The Progressive Establishment Nominated Hillary
While progressives are correctly focused on reforming the broken, dysfuctional, and out-of-touch Democratic Party establishment, it's important to take a step back and realize that Hillary would never have defeated Bernie in the primaries if not for so-called progressive organizations.
Sure, the DNC violated their charter in not representing the interests and popular choice of its members, but the exact same thing can be said of labor unions, environmental and civil rights groups. If not for their early and undemocratic endorsements of Hillary, the DNC would have been unable to have made a difference in the primaries.
In 2016 Sanders backers fumed over the Democratic National Committee’s conniving with Hillary Clinton’s campaign. But the DNC could screw up a two-car funeral. It’s too ineffectual to effect anything as big and complicated as an election. Progressives made Clinton. Without labor, she’d have opened the 2016 campaign with three straight losses (in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada). Labor’s top goals were blocking trade deals and enacting a living wage. Sanders was with labor. Clinton wasn’t. He outperformed her in nearly every general election poll. Labor went with her anyway, often without consulting the rank and file.
Most old line, Washington-based African-American, women’s, LGBT and environmental groups did likewise. It was the progressive establishment, not the party establishment, that secured Clinton’s nomination. The democratization of the Democratic Party starts with the democratization of the left.
Before I go any further, let me remind you just how undemocratic these so-called progressive institutions have become. Let's start with three examples of labor unions.
A coalition of local union chapters came out Friday against national leaders at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) for supporting Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton over her rival Bernie Sanders.
Labor for Bernie includes many local union chapters, notably some from within the SEIU. The coalition has used rallies and grassroots mobilizing campaigns to advocate for the Vermont-democratic socialist. Despite Bernie getting a lot of support from local chapters, national leaders at the SEIU announced an official endorsement of Hillary Nov. 17.
“SEIU’s decision to endorse Clinton is short-sighted and unprincipled,” a coalition email obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation declared. “It is based on a failed strategy of engaging in purely ‘transactional’ politics with corporate liberals. That’s why members who support Bernie Sanders are so understandably frustrated.”
...Despite his own union’s hesitance toward Hillary, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka sent a memo to the leaders of associated unions in July telling them not to endorse Sanders.
Teachers unions were among the earliest and most enthusiastic supporters of Hillary Clinton, with the American Federation of Teachers calling her “the champion working families need” and powerful AFT President Randi Weingarten hugging her on stage.
...The only hitch in Clinton’s plans to rally this vital Democratic constituency: Teachers aren’t fully on board. Bernie Sanders netted more money from people who listed themselves as teachers and educators than Clinton in February, according to a POLITICO analysis of FEC records.
The Vermont senator received more than 9,000 donations and raised more than $413,000 from people who identified themselves as teachers or educators, surpassing the $394,000 raised by Clinton from about 4,500 such donors during the same month.
While Hillary Clinton quickly secured endorsements from a slew of large labor organizations in 2015, more than a dozen local and regional union groups have broken with their national leadership and voted to support Bernie Sanders instead. While it’s common for a national union to stay neutral so its regional affiliates can endorse independently, it’s far more rare to see a local affiliate buck the will of its leadership and tack in another direction. That’s exactly what’s been happening.
...Take the Washington Federation of State Employees, which represents 19,000 people. Although its parent union, the powerful American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, endorsed Clinton in October, the state council thought differently. In January, its executive committee voted to support Sanders and suggested their national leaders take another look at the endorsement process.
Before the first primary Hillary had the endorsements of 23 unions, versus three for Mr. Sanders, but the undemocratic process of how these endorsement came about is the real story.
Now let's look at environmental groups.
The League of Conservation Voters Action Fund’s endorsement of Hillary Rodham Clinton Monday has prompted a backlash from many of its members, who argue Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) deserved the nod.
The endorsement, which was first reported by The Washington Post, marked the first time in more than three decades that the group had endorsed a presidential candidate before a single primary vote was cast. The group’s board Chairwoman Carol M. Browner, who served as the Environmental Protection Agency administrator under President Clinton and advised President Obama on climate change during his first term, said Hillary Clinton won the endorsement because she was best prepared to advance environmental priorities in office.
...But the move touched off a furor among Sanders supporters, who noted that he had a 95 percent lifetime rating from LCV compared to Clinton’s 82 percent.
