I have identified the problem.
Today, Morning Joe announced that 35% of Americans polled responded that they were very opposed to the Presidential candidates. In past Presidential election years, the corresponding percentage was never higher than 7%, mostly lower. Mind you, the approval numbers in that same poll probably were not 65% because I'm guessing those polled were quizzed about degrees of dissatisfaction. If I am correct, Morning Joe's framing of this dismal statistic was about as pro-establishment as it possibly could be. Joe Scarborough asked the panel to comment.*
Mike Barnicle responded with a comment about this boding low turnout on election day. Really, Barnicle? Thirty-five percent of Americans' being very dissatisfied with the Presidential candidates is all about only one day? All about a few candidates out of a population of about 350 million seeking yet more power and money than they already have? Seeking to live like the most powerful and pampered sultans in all of human history for the next four to eight years?
One might venture that Barnicle is not the sharpest tool in the shed. However, no one on the panel, including 2009 Pulitizer Prize winner Gene Robinson, challenged or changed that narrative/framing.
What about the deep dissatisfaction of a significant percentage of American adults 365 days a year and 366 leap years for the next four to eight years? And therein lies the problem. No one, including First Amendment-protected media wants to see life/politics in the U.S.A. from the perspective and point of view of the 99%. We matter, if at all, one day in four years. Of course, there's no quorum requirement: No matter how low the turnout, one of these psychopaths will get crowned in January, so we don't even matter all that much one day every four years.
You knew that, either viscerally or intellectually, or both. So did I. But it smacked me in the face (again) this morning.
We must unify. We must work harder locally. We must find ways to work across party and interest group lines on an issue by issue basis. Even those things may not work, but focusing on the national level sure hasn't worked.
*After I typed this, five minutes into the show, they announced the approval number. It was an abysmal 26%, but that was not in the lede. And the flip side, dissatisfaction of one degree or another among a staggering 74% of those polled, still has not been mentioned.
Comments
I hear it and feel it everyday. Dissatisfaction
among all the peoples whether you identify blue or red or something in between. There has yet to be one unifying issue to bring us all together, although I have been able to discuss politics a smidge more with "R" family members for the fact that I can't stand the mad bomber and refuse to vote for her. Most of my conservative family members are going with Gary Johnson despite the fact I point out that they are yet again voting against their best interests with the exception of his stance on the WARS and Military.
Edited for spelling.
O.k. When is the next meeting for the revolution?
-FuturePassed on Sunday, November 25, 2018 10:22 p.m.
In a country the size of America,
it is indeed gobsmacking that these two are the nominees of the two largest political parties and that we're even starting to dip into the same families repeatedly. smh
In your shoes, I might take this occasion to bond with my RW family members for a change. Johnson is nowhere near as good as Stein, but he's nowhere near as bad as Trump or Hillary, either. So, they could have done much worse. To mangle a Meatloaf song title, third out of four ain't bad.
So what if they vote Gary Johnson?
I keep telling people (especially millennials) that this is the best time EVER to vote 3rd party. Pick one. Doesn't matter which one. The idea is to bleed votes from both major parties. Let dems and repugs know that there is NO MANDATE for their bullshit platforms.
If it comes down to congress appointing a president, they pick from the top three. They would never pick Jill in a million years. They would probably pick the warmongering Hillary anyway. But NO MANDATE. But if the republican congress picks Gary Johnson, it's still lightyears better than Hillary. (Both Johnson and Trump will never get anything through congress anyway.)
Yes, it would be wonderful if the country would wake up in time to actually get Jill into the presidency. That is highly unlikely -- just not enough time to move that much mountain. Even if Hillary crashes from an indictment, etc, Bernie would be able to step into her place because he kept his 1900 delegates; so again, Jill would not benefit.
It's great that you are spreading the word about Green. That is the most vital part of this campaign in my opinion. We have to get a progressive party going as the democratic party is the new republican party (and the old republican party will vanish into tea party obscurity). We need to keep putting those issues out there.
But, keep your head. If people say they are voting for Gary, I say, "Great! That's one less vote for the Hillary/Trump tickets and one more to show them just how much they suck! It's telling them, 'hey I voted and it wasn't for you idiots'."
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when we are afraid of the light.
--Plato
Corruption is the issue that brings us together.
Unquestionably.
