@Wink
suspects like Pelosi, Reid, and the other leeches still get a paycheck.

Effective, ineffective, it all pays the same. Well, there is a bonus program. It's called trading on insider info and handing your hubby/wife/kid U.S. taxpayer assets to sell, like old post offices. Or who you can channel government contract money too. Both those examples are why DiFi has sucked off the public tit so long. Why should she quit? Why should any of them quit? Or really work for us? They've got it set up so that their money is guaranteed unless they get voted out and the system for candidates is so rigged that the firmly entrenched ensure that they have no competition when it comes to DNC money and backing.

EX:

John Kerry’s daughter received $9 million in gov’t contracts
http://newbostonpost.com/2016/10/19/john-kerrys-daughter-received-9-mill...

Mondale, Dukaka, Bubba, Gore, Kerry, BHO and Her Highness.
Two of those won.
Are we seeing a pattern here? Prolly not, but is there anything to suggest "the party" (DNC) cares about winning?
Exactly.
So, who gives a flying fuck about the DNC?
They're irrelevant.

@kjg52 In this, the 70th anniversary year of Taft-Hartley, we should remember what this key piece of class war legislation did to workplace democracy and to those whose only source of income is selling their labor. Closed shops were outlawed; sympathy strikes were outlawed; wildcat strikes were outlawed; all union officers had to swear that they never belonged to the communist party; and an onerous 80 day "cooling off" period was mandated. These and more were gifts to capital at the expense of workers. The Gompers-founded AFL found that they were well positioned, because of their business-unionism model, to put the CIO industrial unions down and cement themselves as the "voice of labor."

Workers in the arts, in academia, and in letters were attacked and red-baited. Just one of many examples is Gregory Corso, the poet. He was offered a residency teaching job in the New York state college system but he had to sign a loyalty oath: He refused and lost a valuable source of income. There are many many more that suffered one at a time.

Eisenhower was red-baiter-in-chief and a dedicated Cold Warrior although his PR agents deflected the blame to those who worked for him and those in Congress. We are in a similar area now except there are no industrial unions to fight back and no organized left. Remember this: In 1940, the Steelworkers, for example, could mobilize 5000 organizers on very short notice. Where's that resource today?

The US has two right wing parties, a center -right party, the Democrats and an ultra-right party, the Republicans. It will continue to have this political configuration until the truth is revealed to the American people, economics cannot be divorced from politics and the right wing plutocrats have control of both parties.

The minute a politician says they are "socially liberal," but "economically conservative," they are at best a libertarian, but in no sense "left wing." There is no left in the US, it has been wiped out by over fifty years of Cold War Red-Baiting and active suppression. We have to rebuild the Left and use its power to start a new Party for families and workers, or we die. These bastard neoliberal Democrats and their fascist pals the Republicans are going to kill us through neglect and incompetence, if we don't stop them...

@ovals49 So true.

I remember when the current Senate started invoking little-used rules to ram their agenda through without having to depend on those few Democrats who might actually have blocked it via principled stand. And I thought, "Huh. You mean the Ds could have been doing this same thing for the past 8 years, but didn't? Because 'working across the aisle' and 'compromise?'"

They ALLOWED Obama and themselves to be blocked. What a bunch of f*cking cowards. Yet they want our -- anyone's -- sympathy?

No.

Republicans block and in response Democrats agree to be blocked. Both parties participate in a systemic blocking coalition that's sole purpose is to PREVENT CHANGE.

Obama campaigned on "hope and change", was elected, and then pivoted to govern as "more of the same".

Hillary campaigned on "Not Trump, more Obama". Lost.

Trump campaigned on "Make America Great Again", won, and is already serving up a heaping pile of "more of the same", only worse.

The Watson Institute panel discussion is absolutely worth watching, start to finish!

Both left and right are hungry for substantive changes that will improve their situation but neither the Party of Wolves nor the Party of Sheep have the slightest intention of providing any relief.

@Pluto's Republic 'The Democrats never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity' is the crux of the problem.
We are experiencing that phenomenon in our daily lives as hope is lost that any one of the so-called public servants even see the degradation of our lives and the fear in our eyes.

Very interesting and refreshingly honest video.

Blythe artfully summed up the Trump voter point-of-view starting at 22:21. Sounds right to me. He finishes off with a few economic predictions about the near future, which are also logic-based.

Thanks for posting it here.

Her mind.

@dkmich

As we speak, Brock is probably forming the PAC "Ready for Undead Hillary."

She's out there tweeting up a storm, and the media covers it ala asking Rumsfeld for his opinions after Iraq.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/02/hillary-clinton-is-runnin...