Several vowed to withhold future donations to LCV in retaliation for the move and either give the money to other environmental groups, or Sanders himself.
In late May, before Clinton claimed the nomination, the major green group NRDC Action Fund issued its first-ever endorsement during a primary, choosing to back Clinton over Sanders.
...In both of those cases, the groups received backlash from some grassroots environmentalists, as well as smaller groups that endorsed Sanders. Sanders, they asserted, had a much stronger policy platform when it came to fighting climate change and protecting the environment. Indeed, Sanders’ campaign has pushed for a national ban on fracking, a nationwide carbon tax, and a complete end to the use of fossil fuels in America. Clinton, who otherwise has a robust environmental policy record, has not called for any of those things.
I could go on, but it becomes redundant. Democracy isn't just failing at the DNC, or just in Washington D.C., or just in the state capitols, or just in the political parties.
Democracy is failing in non-partisan, progressive organizations as well, and this gives you an idea of just how immense the task progressives have before them.
The Intercept compiled a list of how undemocratic these organizations have become.
In the war for endorsements in the Democratic presidential primary, there is a clear trend.
Every major union or progressive organization that let its members have a vote endorsed Bernie Sanders.
Meanwhile, all of Hillary Clinton’s major group endorsements come from organizations where the leaders decide. And several of those endorsements were accompanied by criticisms from members about the lack of a democratic process.
...For example, Clinton got an endorsement from the Human Rights Campaign this week. That decision was made not by a vote of HRC’s membership list but instead by a 32-member executive board that includes Mike Berman, the president of a lobbying firm that works for Pfizer, Comcast, and the health insurance lobby. Northrup Grumman is among its list of major corporate sponsors.
The Sanders campaign blasted the group as “establishment” and said that Sanders has a much stronger record on LGBT equality than Clinton. Outspoken gay activist Michaelangelo Signorile wrote that HRC had clearly traded its early endorsement for “access to the White House” for its leaders.
The success of the progressive insurgency depends just as much on reforming these institutions as it does in winning primaries. The reform work isn't as sexy, and it will rarely get headlines, but it is just as important.
Comments
Why Dems need a civil war
link
why unity is bad
I'm a public school teacher,
and I was FURIOUS when Randi W and the AFT came out and endorsed Clinton! Almost every teacher I talked to supported Bernie. Many teachers were disgusted by the HRC endorsement, given that it did not reflect the opinions of the rank and file members. Top union leaders like Weingarten have become a part of the political elite class.
The unions need to get back to their roots. They need to support and listen to their members. Maybe if they start doing that, they'll regain some of their lost strength.
Thanks for making these points in your essay.
"Stand Up! Keep Fighting!" - Paul Wellstone
The widening economic divide has created an equally wide
social divide. The ruling elites can no longer understand the circumstances of those they claim to represent. Their privilege isolates them from our reality rendering them unfit to rule. And they do rule, since they have come to believe their "superior" knowledge qualifies them to do.
"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"
I agree.
Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and all the rest of them will never get any money from me. Union members should be in full revolt against their leadership. The UAW, hurt most by Clinton & NAFTA, sat the primary out.
MI GOP passed a law allowing union members to withhold their dues and still get full benefit of union membership. If I was covered by a union, particularly in Michigan, I wouldn't give them a dime.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
unions
"The time has come for workers to organize unions against their unions!"
-- George Burghard, 1974 (a neighbor of mine)
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
There were a lot of but for's which landed her the nom
...they started their list in 2008 and began co-opting officially in late 2014 and throughout 2015. That 'inevitability' meme was designed to fuel the movement you describe.
Watching the candidate who invited legislated limitations on late term abortions get the nod from PP over a candidate who truly believes a right to choose is a right to choose was extremely upsetting to me.
'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member
I was fine with all of this--more than fine with it
Until I saw this:
It was the progressive establishment, not the party establishment, that secured Clinton’s nomination.
So, like Thomas Frank's idea that the problem isn't really the billionaires but is those nasty upper-middle-class 10%-ers, now we're deciding that the progressive establishment, not the party establishment is to blame for Hillary Clinton's nomination--and that any problems with the party establishment can be explained away by its large and inefficient bureaucracy. (Perhaps if the Democratic Party were run more like a business, it could manage its affairs better. Let's put Ross Perot in charge of it.)
