@Bisbonian

Have yet understood that the Democrats in the US are as deceitful and dangerously and politely lying as the Republicans. I am talking about how much crosses over to the average German who watches
main stream media in Germany. Talking about Europeans in general was not fair from my part, because it's just a guess I have, which I can't back up.

#1.1.1 ...everyone understands that the Republicans lie all the time. What they don't understand is that the Democrats lie all the time; that the Democrats cannot be trusted to "save us" from the evil Republicans, because they are just as bad...or, by being insidious rather than open about their policies, they are even worse, even more dangerous. That is the message that many here are trying to get out.

@Amanda Matthews
I am sorry to reply so late. I had real life work to do and was not online.

I think I understand well, what to expect from Old or New Democrats with regards to them being willing or capable to work for the interest of the majority 95 percent of the people. Not much.

I attended once in Washington DC the "Populism 2015" conference, where the key speakers were Keith Ellison, Robert Borsosage, Jim Hightower, Larry Cohen and others. You can look up the rest of them and the whole schedule of issues and speakers in this three day conferemnce. This was a conference that covered a lot of issues I feel I support and would engage for. Yet I left the conference with a strange feeling of disconnect between the speakers and their ability to have influence on policies despite their best efforts.

Why was that?

I also attended Ralph Nader's conference "Breaking through Power" in May 2016. He had a second one in September 2016, which I didn't attend and knew about. The first conference really covered in depths all issues I am interested to know about. I wanted to know what and how people work towards their goals. I could only find this description of the first Nader conference:

Celebrating the 50th anniversary year of Ralph Nader’s book Unsafe at Any Speed, the Center for Study of Responsive Law announces four days of civic mobilization at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. on May 23, 24, 25 and 26, 2016. Unsafe at Any Speed unleashed fresh energies and sparked the creation of numerous advocacy organizations leading to major consumer, environmental and worker safety protections.

The theme of this citizen mobilization will be elaborating ways to break through power to secure long-overdue democratic solutions made possible by a new muscular civic nexus between local communities and Washington, D.C.

On these four days, speakers will present innovative ideas and strategies designed to take existing civic groups to higher levels of effectiveness. The participants will be asked to support the creation of several new organizations. One such group will work to open up the commercial media, which use the public airwaves free of charge, to serious content. Another will facilitate action by retired military, national security and diplomatic officials who want to deter unconstitutional and unlawful plunges into wars that lead to calamitous and costly blowbacks.

This “Civic Mobilization” will involve thousands of people at Constitution Hall and around the country and connect long-available knowledge to long-neglected action for the necessities and aspirations of people from all backgrounds. Many of the presentations will feature reforms and redirections for the common good enjoy Left/Right support.

Breaking Through Power: How it’s Done—May 23, 2016 will feature presentations by seventeen citizen advocacy groups. Over decades these activists have produced amazing accomplishments against powerful odds. These civic leaders will demonstrate how, with modest budgets and stamina, they have improved the health, safety and economic well-being of the people and focused public opinion onto decision-makers and opponents. Through greater visibility, broader support and wider emulation, they will present their future missions and show that it can be “easier than we think” to make major changes. For the first time ever, this diverse group of fighters for justice will be assembled together on stage at Constitution Hall and show that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts when fighting for a broader democratic society. The presenters will appraise what levels of citizen organization is necessary to fulfill these broadly-desired missions.

Breaking Through Power: The Media - May 24, 2016, brings together also for the first time a large gathering of authors, documentary filmmakers, reporters, columnists, musicians, poets and editorial cartoonists. All of these presenters have documented or depicted entrenched wrongdoing by the corporate state or “crony capitalism”—the cruel impacts of corporate crimes and abuses, the absence of governmental law enforcement, and the harmful effects of concentrated corporate power.

The speakers all seek wider audiences for their works: more readers, viewers and listeners. Unfortunately the mass media barons prefer to wallow in incessant advertising, hedonistic entertainment, sports and mind-numbing redundancy. The result is what many observers see as the stupefaction of human intelligence. A major purpose of Day Two is the creation of a “Voices” advocacy organization that puts forces in motion to inject serious programming into the over-the-air and cable networks under a revitalized Communications Act of 1934 and generally champion a greater life of the mind on all media.

Breaking Through Power: War - May 25, 2016 is dedicated to enhancing the waging of peace over the waging of war. We will assemble leading scholars having military and national security backgrounds, veterans groups such as Veterans for Peace, and long-time peace advocacy associations, to explain how peace is more powerful than war. The speakers will address the horrors of war, its huge costs here and abroad to innocents and the weakening blowbacks of Empire amidst a collapse of constitutional and international law. One outcome of this day will be the establishment of a Secretariat comprised of current and former top-level military, national security and diplomatic officials who have spoken truth to reckless power. If organized for quick responses, their credibility, experience and wisdom can resist and prevent the kind of prevaricating pressures and unilateral policies that drove the unlawful destruction of Iraq, Libya and beyond.