"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 would actually love to see huge numbers for Gary Johnson
on election day, with huger numbers for Jill. Giant shouts from right and left that the two-party system sucketh.
Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.
I'm not convinced we can ever
I'm not convinced we can ever really win at the national level under current conditions; the establishment simply has too much power and ordinary people simply matter too little.
I think we need to work at the local and state levels to supplant the federal government as much as possible in preparation for the dissolution of the union - even if we only threaten secession as a bargaining tool. Meanwhile, if we can gain control of the states, we'll have the power to enact some pretty substantial changes (single payer healthcare, basic income, progressive taxation, housing the homeless, feeding the hungry, increasing education funding, reforming elections, etc).
I agree that
we can't win the current conditions. However I strongly believe that we aren't going to have the current conditions much longer.
There is the beginning of an awakening out there. We are going to have to keep at it, but there is dissatisfaction growing in parts of the country. The media is doing nothing to cover it, and we are going to have to find a way to cover it ourselves. But the conditions which can create change are coming. I really believe that.
"the conditions which can
"the conditions which can create change are coming. I really believe that."
So do I. Unfortunately, those conditions would seem to be intolerable levels of decay and misery. The American people will accept the status quo as long as they possibly can, and those who suffer first and worst will find few allies among those who still have anything left to cling to. And I see no sign that THAT is changing.
"There is the beginning of an awakening out there."
That's what people have been saying for years. Decades, possibly. But I'm not seeing any fundamental changes in consciousness in the zeitgeist other from those resulting
infrom more people being screwed harder. People are not becoming more proactive or more organized, and that's what we actually need.I'm not seeing it either
I see some people complain, but a far larger majority either remain silent, or worse, supportive of the status quo despite the fact that it is hurting them, too. I see this deep belief in capitalism, especially in older people. They'll say things like, "we are a capitalist country", as if because that's what it is now, it should always be that way (the true definition of a conservative, if you ask me), or whether it serves them as an economic system or not (mostly not). And questioning this is typically seen as unpatriotic ("why do you hate our country?").
I see the largest enemy standing in the way of progress being the millions of people that have been convinced or brainwashed into aiding and abetting the rich and powerful.
Not if we keep focusing on the Presidency, unless we go about
it entirely differently.
By this time four years ago, I was seeing "Tell Hillary you want her to run" ads online. We cannot compete with stuff like that. Most of us either have full time jobs or more than one job or are physically unable to do much.
We may be on the same page. If not, it's the same chapter.
We're definitely in the same
We're definitely in the same book. I believe that the establishment is so corrupt, power-hungry, entrenched, and unaccountable that any successful revolution will require violence (ala JFK: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible," etc), and believing that, I also believe that activists need to expect and prepare for this, and they're not doing it. Most people part ways from me here. But when I say there will be violence, I am only reading the map, not drawing it; I wish people would accept that.
You may be right.
One of the problems is that people have to be damned uncomfortable before they risk a bullet in the head and this country hasn't gotten that uncomfortable. Also, it's easier to revolt in a smaller country that it is in a vast one--though the Russian peasants did manage to pull it off--but only when the military joined them. The military and everyone in local, state and federal government who is armed is another issue. So are unions. In European countries, unions are strong. Here, only government unions are even a little strong. It's through unions that the 99% network and communicate. Many Republicans do it through churches. the left has nothing comparable. Cameras and recording devices everywhere. Phones and emails tracked. A population trained to say something if they see something, ala the USSR, circa 1950. It's overwhelming.
> One of the problems is that
"One of the problems is that people have to be damned uncomfortable before they risk a bullet in the head and this country hasn't gotten that uncomfortable."
The people who are rioting or marching through hostile police lines have gotten that uncomfortable, I think, although a personal acceptance of violence as a possible consequence of one's activism is not the same as a strategic use of violence or a strategic response to the use of violence by opposing forces.
But yes, the vast majority of Americans are not there and won't be for some time yet; things will need to get much worse. Occupy needed a major depression that transferred billions in generational wealth to the 1% and left millions without jobs just to get people in the street for a few months. Parts of Occupy were willing to risk confronting police in the streets - though certainly not to the death! - but in general Occupy adopted nonviolence as its brand, so the conversation wasn't really there (although you can see hints of one in Chris Hedges' essay, "Why Black Bloc Sucks Donkeys", or whatever it was titled).