So I guess Black religious leaders, Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club did this:
I guess BLM--the pro-Clinton part of it--and the SEIU leaked debate questions to Hillary Clinton, used state parties as a vast money-laundering scheme and directed the corporate press to elevate Donald Trump's campaign while denying Bernie Sanders the coverage a thunderstorm might be reasonably expected to get. I guess it was them that participated in "granny-farming (I hate that term)" by trolling around nursing homes and looking for people not fully clear in their minds to sign over their caucus rights to them.
Ah, hell.
How bout I fix this sentence:
It was the progressive establishment and the party establishment, which are now inextricably intertwined, that secured Clinton's nomination.
No excuses for the Democratic Party. None.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal That said, of course the
That said, of course the Sierra Club, AFT, SEIU, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and many many others have now absolutely outed themselves as ringers, as per this gentleman's immortal analysis:
Here's the takeaway: all those left-wing issue-based NGOs have now lost the ability forever to pretend that they have any agendas separate from ensuring the success of the Democratic Party. They have lost the ability to pretend that they have any agenda separate from the agenda of the Democratic Party. Therefore, as the Democratic Party takes worse and worse positions on all these issues, they are all going to become bigger and bigger hypocrites. And of course, none of us should be giving them any money or time.
I am distressed in the case of Planned Parenthood, simply because they provide a real service by offering health care to people without a lot of money, and it's a hard choice to decide not to give them money. But if I do continue to give them money, I'm going to have to do it in the full knowledge that I'm propping up a part of the Democratic Party, which will sacrifice pretty much anything in order to do whatever the party wants.
After Hillary started talking about adopting a pro-life perspective, both Planned Parenthood and NARAL should have withdrawn their endorsements. The fact that they didn't tells you everything you need to know.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Democratic party front groups
Very true point about unions and various other organizations as being first and foremost about getting democrats elected. They have lost sight of their primary purposes. Well, at least the leadership which looks to be permanently in place. I have listened to a number SEIU leaders and it seemed their identity as leaders was around the democratic party, and not the union. The leadership of these unions and organizations can rightly be partially blamed for Trump as they helped give us one of the worst imaginable candidates in Hillary.
Totally correct. Here's a classic comment by Mary Kay
Henry, SEIU President,
Translation - It's okay with me if PBO 'makes a tough judgment/choice,' and strikes a Grand Bargain to dismantle entitlement programs.
If you notice, Henry literally 'chuckles' at the idea that PBO would listen to her coalition, arguing that he's not the President of the SEIU.
[Edited: Added 'judgment' & deleted 'choice']
Mollie
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage."--Lao Tzu
“Love makes you stronger, so that you can reach out, and become involved with life in ways you dared not risk alone” – Author Unknown
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Samuel Gompers
thought that unions should reward their friends and punish their enemies. He warned about getting captured by a Party.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
No one is excusing the Democratic Party
My point is writing this essay was to explain why the problem is larger than just the Democratic Party.
That doesn't mean the DP doesn't need a top-to-bottom cleaning out, only that more needs to be done than just that.
If progressives fail in reforming the DP, it will probably be because they ignored the problem at these non-partisan organizations.
@gjohnsit It's not *you* that I
It's not *you* that I thought was excusing them. But the framework of the argument, as presented in those block quotes, absolutely is making excuses for the Democrats. Here's the argument: the Democratic Party isn't what's responsible for the worst Democratic candidate in my lifetime getting the nomination. Of course, the DNC fucked up, but it's just because it's a big clumsy inefficient bureaucracy that can't get anything right! Silly old DNC.
No, it's really the institutional left.
That really looks like an argument designed to draw fire away from the Democratic party. And it's just silly anyway--like people saying it's the Fed, not Wall St, to blame for what happened in 2008. Like there's this huge gulf between the Fed and Wall St. They're so enmeshed it barely makes sense to talk about them as separate. Same goes for the left-wing NGOs and the Democratic Party. They want us to believe that they are independent critics of the Party. That's a total load of shit, which is why I initially was really excited that people were criticizing the institutional left. That is a critique which is WELL overdue.
