Thanks DD. I like Pierce's writing also (the piece he wrote from Iowa just before the primary was really good, in which he said in its title that the best speech he's heard so far was not from Bernie or Hillary, but Cornel West). Here again he has a moment of clarity that was cutting and incisive, and I wish it foreboded to something that would have the currency it deserves in that national dialogue. But it won't. The m.o. of the MSM has become so predictable that we know for every time we stand up to applaud one of our "progressive" voices you can be sure there will be 3 or 4 follow-ups that reverse the course, as if they're keeping some kind of scorecard which forces them to come back to heel with more laudatory fluff the next few time. Muckrakers? Not many out there.

I've been lamenting the end of the Bernie campaign, the brazen way it was stolen and the fascistic display of Nationalism and goonery at the DNC. And in a larger sense of how all this sudden awareness and interest in politics among the usually sedated populace comes rushing to the fore as a result of this quadrennial circus. And this year is a true Twilight Zone that featured a freak show, depravity, massive webs of deceit, euphoria and ultimately perhaps, the truth that the quest for personal greed and power is one obstacle we're doomed not to be able to hurdle. That's not to say I'm giving up.

The aftermath of the primary, however, has me feeling more than ever like I'm riding a seesaw of contempt and pity for society. But just like after Occupy it's a matter of reminding yourself that the struggle is long, and that all of those millions of people around the world touched by OWS to form their own occupations in solidarity, those folks, like the millions of Bernie supporters, volunteers, canvassers and donators, aren't just going away. They've been implanted with something that just needs a little watering every now and then. It may seem dormant but it doesn't die. The anger comes from being so close (and having it stolen, literally) and realizing that it seems only during presidential campaigns do these incredible opportunities arrive in which to galvanize the masses. Bernie did an amazing job in that regard. Obama's campaign may have been one of the most high profile and successful in generations. But Bernie's engendered similar commitment and support, if not more fervency in a purely populist way we haven't heard in a lifetime.

In my view so much of how we react to this moment boils down to what media you've consumed, what books you've read, if you have the wherewithal to question your own internal predispositions in order to dig in to find out where they came from, and the higher awareness to find empathy and compassion beyond the basic motivations of self-preservation and fear. The level of propaganda, distraction and manufactured controversy distorts and confuses otherwise good and caring people to be manipulated then divided and conquered. If had one wish it would be that people eliminated all commercial media (i.e. newspapers, cable tv, radio, commercial ads.) from their mental diet, and substituted reading literature and having more in person, face to face conversations not only with their friends but perfect strangers we'd have the necessary antidote to all the poison infecting and debilitating us. Was just watching a short film on the life of Studs Terkel and his is a testament to the espousal of these ideas.

In a nutshell to me people will continue to be staggering through a malaise, wrestling with their powerlessness, until we find a way to dignify our own personal stories. What I mean by that is people will, through the media they take in, sadly continue to transpose their lives and problems onto whatever celebrity-driven and institutional political claptrap sloganeering because there is nothing in "the news" reflecting our lives back to us. Nothing expressing the real anxiety, for example, over mounting student/medical/consumer debt, rising housing and insurance costs, etc. Business jargon will be mixed with official reports and stats and empty, generalized promises by politicians signifying nothing to the average single working mother who simply needs relief from minimum wage job and health and child care costs piling up. Until we can build a media with a platform to dignify the lives of ordinary working folks with identifiably universal problems, we'll be stuck on this treadmill of thinking "the news" is there to help inform us to make better decisions in our lives, when in fact it's practically carefully concealed advertising spots for the oligarchy. The personal stories are what build empathy and compassion, the engines of society. During Occupy sites like the We Are the 99 Percent tumbler page and others cropped up, very effectively tapped into this idea by crowdsourcing these kinds of stories. They are a portend of how real change will come. When people share their stories, the effect of knowing we're not alone or living in the shadows of being foreclosed upon and that nearly everybody in the 99% shares a version of these predicaments, will not only liberate us but unite us in the way necessary to take the next step to defeating the oligarchy responsible for all this unnecessary strife.

At this point I think he's probably more anti-Trump than Pro-Hillary.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a42499/i-voted-for-be...

So, anyway, here's the deal, in the interest of full disclosure: I went over to City Hall and voted for Bernie Sanders Friday morning.

As it happens, the Commonwealth (God save it!) has contested primaries in both parties on Tuesday for the first time since god was a boy, so my vote counted a little more than it usually does. Why I made the decision I did comes down to the simple fact that I believe that the movement exemplified by the Sanders campaign—which had its roots in so many different places, from Occupy to the campaign to elect Senator Professor Warren—is an important one, not least because it is a hedge against forgetting what happened to the country in 2008—and, more important, what might have happened in 2008 and 2009 had the country not had the good sense to elect this president. Previous recent economic crises—from the S&L scandals to the Wall Street scandals that helped make Rudy Giuliani a household name—all disappeared down the memory hole so completely that, when the million-megaton shitbomb hit eight years ago, the initial shock almost paralyzed the entire government. American corporations steal. Big American corporations steal big. This is a lesson we have to keep learning, over and over again. When Sanders says that the business model on Wall Street is fraud, he's not saying anything new, and he's not saying anything that should be a surprise.