OurRevolution is a Hillary front

As was discussed here sometime ago, it was revealed by Wikileaks that Hillary's backers planned to create an astroturf movement, a phony grassroots movement intended to make people feel like they were support progressive causes but in actuality were supporting The Evil Queen herself.

Well here's the latest email I got from them:

Police stormed the Native encampment in the path of the Dakota Access pipeline and arrested more than 100 people trying to stop this pipeline's threat to water sources and climate change. There's only one person who has the power to stop this pipeline from being built: Hillary Clinton. If she says she totally opposes the pipeline, it won't be built.

Add your name to our petition calling on Hillary Clinton to oppose the Dakota Access pipeline.

SIGN THE PETITION TO HILLARY CLINTON

Chris,

The Dakota Access pipeline would carry some of the dirtiest oil on the planet across four states, putting at risk farms, native land, critical water sources, and our fight against climate change.

Tens of thousands of members of Our Revolution have stood up to oppose the construction of the pipeline, and you've helped contribute tens of thousands of dollars to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe leading the fight against the pipeline in North Dakota.

But this week things took a turn for the worse. Police armed in military gear stormed the occupation, arresting more than 100 Native activists, journalists, and others there in solidarity, and destroyed the Native encampment in the path of the pipeline.

This is an unacceptable escalation with the explicit goal of allowing a corporation to profit off of the continued destruction of our planet. And so we must escalate as well.

There is one person who will have the power to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline: Secretary Hillary Clinton. If she is to be our next president, she will have the power to stop the pipeline. And our best opportunity to get her to oppose it is before the election.

Please add your name to our petition calling on Hillary Clinton to say she opposes the Dakota Access pipeline, and asking her to cancel its construction if she is the next president.

Native American youth held an action in the lobby of Secretary Clinton's campaign headquarters asking her to oppose the pipeline. They delivered a letter from the tribes involved, and the response from Secretary Clinton's campaign was thoroughly disappointing.

Clinton's campaign said:

"We received a letter today from representatives of the tribes protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. From the beginning of this campaign, Secretary Clinton has been clear that she thinks all voices should be heard and all views considered in federal infrastructure projects. Now, all of the parties involved—including the federal government, the pipeline company and contractors, the state of North Dakota, and the tribes—need to find a path forward that serves the broadest public interest. As that happens, it's important that on the ground in North Dakota, everyone respects demonstrators' rights to protest peacefully, and workers' rights to do their jobs safely."
This is the complete wrong way to consider what's happening with this pipeline. The pipeline would carry millions of gallons of fracked oil. It threatens to poison the Standing Rock Sioux's source of water. It would threaten farmers' livelihood. It is a huge threat to climate change.

The only path forward should be cancelling the pipeline. Period.

We think that if hundreds of thousands of people call on Hillary Clinton to oppose the pipeline as soon as possible, we can secure a commitment to have the pipeline canceled if she's president. But our best chance is before the election. That's why it is so important to take action now.

The window is closing for us to get Hillary Clinton to oppose the Dakota Access pipeline. Add your name to our petition now asking her to promise to cancel the pipeline, and we'll deliver your signature to her campaign.

We can stop this pipeline if all of us stand together. Thank you for supporting Native tribes, farmers, and everyone trying to save our planet.

In solidarity,

Shannon Jackson
Our Revolution

SIGN THE PETITION TO HILLARY CLINTON

Wait a second... Why is Hillary the only person that can stop it? Don't we have a president right now? Where is Obama on all of this? Even if Hillary wins, she won't be sworn in until mid-January.

And this petition they're starting... Hillary has already made her opinion clear. She wants the protesters to be able to keep their impotent protest going, while the pipeline work continues.

We received a letter today from representatives of the tribes protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. From the beginning of this campaign, Secretary Clinton has been clear that she thinks all voices should be heard and all views considered in federal infrastructure projects. Now, all of the parties involved—including the federal government, the pipeline company and contractors, the state of North Dakota, and the tribes—need to find a path forward that serves the broadest public interest. As that happens, it’s important that on the ground in North Dakota, everyone respects demonstrators’ rights to protest peacefully, and workers’ rights to do their jobs safely.

To me anyway, it seems that OurRevolution is a scam designed to part progressives from their money while maintaining the charade that somehow people will magically be able to "hold her feet to the fire" after she's elected.

What a joke.

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Raggedy Ann's picture

Don't we have a president right now? Where is Obama on all of this?