@dkmich IF, if, if it happens, Shrillary will need a zillion different slogans, and I suggest:
"They Shoot Horses Don't They" for a start, and please, please a finish, if this hideous event really happens.

She's out there tweeting up a storm, and the media covers it ala asking Rumsfeld for his opinions after Iraq.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/02/hillary-clinton-is-runnin...

@HenryAWallace Overpopulation is the problem, and no one addresses this. Because how and where. Ignorance of maintenance. What if I had my well water tested and it came out bad? What would I do? Drill another well? No city water available. No gas lines, either. A 500 gallon propane tank sits next to my house. Too shaded to go solar, too many trees that I like. I still have my wool sweaters from Scotland...

Not the best day of my life. I want to lie on the ground under the trees, I have latest done that by falling in the snow. Scary and sad. Spring is better. Maybe by then I shall be healed. I think I will be a witch.

He's saying what Nader said when he ran and what Sanders has been saying for years, and what we hoi polloi comprising the "left of the left" have been saying for years. Except that Nader and Sanders eventually said, in effect, "Vote Democratic anyway," while the left of the left has been Demexiting to newer parties or Indie, even Republican. http://caucus99percent.com/content/spoiler-candidates-and-protest-votes-...(Heck, if neither party will do anything much for the 99%, may as well go with the one that doesn't believe in taxing you.)

Democratic politicians are not stupid. The only reason they been showing up to gun fights with butter knives all these years is that they have zero intention of winning the "fight." I can't believe everyone in the USA as not caught on to that.

It's been fun reading how pundits who predicted Trump's win were special. Well, they were in a way, in that they told the truth, while establishment pollsters and media try to create self-fulfilling prophesies. Most of us on the left who are not professional pundits were saying for years that, if nominated, Hillary would lose the general, some since 2009, some since 2012, some since 2014 and some since the primary. I was one of them. However, I admit I wavered and changed my prediction once I saw how awful a candidate Trump was. Anyway, the realities are that:

1. Most people having been voting by party because Republicans believe that their own party is the lesser of two evils and Democrats believe their party is the lesser of two evils and both have been made too scared to vote for what they actually want, or just give everyone the figurative finger on election day.

2. While somewhat more people are registered Democrat than Republican, Presidential elections are determined by electoral votes, not popular votes; and the US has more red states than blue states.

3. To win the electoral vote, a Presidential candidate must have something special that (a) drives people to the polls; and (b) captures the imagination of voters in purple and/or red states. Hillary's special quality is that polls show her popularity decreases the more people see of her. It happened in 2008; it happened during her Hard Cheese Choices book tour and it happened in 2016.

4. In an anti-establishment, change year, she was "more of the same from the same old establishment" incarnate.

5. Divisiveness and attacking the supporters of her opponent as misgynist is a always a large part Hillary's (including her husband the rest of her team) campaign strategy. It was in the 2008 primary, the 2015-16 primary and the 2016 election. In the 2008 primary, it took the form of racism and "Obama boys." During the 2015-16 primary, she went for religion, identifying herself as "a Methodist, a Christian," while emphasizing Sanders' ethnic Jewishnees and his lack of a formal religion--and, of course, Bernie Bros. During the general, it was about how bad Trump and his "deplorable" supporters are.

Why? She was offering desperate people nothing. And the little she offered during the primary was obviously insincere, adopted at the 11th hour to try to compete with Sanders. How many are going to vote for someone for President for four to eight years based on little more than people are supporting the other candidate only because they are terrible human beings? (BTW, having made "liberal" and "left" dirty words or a words that means only "not conservative," or "not rightist," Democrats and the rest of establishment have been working to equate economic populism with racism.)

Finally, I find it very difficult to believe that we hoi polloi comprising "the left of the left" were the only ones who got the above. I have to believe that political bigwigs and smart media folk knew it, too. They don't admit it only because admitting it would not suit their pre-existing economic agenda. Hence, in November we began seeing one ridiculous establishment story after another about why Hillary lost that were not admitting the obvious reasons. http://caucus99percent.com/content/its-not-rocket-science After that, they started harping on the popular vote, which, as stated above, is not how Presidential elections are won anyway, as Gore and Hillary can both attest.

Reap, sow, inherit the wind.

@HenryAWallace @HenryAWallace @HenryAWallace

So true that Blythe is saying what considered minds on the Left have been saying for many years. The words are not an "opinion" — they are reality that is played out in front of everyone's eyes decade after decade. They are "facts."

