This is why we need a new party
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/10/18/no-illusions-says-climate-le...
Published on
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
by
Common Dreams
With No Illusions, Says Climate Leader, Clinton Must Be Elected—Then Fiercely ConfrontedThe day after the election, the climate movement will 'need to press harder than ever for real progress on the biggest crisis the world has ever faced.'
by
Lauren McCauley, staff writer
Because it worked so well before. Bill McKibben argues:
"[I]f Trump wins," McKibben continues, "we backslide on the small gains we've made.
I'm already lost here, Bill. What small gains have we made? Have we reduced the yearly increases in Earth's atmospheric carbon dioxide content? Have we done anything lasting to keep the grease in the ground? The rest is nice public relations, I suppose, but public relations won't stop climate disaster.
We've forced Clinton to say through gritted teeth that she opposes Keystone, for instance. She can't, I think, go back on that.
No, Bill, Clinton thinks environmentalists like you should "get a life." She can, and will, go back on this.
Trump has made it clear he'll permit that and every other pipeline, just as soon as he's done tearing up the Paris climate accord."
But toothless "accords" just serve to insulate politicians from the real world. That's what they're for. And here are two very important ways in which Trump will be less effective in promoting corporate fossil interests:
1) Trump will have to oppose the TPP, which if signed by Clinton would badly compromise national efforts to impose climate solutions.
2) Trump won't be able to co-opt environmental movements like Clinton would.
Alternate strategy: vote for Stein, let Clinton win on her own. After the election, start a new party, end the co-optation.
Meanwhile, you can all contact Bill McKibben and tell him how you feel. It might be best if you told him what folly a Clinton endorsement is (or was) in person -- so if you contact him you might find out what his touring schedule is as he doesn't have it up on his webpage.
Comments
As I suggested in the comments section of the last diary
organizational details of starting a new party will have to become apparent after the election. At some point, though, there might have to be a business plan, writing up a strategy for avoiding sectarianism and avoiding selling out.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
Business plan part is a good idea
Having a specific set of economic goals for the membership itself seems like a good structure. People just fight over ideology, but they can be very practical when it comes to their wallets.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
Is there something wrong with the Green Party?
Why start a new one if there's already one that's pretty close to right? Given the current predominate position of the political duopoly, maybe it would be good to take an approach where the Green party runs somebody everywhere or gets simpatico Democratic candidates, etc., to also wear the Green banner.
There are lots of races at all levels which are unopposed and some seats can probably be won just by showing up (it's 90% of life according to Woody?).
Um...
the Green Party is another sectarian party, and I know this because I've belonged to the Green Party since 1992. How far along are you in this conversation?
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
What exactly do you mean
By "sectarian."?
Today the Green Party is a small party for the pure-at-heart
and basically uninterested in bringing in people who might make the whole thing more effective but who aren't pure-at-heart.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
I'm not so sure
It's that sectarian. Or that I'd even describe that as "sectarian".
But that sure as hell isn't why I'm voting green for prez.
And if they can get growth going with this election, as theirs base expands I think that will change.
Perhaps "sectarian" in the past, but can they not transform?
Particularly if Stein/Baraka can achieve the 5% needed to get federal funding? Why not throw our weight behind the one party that at least has a foothold, so as to provide real competition to the neoliberal Dems? The Repubs are marching themselves out, exit-stage-right, so the Dems will be the new Repubs. We need a party that already has some infrastructure to step into the vacuum left by the neoliberal Dems, who will be the new FDR Dems. If you want to go further left (a Socialist party), that would be cool once we establish the new FDR Dems, so the Socialist Party would be campaigning against the Greens (the old school FDR party). That way, we're driving the politics left, instead of to the right. We have to step into the vacuum, quickly, lest the fascist right does it--which Trump's movement is very definitely doing that now.
The Green Party has been in existence in the US since 1990
What efforts have been made since then to transform the Green Party into a serious contender, and how effective have they been?
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
What Reason Has There Been?
Seriously. What reason has there been? Was the mask ripped off for all to see as it has been over the last year?
Who thought Democrats were complete shills and cheaters until this year? Pretty much the Greens, that's who, but even those of us who believed that over the last 5-10 years or so were shocked by the depth and true nature of the rot, and that it was always so close to the surface.
I was a Green from 1999-2010 or so. There is a split in the party, the Environmentalists and the anti-corporate factions. That, combined with LoTE voting and a dash of sabotage, is why the Greens have not been a contender.