This inquiring mind wants to know!

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

I replied. I replied about it in the field they provide on the Unsubscribe page.

I'm sure I will get a prompt response. Wink

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You can protest the pipeline whilst they build it.

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to do their bidding is preposterous. She will have no reason whatsoever to listen to any but those who own or run the corporations that own and run the government once she has secured her 'precious' -the Presidency of the United States of America, the nuclear launch codes and the title of Commander in Chief.

My blood runs cold at the thought.....

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Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes

jwa13's picture

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When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.

face and tell her to "speak" this is the response.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WovYnLL9Yow width:420]

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Alligator Ed's picture

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it'll run cold for only about 9 months,. According to Reuters that's how long it will take for the troops to deploy to Poland.

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On to Biden since 1973

bondibox's picture

Our Revolution isn't designed to hold her accountable or to push her to the left. It was designed to occupy the position of the one who holds her accountable. No need to become active against Hillary anymore - Our Revolution is on it. They will go through the motions of pushing her left. It's like when the Daily Beast prints a negative story about Hillary, it's all been approved and vetted and sterilized and by the time it manifests it's just a token.

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F the F'n D's

n/t

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Lily O Lady's picture

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

Big Al's picture

continuation of Sanders' "political revolution"? It's a Dem party astroturf operation not just Clinton's. It was designed primarily to continue Sanders' effort to sheepdog people into the Dem party and to keep the so called revolution within accepted parameters.

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Wink's picture

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

ZimInSeattle's picture

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"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

Bollox Ref's picture

A pox on them all.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

sounds like she's advocating one of those fenced in areas for protesters like she had set up at the DNC.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

of answers itself: No, We The People do not have a president. Citi has a president; Kissinger, et alia have a president; global capital has a president, etc. Do the Iraqi people have a president? Do the Hondurans?

"Oh the stains, the stains"...Gregory Corso

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

thanatokephaloides's picture

To me anyway, it seems that OurRevolution is a scam designed to part progressives from their money while maintaining the charade that somehow people will magically be able to "hold her feet to the fire" after she's elected.

What a joke.

A cruel joke at that!

Diablo

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

All those people holding her feet to the fire.

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You solved the mystery..the poor lady had burned feet. Take that Alligator Ed!

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So much has come out about her being hammered by midmorning, with Podesta begging people to wake her up and sober her up. She missed a lot of briefings as SoS sleeping it off. Maybe if she gets as far as the oath of office we'll get lucky and she'll choke on her own vomit while the world watches. That'd be nice.

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Bisbonian's picture

But there will be plenty of re-plays of it, if she does, so I will just wait for them instead.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

Alligator Ed's picture

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https://theintercept.com/2016/05/23/hillary-clinton-fracking/

Hillary Clinton’s Energy Initiative Pressed Countries to Embrace Fracking, New Emails Reveal
Lee Fang, Steve Horn
The Intercept
May 23 2016

… emails obtained by The Intercept show that State Department officials worked closely with private sector oil and gas companies, pressed other agencies within the Obama administration to commit federal government resources including technical assistance for locating shale reserves, and distributed agreements with partner nations pledging to help secure investments for new fracking projects… The campaign included plans to spread the drilling technique to China, South Africa, Romania, Morocco, Bulgaria, Chile, India, Pakistan, Argentina, Indonesia, and Ukraine… A number of energy companies that worked closely with the State Department now employ lobbyists that are fundraising furiously for Clinton’s campaign. ExxonMobil’s top lobbyist, as well as lobbyists for liquefied natural gas terminals designed to connect the U.S. to the global gas market, are among the most prolific fundraisers.

The Global Shale Gas Initiative, Clinton’s program for promoting fracking, was announced on April 7, 2010, by David Goldwyn, the State Department’s special envoy for energy affairs, at the United States Energy Association (USEA), whose members include Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, and Shell.

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snoopydawg's picture

As you know, Hillary also worked closely with the other departments of the Obama administration during her time as SOS giving 45 speeches about how the TPP was the gold standard of trade agreements.
But after she left the state department she has now decided that she opposes it "as it is written now". Her supporters tell me that if Obama doesn't get it passed before he leaves office, then she won't pass it if she becomes president.
There is a good chance that she has had a change of mind on how fracking is no longer safe and will prevent fracking companies from polluting out lands and water.
Ouch! A monkey just flew out of my.......
Smile

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Wink's picture

this signed, sealed and delivered over the next 3, 4 months (including HRC's term), he won't be on anybody's A List for speechifying gigs.