Normally, before a fight starts, there's a period of trash talking and shoving when the fighters psych themselves up to violate social taboos around violence. We're not doing that, though. No one is fomenting civil unrest. No one is talking about how far they would go or what tactics they would be willing to support in solidarity, even if they disagree with them. People are making demands here and there, but none with any consequences attached.
"the left has nothing comparable. Cameras and recording devices everywhere. Phones and emails tracked. A population trained to say something if they see something, ala the USSR, circa 1950."
And a cultural tendency, or maybe it's a natural tendency, to schism. I still don't understand why leftists can't work together. Not fully, I mean; there are leftists I would never work with, for some definition of "leftist", but I still can't generalize those examples into a universal model.
I will say that while Bernie was running, actually running, his campaign did a fine job of getting much of the left to come together, even if some of them came grudgingly. I wonder if some variation of Sayre's Law applies here; the different factions squabble viciously precisely because none of them have a hope in hell of winning.
I also wonder if lefties are particularly susceptible to the phenomenon where those who desire power and control will sabotage their own group to maintain it, even if that results in a net loss for the group (and therefore its leader). Some of the worst SJW and "hostile minority"-types seem to care more about exploiting social justice to dominate people through accusations, crybullying, and loaded questions than actually getting it, and it works almost every time.
.
If you mean Sanders' supporters, I don't know how many of them consciously realize they are risking death. If you mean the people protesting slayings of one black person after another by police, yes, they probably do consciously realize it because they have every reason to realize it. Either way, I agree with you that a willingness to be roughed up is different from organizing a revolution, getting armed, etc.
Again, I agree, but let's make a distinction between a random fight here and there and an armed revolution.
Absolutely. And, sadly, the Sanders run has "schismed" us even more, even though I very much doubt that was his intent.
I have been researching "learned helplessness" on and off this week. I was thinking of writing a diary about it. I hate to admit it, but there is also some of what the center left accuses us of, namely, if it doesn't suit me exactly, I have to run off and start a new party and elect the next President, which has not been pulled off since 1854. Which brings me to the second accusation about us--we don't get party building. Also, I've read about new parties on message boards hundreds of times since I started posting, yet very few have actually been started.
That sounds to me far more like the centrists than the leftists, but maybe I am misunderstanding.
“Party building”?
Unfortunately, that most often translates to going along with being a docile cog in your city’s or state’s corrupt political machine.
Furthermore, I keep seeing the people who talk the loudest about party building do things like running off to support Nixon in 1972, Reagan in 1980, or (think of Joe Lieberman and his backers) even McCain-Palin in 2008.
Yup. Dissatisfaction runs deep on both sides. I haven't agreed
with so many Republicans in years. Most of the R's I know would have voted for Bernie were he the nominee. Now, they most likely are not going to vote. The big unifying force coming our way is climate change. We have been spared this summer in the Seattle area, but I see this winter and next summer as when the hammer is going to come down.
"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
I agree.
With the right, I'd approach that as "clean water" and "clean air" or "air fit to breathe," rather than as "the environment," "climate change" or "global warming." I think the first two are indisputable and more relatable, especially after Flint. Fracking, too, as the ground collapses and swallows up cars and homes. But, I don't think we can penetrate the indoctrination against the global warming type labels. I feel the same about "Medicare for All," rather than "single payer."
Clarification please...
You wrote: I feel the same about "Medicare for All," rather than "single payer."
By that did you mean you don't think we can penetrate the indoctrination against the term "Medicare for All"? My conversations with Republicans find them generally in agreement with Medicare for All and either confused by or totally against the ambiguous "single payer" terminology.
I meant I far prefer the term "Medicare for All" to
single payer." IOW, you and I agree on this.
Good Point, IMO: Use concrete terms and fewer abstractions
"All Life is Problem Solving" - Karl Popper
We political posters can forget how immersed we are
in the buzz words. If you say "single payer," many who are not immersed are likely to respond, "What do you mean?" If you say Medicare for All, they are likely to get it. Most of us are on Medicare or helping a relative, friend or neighbor who is deal with with Medicare, so most of us get it right away, or at least think we do.
Even Medicare is not single payer, though, as it currently sits. The patient pays deductibles and co-pays and many people on Medicare have bought Medigap-type policies or have that kind of coverage from an employer or former employer, And Medicare gets the rest. So it's two to three payers, one of which is the patient.