I really respect your opinion and your vision, but I think you are not surveying the entire battlefield. It's almost as if you've got tunnel vision, which I've heard happens to people in battle. I left the Greens a while back to participate in NY primary politics. I now believe it was a mistake. The Democratic Party is completely unredeemable.
That said, I'm now looking at the Green Party as a serious contender to corporate sponsored public policy and the political kabuki duopoly. Look at corporate sponsored public policy. Look at climate change. Rarely, in history has there been a greater confluence of existential threat. It's naked, and millions of Democrats see it, feel it, and experience it.
The formerly fringe Environmentalist movement is pretty mainstream. The formerly fringe anti-corporate movement is also pretty mainstream. Democrats have lost millions of hearts and minds. This could be the time for the sectarian Greens to coalesce into a viable, sustainable alternative.
Trying to create a new party, IMO, is lunacy.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
Maybe in NY you might have something
given all the work Howie Hawkins has done for the GPNYS. I've met Howie, btw -- he seems like a pretty dedicated guy.
I don't, however, have a lot of evidence just yet that Howie's efforts have paid off, and I don't have a lot of evidence that the Sanders advocates who actually noticed that the DNC conspired with Clinton to deprive Sanders of his well-earned nomination (and that Sanders further rubbed salt in their wounds by endorsing Clinton) are going to do ANYTHING to make the Green Party into a contender. Last I read about it, Stein was still at 2%.
I also have a good deal of evidence showing me that the Green Party is still a sectarian party which doesn't finance its candidates and which is almost exclusively engaged in the same old conversations about itself that it had when the 2004 fiasco occurred in Milwaukee. Here in southern California they're still doing the same old routine about Mike Feinstein and how the Green Party is being screwed up by a single trust fund baby, which is what Feinstein is. Meanwhile locals disappear (take for instance mine) and there's no place to read about it on the GPCA webpage.
I am offering the idea of a new party to those people (I presume there are lots of them out there) who do not find the Green Party palatable but who are also not going to obey the "me, not us" directive from the Sanders campaign and devote their time and energies to the neoliberal Democratic Party and its corrupt candidate for this cycle. Please be proactive about this!
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
I Hear You... I was in MD and MI When I Was a Green, and
they were pretty miserable at politics.
I'm just not sure I want to go about reinventing the wheel when we have a party that is comprised of people completely aware of the 3 existential threats that threaten humanity -- AGW, Corporate Sponsored Public Policy, and War. The Green Party has a great political brand for the times.
It's small, and it is sectored, but it's not a given that it must be. Take Mike Feinstein out. New blood. Should be an easy operation.
The problem I see with any Leftist party is that it is so easy to derail progress. One monkey wrench, one shoe in the gears, one mole, or one agent provocateur and it's two to 100 steps back.
I would like to come up with a solution to sabotage of the Left. That would be a conceptual change that allowed for the creation, maintenance, and positive evolution for 3rd Parties in general.
I would also like to see us push for IRV. IRV makes it impossible to game the system from a control standpoint -- too many variables to account for -- that, IMO, is the silver bullet and starting point to challenge Big Corporate & the Oligarchs stranglehold on self governance.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
Just Out of Curiosity...
how long do you think it will be before your YAM (Yet Another Minor) Party surpasses the Greens as the dominant leftist political party in the US of A? Are we to infer that four years hence it will be the YAM presidential candidate, rather than the Green, who will be getting interviewed on CNN, Fox News and the PBS News Hour? Who will be doing town halls on multiple networks including CSPAN, as well as Q&A's with editors of major newspapers like the NY Times and Washington Post? Who will be getting his or her platform dissected by John Oliver, and getting major air time on lefty TV shows like Redacted Tonight, Jimmy Dore and Democracy Now? Not to mention getting on the ballot in 44 or more states?
How long, d'ya think, before all these wonderful things can happen, and we will have some potent and muscular YAMs to vote for, instead of the feeble and pathetically ineffectual Greens?
inactive account
Depends upon how fast people learn from mistakes.
My expectation is that after four years of nice chit-chat the nice liberals will act as one in supporting Hillary Clinton for re-election and urging us all to go out there to campaign for a bunch of bankrupt Democrats. Meanwhile, 2020 will feature the hottest weather on record, just as 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016 did, while Clinton opens up new fields for drilling, fracking, and tar sands mining.
