@on the cusp That's OK. I did.

We tend to misinterpret data because we aren't facing the facts about how Americans think about politics.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot that's wrong and bad and discouraging about the way Americans deal with politics; I've been in the worst despair of my life since those big anti-Trump marches happened. But, to my mind, we never really get around to the real problems with how Americans view and practice politics. We just flip back into the assumptions we built in the 80s and 90s, which can be summed up as "stupid sheeple" or "bad evil right wing" or both. It all comes down to "Why aren't you in the streets like we were in the 60s and early 70s?" and we don't even bother to make a practical or logical assessment of why: we don't take the data we actually have and apply it to the question (for instance, the CIA decided to help the Reagan Administration prevent just that result in 1983, using techniques they'd perfected overseas; they have been fucking with the culture ever since).

Most simply, if American culture and the politics that arises from it were so intrinsically, hopelessly bad, they wouldn't need to spend billions every year manipulating it.

how wrong you are!
And can't.

@PriceRip
is meant as a barrier to we the 99percent. It's constructed of wealth that's mortared with the blood sweat and tears of the working class.

The base of the wall aligns horizontally, whereas we confront and tear at each other in a linear fashion upon collision, as it is intended.

Frustration's relief lies upon the apex of the wall, in a vertical fashion. Upwards. Or breached.

          Everyone seems to be getting there, but all the collisions are occurring asynchronously. I keep thinking, maybe someday some survivors will initiate a conversation wherein they all agree to focus on one attainable goal that will in turn create an opportunity for the next and the next and ...

          In the meantime I wonder is that particular wall has a characteristic frequency or perhaps more appropriate to the metaphor a characteristic wavenumber.

@Big Al

or someone.

does seem to be need for a focus of some kind.

That's two things. Organizing, which means a lot of people. And something, which means a goal or demand.

I guess there's one more thing, agreeing on that goal or demand. We have to keep this simple.

@The Wizard Selling it isn't the problem. Half the people were ready for it last January, before the Sanders campaign even happened.

The New Deal is completely dismantled. The Democrat Party is fully under functional control of the oligarchs. Wonder why the Bernie movement did not succeed? And, even worse, the Party poobahs refuse to budge. Why? Because the formula that put them in power is still functional and any other organizational scheme threatens their power .. which they "earned" ...right?

The irony waiting in the wings is that the current economic dichotomy is unsustainable. You can't keep the economy going by bleeding off wealth from the 90% to the .1%. The economy needs the power of the broad based consumer. It has worked like this: The oligarchs steal all of the productivity gain of the economy and become fabulously wealthy. Middle America then can't support their middle class lifestyle, so they turn to debt in one form or another. The Oligarchs are more than happy to loan them some of their wealth, since they now demand a return on the immense wealth accumulated through theft. That's why we live in a continual real estate bubble, it's the available capital accumulated by stealing your income driving the whole thing. The Achille's heel in all of this is that to continue to consume middle America needs to borrow more money and accumulate more debt. This describes an unstable system. Debt accumulates until the middle class can't afford to borrow any more so that the consumer economy crashes. That is catastrophic, since it is entirely constructed on projected returns to service business debt. The economy has a nasty instability built in, we engineers refer to it as a positive feedback loop. And that is not positive in terms of result, but in terms of rate of collapse. As the economy falters, people lose jobs, income to spend and default on their debts, and private capital withdraws. To me as an engineer it is truly astonishing that we rely on free market Capitalism to run something as important as the economy. We are about to find out what a huge mistake that is. Meanwhile the crisis will spawn either Fascism or Socialism. The argument should be made that we currently have Fascism, at least according to Mussolini's definition, and it failed. So how are we going to sell Socialism? At what will our unique American version of this look like?

@The Wizard

To me as an engineer it is truly astonishing that we rely on free market Capitalism to run something as important as the economy.

Or infrastructure.

Or healthcare.

Meanwhile the crisis will spawn either Fascism or Socialism.

And sooner or later, Socialism will prevail, as Fascism isn't maintainable over time. Witness western Europe: even Spain, the last Fascist country in Europe, is now Socialist by American standards.

The New Deal is completely dismantled. The Democrat Party is fully under functional control of the oligarchs. Wonder why the Bernie movement did not succeed? And, even worse, the Party poobahs refuse to budge. Why? Because the formula that put them in power is still functional and any other organizational scheme threatens their power .. which they "earned" ...right?

