@TheOtherMaven

The answer to that is, of course, that only we can save us from ourselves. Or would be, if it was actually real people doing this, rather than the Parasite Class.

But we're still left with 'how' and 'when', especially because 'when' kinda went back several decades and there isn't a whole lot of 'when' left anymore. Or pacific 'how', come to that.

#2
More to the point, who can save us from ourselves?

:rolleyes:

@HenryAWallace not supporting RP, which was a short period compared to his stellar career imo.

#3 #3

let's say he was a Ron Paul supporter. So what?

Would that mean that nothing he's said since he supported Ron Paul can be correct, or even worth consideration?

Sure, some sources should be avoided, like an KKK or Neo Nazi website.

But source shaming on message boards that implies that everything from a Republican or Libertarian (or Naderite, or Green, or Russian, etc.) source should be dismissed out of hand is ridiculous. It's a modern type of book burning.

If any comments about the Democratic Party should be discounted, it's comments from Party insiders, because of the obvious self-interest. The first rule of news is objectivity and Party insiders are incapable of being objective (at least publicly) about the source of their livelihood.

If something is putting food on the table for my kids (or grandkids), I'm likely to be all for it (within reason), aren't you?

However, we should not discount them entirely. We should consider them, but taking into account the self interest. We should also consider what perhaps less biased sources have to say about the subject. On after that, should we make up our own minds.

@Alligator Ed "no one loves me here anyway" Maybe he stayed home. Thanks for the great memories, he made a great live show back in the day.

PEACE

#4 Let's all remember that Rock and Roll Never Forgets. People get sick of government Leanin' on their dreams!

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGR677oQfG4]

@shaharazade Now that DHS has taken over our elections, I suspect they'll just do without our consent.

#5 It makes me laugh or cry, when i read the party big wigs nattering on about messaging being the problem. Good luck putting lipstick on this pig (as they used to say) when people have had to live with the results of their agenda/policy and 'way forward' for 16 years as Obomber's administration was jut a painted blue PC version of the Bushie regime. Don't they look at the congressional approval numbers?

Fear did not carry the day with The Insane Carnie Clown vs. The Psychotic Mad Bomber so how is doubling down on The Third Way's 'radically centrist' brand of anti-democratic messaging going to get people to give their consent to govern? Perez? Lordy! Everybody but the brainwashed or addicted to fear can see that the whole political system is a rigged farce. None of the above is the mode these days.

@ghotiphaze Mitt was the worst candidate I've ever seen, other than Hillary, who is to campaign politics as a black hole is to light.

#5 Trump being honest in his duplicity and Hillary lied about hers.
A point up thread: I think the 2012 election would have been scarier if Ron Paul hadn't been Bernied (ok, i say Bernie was Ron Pauled) by the Rs and media. Even when he had pulled into 3rd place he wasn't even mention. Media would drop straight to 4th and 5th. A lot of people were already wising to Obama, and luckily Mitt was so broken.

@crescentmoon

the swamp,' from everything that I've heard him say. While he was a candidate, he consistently boasted that he would appoint the best, brightest and most successful folks from the private sector. He often gave the example of Carl Ichan--whose net worth is $21.1 billion (Bloomberg). BTW, Ichan has accepted an informal advisory position (no pay), which doesn't require confirmation. He will advise DT on which regulations to kill.

IOW, DT was ridiculing career politicians--especially, FSC for her kowtowing to Goldman Sachs, and raking in extravagant speaking fees--who kiss up to folks 'like him' and Ichan. He wasn't knocking his own billionaire class, at all. He was mostly trying to make the point that wealthy folks like himself won't/don't have to sell out to rich donors, and therefore, will work for the good of the American People.

(This is his thinking, not mine--to be clear.)

Unfortunately, a lot of conservatives agree with him--including working class ones. Joe posted an excellent article by Paul Street on this topic a while back. As Street put it, whereas progressive lawmakers/leaders may point to the very wealthy as a 'villain,' conservatives often have more animus toward the managerial/professional classes who more directly affect them--adversely, in their minds.

Hey, I have given up even trying to reason with most conservatives. If I've heard it once, I've heard it a million times--"A poor man doesn't create jobs." Whew!

Bottom line, DT's base hasn't been duped at all (on this topic). For whatever reason, they share his worldview, and likewise save their contempt for pointy-head liberals/academics/professionals/lawmakers/Democrats from Ivy League backgrounds--instead of for the billionaire class, or the One Percent.

Mollie

"Every time I lose a dog, he takes a piece of my heart. Every new dog gifts me with a piece of his. Someday, my heart will be total dog, and maybe then I will be just as generous, loving, and forgiving."
____Author Unknown

“I believe in the redemptive powers of a dog’s love. It is in recognition of each dog’s potential to lift the human spirit and therefore–to change society for the better, that I fight to make sure every street dog has its day.”
____Stasha Wong, Secretary, Save Our Street Dogs (SOSD)

Available For Adoption, Save Our Street Dogs, SOSD

Taro

#5 But people are so easily manipulated, especially when there are so many competing discourses, many intentionally deceptive. And especially when "truth" telling has become a rare and, then, retracted occurrence.
For instance, people still believe that Trump will "drain the swamp", but I see the same banksters and corporate shills still in charge. He said he would pull back from global hegemony, but has now said that he fully supports NATO and he is speaking about regime change in Syria. He is supposedly interested in better relations with Russia, but expects Russia to return Crimea. The list goes on. His talk is erratic but his walk is straight neo-con.

