I just gave money to Sanders new 'project'. Am I an idiot?
I'm dead broke (as always) but I got an email from Sanders today.
***
On the very first day of our campaign, I wrote to my supporters and said, "This campaign is not about Bernie Sanders. It's about a grassroots movement of Americans standing up and saying: 'Enough is enough. This country and our government belong to all of us, not just a handful of billionaires.'"
That is as true today as it was then. That is why Our Revolution will focus on three distinct areas of work:
1. Revitalizing American democracy by bringing millions of working people and young people into the political system.
2. Empowering the next generation of progressive leaders by inspiring, recruiting and supporting progressive candidates across the entire spectrum of government - from school board to the U.S. Senate.
3. Doing what the corporate media does not do: elevating political consciousness by educating the public about the most pressing issues confronting our nation and the bold solutions needed to address them.
Together we can revitalize our democracy, empower new progressive leaders, and educate the public about the critical issues facing our country. To get started, I need your help, Amanda. Will you join me?
Add a $3 contribution to Our Revolution and be one of the first to join this next phase of our movement.
We have a lot to do together, Amanda, and I'm glad you're with me.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
***
I gave more than the $3 (plus tip to Act Blue), but NOT MUCH MORE. I don't have it. Which brings me to the point of this OP. Am I stupid because even though I'm madder than Hell at Sanders for a number of reasons, I still like and trust the guy? I don't understand (or like) the Shillary endorsement and pandering, ESPECIALLY after the leaked emails, but I don't see anyone else but Jill Stein (who I'm going to vote for) out there even working for us.
Is anyone else going to take a chance on Sanders again? Right now the only thing I'm happy about with the guy is that he's going to serve out his term as an Independent. That makes me wonder if he's not thinking of starting a Third Party OR is he still under the impression that he can reform the 'Democratic' Party? What's the guy up to? And is this a case of "a fool and his/her money..."?
Comments
Nope
After the rumor that he got smacked in the face during the convention and started spouting "Go Along to Get Along and vote Hillary?" shit after that--and looked like he was phoning it in for the rest of the week, looking haggard, worn and freaked out? That shit was ALL under duress and there were points it got kind of ugly-looking, at least to me.
And now he's got a New Revolution, after having declared that Hillary Is It?? I'm not buyin' it. I had enough of "movement thinners" with MoveOn.org. YMMV, of course, and thanks for the info!
"I had enough of "movement thinners" with MoveOn.org. "
That's the part I'm worried about. And you know that I was one of the first to throw a hissy when it came out that he was in talks with the Clinton Creeps and Liars to endorse her. But now I am really wondering what he has got up his sleeve. He is going back to the Senate as an Independent.
I can see your point. In fact, that's what worries me. Am I being too trusting? Sanders certainly DID have the power to change American politics at one point. I just wonder if he's lost too many supporters to make any future 'programs' he might come up with viable.
That's why I included the "fool and his/her money" remark in my OP.
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
Our Revolution
I want to offer my support in hopes that the dreams and policies we all shared for a better country, a more secure future, won't go away. But, the only way I could donate was through Act Blue. I wrote a reply to the email and asked for a direct avenue to donate. I can no longer support a fundraising system dedicated to electing democrats, anymore than I would support one dedicated to republicans specifically. The two party system is a Yuuuge part of the problem with our electoral system, and groups that focus on raising money for either one have become out of bounds for me
Who smacked him?
A lot of people are asking that question. I didn't see anything
about him being injured until today.
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
Its all over kfs today.
Supposedly he had a cut on his face Tuesday that wasn't there Monday. So obviously this is "proof" that Hillary had her people smack him around to ensure cooperation at the convention.
My thought is Suuuuure. She waited all those months to have her goons pay him a visit? But she didn't do it before nh to get him to drop out?
Mahalaki overdrive says it looks like he cut himself shaving. But people would rather buy the ct.
Rumor has it
there was a nasty-looking cut across his cheek on Tuesday of the convention, that wasn't there on Monday. And I've seen it noted several times since that it didn't look like no "shaving" scratch, either.