But the whole point is that they ARE absolutely enmeshed with the Democratic Party, and that, like the press, they care more what Beltway cocktail parties they go to than they care about their mission statements.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal Hillary cared more
Hillary cared more about those cocktail parties with the !% than she did campaigning in the rust belt states. You had people worried about the welfare of themselves and their communities and Clinton basically turned her nose up at them.
Heck, I do not live in a rust belt state and she did not come here either. I guess Clinton and the DNC really believed that their lesser of two evils campign was good enough.
It was her turn.
like it was Bob Dole's turn in '96.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Sometimes I feel I'm the only one who remembers that.
The Democrats rightfully slaughtered Dole for having a campaign that amounted to "it's his turn." But, like everything else they've criticized the Republicans for, then they stepped back and decided it wasn't such a bad idea after all.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
Democrats
slaughtered Romney for writing off 47% of Americans. Four years later Hillary wrote off 47% of Americans, but it was OK for her to do it since they were "deplorable." Democrats stand for nothing except "Vote for us because we say so."
"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"
@The Voice In the Wilderness LOL! Good one!
LOL! Good one!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@gjohnsit If progressives fail at
If progressives fail at reforming the DP, it will be because the DP is working for very wealthy people who don't want the boat rocked, and are willing to do some pretty crappy unethical things to keep power relations just like they are.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Whichy I'm worried about the 2018 Governor's race in Illinois
The two leading contenders are a multimillionaire and a billionaire.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
So both classes are represented. /s
"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"
It's the corruption of our government that is the biggest
problem, IMO. Anyone who wants to run for congress has to have buckets of money just to get their own campaign off the ground.
Once they get there they have to keep getting the money to stay there.
Once they have sold themselves to their lobbyists masters, they have to pass the legislation that lobbyists write for them.
Unfortunately, other areas of government are just as corrupt and they take money from the industries they are supposed to be regulating. After they were bought, all the agencies had to do was write the bills they wanted passed. The drug companies do this all the time. This is how dangerous drugs get on the market and stay there until the body count gets too high for them to hide them.
Remember Rachel showing how one regulatory agency was caught doing drugs off of people's body parts when the industry threw them a party?
This video shows how the corrupt congress is bought and sold. This happens at all levels of government. The state governments are just as corrupt as the ones at the federal level.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
I can see it both ways.
I can see it both ways. While your revision certainly has the ring of truth to it, I can also easily see the point about today's DNC being so inept that they can't coordinate a two-car funeral! (Their own funeral, perhaps?)
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
Stick a 'faux' in front of that 'progressive' and I'll go back to my usual 'totally! couldn't agree with you more!' response to your commentary, lol.
I bitterly resent the continual propagandistic Orwellization of language confusing the issues and confounding solidarity... Edit: and believe that we should not be letting ourselves so passively carried away from accurate definition of self-defining terms and into the warped waters of NewSpeak without even fighting to retain a verbal paddle. Our acceptance of their appallingly blatant over-reaches represents to me, at least, why they always get their own way by blatantly stealing ours.
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.
I agree with this essay - Unions are a part of the beast
I am extreme left, and feel that co-ops, as advocated by Wolfe and Garparovitz, are the transitional structural institutions away from American Style Capitalism corporations.
Once a body, an organism, an organization, exists, its primary purpose is self-preservation. Unions are like those little fish that eat from between shark's teeth-they don't want the shark to die ... Similarly, unions don't want capitalist corporations to cease to exist, where would they feed?
Arizmendi Bakeries, a well known chain of co-ops in CA, doesn't have unions. And as far as I know, Mondragon doesn't have unions. Even Nucor, the steel company featured in the book "American Steel," which practices and advocates profit sharing, doesn't have unions. When employees, as a group, own the means of production a union is superfluous.
Unions seeking the end of for-profit shareholder corporations makes as little sense as Raytheon lobbying for peace ... Unions are Neo-liberal, and would probably be opposed to the recent bill Bernie and others introduced to help cultivate employee-ownership, as well as the efforts by NY, RI, the radical new mayor of Jackson, MS, and others, to advance co-ops ...
(As an aside, the efforts of Bernie, his co-sponsers, and the states introducing easier regulations to start co-ops, and the radical new mayor of Jackson, are the ones doing the hard-core political-economic work, in my opinion. A new restaurant, "Democracy," a co-op opening at Downtown Crossing in Boston, which, as a co-op, states it's goal is to be a community gathering place, reminds me of the mayor of Jackson, utilizing a real 'in your face' melding of political action and economic structure.)
