in the Democratic Party".

Hedges deals with the people on the bottom all the time, despite him being a man of the professional left and not being poor himself. Dr. West I don't know about, he talks about the poor brothers and supports them in his talks, but he has been trashed by his own "brothers and sisters" of never having worked on the "fringes". I guess that means they think that he is too elitist.

I don't care anymore for those arguments. They don't help one bit. Dr. West does all he can, like Sanders tried to do what he could before he started to campaign on the Democratic ticket.

The problem with factual criticism of Sanders or Obama's or HRC's political decisions they made in the past, is, that it gets abused immediately as being anti-semitic or racist or sexist. So, you have to make a decision of how much it is worth to you to not become a target of those folks, who see you as racist, sexist or anti-semitic when they get a chance.

I have decided that I don't care anymore. I have long enough suffered under that kind of manipulation. Enough for me. I just shut up.

Those that you say know what we need most, because they feel the most what they don't have and lack, are incited to revolt unfortunately by propaganda of the Trump folks more easily than by the Socialist folks. People are more impressed by right-wing populism propaganda than by leftist populist propaganda (at least I believe). Then it comes down to who you fear more. If you are a poor guy, before you accept to get fired or bombed at, you rather take some bribes and betray your morals, but survive. That's why there won't be a "real revolution" under Trump, because he gets the masses pacified with a little bit of dollars and smooth talk easily.

I would never vote for Trump. In this system of government and elections you have, I wouldn't vote anymore. There is no reason to believe that Hillary would change the system, because she is so embedded and entangled, she can't. It doesn't make much sense to vote in the system you have. Look for outside solution and movement building and system changes that make third parties possible.

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bona fide, gov't-certified and all that. Why do you think all I can afford for internet access is a limited data plan cell phone?

I'm only one argument with my landlord - who moved in with me because he had nowhere else to go, but didn't want to evict me - away from living in my 12-year-old SUV (and grateful I had the foresight to get an SUV instead of a car "just in case" as I told my Depression-era mother, who said I had made a "wise choice").

Times are tough down here close to the bottom. It doesn't mean we're uneducated, stupid, or unaware of what's going on.

Sorry for the rant. Just stupefied at the hurtling train wreck the US has become.

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mimi's picture

edge of a cliff in danger to fall off into the dark bottom. Contact me, if you ever would lose access to the internet. I know it's the last lifeline these days you can't afford to lose. I pray your landlord has a decent character.

I always underestimate the hardships of people surrounding me. First I came from a "white privileged rather social oriented democratic country". I grew up in conditions I could not imagine not having until I came to the US. I don't like to reveal more.

But I never thought that poverty had anything to do with being uneducated (though I think it's very tough for poor youngsters in the US to get an education that don't kill their independence at the same time) Or that poverty has anything to do with being stupid or unaware of what is going on. In Germany poverty and education are not linked. You can get your education, when you are poor). Actually I do believe that being at the edge of falling off the cliff and in danger to be homeless is one tough "tool" to become very aware of the train wreck that is going on in this country.

I have experienced all that just through my son. And yes, it is a wise decision to have a Van or SUV to sleep in. We had only a pick-up truck and my son had to squeeze himself into the driver cabin to sleep in for months. We know all about it, including just hanging on to a cell phone for communication. Bad for your mental health. Good for your awareness.

It's a huge problem. It's also a huge insult to the dignity of people who get into those situation for reasons they have no control over.

Hugs.

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I thought often of my choice of SUV when you were writing of your son living in his truck, back when my needing to live in a vehicle was much more hypothetical, before my landlord moved in back in January. As for his character, well, he's a character alright in the Faulknerian sense if you update it to a young black kid who left his family's Mississippi farm at age 17 and headed to South Central LA two years after the Watts riots, lived there for decades (watched the city burning from his front door during the Rodney King riots) before heading back South to "family land" as part of the Great Return. But he's honest, mostly fair.

We make quite a pair - he with his high school education and hard-earned street smarts and myself, a white woman several years his junior with several degrees, including one from an "elite" law school (all done on scholarships, so no money worries on that front). Somehow we make it work and actually like each other, mostly. It's actually a fascinating adventure across racial, gender, class, sexual orientation, and God knows how many divides - we cross them carefully one step at a time understanding full well that we'll never really understand each other, but that is at root the human condition.

Thanks for your reply, and understanding from your own experience how important a little hand-held device can be.

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mimi's picture

living arrangement. I can imagine an enriching one for both sides.

Nobody really understands someone "other". We live in our own skin and can't escape. If we just could slip in another one and know how that one feels like. Would be nice, but, heh, the up on high apparently had other ideas. What a dude-dudess. Nothing left than to accept it, heh.

I am tired. Good Night.

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Big Al's picture

Rant on. And if you ever need a hand, send me a message please. I'm not poor, I was fortunate to have a decent career. But that's not who I run with. I've always known and know now those that are poor. My 67 year old sister goes to the food bank weekly and lives on an 1100 a month SS check. She's got a Master's degree. My son is deaf and we're very familiar with the deaf community in this state who have their fair share of the poor. Uneducated, stupid, unaware, won't clean up their neighborhoods, those are assumptions and stereotypes just as bad as any racial stereotyping.

My point of course was the poor need a seat at the table. They should be central participants. To often we see suits and ties, middle class and above, Phd's, Harvard and Yale bullshit writing and have conferences and telling everyone what we should and shouldn't do, but we don't hear from the people hurt the most by neoliberalism and neoconservatism and gangster capitalism. Those voices should be front and center in this Class war.

What drives me most in the unfairness and misery caused by greed, selfishness and outright cruelty.

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Thanks for the offer. I'll keep it in mind should things ever get dire. Not there yet, thank the gods.