I'm done thinking "oh, silly, don't be a Conspiracy Theorist" when I see/hear/think sinister stuff about our existing government. The shit is all around us at this point....
I disagree Luna
Bernie never said Hillary was the Revolution.
Bernie will continue to fight for you and the revolution rolls on.
Many movements in the same
Many movements in the same direction toward democracy, will be required.
Bernie's honesty and consistency may not always lead to his doing what all people would prefer he do against the threats we all face, but regardless of viewpoints, it's far, far better than the consistent dishonesty of those he and the 99% must battle together, and Bernie does know exactly what he's doing and what he's dealing with.
My faith Berns forever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXo6G5mfmro&list=RD6svFLIUKB-M&index=27
Canned Heat - Let's Work Together
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
I don't think that
about face, exit stage left (upon hearing the roll call vote for Vermont) was "phoning it in." More like, F.U. HRC, now watch This (as he about faced, exited stage left).
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Our Revolution is not "our" revolution
They're actually supporting Republican and Democrat candidates, claiming they're after "good" Republicans.
Doesn't that sound suspiciously like the BS we got from Kos?
Sorry, there are not "good" Republicans. They wouldn't BE Republicans if they were good. I replied "Do you endorse Hillary or Jill?" not holding my breath for a reply. They shouldn't hold theirs for money from me either.
THIS is our Revolution. That? Not so much.
They wouldn't be Democrats if
They wouldn't be Democrats if they were good, either.
I'm inclined to trust no one from either major party, but if you're going to accept Democrats on their individual merits, you may as well accept Republicans the same way.
Well, our Chapter won't
be grooming any Repubs. And, I suspect 99% of the other Chapters won't be either.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
I wish we knew
All seem to be waiting for... Something. Not sure about the 'Our Revolution', I didn't respond. While we are all waiting for it-shall-be- revealed, it is getting a little nerve wrenching.
I think we're just in the habit of waiting for something
Earlier we were waiting to see what Bernie would do at the convention, before that we were waiting to see how that final big day of the Primaries would turn out. Maybe, as the saying goes, we're the ones we've been waiting for.
Beware the bullshit factories.
If so, where do we go from here?
If so, where do we go from here?
I respectfully submit that the day and age of "working within the system", "electing down-ticket", along with all other forms of gradualism, has passed. If most of us 99%ers are going to have any chance for survival, a livable Planet, or reasonable levels of opportunity for ourselves and posterity, we need to make some seriously drastic changes (which is why Bernie used the term "Revolution"), and we need to make them now.
We're approaching the cliff at high speed. Brakes and steering are called for at this point, not down-gearing.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
"Look Around the Room.
These Are the People You've Been Waiting For!" will be written on our white board (by me) at our next Meetup.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Here is something that is
Here is something that is unflattering but true: almost none of us, no matter how much we say we want change, want to actually put in the work. And of the people who are willing to work for it, virtually none are willing to kill, die, or spend decades in prison for it.
It would be so much easierif someone else would do all that.
So we wait. We wait for the FBI to recommend indictment, we wait for the DoJ to do something even though the FBI said "meh, don't bother". We wait for courts to overturn the election results, even though there's no indication they are going to do this. We wait for progressives to run for office to represent us, and then we wait for the masses to elect them. We wait for Jill Stein's candidacy to upset the election. We wait for mass media to finally tell the truth. We wait for some critical mass of people to "wake up" and "get angry", even though no one's sure how many people already are or how many more we actually need, or even what they're supposed to do.
Just hang on. You can stand anything for a minute. Surely, surely something will happen soon. The Revolution is coming any day now.
We cling to hope for change the way religious poor cling to hope for heaven after a life of deprivation and toil.
