Different location, different social stratigraphy, playd cards with friends. This vote-trade would be really good in card clubs? Just dawned on me. All comfy cozy in someone's dining or card room.

I hope this did not come from my comment on Thursday's OT. I was cranky not necessarily because of anything here on cc99% as this Bernie carrying on is all over the net, it's the election stupid I keep telling myself. I understand people being upset after the obviously rigged farce of a primary. It's wake up time.

We all process the reality we're facing differently and although we are mostly all political junkies we should not nor will we all be expected to think in lockstep. I like Big Al never got the Bernie as the 'leader' of the movement he gave a political voice to. I donated and supported his challenge to The Mad Bomber. What thrilled me was not Bernie but the fact that 43+ million people took on the establishment Third Way Democratic machine.

To me Bernie the pol is not relevant as he is part of this establishment. He's not the only so called progressive politician I'm disgusted with. None of them seem able to walk the walk. When push comes to shove they all fold. The ones that do not are whisked off the stage, Cynthia McKinney and Kucinich come to mind.

I like the fact that cc99% offers a place where people can express openly both their feelings and their solutions, hopes and ideas of how to move forward. Me I just don't think the rotten corrupt Democratic party can be 'revitalized'. This is a oligarchical duopoly. I also believe that this primary was a good eye opener as the movement was not about Bernie per say it evolved from Obama's campaign of bottom up change and when it became obvious that he was selling an empty pocket full of hope Occupy and even black lives matter. When I quit working on Obama's primary campaign my precinct boss a young'un told me that Obama did not matter what mattered was the movement he engendered.

Partisan politics and the intrigues and carrying on of the DC politicians, courtiers and the Dem apparatchik just seems pointless to me at this point. I just don't buy the story line none of it rings true. However I do love this site and hope that the original premise of not having to self censor remains. I am trying to ignore and not join in an the Bernie fests or the Jill Stein fests or the Our Revolution bs. It's natural for these essays to be prevalent.

What I do not like is the pol worshiping i read all over the net. People who say you must respect Bernie and your throwing him under the bus if you don't buy him as a victim rather then as a participant in the broken system he works for. Even before the spectacular primary fix appeared I did not agree his stances on many issues, his 'foreign policy' was appalling. I liked his stump speeches but what blew me away was the crowds of people who were willing to take on the corrupt political system. Enough is enough.

So I say carry on folks and those of us who don't want to read about Bernie's bogus revolution or the politics of persona and identity can just resist the temptation to get into pointless argument's about what is now a politically moot issue. The movement is not going away it's not about the pols of mass deception or partisan politics it's about people globally rejecting this madness.

So my apologies to those of you here who I have offended with my negativity to people do not think just like I do. Nobody's wrong and nobody's right as were all adrift on this lifeboat. What must we do? I don't know I'm playing it as it lays. Politics and history are not static so we just need to keep moving and not get bogged down in wallowing in the mire of divide and conquer that the owners of the place churn up.

'Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.' George Orwell.

I appreciate this essay. Reasonable advice for all of us. And the video is inspirational.

Obviously, the first order of business under the heading of What Must We Do is to preserve our morale and stick together, and not allow this tactic to work. In order for it not to work, we need, IMO, three things:

1)We need to stop attacking each other.
2)We need meaningful work to do that draws us together.
3)We need to have fun together.

I am ready to move on.

Meaningful work? I am starting seeds on my dining room table for a fall garden. And I am going to promote this essay and votepact.org.

(I'm too liberal for some kinds of Marxism. I find myself simply unable to give up the idea of freedom of discourse, or to think that the only way to combat a bad idea is to suppress it. As an intellectual, I just can't go there. Though I admit the issue is more difficult than it appears.)

If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist.
-- Karl Marx

source

Single-mindedly concerned about his people to the point that he sometimes misses the big picture who in the end sacrifices himself so his companions can move forward.

I like the idea of VotePact; especially I like the idea of meeting with republicans. I'm a life-long 65 yr old democrat. Here's what this amazing election has taught me: not that we are, but that we should have a top/down political awareness. As I see it, only Bernie & Jill see what the economically down people (most of us) need.