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

mouselander's picture

Good article on this subject that appeared on SocialistWorker.org a couple of months ago. The author attended the kickoff meeting for Our Revolution in New Orleans and came away highly skeptical and unimpressed. He described it as a top heavy organization in which the rank and file is given little voice.

Candidates marked as "progressive" by Our Revolution have been chosen and will be chosen without any open debate by the membership. Incidentally, while you can donate $10 or, if you have it handy, $1,000 to Our Revolution or go to one of its meetings (the New Orleans organizer suggested vaguely that the group might hold meetings once a month here), there is no formal list of members, rules for membership or rules for making any decisions by members' votes.

The results of this undemocratic selection process were clear the day after the official launch on August 25. Our Revolution sponsored a public meeting in Albany, New York, to support selected "progressive candidates" in various elections in the state. The organization invited Mike Derrick to attend.

Derrick is the Democrat in a three-way race for a congressional seat in the upstate 21st district. He is running against sitting Republican Elise Stefanik and Green Party candidate Matt Funiciello. He was also a registered Republican voter until 2015, when he switched registrations for this campaign.

Our Revolution refused to allow the Green Party candidate to speak to its members and supporters, despite the fact that he won 11 percent in the last election and is campaigning for "a $15 an hour living wage, single-payer health care, a 100 percent renewable energy grid, a massive government public works program to get us to full employment, and the need to end our imperial wars." The organization told Funiciello he was banned from attending because his campaign was "aggressive and divisive."

Yep, sounds real progressive all right. And thank God we're being protected from those elements on the left that are "aggressive and divisive." In the rough and tumble world of politics, docile and accommodating is always so much more effective. Thanks, Bernie!

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inactive account

thanatokephaloides's picture

"aggressive and divisive."

I think I'll get me a T-shirt or 3 with that logo on it!

Smile

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Mark from Queens's picture

I attended the local Our Revolution in Astoria, Queens.

There were about 25 or so folks in the back of a bar that had multiple tv screens set up just for the occasion. Was headed up by a local Dem guy from a law group next door who had lent their offices to the Bernie campaign, which became our local hub for the NY primary, and a Bernie team member who had worked for the campaign for over a year. There were volunteers, a Labor for Bernie shirt and folks who were just supporters wanting to see what's next.

My purpose in going was to see not only what Bernie would say and how people would react to it, but to gauge the feeling among the supporters gathered there, on how they would be voting, what people thought of the voter suppression and voter fraud and how we should proceed. I left more on the disappointed side, save for the views of a Socialist Alternative friend and historian who made a short impassioned speech saying that we need to discuss and make possible progressive inroads at the local level, ala Fiorello LaGuardia.

After exchanging pleasantries with the law group fellow who I had met a few times during the campaign I asked what his feeling was about voting Green Party. He was dismissive and changed the subject. To my surprise that wouldn't be the only of such encounters.

Across the table from me was a nice guy who told me he hadn't volunteered or canvassed like I had but that he donated money and supported on social media. He told me he worked for the MTA and said all the right things, commenting positively on the OWS shirt I was wearing and mentioned how he both went there to support and was indignant about the way it was swept away by brute force. Said he had come to America in 1971 as a boy and has never seen it so bad and that the Occupiers were doing us a service, and wants to be involved to do something about it. I wanted to talk about the way the election was rigged, the votes suppressed and voting results stolen. He thought it was probably so but didn't seem to know the extent of it, or much about the thuggery at the fascistic DNC. I said because of all this and how corrupt and the antithesis of everything Bernie stood for that Clinton is, that I'd be voting Green Party....He began with the Trump fear. It was the same later with another guy who said he was tired of "these Bernie or Bust" people, after speaking all the right things about corrupt gov't, social justice, etc.

Here was the kicker for me though. At the end after the two hosts and a member of NY Bernie tech teams had spoken, another asked if he could get up to address the crowd. He began by saying how he'd never been involved in politics before but at the beginning of the Mayoral campaign in 2013 he aligned with DeBlasio, piqued by his rhetoric. He said he was also involved in gay politics. I recognized him and leaned over to my friend, and said that he was big Hillary supporter, having seen his Twitter feed.