@dkmich Gwen Graham, a supposed Democrat who voted more often with the Republicans on the issues I cared about. Now she is talking about running for Governor or Senator, banking on being elected because she is Bob Graham's daughter. I like Bob Graham but will never vote for Gwen Graham again. She was awful.

#6

I can't even come close to identifying a time my "representative" represented a GD thing I wanted. I think I want a direct democracy. One person one vote. No parties. All federal laws must pass by a majority vote of the people.

@Granma
It can't hurt, and might open links to the 99 percent.

#6 write to him and ask him to address it. Some of us will sign it, I feel sure. I will. I'm serious, not joking.

@on the cusp and the 3 months I worked full time for his Oregon campaign from Obama. I had never before given money like that, we used an inheritance windfall. In 2008-10 our btb business income was cut in half by the casino meltdown We also both of us spent so much time, money and effort into Democratic 'progressive' politics via our county Dem. party that was nothing but a heart breaker for us and for the people in our community we duped into thinking that 'We were the change we had been waiting for'.

The fierce urgency of now required all of us to support some change we could believe in. Why do the Demorat's think ordinary people are so stupid that they won't believe their lying eyes. Fear of the Insane Clown Pres. they helped install? Fear of the Russians who are coming again? Fear of the 'terrist's who are gonna kill yer family'? It's insult to injury to tell people that they must resist what they are complicit with.

The Democrat's can't even bother to obstruct properly or convincingly. This includes Bernie, he who railed against the duopoly and then said he believes in the two party system. Thank god or Obomber, I had enough sense to not send Bernies campaign money and remained skeptical of his intentions. I was broke anyway due to this fucked up 'economy'. Once bitten twice shy is better then thinking that 'lesser evils' will save the day. None of them know or care the global hell they create with their madness.

#9 I am developing a much greater respect for used car salespersons than politicians, including Bernie.
He was my last gasp, got my $2700,and ended forever me helping anybody get elected financially.

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

As you know, with Hillary, as a former First Lady, being better known than anyone else in the field, they attempted to limit debates to a total of four, scheduled the first one when it was too late to change voter registration in NY, and scheduled all of them on the most inconvenient times possible.

Bill Clinton showing up at the polls in several Massachusetts locations, escorted in Boston by the new Mayor, and glad handing voters and poll workers, was no small thing, neither. Sanders got only one delegate less than Hillary in Massachusetts, much better than Obama fared against Hillary there in 2008. However, media did not mention that, only that Hillary won. Massachusetts, being still considered archtypically "liberal" as the only state to have gone for McGovern in 1972, would have been a nice Super Tuesday victory for Sanders.

And we all know how msm helped the Hillary campaign keep Sanders under wraps. (See the Tyndall Report, among many other things.) The biggest political story of 2016 was not why Hillary lost the election, which is obvious, but why Sanders lost the primary. Yet, hundreds of online articles covered the former while the latter is a story untold.

BTW, the Mayor is up for re-election in November and is already facing a challenge. (Boston Mayors have a history of holding office a long time.)

#11 I noticed that too. There has been a remarkable reluctance to address the most fraudulent aspect of the election I know of, which is the alteration of people's voter registration data without their consent. Though apparently there was some outright vote-flipping as well.

@Big Al

the historical reality is that, despite a plethora of political parties, either a Democrat or a Republicans has won every Presidential election for the past 150 years .That doesn't mean that it always has to be that way. But, realistically, I don't think any new party will win the next Presidential election.

I don't think Greenwald is saying that Democrats are good. I think he is saying only that Democrats are the Party likeliest to defeat Trump in 2020.

Besides, I don't see anything wrong with wanting either of the two largest political parties to be much better than it is--and both can be. After all, Republicans were once the Party of Lincoln and Democrats were once the Party of Truman (not that Truman didn't have his faults. Lincoln probably did, too, but the magnitude of the Civil War and Emancipation overshadowed his faults and the poor guy had only one term during which to disappoint us).

PARTIAL list of U.S. Political Parties: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_St...

#12 "The more alarmed one is by the Trump administration, the more one should focus on how to fix the systemic, fundamental sickness of the Democratic Party."

Reminds me why I don't read him anymore.

@Big Al I didn't actually read it that way. Which probably means I wasn't reading carefully. I thought he meant that you can't consider the shittiness of the Trump Administration without regarding the endemic corruption of the Clinton political machine aka the Democratic party at the same time. They arise from the same crap. In some senses they *are* the same crap, except that Trump is a little too independent for some of the donor class' tastes. Depends on whether you want to make your money poisoning the planet slowly or burning it down quickly.

#12 "The more alarmed one is by the Trump administration, the more one should focus on how to fix the systemic, fundamental sickness of the Democratic Party."

Reminds me why I don't read him anymore.