I have come to the belief that social issues (abortion, gay rights, racial issues, etc.) keep us non-oligarchs from seeing how desperately we all need economic justice, dems and reps. These social issues are real and vital, but they are also artificial ways to keep us apart, to keep us from hearing each other, to keep us from uniting in the demand for economic justice. I think that forcing ourselves into a real dialogue with a republican can be extremely positive, although difficult. During the primary, I was surprised by hearing from some repub friends that they were so repulsed by Trump, that they expected to vote for Bernie in Nov. Now, they seem to be gradually drawn to Hilary because of the MSM portraying her as honestly very close in ideals to Bernie. This is despite having a deep dislike of her corruption.

One website which sometimes ludicrously unites Berners & Trumpsters is Reddit's hilaryforprison. I love it.

An argument I've used with the strongest right-wingers I know is ask them to say in any polls that they will vote Libertarian so Johnson has a chance of getting into the debates. I tell them I'm not telling them who to vote for, but just to try to expand democracy by increasing the voices we hear.

I personally loved hearing from Bernie again in his OR kick-off speech. But immediately afterward, I felt hollow because he never addressed war. I see war, climate change and economic equality as the completely interwoven triumvirate of issues most important for us, for all of us, both left & right. I fail to see how any war-supporter can claim to be pro-environment. And I had feared Hilary & her penchant for war more than I feared Trump, until he chose Pence. Now i realize that he may not initiate new wars, but he'll probably be powerless to end them.

I wanted to highlight your comments about a movement:

It creates the basis of a movement against the system that produced these rotten choices in the first place. And who knows where a movement like that could go?

And include this interesting (?) article I found on the other side from among about a dozen web news sites that I visit regularly. This opinion piece was over on a non-left site, and I was amazed at the anti-establishment rhetoric:

Literally billions and billions of dollars are at stake here, which is why establishment politicians in both parties are so terrified of ...

Corporations need cheap illegal labor, importers need cheap goods from China and the military industrial complex needs to keep America’s wars rolling. Every one of these entities has armies of high-paid lobbyists to make sure that the establishment stays put no matter what the voters want.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/aug/23/donald-trump-drives-agen...

But I like what I'm reading so far. Running out the door but wanted to say I'm on board. Would like to dialogue with you later with specific questions of how I can get this started within my own sphere of influence.

Thanks for taking the time to put these cohesive much needed thoughts together!!!

This really resonated with me. Its key to keep our resolve in these trying times.

My concern is that unless people analyze and debate what happened, they will be doomed to cynicism and hopelessness. Naomi Klein got it right when she talked about the collective heartbreak people were experiencing.

I never believed that Obama was a change agent, but what was clear was that any attempt from the left to criticize his clear collaboration with the 1% was squashed immediately. Because of that -- and because of the death grip of identity politics -- progressives failed to criticize Obama's lack of concern and action for the pressing issues of the people who had elected him. When he put Social Security on the table in the Grand Bargain with Boehner, he was still "our first Black president" and nary a peep was uttered. It was his administration, not the Republicans, that squashed the public option and collaborated with Big Pharma.

The effect of this enforced silence was to freeze the progressive movement in its tracks for 8 years. It is horrendous -- and difficult to comprehend -- that Bernie would tap into that subterranean dissatisfaction, give it voice and then torpedo the very troops that supported him. This could undermine progressive politics in the under-30 generation for decades or forever.
This was no small betrayal that occurred -- and I'm not interested in speculating about how he didn't mean to do it -- or that the Devil made him do it. The objective impact of creating an uprising and then opting out is a devastating blow to a new generation of activists.

For this reason, I believe that it is very important to analyze what happened. Such analytics are necessary for any movement to continue to have legs and breathe. (I believe Lenin referred to it as dialectics or 2-line struggle, or something like that)
During the campaign there was a very sensitive article on Reddit that was removed almost immediately that explained the gap between the message and the medium used in Bernie's movement. I'll start with offering a short list of what were the warning signs much before California:

1. Lack of interest in connecting with grass roots organizers and experienced elections workers (The People's Summit was organized as a response to the fact that there was no attempt to build local strongholds of committed and organized support)