But feel free to blame ME for suggesting a new party.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
Green Eggs and YAM
The main problem with your idea is that it doesn't really even acknowledge, much less address, the most fundamental obstacle to any viable third party, which is that our political system is specifically designed to relegate alternate political parties to permanent irrelevance.
For anyone desiring to know exactly how this works, please invest 6 1/2 minutes of your time in watching the following video:
[video:https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo]
Obviously there are other voting systems out there that are far more equitable and friendly towards outsider candidates. The problem is that those in control of the US political system have zero interest in making any changes to a system that is so effective in marginalizing any possible challenges to the status quo.
So what exactly is required to alter this reality? Do you seriously believe the YAM Party is the answer - a better, craftier, more politically savvy alternative to the Greens? So a dozen years from now, let's say, the YAMs will have succeeded in electing mayors, congress critters, senators, governors, maybe even the pretzeldent of these United States? Sorry to say it, but if that is your expectation then you are seriously out of touch with reality.
The only way, the only way that I can see, outside of violent revolution, to fundamentally change the current system is to undertake a sustained campaign to radicalize a sufficient number of people to consider the two major parties as functionally equal (which in point of fact they are), that they will simply refuse to support either, and thus render the much vaunted two-party system broken and inoperable.
Voting is actually the last step in that process, and the role that any political party can and will play in that effort to build a critical mass of citizens who will "just say no" to both the D's and R's is minimal at best. Personally, I would much rather see all leftists unite under the banner of an organization that eschews the label of political party - somewhat akin to Solidarity in Poland or the African National Congress in South Africa - whose sole purpose is to completely de-legitimize the ruling elite in the minds of the masses.
If a sufficient number of people come to believe that those who constitute the economic elite - regardless of party label - are their mortal enemies, and the enemies of any kind of functional economy, free society, or livable world, then their voting habits will adjust accordingly. And whether the main alternative to the more-of-the-same candidates is running as a Green, a YAM, an owl or a turtle will matter very little.
But hey, if you think the main problem is that the Green Party is too ideologically rigid, and that a more flexible and realistically minded third party can break through and give the D's and R's a real run for their money, then by all means go to it. I sincerely do wish you success in that effort.
inactive account
I believe that the author does address the problem you raise
by having the nascent party be an activist organization from the start. So while it's a political party, it's also a group that promotes sustainable agriculture and energy through direct action. In this way, if it takes a while to gain numbers, it's accomplishing positive things by being able to send people into the field to support positive change or protest against corporate and government works that are anti-democratic.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
New Party
The basic point I was trying to make is that running candidates for office is in many ways the least important thing, at least for the foreseeable future. So why immediately set yourself up in opposition to the Green Party, the United Progressive Party, the Independent Progressive Party, and all the other alternative parties already in existence? Why act in a way that promotes even more factionalism and internecine fighting between people with essentially the same goals? A non-party organization avoids that problem and promotes a united front, big tent approach that envelopes all the existing players and encourages solidarity and unity of purpose.
The reality is that the Green Party, whatever its faults, has without any question been the most successful left-wing alternate party since the days of Henry Wallace and the Progressive/American Labor Party in 1948. The idea that a brand new party is going to come into being and casually push them aside is ridiculous. It would be a long, hard slog to build up a comparable base of support, and who knows if the finished product would really be any different or better? Much better, IMO, to forget for the moment about winning votes, and concentrate on winning hearts and minds. That's where the real battle lies, and uniting all the various leftist factions should be a primary goal, not setting up yet another one to compete with those that already exist.
To quote from an old union song:
Step by step the longest march can be won, can be won
Many stones can form an arch, singly none, singly none
And by union what we will can be accomplished still
Drops of water turn a mill, singly none singly none
Strength ultimately lies in unity and singleness of purpose. And that's exactly where the focus needs to be.
inactive account
Running candidates is the least important thing?
Maybe for you perhaps. Having seen the Occupy movement dismantled by militarized police thugs with Democratic Party mayors (coordinated by Barack Obama) giving the orders, I myself am inclined to give some credence to the idea that power over the state is necessary.
If you're looking for a good argument to challenge the notions in that Holloway book "Change The World Without Taking Power," do take a look at Jodi Dean's newest, titled "Crowds and Party."
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
Fact remains...
that no leftist party candidate for president has even managed to achieve 3% of the popular vote in the past 70 odd years. How are you planning to change that? Do you actually believe discontent with the current system is about to reach a boiling point whereby voters will be willing to desert the mainstream parties en masse? Or do you perhaps believe that your proposed "business plan" will be so diabolically brilliant as to blow by all past barriers? If the latter, I suggest you try to make a speech out of it and see if you can peddle it to Goldman Sachs.