The irony waiting in the wings is that the current economic dichotomy is unsustainable. You can't keep the economy going by bleeding off wealth from the 90% to the .1%. The economy needs the power of the broad based consumer. It has worked like this: The oligarchs steal all of the productivity gain of the economy and become fabulously wealthy. Middle America then can't support their middle class lifestyle, so they turn to debt in one form or another. The Oligarchs are more than happy to loan them some of their wealth, since they now demand a return on the immense wealth accumulated through theft. That's why we live in a continual real estate bubble, it's the available capital accumulated by stealing your income driving the whole thing. The Achille's heel in all of this is that to continue to consume middle America needs to borrow more money and accumulate more debt. This describes an unstable system. Debt accumulates until the middle class can't afford to borrow any more so that the consumer economy crashes. That is catastrophic, since it is entirely constructed on projected returns to service business debt. The economy has a nasty instability built in, we engineers refer to it as a positive feedback loop. And that is not positive in terms of result, but in terms of rate of collapse. As the economy falters, people lose jobs, income to spend and default on their debts, and private capital withdraws. To me as an engineer it is truly astonishing that we rely on free market Capitalism to run something as important as the economy. We are about to find out what a huge mistake that is. Meanwhile the crisis will spawn either Fascism or Socialism. The argument should be made that we currently have Fascism, at least according to Mussolini's definition, and it failed. So how are we going to sell Socialism? At what will our unique American version of this look like?

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal Somehow the "because this country is so polarized" comment flew by me. No, the country is not "so polarized." More than half the country despises both Hillary and Trump, and nearly 60% of the country favors Bernie. How to interpret that data? Well, the best way isn't an autopsy of Bernie Sanders' character and motives, because the American people use politicians as shorthand for the policies and morality they actually care about. "Bernie" is the only shorthand available for the suite of policies and positions he repeated over and over in his speeches.

What I'm seeing is that a little more than half the United States is not polarized against anything; they dislike both Hillary, Trump, the Democratic Party, and the Republican Party. They like Bernie, while continuing to dislike the Democratic party (so the Unity Tour's not working). A little more than half the people are NOT either pink-hat wearers or Trumpeters (those are the polarized people, by the way, and there's nothing to be gotten out of any of them till they wake up.)

If we had an effective movement, I'd say up to 55% of the population is absolutely persuadable; the only thing keeping them from action, other than the assault on time, is their own despair. Not because "they believe in 'Murica;" not because they are polarized against the right or left.

This is A problem but it's not really THE problem:

We can't protest because the paramilitary police will gun you down while using the corporate media to vilify the protesters. Strike? Same thing. And in both cases, because this entire shit country is so polarized, there's no way in hell anyone would be able to rally enough people to participate.

The problem is, of course we can protest and take the risk of getting hurt or thrown in jail and then hurt, but when's the last time that actually changed the course of human events?

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

the old unions got us the 40-hour week and many of the other benefits we still (more or less-all-the-time) have. People got killed for every advance.

Taking power never has been safe or pretty.

This is A problem but it's not really THE problem:

We can't protest because the paramilitary police will gun you down while using the corporate media to vilify the protesters. Strike? Same thing. And in both cases, because this entire shit country is so polarized, there's no way in hell anyone would be able to rally enough people to participate.

The problem is, of course we can protest and take the risk of getting hurt or thrown in jail and then hurt, but when's the last time that actually changed the course of human events?

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Again, no one could ever get enough people to participate, at least in 'Murica.

That's just not true. If we are going to do anything, we have to stop letting our frames re-activate and cover over history.

These beliefs we have just march over whatever actually happened. FFS. We had a large movement against the Iraq War, we had tens of millions of people during the Dean movement which apparently everyone has flushed down the memory hole, we had a 48% approval for Occupy after only 2 months, which is unheard of for a street movement, especially one that uses tent cities as its dominant metaphor; people rallied to Bernie Sanders with such numbers and enthusiasm that it clearly took him and his campaign aback.

Bitterness comes from the fact that nothing we do seems to work. Then we re-activate the frame. The John the Baptist frame. The voice crying in the wilderness. The missionary position (heh). Here we all are among the unregenerate heathen. Our message doesn't get across because they're damned. Or because we're damned because we aren't holy saints willing to risk martyrdom.