I know the disability schtick well. Got one one those delightful degenerative neuromuscular disesases some 25 years ago. My never-increasing SSDI check actually makes me well off among those I live among now. It's a hard-scrabble world down here, with cons galore to go along with heart-breaking kindnesses. As it is, I made enough big bucks in the NYC finance world that I was doing okay until these crazy sky-rocketing rents careened into my world. Now, I'm pretty well stuck where I am as is my landlord. He cut my rent when he moved in and,
as he's never raised it to match the market, I do okay. We get by, which sometimes is as good as it gets. Just dread those arguments with him threatening to throw me and all my stuff to the curb, which he's done twice now. I think it was an adjustment/settling in thing, but I haven't forgotten who holds the upper hand here, which was probably the point of the threats.

It's a life, Al. All-in-all wouldn't trade what I've lived through, for both good and ill and in between, for anything. It does give me a unique perspective on this American life, and I definitely
want a seat at that table beside everyone who's not a neoliberal meritocratic psychopath - cause, ya know, together we really can pull this off.

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Big Al's picture

You understand what the privileged can't. There's nothing like living something. That's what its got to be about, everybody, all human life (except the psychopaths among us) and we have to find a way to give everyone a voice. This voting for politicians bullshit doesn't even come close. We have to find a better way. I agree, we can pull it off.
I was looking at my precious grandkids today dr. So innocent and naïve. I can't stand the thought of these criminals getting away with ruining more lives, including my own grandchildren's. We just can't compromise anymore, it's time to take it all down. Hang in there.

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There was a study done, don't have a cite handy, but it seemed to show that poor people care less about maintaining their neighborhoods. As I recall the investigators scattered some litter around different areas and tracked how often someone picked it up.

I don't particularly doubt the study results or methodology. I suspect that the disenfranchisement and powerlessness of poverty creates a "not my problem" mindset that is the exact opposite of ownership, and this agrees with my own observations and life experience.

You want to know where the poor are? They're busy surviving, and if they're not doing that, they're doing their best to escape their reality. To get them on board, you need more than vision; you need to show them a kind of power that they can wield. And since all the poor have is the power of the mob, if you ever see them joining en masse, things will have gotten very bad indeed.

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mimi's picture

capacities of deal making, which might just avoid the bigger wars....
July 26, 2016, 10:42 am - George Will raises possible Trump link to Russian oligarchs - By Joe Concha

Fox News contributor George Will says GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump will not release his tax returns because they may show "he is deeply involved in dealing with Russia oligarchs."

The claim — which Will could not support with any tangible proof — was made to Bret Baier on Fox News's "Special Report" live from the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on Monday night. ...

"Both the campaign chair and anybody you talk to, including Sen. [Chris] Murphy [D-Conn.] would not go down that road once pressed on the connection between Russia and the Trump campaign," said Baier. "But they have thrown it out there. George?"

"Well, it's the sort of thing we might learn if we saw the candidate's tax returns," Will responded. "Perhaps one more reason why we're not seeing his tax returns — because he is deeply involved in dealing with Russian oligarchs and others. Whether that's good, bad or indifferent, it's probably the reasonable surmise."

Will, 75, declared last month he was leaving the Republican Party as a result of Trump's rhetoric, stating, "I decided that, in fact, this was not my party
anymore."

Well, I hope Will has something more than just his guts' feelings to support his assumptions. I consider them likely to be true though.

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Redstella's picture

I wondered how the American public feels about the Russian mafia, because that is what we will get with a Trump president.

Not to say the Clinton grifter family is any better. Same same.

Welcome to the 21st century, folks.

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Redstella's picture

I wondered how the American public feels about the Russian mafia, because that is what we will get with a Trump president.

Not to say the Clinton grifter family is any better. Same same.

Welcome to the 21st century, folks.

Edit: whoops! Twice! 2 comments in 1!

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somehow worse than American oligarchs? They are all global 0.01%-ers, which makes the whole lot of them not friendly to my/our interests and welfare.

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Only connect. - E.M. Forster

mimi's picture

care less about democracy and equality.

May be it comes down to which music you like better, American or Russian.../s

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riverlover's picture

Like alex ocana as an outsider, once in. [I think]

I got the near-outsider view from eastern Canada, plus moments abroad. Things look different from the outside. Not wrong, of course. So few have been able to express the differences, no judgements.

It is probably past time to look at a worldview for consensus, but here we are. And transnational corporation views and plans are not a solution at all, they are the enemy now, ripe for picking logistical tactics. And tossed. Very sad.

I love my trees more and more. And my little dog (same breed as Toto) who escaped and returned not able to find her escape spot. And then did, or made a new break-in spot.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

mimi's picture

and I am glad you let me talk a little bit here. Sometimes I don't understand what your words mean right away. So, I am prone to misunderstand you. And I apologize if that happens.

I don't believe there is such a thing as a worldview of consensus. I think people's views are always locally and very personally determined. Corporate world-wide power and unregulated capitalism hurts everyone. It has to be contained and regulated. And I think it is possible, just not right now by the US electoral process. At least it looks like that to me.

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In 4 years you wouldn't have Sanders who has already galvanized people. What could possibly make him think a 3rd party run against Clinton would be better in 4 years than right fucking now? Strike while the iron is hot - and it is as hot as the fucking sun.

Hedges is right. Bernie should have run green. Stein would step aside and give him the top of the ticket. It made all kinds of sense.

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earthling1's picture

of her speeches we would know how the Billionaires will enslave us. Their plans are right there in those speeches. If only she would release them.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

earthling1's picture

Photo of George Will appears.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

Azazello's picture

I hear the first hour of Democracy Now! every day on my local community radio station but I don't usually go online for the second hour. The debate today between Reich and Hedges was worth hearing. Thanks again.

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.