What I am saying is something fundamentally different - that it will require sustained and coordinated effort by various different segments of society in order to create the conditions in which a critical mass of voters is actually willing to support a non-duopoly candidate. Until such time as that happens, yet another minor party is no more than a distraction and a diversion. And for you and all the other people bad-mouthing the Greens: Please get back to me when your new party has managed to achieve even 1/10th of what they have.
inactive account
Stop patting yourself on the back
Actually, you're not.
I've been a Green since 1992. I know what I'm talking about. Pay attention.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
Hmmm....
And that's so because you say it's so, right?
Yes, and I've been a golfer since 1992. Which is why I know exactly what it takes to win the Masters tournament.
Perhaps I would if you were of a mind to respond with something more substantive than meaningless non sequiturs and dismissive declarative statements completely devoid of any supporting arguments. In the world I inhabit, you kind of have to earn the right to be paid attention to. Not sure how that works on your planet.
Anyway, as far as I'm concerned this "discussion" has far outlived its usefulness, so I will happily defer to you to get in the last word. And good luck with your project. If you're as charming and persuasive with the plebes as you've been with me, you should win lots and lots of converts.
inactive account
"No illusions", he says
Yet he's very clearly DElusional about how possible it will be to move La Strega off dead center-right once elected.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
la strega malvagia?? /nt
There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.
Si. Se stessa. (Yes. Herself.)
Anche la porca vacca (literally "pig cow", but it also means "filthy whore").
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Time to put govt money
into cutting-edge research into projects like this!
Scientist find nanotechnology can convert to CO2 to ethanol.
There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.
This does look good
There's still a bunch of work to do on scalability and how susceptible he catalyst is to poisoning, but yeah, baby!
The carbon capture part is silly (it still takes energy so why bother) but the storage part is really cool.
My big question is what CO2 density do they need for it to work? There's some Harvard prof who has a startup in Canada that is working on the atmospheric capture problem, but IIRC it was complex and used a fair amount of energy and nasty chemicals. If this catalyst even works at atmospheric concentrations, it could be a serious game changer: we could set up some next gen nukes on some really stable land like the Canadian Shield and start undoing the problem. (Not to mention making more Vodka than we would ever need!)
The best part is it was public research. So we all own it. At least for now...
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
He's 2 decades late and 50 ppm of co2 short
He's pretty irrelevant if all he can think of is to vote for Clinton. 350.org? we're over 400 now.
350.org opposes Washington's carbon tax
So it's not like they are in any hurry...
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
We need power, however we can get it.
Another party may be one way, but only one.
The PTB desperately want us divided, even though they are of one mind about screwing us and they have everything on their side, from media to military and militias. We desperately need to be unified.
Figuring out how to join all the 99% together on an issue by issue basis is another way. Supporting labor is another. Join picket lines, union or not, even just on your lunch hour or on your way home from work. If you can't do that, send pizzas to the picketers or notes of encouragement, just do whatever you can do. Show willingness to vote incumbents out of office on every level, from town council to POTUS. There probably are more ways. We need to focus on coming up with as many ways as we can, then figuring out how to implement them and actually doing that.
BTW, this "Elect her, then hold her feet to the fire" pipe dream has shown up on this board and elsewhere. When something is pervasive and that false, I see it as likely a top down strategy originating with the campaign, like think "Obama boys" and "Bernie Bros," both of which were top down Hillary campaign strategies in which minion media and posters alike propagated.
When Obama first ran, Tavis Smiley was saying he wanted to hear more from Obama about things like race and poverty, but he was being told "First, get the brother elected." And Obama himself, attempting falsely to grab some of FDR's shine, told us to make him do it. So, how did that work out? BTW, no one had to, or did, make FDR do a thing. Look at his first hundred days alone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_100_days_of_Franklin_D._Roosevelt%27... http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1906802_1...
Somehow, all these people telling us to elect Hillary because she is better than Trump and then hold her accountable are very short on specifics on both parts of that equation. If you ask how she is better than Trump, all they can say how bad Trump is, not that Hillary is, overall, better than Trump. I don't need to be told, how bad Trump is, but I know, too, how horrible Hillary is. Not all of it, of course, because she is pathologically secretive.