I attribute the inability of the American people to anticipate reality as it is unfolding in front of them, and instead vote to further degrade their own condition to either 1) having no choice or 2) successful deep state propaganda.

In any event, and not that it matters, but I read that millions have abandoned the Democratic Party, leaving it significantly smaller. Have you heard about that? It occurred to me that a worthwhile political movement would be to encourage all Americans to resign from the two Parties first, and abandon Democracy. When the government goes to great pains to legalize propaganda for itself — I think it is time to stop participating in one's own social suicide. Giving a man the vote and telling him he is free is a great evil, under the circumstances. Voting is not consensus, which is the ideal form that evolved societies try to achieve. Voting is failure mitigation.

Only when people are free of the two establishment Parties, can a real political progress take place. The system cannot be changed from inside the system.

He's saying what Nader said when he ran and what Sanders has been saying for years, and what we hoi polloi comprising the "left of the left" have been saying for years. Except that Nader and Sanders eventually said, in effect, "Vote Democratic anyway," while the left of the left has been Demexiting to newer parties or Indie, even Republican. http://caucus99percent.com/content/spoiler-candidates-and-protest-votes-...(Heck, if neither party will do anything much for the 99%, may as well go with the one that doesn't believe in taxing you.)

Democratic politicians are not stupid. The only reason they been showing up to gun fights with butter knives all these years is that they have zero intention of winning the "fight." I can't believe everyone in the USA as not caught on to that.

It's been fun reading how pundits who predicted Trump's win were special. Well, they were in a way, in that they told the truth, while establishment pollsters and media try to create self-fulfilling prophesies. Most of us on the left who are not professional pundits were saying for years that, if nominated, Hillary would lose the general, some since 2009, some since 2012, some since 2014 and some since the primary. I was one of them. However, I admit I wavered and changed my prediction once I saw how awful a candidate Trump was. Anyway, the realities are that:

1. Most people having been voting by party because Republicans believe that their own party is the lesser of two evils and Democrats believe their party is the lesser of two evils and both have been made too scared to vote for what they actually want, or just give everyone the figurative finger on election day.

2. While somewhat more people are registered Democrat than Republican, Presidential elections are determined by electoral votes, not popular votes; and the US has more red states than blue states.

3. To win the electoral vote, a Presidential candidate must have something special that (a) drives people to the polls; and (b) captures the imagination of voters in purple and/or red states. Hillary's special quality is that polls show her popularity decreases the more people see of her. It happened in 2008; it happened during her Hard Cheese Choices book tour and it happened in 2016.

4. In an anti-establishment, change year, she was "more of the same from the same old establishment" incarnate.

5. Divisiveness and attacking the supporters of her opponent as misgynist is a always a large part Hillary's (including her husband the rest of her team) campaign strategy. It was in the 2008 primary, the 2015-16 primary and the 2016 election. In the 2008 primary, it took the form of racism and "Obama boys." During the 2015-16 primary, she went for religion, identifying herself as "a Methodist, a Christian," while emphasizing Sanders' ethnic Jewishnees and his lack of a formal religion--and, of course, Bernie Bros. During the general, it was about how bad Trump and his "deplorable" supporters are.

Why? She was offering desperate people nothing. And the little she offered during the primary was obviously insincere, adopted at the 11th hour to try to compete with Sanders. How many are going to vote for someone for President for four to eight years based on little more than people are supporting the other candidate only because they are terrible human beings? (BTW, having made "liberal" and "left" dirty words or a words that means only "not conservative," or "not rightist," Democrats and the rest of establishment have been working to equate economic populism with racism.)

Finally, I find it very difficult to believe that we hoi polloi comprising "the left of the left" were the only ones who got the above. I have to believe that political bigwigs and smart media folk knew it, too. They don't admit it only because admitting it would not suit their pre-existing economic agenda. Hence, in November we began seeing one ridiculous establishment story after another about why Hillary lost that were not admitting the obvious reasons. http://caucus99percent.com/content/its-not-rocket-science After that, they started harping on the popular vote, which, as stated above, is not how Presidential elections are won anyway, as Gore and Hillary can both attest.

Reap, sow, inherit the wind.

@HenryAWallace

She was offering desperate people nothing.

This was what Blyth was saying about the Clinton campaign which was also what many of us here were saying. He also emphasized that she had no real policy prescriptions to address the issues that people wanted and needed addressed. It was all about how bad Trump was.

What we continue to see from the Democratic party is a continuation of the same theme of the Clinton campaign. And the results will continue to be more hemorrhaging away from the Democratic party.