Meanwhile, the extant systems of power are not disrupted or even threatened. They don't need our permission to declare mob bosses our leaders or to sell away our sovereignty to global corporations. They don't need our approval to go to war in the Middle East, or to take our money in taxes and give it away as subsidies to feed the military-industrial complex we were warned about, or to keep minimum wages low so we struggle to pay our landlord-parasites their monthly tribute to keep the police away and live with constant insecurity. The only thing the systems need from us to continue is the most basic, minimal level of consent - compliance under duress - which we give them, because they'll hit us if they don't. And whenever some radical suggests that we need to stop that, we ignore him or shut him down. "Too violent," we say, "too dangerous. Too easy to sit behind a computer and urge others to throw themselves into the gears", as if we ourselves were not the gears, dutifully grinding away at 55 MPH and $8/hour until we die and are replaced with more like ourselves.
We're beyond that.
Ain't nobody in our Group waiting for "someone to do something." We waited for 30 years. We're done. Done waiting. It's now or never. There is no tomorrow.
Funny how the Ubers and Filthys (as I call them), the uber rich and filthy rich (aka the 0.0001%, or 400 Families) have no problem voting for the Democrat, Hillary Rotten Clinton. Or not. See, for them it doesn't matter anymore if the Blue Team is in Office, or the Red Team in Office. To them it's all the same becuz they own both teams. Not only both national teams, but many of the Farm Teams (down ballot positions) as well. If we don't turn that around and take back the Senate (as well as a boatload of House seats) by 2020, well, then, you're right. No sense going to the polls at that point. They will tell you when to vote and who to vote for, if they even bother with elections by then. "Don't you worry your pretty little head about this election, Wink. We have perfect candidates for the positions open, so stay home and relax! Grab yourself a Bud and enjoy the new Zombie Apocalypse tv show! We thought it appropriate. Enjoy!" – Your KochBros Electioneering Team
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Good comment
I think you are mostly correct - we are waiting without committing. We are ready to vote, and ready to give our candidate money ( a first level of rate this past primary season), some of us are ready to stand or walk in the streets, some of us are ready to call strangers to ask for votes. But, we are not ready to kill or die.
I remember a meeting of the peace and freedom party in Santa Monica canyon in 1967. Just a few people but when they asked for contributions so black people could buy guns, my ( then) husband and I had to leave. We were not ready to kill. And that was when the machine were snatching people off the streets and sending them to war.
So yeah, I am guilty of not being that ready. And so we wait.
Remember when John and Yoko said that we could end war by just thinking it over? Sounded naif, but you know, I think it worked, on some magic level of the universe. Is that crazy talk?
"We were not ready to kill."
"We were not ready to kill."
But you were ready to continue allowing the establishment to kill.
Nothing personal.
Is this 3 dollars going to pay campaign debt?
Or go into Clinton's treasury.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Neither.
Our revolution is a different committee than his presidential committee. If you really think Bernie would embezzle like that you obviously want to support a different candidate.
And as to campaign debt,
Here's his July reporting. Still in the black.
http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00577130/1089622/
I assume neither - but then again, I'm not privy to that info.
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'm not donating until I can be sure 0% of the effort is on
working within the Democratic Party. I've signed up to volunteer, but I'm not interested in herding sheep to the party.
He went back to the Senate to finish out his term as an
Independent. That gives me some hope. Hope and knowledge are two different things though.
I figured this time I'd just pay my money and take my chances and make a plea to whatever moves the Universe that he's going to do what he says and do it outside the 'Democratic' Party. I would hope that the leaked emails would ensure he didn't jump back into bed with that bunch of political whores and and their wealthy johns.
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
It was money well spent!! Bern on!
Wish I could get my $2700 back to give to Stein. n/t
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020
If they don't kill all the
If they don't kill all the lawyers in the lawsuit, you might yet get back your money. At least, that's the idea...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
We each need to choose
based on what we see to be our best interests. IMHO giving money to someone you do not trust should be suspect but really not in your best interest if you can't afford it or it would be better used somewhere else. Others might decide differently.