As far as holding the feet of any POTUS to the fire, it is to laugh. Obama was in the process of breaking his own campaign promise about a strong public option and, when the left tried to hold him accountable during the town halls dog and pony shows, he and his White House mocked us. Moreover, people who try to hold Presidents accountable get arrested, even if they just politely and lawful stand outside the White House and ask someone to please pass the POTUS a note.
http://billmoyers.com/content/dr-margaret-flowers-on-single-payer-health...
Read the comments here: http://fair.org/media-activism/action-alert-pbs-misrepresents-single-pay...
And that is only one example of the futility of trying to hold a POTUS accountable. Again, it's a big club and you ain't in it and they are coming for Social Security (and whatever else you have). After all, overpopulation is a problem and they don't need useless eaters.
[video:https://youtu.be/DnB3e77hXXY]
We live in a bloody swamp ...
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Unified, is somehow seemingly beyond our capacity, sadly.
With the entrenched two-party system, polarity is the norm. I wish it were other.
Because, I know you enjoy music ...
[video:http://youtu.be/lXOrjLcKhR8]
[video:http://youtu.be/2Zked0pU_Bg]
Thank you!
Polarity is the norm because both parties in the duopoly/monopoly have egged it on deliberately and persistently, especially around voting times, but without practicing it among themselves--and we've fallen for it and gotten in line. Media cooperates with them as well. Someone the other day remarked that it's now possible for a liberal watch TV and listen to radio all day without hearing a single conservative view and vice versa. I, for one, was peer brainwashed into never reading, let alone posting, anything from a "right wing source"--as if the left never lied to us and no one on the right ever said a true thing?
Unity may seem impossible because we have been so brainwashed that we seldom even attempt unity. However, the norm does not mean it is normal. While the past is often a good predictor of the future, the past need not determine the future, unless we choose to let it.
Polls, especially those conducted without labeling issues as left or right, show much more unity among the 99% than we might think--over 70% on many issues and, on some issues, over 80%. In Flint, Michigan, for example, most or all the 99% became one around the issue of the water. We can and must flip the paradigm. In fact, flipping political paradigms is what we need to be about.
Maybe Americans will never be one political party--and that is a good thing, I think. And maybe the right and left can never agree on whether abortion is murder or a Constitutional right--but maybe we can agree that government should stay out of it entirely. In any case, we can unite around a number of other issues, especially if we keep exposing the cosiness in the duopoly. No one likes being the mark in a long con--especially a long con funded by the taxes they work hard to pay.
[video:https://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_371w/Boston/2011-2020/2016/04/13/BostonGlobe...
http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/photos-show-bill-clinton-friend... (many photos from the Clinton Presidential Library of Bill Clinton with Trump)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8xoUw5FX6k]
Thank you for the music. Of course, I agree with Wailer on unity. Our
fearfulfearless leaders sow dissension among us every chance they get, while they laugh with, and honor, each other. W need to thwart their faux divisiveness if we want[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfoi-cye26c]
Hmm. I'm going to bookmark this for possible conversion to a blog entry.
The "Unity Party" as a name?
since,
Beware the bullshit factories.
Duplicate comment deleted by HenryWallace.
Taken since 2004 by the center right.
http://www.unityparty.us/aboutus1.html
F**k the language stealers
So many words they've taken and used against us.
Beware the bullshit factories.
Funny you should post that. I was thinking
earlier this morning that we have to stop worrying about which words we use.
The Working Families Party is a great name, IMO, but they usually vote for the Democratic candidate or, very rarely, the Republican. Their original idea was that they would should their clout by having a separate ballot. IMO, the Republicrats could care less who voted for them on which ballot, as long as they get elected and re-elected. (And when they stop getting elected, they lobby.)
On the other hand, the Republicans were the most recent new party to elect a President and they formed in 1857, so....
Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose Party had a solid showing
It was a huge factor in the 1912 election.
Beware the bullshit factories.
Yes. I posted about that.
http://caucus99percent.com/content/presidential-elections-and-liberals-l...
However, TR had already been President--and a great one, at that. Mt. Rushmore great. One of ten best Presidents in U.S. history great. And he still lost.
A historic loss, too, enabling Democrats to take the Northeast for the first time ever. Plus, since then, ballot access has become more difficult and the amount of money and skills required to run successfully has increased beyond TR's ability to have imagined when he ran.
So, as I said, the most recent new Party to elect a President was the Republican Party, formed in 1857. And their candidate was Lincoln, also Mt. Rushmore great and one of the ten best Presidents in US history great. Very possibly, THE best, with all due respect to General Washington. A great speaker. too. Inspiration. Logic. Humor. The whole enchilada. Plus, their cause (abolition) had had a two century plus head of steam. I posted about that, too. http://caucus99percent.com/content/presidential-elections-and-liberals-l...