8/31 NYT has another story about lead contamination in IN
East Chicago, IN, an abandoned lead smelting site. Low income housing (meaning mostly black single mothers from the photos. The money call is from the mayor there, who wants all those families relocated and re-housed. So another Flint. Pense has not visited, of course.
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.
The revolution will not be covered. That is clear now.
And really, local is where we all live and vote but national is the prize. Somehow we have to keep going nationally. This election (select A or B) is embarrassing. I see no exit. Probable Stein voter here.
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.
"And really, local is where
"And really, local is where we all live and vote but national is the prize. Somehow we have to keep going nationally."
To the contrary, I think we need to make the federal government as irrelevant to our lives as possible. We can't beat the establishment at their own game in their own house, but with enough work at the local and state levels, maybe we can nearly cut them out.
I see climate change as the local unifying factor.
My county in Upstate NY has just been declared a minor disaster area for crop farmers because of drought. So farmers with crop insurance may be compensated, the rest of us not at all.
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.
I am not saying we can all have impact locally.
Cities and towns and states are all controlled by Republicans and Third Way Democrats, too. And big towns are almost as indifferent to my views as is the White House.
However, the odds are far better. My state rep needs my vote a heck of a lot more than my Congressional rep. National may look like the prize, but it is a mirage. The people have zero impact at the national level.
Supposedly, if you want to make God laugh, make a plan. IMO, if you want to make God wet him/her/self laughing, sign an internet petition to the President or your Senators and Rep or send them an email.
Agreed! Look, taking over
Agreed! Look, taking over cities and states won't be EASY. Hell no. It's not just DC that's corrupt, states and cities are too, even small towns can be. All the same problems with lobbying and wealthy donors and one hand washing the other still exist at those levels. AND, getting people to care about local politics is sometimes harder than getting them to care about national politics, because the local stuff feels petty, and it's not smeared all over CNN.
But I think it's more possible to win at those levels than at the national level. The officials and offices are closer to the people - literally physically closer. It's hard to get a really good protest going at the White House or in front of Congress, but getting a hundred people to march on City Hall or interrupting a mayor or state senator on their night out? Doable. Insurgent campaigns are still damned hard to win, but small donor dollars go a lot further when you only have to buy local ads and you can do all your campaign travel in your car, and the duopoly isn't quite as dominant. And, when you do have some measure of control, local and state governments react faster than Congress. And finally, it's easier to get a quirky candidate elected or pass a law that makes a real difference in people's lives at the local or state level, where those laws face less skepticism from far-flung parts of the electorate. Look at marijuana legalization, new worker protections, minimum wage increases, anti-corruption laws, etc. - that stuff's all happening at local or state level, not national. Vermont tried to make single-payer work and failed; Colorado's trying to do it next if I'm not mistaken, and Oregon is pushing for it.
Legitimacy
What happened to democracy and the consent of the governed? At what point does the US government lose legitimacy? And what happens then? Will we reach a point when the ballot box loses its power and the only remaining box is the ammo box? I don't think anyone truly wants that (not sane people anyway), but the approval of our "overlords" sinks lower and lower all the time. When do we finally say we're better off without them?
We are better off without them, but not voting is not going
to prove that. As far as legitimacy, I don't think we are ever going to get to the point where no one votes. We may get low turnout, but that does not bother them at all.
As far as democracy, we've never been a democracy. We're a republic in which most citizens now have suffrage. When the country kicked off in 1789, under the Constitution, only about 6%e of the country could vote, by design.If they ever do need a certain number at the polls, they will take that number of us there at gunpoint, if necessary or just fake it. As far as whether your representatives represent you or not, they could care less.
If you're waiting to prick their conscience or sense of decency, I heartily recommend that you not hold your breath while you wait.
It does, in fact, appear to bother them
I just saw that Clinton & Priorities USA are pouring money into increasing turnout for her among POC.
I guess they don't have convincing enough stock footage of people voting, cause they sure don't need those votes for anything other than optics.
"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
Somewhere online is a video of David Koch saying otherwise.
As you know, the popular vote does not elect Presidents.
Hillary doesn't want turn out because she is worried that whoever wins will not have legitimacy. She wants turn out because she wants to make ten thousand percent sure she wins. As the nation boasts more registered Democrats than Republicans, odds are that more turnout means a Democratic win. Conversely, most vote caging comes from Republicans. If you could assure Hillary a win, even if only 2000 people from each state turn out, I think she'd go back to bashing Trump and memorizing stuff for the debates. Besides, my post covered more ground than that.