My choice is to support both Bernie and Jill Stein. I see both as working in parallel directions for progressive solutions to our many national problems. I hope at some time they will coordinate their efforts.I came to this decision because I will vote for Jill Stein as the only viable candidate who may be on the ballot. Not viable as in I think she can win, she isn't even competitive with Johnson last I saw (may have changed not that we'd know from our media), but the only candidate who fits with what I support. Former Bernie supporters are all over the place in who they will vote for. I think most will bite the bullet and vote HRC with the second most going Green Party and the remnants Johnson and Trump. I see the ones voting Clinton as being the anti-Trump crowd who are less likely to provide broad donation and campaign work support her direction. The Stein crowd seems to be throwing their efforts behind the GP in all ways. I hope so. Any effort that gets the message out helps us unlike for any of the other candidates. I rejected the Libertarians a long time ago and, while we might eventually strip away some of the Trump crowd, I don't know or care what they do. It probably wont be much use to us and Johnson is very unlikely to win.
The way I see it that leaves us with Our Revolution and the GP. Anything we do to help either or both will help advance liberal ideas. I don't think it much matters if we choose not to support one or the other as long as we work for at least one. In other words I don't really care if any of us has a burr under our saddle about one but please support whoever you feel comfortable with and can afford. Unless it's HRC, Johnson, or Trump in which case I couldn't care less. All three are me candidates instead of we candidates who are totally unattractive to me.
"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."
I have known Bernie for over 30 years, I gave him a leg hug
when I was about 6. I really don't care what this primary debacle has done to his reputation or not.
I have a great deal of respect for him from his years of work for my State. I don't agree with his current attempt within the DP, but I will say he is honest as the day is long.
So no your money is not wasted.
If Bernie wasn't 'campaigning
If Bernie wasn't 'campaigning for Hillary', the message of 'what should be' would be buried under the 'Can't Do' propaganda, rather than a larger population having a chance to compare what's being done to them with what should be available within any sustainable democracy.
Bernie is a great strategist and always fighting, as he has life-long, for the principles of democracy and a sustainable society where a civilized people take care of their own, and continues sacrificing himself to this aim - against this ruthless global hostile corporate takeover attempt being operated within and through the American government making the whole David and Goliath analogy pale in comparison. Do people not realize how far the corruption has spread and how amazing Bernie is at strategy to have managed what he has, while some shreds of the mechanisms of democracy still survive to do this peacefully as a political revolution?
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
I think this is a time for experimentation...tests of all kinds,
to see what will work best to advance the Progressive Movement. Let ten thousand flowers bloom. Maybe one will prosper and spread. Experimentation is an important part of philosophical Pragmatism. And I consider myself a philosophical Pragmatist. My heroes are John Dewey and Karl Popper.
I admit, I doubt that yet another organization will do the trick. But, I could be wrong.
Personally, I have been looking for that charismatic individual who will represent the Progressive Movement and lead it to victory. Someone who will be like Martin Luther King or Mahatma Ghandi....
"All Life is Problem Solving" - Karl Popper
I will make up my mind
about Bernies new movement after the GE, I want to see how all this shit plays out.
Cannot Decide, Yet,
Whether or not to ante up once again. "Our Revolution" sounds fine, but it needs a credible leader to embody its principles. Bernie embodied those during his campaign, so even if it "wasn't about Bernie," at one level it Was about Bernie. No individual is the indispensable one, but Somebody needs to be heading the charge, and Somebody has to be able to draw large numbers of people into solidarity and participation.
"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible." 14th Dalai Lama
Are you an idiot? Uh, well,
Are you an idiot? Uh, well, time will tell.
I still don't buy any of the "chess" or "delegate-stripping threat" claims. (Would it actually have mattered if Bernie's delegates had been "stripped" somehow? Not at all.) Clinton is an unconscionable candidate; therefore endorsing Clinton was an unconscionable act, and there was no need for Bernie to do it.
So, he got over $1000 of mine during the primary. Hope it serves him well, because he's not getting any more. As for his organizations, well, they're going to have to prove themselves - and they're starting from scratch.