I am not saying a new party cannot elect a President. I am saying it will take a lot to achieve that. I think we need to be realistic: we simply are not going to form a new party and elect a President in 2020 or 2024. Plus, I have not yet heard anyone (but me) talk about any practical stuff, like raising money to even get started to find a candidate. Sanders could do it because he was already well-known (relative to say David Cobb or Cynthia McKinney) and a brand, with contacts. Us? Who is going to send me money if I ask? For all they know, I could be a con artist.
Thank you for bring up the
Thank you for bring up the issue of online fund raising. I get many requests for money every day
I have never heard of most of these candidates nor know what they are running for and in what state.
I wonder if people are going to get tired of all these requests for funding and suspicious of them being
con artists and tune everyone out?
A candidate asking is very different from my asking.
People talking about another new party don't have a candidate--and it it takes a good amount of money just to come up with even a half way viable candidate for Democrats and Republicans. Having a realistic shot at the Oval Office is not like having a realistic shot at putting on a show in the barn, ala the old Andy Hardy films.
Nader did not even have a realistic shot and he had spent a life in public service accomplishing marvelous things for people in the U.S.
So, how will the initial money be raised and who will spearhead that drive? Who with enough juice to get on Meet the Press and the Ellen Show to talk about fundraising will be working for this new party? And how will the new party raise the money to identify and recruit that person?
Sanders, an great incumbent Senator with a great message, and existing mass media contacts could not even buck the establishment candidate from within the Democratic Party. And that was an establishment candidate with a huge number of negatives.
Again, I am not saying this can't happen ever. But, it's going to money, staff lawyers and a lot of time, starting with trying to get ballot access laws changed.
I am beginning to think
that the only way to ensure that there is no change is to have Clinton win this election. Nothing will change with the Democrats, they will continue dancing with the devil until they are forced to. So the only alternative to creating a new party is to cause one of the existing ones to be destroyed. Most progressives share little with Republicans politically so rebuilding that party won't work. That leaves the Democrats. So I guess it's a rock and a hard place. Do the extraordinary task of building a viable third party with enough teeth to affect change or vote out incumbent establishment types. If the DNC wants to weight the scale against progressive candidates in the primaries (like they have been doing, see Sanders et al) then we vote against them in the general. I don't know the answer but with every little new bit that comes out I'm starting to lean to voting against Hillary and Patrick Murphy types just to force the Democratic party to rethink wtf it is doing.
There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties.. This...is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.--John Adams
Yep
Those who are brainwashed by the corporate media will become even more solidified in their defense of Hillary as they let themselves be used.
Beware the bullshit factories.
Much will depend upon
how well, or how poorly Hillary is perceived to be governing. Since she has rarely, if ever been straightforward and honest with the public, it's difficult to know exactly what actions a Clinton Administration might take. Or how effective or ineffective, popular or unpopular they might be. Perhaps she actually means some of the thing she says - but "only her hairdresser (and Huma) know for sure".
Another war might sink her, or another banking crisis. However it's possible she might be able to avoid both...maybe not likely, but possible. In any case, she will be facing a great deal of public skepticism, whatever she tries to do.
native
Honestly.
Do people like McKibben & Bernie *hear* themselves? Their endorsements/ rationale don't make any sense.
Although Bernie made some sense in this interview in the New Republic.
https://newrepublic.com/article/137103/bernie-looks-ahead
*DAMMIT*, Bill!
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE]
"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
God I miss Freddie.
Of course she can go back on it!
FFS! To quote GalaxyQuest, "Did you guys ever watch the show?"
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ83r886Kyg]
"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
Let's play pick the excuse.
"That was the campaign. Now it is time to govern."
"We need to be the grownups in the room."
"Jobs, jobs, jobs! (Further efforts will only cost them. Sorry.)"
"Our solutions will have to be incremental."
"Energy security is vital to national security."
"Any plan must be bipartisan."
"Get a life, dirty hippie."
"You had your options in the election and you gave me a mandate. You should have voted for Jill Stein if environmental issues were important."
Feel free to continue the list.
"You knew I was a snake when you elected me"
FROM WIKIPEDIA - so no one thinks I wrote this...