2. The great man approach to organizing -- The campaign did not have a phone number or an email address to use in contacting them. There was no attempt until very late to build dialogue. In our local office the paid staff said they were allowed to organize students only, and to support only phone-banking and canvassing. Attempts to leaflet or to organize community support -- to meet with possible supporters outside of the college campus -- were directly vetoed by the campaign. After the big Bernie rally, the local office was shut down and all attention directed to the next big event where the same stump speech would be offered as a litany. The local office refused to put up signs or posters outside of the university to announce his rally. Anyone not a student who was in the first 20 rows of the rally was asked to move. By confining the targeted base to young people who had no direct political experience, those individuals who have seen elections bought or stolen were silenced. Those with actual organizing experience were made invisible. As we over-40 types were assigned to the water bottle table at the rally, we had the opportunity to share our common experiences such as those describe above -- of insults and direct exclusion.

3. Bringing in paid staff from faraway places who knew nothing about the local climate and political base. Explicit threats to volunteers who suggested community-based activities other than organizing students and phone-banking (an activity where no discussion can occur -- all is scripted).

4. Refusal to challenge election fraud, beginning with Iowa -- pretending and actually stating on MSNBC that election fraud hadn't occurred

5. Paid staff directly insulting volunteers over 50 and explicitly turning away offers to volunteer -- Refusal to permit leafleting or organizing meetings. When we got permission to use a public park for a Get Out the Vote for Bernie rally (which the newspaper had agreed to publicize), the campaign office -- after initially promising hearty support -- received a message from the national office saying they could not back the local rally nor have it labelled as a Bernie Sanders event. The staffers said to us, "This is how it goes when your campaign is managed by someone whose most recent job was running a comic book store." No cynicism there, right?

6. No interest in organizing and training poll watchers (read the Obama campaign's organizing manual -- they had it from hello) The message from national was they would have to study it. (We sent them a copy of the Obama manual on poll watching.)

7. No interest in vetting those who signed up to be Bernie Delegates. In our state many "Bernie delegates" and even paid staff organizers were Hillary supporters and often paid by the DNC or her PAC's. So from the beginning people leading the Bernie effort were Hillary troops. When we reported their subversion -- when they called meetings and cancelled them -- when they disabled local Facebook pages, etc. -- we reported our concerns & the campaign sent back form emails stating that they had received our message. (Contacting the campaign was difficult to do because there were no publicly available addresses or emails, but we persisted until we got a link for a live human being at the national office.) Once we even sent an email to Tad Devine at his law offices, thinking that the leadership couldn't possibly mean for such subversion to be supported in Bernie's name. (A well-known activist wrote in the NY Times that he also contacted Devine's legal office, because it was nearly impossible to find a way to communicate directly with the campaign leadership.)

7. Refusal to support local candidates who had endorsed Bernie early on and shared his platform -- One local candidate who was 'Bernie all the way' drove 300 miles to the rally at a large campus and was never given the option to speak for even 5 minutes while the crowd sat in silence for 3 hours waiting for the event to begin. When Bernie was asked by media why he hadn't endorse this local candidate, well-known for his support, Bernie said, "I just don't know him well enough."

None of the above signals indicates that this was an attempt to truly build a movement of committed people who can build on their own networks of strength. None of the above indicates that there was ever a genuine attempt to win. Yet throughout the campaign the euphoria that someone had finally verbalized what no one could say, during the administration of "our first Black president," fueled huge levels of mass support and hope.

It is the fact that there wasn't sufficient debate and analysis during this buildup -- and certainly no analysis from mainstream media) that led to such a hard fall. People must analyze what was amiss and what needs to be different in order to build a lasting people's movement that can't be undermined.

It's critical to make this type of legitimate critique a continuing part of the effort to build a more lasting progressive movement, in spite of the efforts of the Establishment to stifle it. Unfortunately, the end result of Bernie's grand tour was exactly the worst kind of stifling and suffocation that these dedicated young people have ever faced.

Those of us who have witnessed and experienced this in the past, who worked in people's movements for many years, have to speak up and to draw lessons that will allow a movement with a strong and diverse base to grow. We have a window in which to learn and grow -- let's not limit the debate in the way it was limited during the primary election period.

Bottom-up change can't begin with restriction of points of view or subject matter, even though I fully support your seeking a base for unity and building together. There's a lot of healing and learning that has to happen in order to accomplish the goal of unification of a diverse but committed progressive base. Onward with courage in words and actions!