He went on to say that his involvement in politics led him to become the leader of the Stonewall Democrats, and then talked about a certain race in which we need the good guy to win, etc. It was a rah-rah speech to motivate us to get involved. He then lofted praise on us, saying "you won this district." To which, the jig was up and he admitted that for someone who supported Hillary he was very impressed. Others gasped and I let out an unconstrained short boo. A fucking Hillary supporter at the inception of Our Revolution, as inspiration to get involved with continuing Bernie's mission? Huh?

I left torn between the obvious need for galvanizing all the incredible energy and commitment generated by Bernie to take over all levels of gov't, and the more treacherous creeping reality of the veal pen scenario as an enticing appeasement after having been beaten and bruised by the Neoliberal thug counterparts of the Right Wing menace, which has masterfully divided and conquered the 99%. The Duopoly Strikes Again.

At this moment I'm more apt to put my energies into outside social movements. But we'll see. Howard Zinn's life's work tells me that's where it's at.

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

Why do you think that it was registered in a manner which let Bernie walk away from it without being silenced?

Wouldn't you expect actual progressives to see through the facade of anything of this nature?

Sometimes asymmetrical warfare dictates that the smaller defending party must walk away from battles in order to survive to win the war.

People still don't seem to get what we're fighting; it's just too much of an enormity for the mind to encompass easily.

The Germans had the same problem when this began in their democracy, but we have the advantage of having seen the same thing occur previously so that we can recognize the same signs as they appear.

Can we, unlike the Clintons, learn from previous mistakes? Or is life on the planet doomed?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Wink's picture

I live in NY-21 where the retired seat of a lukewarm (some would say Blue Dog, but I wouldn't) Dem was filled by a KochBros/ Turdblossum-funded Republicon. Mostly becuz we were outspent, but also becuz our Dem candidate wasn't in it to win it.
A similar scenario this year with, like you say, Repub vs. Repub, with a Green on the side. Truth be told my views are more in line wirth the Green candidate, Annette's nephew, Matt Funicello, but he has no chance of winning in this red state district.
But, here's the thing... how does an out-of-state Repub get on the Dem party line for a House seat in NY State? How does the state Dem party allow that? And, granted, we allowed HRC to carpetbag a Senate seat here, but that's not the same as a local House seat. Please toss $3 to Teachout in NY-19. She's a true prog in a close race and could use $3. Thanks!
Wonder how Dems are getting their asses handed to them Down Ballot? Becuz we don't run any Dems.

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

I won't lay the blame for the astro turf on Bernie.
My "go to" for assholishness is the Democratic Party.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

dervish's picture

Bernie is persona non grata to me now, but I'd gladly vote for Jane.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

I've had the feeling all along that Weaver was a plant from the Clinton organisation, to stop the real progressives.

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It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. Carl Sagan

Cassiodorus's picture

It's just your standard liberal attempt at "revolution," which makes it impotent. Hillary, on the other hand, is a co-optation machine, and it's to be expected that she'll blindside Our Revolution like an eighteen-wheeler would blindside a stray opossum.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Room or pat-on-the-head, color-inside-the-lines stuff. Not exactly revolutionary.

I've said before that, regardless of where it goes, Tim Canova's new organization, launched with a swipe at Our Revolution, has a much better name: Progress for All.

Something smelled off about OR from the start. It may do some good, but it sure looks like a co-opting project. I'm staying on the sidelines with that one; Movement for the 99% and Brand New Congress look more promising to me. Where they all go remains to be seen, of course.

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"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." --Jiddu Krishnamurti

Shahryar's picture

he checked out early. "Oh, and by the way, I won't be there with you because I'm going to campaign for Hillary and I'm turning the organization over to the hack I hired".

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speare's picture

But I started side-eying it when I got an email about what/who to support on the ballot in my state and it left out the measure to legalize marijuana.

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Kurt from CMH's picture

Because Trump sure as hell won't stop DAPL.

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For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.
John Maynard Keynes, 1930

Shahryar's picture

so, given a choice between two candidates who will be awful I've voted for a better alternative even though I know she won't win. But I would rather have my vote counted as opposed to not voting at all.

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So a petition is needed to make Hillary take a position on the pipeline? That's all it takes? That's rich.

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ThoughtfulVoter's picture

Signed one petition, and suddenly bombarded with campaign propaganda from Kamala Harris and I'm not even in her state...finally stopped answering any surveys or petitions because I agree, they just want your e-mail address and more so your cash.

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