Granted, there are unions, and individual union members, working with co-ops, but that is mostly notable because of its uniqueness. Go back to the days of Upton Sinclair, if you worked at a co-op you were a progressive, if you worked for GE, at best, you were a neb-lib. Today, if you work at Arizmendi Bakeries, you're a progressive; if you work for a corporation, even if you're in a union, at best, you're a neb-lib (or a frustrated progressive.)
@GreyWolf I'm fine with the
I'm fine with the critique of the institutional left. Not fine with the framing of "it's NOT the Democratic Party, it's the progressive establishment!"
One more way of watering down the anger at the Democratic Party, just like Frank's argument seems to be getting used to move away from the critique of billionaires. Why can't it be both/and?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
It IS both.
And I think the essay points out that we cannot believe anymore in even the most "liberal" non-profit organization. I don't give ANY of them money anymore except for PP. While I feel the same way as you do there, that I'm in essence supporting the Democratic party, I also feel the services provided by PP are too important for me to stop.
Many people still think unions and groups like the Sierra Club, etc are clean and progressive, when in fact they are not. And as you so rightly point out, they are part and parcel of the Democratic establishment now and no longer to be trusted. But I don't think that in any way lets the Democratic party off the hook. While some may take it that way, we know those are people who've still got that proverbial head up that ass and just don't see reality yet, refuse to see it in point of fact.
They need something to hope for, how dare we point out there is nothing, nothing, nothing at all there? s/
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
I'm skeptical of employee ownership.
ESOP's have just been vehicles for professional managers to doubly exploit workers.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
ESOP's Fables
punctuation adjusted
Amen to that! Most ESOPs I've ever seen or heard of allow just enough employee ownership that the traditional protections for the employees are dispensed with, while keeping the 0.1% class still firmly in charge.
Grrrrr.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
I just left an employee owned company.
The best way I can describe it was Animal Farm. I would hope that was an exception, but perhaps not?
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
Yes, I've soured on ESOPs big time, more smoke & mirrors
!@GreyWolf I'm certain there is
! I'm certain there is a way to do it sincerely and well, regardless of how many do it as a corrupt pretense.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
There is a way to do it right.
There is a way to do it right. Namely, the conversion of a business to an entirely employee owned co-op. No one besides employees to own stock, and no employee to have more or less than the same number of shares, issued to him as soon as he becomes a regular employee. Ideally, this conversion to occur once the business is essentially debt-free and financing its operations entirely from current income.
Any scheme by which "some are more equal than others" in any way, whether it's from allowing current employee owners to vote on inclusion of new ones or allowing any employee to acquire more of an interest than any other, is the highway to corruption hell.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Great comment, GreyWolf. Thanks for the heads up on "Democracy"
Would also love to see the idea of co-ops take off around this country. The climate is certainly right for it.
Could only find one review at a Boston lifestyle site, but liked all of this:
Their own website:
Transforming beer halls, cafes, places of commerce, etc into places, through which their owners make no bones about offering these places, as ones where the citizenry can also come to be engaged about the issues of the day and learn something about radical history, excites me.
Thanks again, GreyWolf.
"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
@Mark from Queens what a damned amazing
what a damned amazing comment! +4!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
By the way--
the Human Rights Campaign is engaged in realpolitik, always has been. They chose Lloyd Blankfein to be their Congressional Liaison a few years ago. Either really smart, or horrifying, depending on your point of view. I left them at that point, based on the idea that LGBT people need houses and a living wage as much as heterosexuals do.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Horrifying! Lloyd Blankenfein? Seriously? Hell no!
many gay people feel that HRC and many of the LGBT organizations have sold out to corporations.
Look at the sponsors for Pride parades that have basically taken over how the parades are to be run. At the top of the sponsor list are the big banks and corporations and people are feeling that parades have changed from what they were after the Stonewall riots.
Instead of being more of a celebratory parade, it's just more corporatism.
There were people protesting against this at the Salt Lake City Pride parade last weekend. They either weren't allowed to be included or they were told that they couldn't be included for some reason.