Sure it did. I was only responding to one bit of it.
Not trying to reduce the whole thing.
"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 real issue to my mind is whether persuading people
not to vote will somehow de-legitimize government and from there we will somehow get a better system. Bottom line, I just don't think that will happen, no matter what.
I just voted today.
And I intend to vote Jill in Nov, but I have serious doubts about the effectiveness of voting, esp. if it gets handed over to DHS under the "essential industries" portion of the Patriot Act.
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/290525-dhs-weighs-classifyin...
If they weren't so afraid of our voting, they wouldn't purge us and screw with the process; on the other hand, they want the semblance of voting to go on, so they can pretend not to be dictatorial monsters.
My response to all this is to continue to vote, but not to make voting the centerpiece of any political activism I might do.
"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
Of course. If you do nothing but vote, you are a voter, not an
activist.
Eh, I don't know if "we're a
Eh, I don't know if "we're a republic" holds much water anymore. All of our legislators in both houses are elected directly by the people; the President is elected by a proxy body that by law or common custom roughly tracks the popular vote. The SC is the only branch of the federal government whose officers are actually elected by the states, but even then, the electors were democratically elected themselves. Suffrage is nearly universal (by law, if not necessarily in practice) among adult citizens, and citizenship is granted at birth.
In a republic, representatives are elected by those with a right
to vote, whoever those who have a right to vote may be and however many or few they may be. In a democracy, no one votes for representatives. In a democracy, those with a right to vote, whoever they may be, and however many or few they may be, vote directly on issues. Should we go to war? Yes or no? Should we tax restaurant meals?
Suffrage and form of government are two different subjects. You can have a republic with universal suffrage and we almost do, felons being a big exception, but it's still a republic. You can have a democracy where only a few are eligible to vote, as was the case in Ancient Athens, but it's still a democracy.
The only democracy I know of was in Ancient Greece. The only vestiges we have of it now are zero at the federal level, and, at the state level, only if and when when state legislatures deign to include ballot or referendum questions on the ballot. The Framers rejected the Athenian democracy model in favor of the Roman Republic. We were a republic in 1789 and remain so. But, apparently, it makes us feel good to say we are a democracy, so we say it and politicians sure feed into our desire to believe we are a democracy. We're not.
The two systems are fundamentally different. It's not about tinkering with whether we have universal suffrage or not or whether we vote directly for Senators or not--the only thing that changed in terms of direct voting at the federal level. The President is still elected by electors and, essentially, by states, not by the popular vote.
I am not sure what you are saying here:
The President nominates and the Senate gives a thumbs up, thumbs down, or just blocks, as they are doing now. However, the nature of the court system also does not affect whether we are a republic or not.
I'll be voting
Don't get me wrong, I'll be voting, but as voting for the "lesser evil" results in greater and greater evil every November, how do we register or displeasure? Not voting isn't the answer, but clearly neither is voting.
I'd love to see instant runoff or some other type of voting that eliminate the duopoly, but the duopoly has no incentive to enact anything that would dilute their power.
I fear it's going to get bloody.
If I knew the answer, I would not just post it; I'd hire a sky-
writer. In this matter, it's far easier to analyze what will not work than to figure out what will. I think the best use I can make of my vote this year is to vote for Stein. She won't win, but, if enough of us vote for her, we might continue shaking up the thinking in D.C. Of course, they could respond with more lies and evil, but we do what we can. As far as getting bloody, some of discussed that upthread, starting with this post. http://caucus99percent.com/comment/reply/7340/164585
"What happened to democracy
"What happened to democracy and the consent of the governed? At what point does the US government lose legitimacy?"
The bar for "consent of the governed" is very low; all that is really required as a practical matter is compliance under duress, and we're giving them that. You can argue that's too low and the government is no longer legitimate right now, but you'll probably find yourself in jail (and owing back taxes!) pretty quickly if you act accordingly.
"Will we reach a point when the ballot box loses its power and the only remaining box is the ammo box?"
We may already have reached that point, but no one is opening the ammo box yet.
The majority of USAns are fairly compliant.
That may change with increasing distrust of news, futures, elections, you name it.
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.