He's saying what Nader said when he ran and what Sanders has been saying for years, and what we hoi polloi comprising the "left of the left" have been saying for years. Except that Nader and Sanders eventually said, in effect, "Vote Democratic anyway," while the left of the left has been Demexiting to newer parties or Indie, even Republican. http://caucus99percent.com/content/spoiler-candidates-and-protest-votes-...(Heck, if neither party will do anything much for the 99%, may as well go with the one that doesn't believe in taxing you.)

Democratic politicians are not stupid. The only reason they been showing up to gun fights with butter knives all these years is that they have zero intention of winning the "fight." I can't believe everyone in the USA as not caught on to that.

It's been fun reading how pundits who predicted Trump's win were special. Well, they were in a way, in that they told the truth, while establishment pollsters and media try to create self-fulfilling prophesies. Most of us on the left who are not professional pundits were saying for years that, if nominated, Hillary would lose the general, some since 2009, some since 2012, some since 2014 and some since the primary. I was one of them. However, I admit I wavered and changed my prediction once I saw how awful a candidate Trump was. Anyway, the realities are that:

1. Most people having been voting by party because Republicans believe that their own party is the lesser of two evils and Democrats believe their party is the lesser of two evils and both have been made too scared to vote for what they actually want, or just give everyone the figurative finger on election day.

2. While somewhat more people are registered Democrat than Republican, Presidential elections are determined by electoral votes, not popular votes; and the US has more red states than blue states.

3. To win the electoral vote, a Presidential candidate must have something special that (a) drives people to the polls; and (b) captures the imagination of voters in purple and/or red states. Hillary's special quality is that polls show her popularity decreases the more people see of her. It happened in 2008; it happened during her Hard Cheese Choices book tour and it happened in 2016.

4. In an anti-establishment, change year, she was "more of the same from the same old establishment" incarnate.

5. Divisiveness and attacking the supporters of her opponent as misgynist is a always a large part Hillary's (including her husband the rest of her team) campaign strategy. It was in the 2008 primary, the 2015-16 primary and the 2016 election. In the 2008 primary, it took the form of racism and "Obama boys." During the 2015-16 primary, she went for religion, identifying herself as "a Methodist, a Christian," while emphasizing Sanders' ethnic Jewishnees and his lack of a formal religion--and, of course, Bernie Bros. During the general, it was about how bad Trump and his "deplorable" supporters are.

Why? She was offering desperate people nothing. And the little she offered during the primary was obviously insincere, adopted at the 11th hour to try to compete with Sanders. How many are going to vote for someone for President for four to eight years based on little more than people are supporting the other candidate only because they are terrible human beings? (BTW, having made "liberal" and "left" dirty words or a words that means only "not conservative," or "not rightist," Democrats and the rest of establishment have been working to equate economic populism with racism.)

Finally, I find it very difficult to believe that we hoi polloi comprising "the left of the left" were the only ones who got the above. I have to believe that political bigwigs and smart media folk knew it, too. They don't admit it only because admitting it would not suit their pre-existing economic agenda. Hence, in November we began seeing one ridiculous establishment story after another about why Hillary lost that were not admitting the obvious reasons. http://caucus99percent.com/content/its-not-rocket-science After that, they started harping on the popular vote, which, as stated above, is not how Presidential elections are won anyway, as Gore and Hillary can both attest.

Reap, sow, inherit the wind.

@coloradoblue

We're all wannabe capitalists. But that's not true either. Fortunately, there are still many Americans who do not aspire to the acquisition of wealth.

Nancy "We're all capitalists" Pelosi.

I imagine it's much easier to see yourself as a capitalist with a net worth of $100 million.

@Snode Mark Blyth's videos are worth searching online. I especially like his comment that"The Hamptons is not a defensive position." As other writers note, one day workers may realize no one in the 1% is in the least bothered by their suffering, and beachfront mansions will be easy targets.

Apologies if someone covered this already.

There was a NY Times article in the book review section titled "Richard Rorty’s 1998 Book Suggested Election 2016 Was Coming"
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/books/richard-rortys-1998-book-sugges...

and these paragraphs were highlighted:
"[M]embers of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers — themselves desperately afraid of being downsized — are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else.

At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for — someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots. …

One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past 40 years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. … All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet."

The rest of the article covers some of the books other highlights. I haven't gotten hold of the book yet through inter library loan, but found some sections in .pdf's online . It's kinda dense for me. Rorty seems to have the same talent as Mark Blyth to step back and see and describe how the machine works. The political level runs on money, our level runs on promises, and we're very important every 2 years for the national elections, and then we vote and cease to be relevant.