The Farmer and the Viper
The story concerns a farmer who finds a viper freezing in the snow. Taking pity on it, he picks it up and places it within his coat. The viper, revived by the warmth, bites his rescuer, who dies realizing that it is his own fault. The story is recorded in both Greek and Latin sources. In the former, the farmer dies reproaching himself "for pitying a scoundrel," while in the version by Phaedrus the snake says that he bit his benefactor "to teach the lesson not to expect a reward from the wicked." The latter sentiment is made the moral in Medieval versions of the fable. Odo of Cheriton's snake answers the farmer's demand for an explanation with a counter-question, "Did you not know that there is enmity and natural antipathy between your kind and mine? Did you not know that a serpent in the bosom, a mouse in a bag and fire in a barn give their hosts an ill reward?"[2]
Aesop's fable was so widespread in Classical times that allusions to it became proverbial. One of the very earliest is in a poem by the 6th century BCE Greek poet Theognis of Megara, who refers to a friend who has betrayed him as the 'chill and wily snake that I cherished in my bosom'.[3] In the work of Cicero it appears as In sinu viperam habere (to have a snake in the breast) and in Erasmus' 16th century collection of proverbial phrases, the Adagia, as Colubrum in sinu fovere (to nourish a serpent in one's bosom).[4] The usual English form is 'to nourish a snake (or viper) in one's bosom', a phrase used by Geoffrey Chaucer (Merchant's Tale, line 1786), William Shakespeare (Richard II 3.2.129–31,) John Milton (Samson Agonistes, line 763) and John Dryden (All for Love 4.1.464–66), among the foremost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farmer_and_the_Viper
***
End Wikipedia snippet
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
The Paris Accord? Seriously?
OK, what it comes down to is this, something I said to John Cusack on Twitter the other day: you're either ready to challenge the system, or you're not. If you're not, you'll vote Hillary, or stay home.
Where McKibben's statement really comes from has nothing to do with climate change or the environment; it has to do with the fact that McKibben, and his organization, are not ready to challenge the system. The costs/risks are too high. I get that. But that's no reason to use your political and moral capital to spread her talking points for her.
"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
Costs/ risks
Risk if we vote for Clinton: catastrophic climate change
Risk if we don't vote for Clinton: catastrophic climate change
Costs? Ask your accountant. Bigger question about costs: what is the money going for, anyway, and does it really matter?
The only way we mitigate the risk is by actually mitigating catastrophic climate change. So far, Bill McKibben and his organization (http://350.org ) have only nibbled around the edges of the problem in a sort of half-baked, publicity-generating way. I know! Let's protest a pipeline or two while the fossil-burning machine lurches on. Or: let's advocate a carbon tax while the real work, that of creating a non-carbon infrastructure, remains (and will remain) undone. Or: let's promote a voluntary climate change treaty knowing full well that nobody's really going to respect it.
We need to ask Bill McKibben to take the next step. The best way, as I've argued in the diary, is to talk to him in meatspace. What we have, so far, is his address.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
I meant personal costs and risks
to him and his organization.
Crossing the Clintons is inadvisable. Everywhere people are falling to their knees.
"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
Again I note:
McKibben says:
but as with all "press harder" or "hold feet to fire" declarations no details follow. Ideally, these details would outline a workable plan to be effective actualizing (not pursuing, but getting done) policy that will do something to halt or significantly mitigate climate change. But he doesn't give us any plan, much less a workable one.
Someone needs to ask that asshat how the hell he intends to influence Clinton's policy if he is going to vote for her anyway.
Well I did post McKibben's email in this diary.
Feel free at any time to send him an email.
ask him about his touring schedule, visit him while on tour, and tell him what you think during a Q & A session!
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
"The costs/risks are too high" if you don't have the courage of
your convictions and don't mind being seen soiling yourself in public.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
I am going to attempt to "vote" for the woman
who has the courage and integrity to help us survive all this bullshit.
Jill Stein.
But then again, the election is totally rigged and just a complete fucking joke to begin with....
I think regardless, this mess will shake some people awake. We have voted for the lesser so many times that now we face Shit vs Shit. We have lowered our standards to the point that we have zero power and no voice.
We allowed them all to take over so that we don't have to worry our pretty little heads over much except for every 4 years. We are content to be slaves as long as we can fight each other for the crumbs.
It's high time we all started to fight the elite bastards. The Rs and Ds are one and the same. Maybe now the people will have little else to do but fight back.
Only now... it's going to be harder than ever. Sorry folks, but it will not be pretty nor easy.