Breaking Through Power: Congress — May 26, 2016 will unveil a new Civic Agenda to be advanced by engaged and enraged citizens in each Congressional district. The Civic Agenda includes recognized necessities ignored by Congress for decades. The planks of this Civic Agenda will be presented by nationally-recognized advocates—a veritable brain trust for the well-being of present and future generations. Each speaker will present the substance of each demand, which will be conveyed to their members of Congress via organized “Citizen Summons” in each Congressional District. Revitalizing the people to assert their sovereignty under our Constitution is critical to the kind of government, economy, environment and culture that will fulfill human possibilities and respect posterity.

The author of this text then continued saying:

It's this last section I find concerning. "Citizen Summons" sounds weak to me. I have been arguing for muscular approaches. That means (to the author) that no matter what strategy you're pursuing, citizens need to marry activist efforts to credible electoral threats. ( me: and the threat to vote for Trump to avoid to vote for the lesser evil, which wasn't really less evil, but more smoothly expressed hypocritcal lies, was >not the right sort of threat)

Citizens need to organize into voting blocs, and not imagine that they can consistently bring feather dusters to a gun fight, and win.

I came out of this conference with no feelings of disconnect, it was just difficult to digest so many speakers. Their work, as they described it, was very interesting to learn about.

Nevertheless I always ask myself how people organize movements that actually have impact on legislators and can break or control the corporate powers, who control the government. Speeches and conferences and shouting out on blogs isn't going to do it ... anymore ... I would think. Out of this came my musing of why some people at c99p believe that voicing their frustration about the Democrats lies and betrayals will still make a difference.

Since I returned to Germany from having lived for over 35 years in the US and having lost connections to German politics and a home there, all I hear the Germans asking is "We don't understand why the Americans could have voted for Trumpf". Nobody knows about the Democrats' failures and lies (it's not talked about criticqlly about it in Germany's msm), but all have realized what Trump has said. It was very difficult to not hear it...I don't blame them.

They fear Trump, because he is a catalyst of the rise of right-wing populism in Europe. Many have very bad memories or our last "last tango" with right-wing nationalist populist in the Weimar Republik. The criticism against Trump in the US is mostly issue oriented towards identity policies. Some poeple in Europe might feel that there are more important overriding policies than single identity issues.

One didn't hear so much criticism in the US about Trumps influence on Europe and ME and what kind of foreign policy changes he would trigger, unintentionally or on purpose isn't even a qeustion anymore. People here have always wondered about the Rumsfelds, Wolfowitzes, Cheneys, the Boltons and more. H. Clinton was not understood by the average German and not realized as dangerous. (May be a failure of our media). Now they wonder about Trump. Rightfully so.

I just am saying that talking about the Democrats' failures and lies and betrayals isn't anymore the biggest "news" I would need to get analyzed. I understood those pretty well. You know I read the Evening Blues... for a reason... Enough said.

But criticism of the Democrats' lies doesn't cross over to Europe and it's not important to them. If I tell them here that Trump is not the only one who is dangerous, Democrats were in it the same way, they just would say why would that make a difference now, as obviously they (the US voters) didn't even realize that they shouldn't have voted for Trump. And I am sorry that my "being originally from Germany" leads me to have a slightly different approach to listen to more intense criticism of Democrats than criticism of Trump here on C99p.

I want to know how to fight your next government's expected mis-deeds. All I can say the people here are "All EARS" wide open about Trump and the media are running their mouth all over their fears.

#1.1.1 lying? And are the Repubs and the Libertarians the ones betraying us or is it the 'New' neo-liberal Democrats. I've always thought that if people told you they were on your side and they would work and fight for you if you held up your end of the bargain, and you support and enable them, they are your worst enemy, not the ones that you know are against you.

And it's not over. It is NEVER over. Have you seen the list of sell-outs being nominated for the head of the DNC. Are you watching how fast these 'champions' of the Left are falling in line with Trumps horrific cabinet picks? Thinking that the dangers from the betrayers on the Left is as stupid as the meme we came up with after Nixon got run out of town, "Never Again". Because we got over confident and lazy and now look, we're back where we started from. Never Again has turned into Here We Go Again, only it may be far worse than before what with all the nifty toys and methods our government has to spy on us.

That's okay though if you don't understand. What's not okay is thinking that the danger is past from those shit weasels in the 'New' Democratic Party. What I don't understand is how can anyone think that it is.