Why we can't have a sensible, face-to-face discussion about the truth, which is horrible enough as it is, and then make our choices based on facts, logic, and a truly pro-life (not anti-choice) position I don't know.

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal It takes more than one attempt for a social movement to succeed. I actually tend to be on the optimistic side of this idea because we have had a number of social movements that have attracted a large number of people before they were put down. This country is ripe for a social revolution which hopefully will lead to a political revolution. Recent town halls by both Democrats and Republicans have shown that there is a growing interest in overthrowing the status quo. And politicians are the guardians of the status quo which is why we cannot put our faith or trust in politicians.

Again, no one could ever get enough people to participate, at least in 'Murica.

That's just not true. If we are going to do anything, we have to stop letting our frames re-activate and cover over history.

These beliefs we have just march over whatever actually happened. FFS. We had a large movement against the Iraq War, we had tens of millions of people during the Dean movement which apparently everyone has flushed down the memory hole, we had a 48% approval for Occupy after only 2 months, which is unheard of for a street movement, especially one that uses tent cities as its dominant metaphor; people rallied to Bernie Sanders with such numbers and enthusiasm that it clearly took him and his campaign aback.

Bitterness comes from the fact that nothing we do seems to work. Then we re-activate the frame. The John the Baptist frame. The voice crying in the wilderness. The missionary position (heh). Here we all are among the unregenerate heathen. Our message doesn't get across because they're damned. Or because we're damned because we aren't holy saints willing to risk martyrdom.

Why we can't have a sensible, face-to-face discussion about the truth, which is horrible enough as it is, and then make our choices based on facts, logic, and a truly pro-life (not anti-choice) position I don't know.

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

at her Twitter feed,

My latest video was removed when I was clearing out video uploads that were never launched to the channel. Apologies!

— Debbie Lusignan (@saneprogressive) May 2, 2017

I also don't think that she was signaling that she is 'giving up.' I believe that she was simply laying out the parameters within which she is willing to fight, so to speak.

Have a good one!

Mollie

"I think dogs are the most amazing creatures--they give unconditional love. For me, they are the role model for being alive."--Gilda Radner

"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they went."--Will Rogers

She posted something on FB about how two of her videos disappeared, including the one about Saudi Arabian defense contractors.

She doesn't sound like she's giving up to me. I actually went onto FB, which I almost never do, to message her, and found her video about how two of her videos disappeared.

She said at least one of the videos disappearing is her own technical difficulties, not government censorship, though weirdness happened around the Saudi Arabian one and she doesn't know what's going on with that.

She didn't sound like she was about to throw in the towel to me, but we'll see if she responds to my message.

@enhydra lutris

cooperative enterprise. The 99% needs to form one.

Throughout the history of labor and labor unrest in this country, the elites were only truly terrified by one, so terrified that they pulled out all stops to cripple and destroy it. Instead of coal miners, steel workers, carpenters, electricians, etc, a strike from any of which, especially if geographic, is easily suppressed and survived, but one big strike by one big union, that is scary shit. That's why they had to kill the IWW. That's why we need one big movement, not hispanics, asians, blacks, women, glbtq, labor, small businesses, etc, but One Big Fucking Movement.

@Linda Wood This sort of thing is likely to turn up in my "something borrowed" section of my Open Thread in coming weeks.

to go to Scandinavia, to the the Nordic countries, to Finland, to France and Italy, and personally ask the people, the local administrators, the legislators, the neighbors, how exactly they managed to get from post WWII devastation to social democracy, and how exactly they manage to budget healthcare, equitable education, environmental awareness, and accountability in their governments.

I know those countries are small, relative to the U.S., but each of them has an equivalence to states in our country. I know they're up against the lenders too and the razzle dazzle of debt, booze, drugs, wealth and materialism. They're still in this struggle. But they definitely have the experience of making the huge transition from oppression to democracy that we, somehow, have taken 200 years to approach and slide back from, over and over.

I think we need actual lessons. I mean, by taking our notebooks and pens, sitting down, and listening to how they did it, step by step.

What I think it will come to is facing our local representatives in person with demands that are foundational and that are built on resource reality, saying what we will and will not pay for.

NO MORE DEBT FOR WAR.