"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison
This is exactly why Bernie is stumping for Hillary, because this
will give him leverage.
If the Clintons do not honor the platform commitments then Bernie will get on his megaphone and target them. Bernie has fulfilled his commitment to campaign for her and she will deliver or she will get hammered by Bernie and hopefully Elizabeth.
He had zero leverage supporting Stein, he played this the best way possible.
Article here, sorry if already posted.
I can't wait to she her feet held to the fire!!! Yes I would rather not see her at all but that aint reality.
I disagree.
Sanders would have had plenty of leverage supporting Stein. Sanders and his campaign organization made a conscious choice not to support Stein. We can speculate about the motives for that choice. But there it is.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
please explain the leverage he has/had backing Stein?
Getting people to vote for Stein --
5% of the voters vote for Stein and the FEC grants the Green Party some significant money. More money means more candidates, more Greens, and a chance for the Green Party. Bernie's help could have made that possible.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
how does 5% of the vote for Stein help
Bernie get progressive legislation passed in 2017?
Explain to us all then --
how Bernie is going to get progressive legislation passed in 2017 when the far most likely outcome of this election is Clinton and a Congress that puts Bernie to bed.
Those of us who put our hopes in the Green Party seek a 5% Presidential candidate outcome so we can EVENTUALLY make the Green Party into a fighting force.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
Bernie started working on 2017 in May/June
He knew he had lost the nomination and went to work getting the DNC on record supporting progressive goals.
We have more leverage over the Dem party then we have ever had.
Bernie can and will hold her feet to the fire, if she doesn't acquiesce then he will hammer away at her.
She has to win one more election, and she will ignore her campaign promise to us at her own peril.
Well that's nice.
Does this really mean anything? I'm guessing no. When push comes to shove his followers will vote for Clinton's re-election anyway, just like they're supposed to be doing in this election cycle. I don't care about "hammer(ing) away." Not voting for politicians because they don't do what you tell them to do? That I can respect.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
Lesser of two evils again
Okay, Clinton like Obama will probably kick Progressives in the teeth and obey her masters.
What can we threaten her with? You know that come 2020 we will be offered the same evil choices
by the RINOs and DINOs. Like Obama I do not think that she gives a damn about what the
American people think or feel, she is protected by TPTB.
I don't believe Sanders will ever be able to do this
And even if he tries, seems to me that they've seen to it that he's been effectively neutered already--so it'll just end up being more stringing everybody along and a whole lot of entertaining noise that will ultimately matter little. Oh, it'll look like something, but in the end, there will be no holding the feet of those disgusting, crooked Clintons to any fire that matters, because they care about NOTHING but enriching themselves. They are the most vile, disgusting pigs at a trough...
A Question Buzzing in My Head
On the question we kick back and forth of "New Party" or "Extant Party (usually Green)", a problem I have always had with the "Two Parties (actually the One Party with Two Faces)", particularly of later years here, is that of the rotating letters (D to R, R to D) of the players. Currently there is much gas spewed from the "reasonable" Republicans (can there be such a thing, really?) left in that wing of the One Party, about leaving it over tRump and becoming Democrats. Of course, this happens continually as demographics of various districts shift, or the herd mind rushes ever more to the Mad as a Hatter side, but it underlines the fact that there is so little difference between the Two Faces. On one day a Tool in Office may hurl disdain against the other side of the isle, but let their current Face's face be revealed to all, even the dimmest, and they think they wash themsleves by running to the other side wailing about how "My Party Has Changed So Much I Must Leave" (they were down with it all just yesterday), so take my in my brothers. A big ole B.S. on that.
How does this happen so fluidly? Does neither "Party" have the discretion, or the Rules, to keep itself from being morphed too closely into looking like the Other Face? Is it rational to simply take the stand that if some tool from the other side of the isle is looking for refuge elsewhere because his/her constituency has gone even more mad that a job is about to be lost a good enough reason to accept the "enemy" into the other camp? I have never thought so.
What sort of Rules should or can be established to see to it that a new party (for Truth , Justice, and the American Way) does not simply find itself taken over by the forces which we all despise? For in the scenario that this new party comes to be and the "Evil Empire" does not manage to crush it from the outside (which we all know will immediately be its goal), we must know the infiltration will begin in earnest.
Perhaps this question is premature? It haunts me enough to bring it up. Better over think the whole thing than to be slapping our foreheads later and wailing "Why didn't we consider this Before that jackass got inside the barn?!"