I was in California during the AIDS epidemic and that was during the time that Act-Up was trying to get our government's attention to get them to fund research into AIDS drugs. The Pride parades were full of anger, fear and frustration because St Ronnie the Asshole listened to Jerry Falwell and instead of going with education, prevention and drug treatment, he went with abstinence.
That was also the time that the rift between gay men and lesbians was healed because many lesbians were in the health care field and many families had turned their backs on gay men who were infected and dying alone in hospitals all over the country. Lesbians were their caretakers who offered them comfort and support.
Now the parades are full of money which comes with rules on who be in the parades and full of rules.
Sorry, I'm not explaining this very well, but hopefully you get the gist of what I'm trying to explain.
But you can see why people feel like this when Lloyd F'cking Blankenfein is involved.
I'll try to find the article on this.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
Corporate interests co-opt everything.
The women's movement was about women's choices. If they wanted a career, they wouldn't be blocked. If they wanted to stay home and take care of the kids and house, fine.
But today, it is almost impossible for a family to live on one salary. Women have not only been forced into the workforce - they are working for less pay than their counterparts. That is surely a marker of corporate interests.
Learning Gloria Steinhem had been CIA gave me a bit of an "aha". I knew the women's movement had been co-opted by corporate interests, but the mechanics behind that weren't clear. Now I recall Gloria's minions mocking women who wanted to be homemakers.
@snoopydawg I'm old enough to
I'm old enough to remember ACT UP and the shift where lesbians became allies with gay men (unfortunately, there was a corresponding shift where hetero female feminists and lesbian female feminists split from each other. I've never understood why we couldn't chew gum and walk at the same time.)
Human Rights Committee is so far from ACT UP and the liberation movements of the late 60s, 70s, and 80s that it ain't funny. The only thing I can say for this particular co-optation is that at least gay men and lesbians, to some extent, did it on their own terms with their eyes open. In the 90s, a lot of people gave up on the idea of convincing the straight population to treat us well based on our being human beings. Human rights as a concept was in decline; some of the LGBT activists saw that, and decided to appeal to the establishment on its own terms. And unlike most of the other previously resistant groups who did this, they at least got something in exchange for us, politically and legally.
That said, those of us who aren't interested in being rah-rah about legal marriage or the military are left out, permanently. Those of us who don't fit in to the Ward-married-to-Ward and June-married-to-June because we're too flamboyant or too different or not reassuring enough to the mainstream are also left out.
Those of us who aren't monogamous really have become The Problem. One of my life partners was in a class--LGBTQ families was the name of the class--and the professor, like many, definitely felt that he was running a harem, and that we were the problem in the Wonderful New World of Legal Gay Marriage. My other partner got that same shit at the Library of Congress' queer group.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
I suspect that all of the divisive corporate/fundamentalist/political propaganda has to go, before Joe/sophine Average begins to look at other people as people and to lose the tendency to inflict their own culturally ingrained personal preferences on everyone else as some sort of requirement. Even regarding the personal love lives of consenting adults... no wonder that the intrusions of a would-be all-controlling corporate state have been tolerated so far by so many due to such conditioning.
My personal belief is that such issues - from racism to sexism and the urge to control other people's personal choices - would long since have died away within the general public as widespread societal problems had they no longer been promoted as mandatory normative 'natural laws'.
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.
By the way--
I rec'd your essay. I don't have a problem with its main thrust. I am on the alert for narratives which attempt to water down, or deflect, the extremely widespread anger at both parties, the political system generally, and the very rich. And I sensed that, not so much in your argument or words, but in the argument you were quoting.
Sometimes an argument that is crap piggy-backs on an argument that is correct, just and true. Like a shitty amendment tacked on to a good bill. I think that's happening here.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
So maybe
rather than just complaining about how the union "just takes our dues and doesn't do squat" maybe we should do something about it.
Let's start with an analysis of the real situation. Our organizational leadership keeps betraying us. Hillary is just the poster child, it's going on, every candidate, every issue. I assume a combination of 2 reasons - either the leadership has been faced with "endorse me or I will show just how irrelevant you really are ("Access my ass, take it and I'll pretend I'm supporting you or I'll ignore you in public.") or "Thirty years ago it helped a little - enough to make you feel good about yourself - now it doesn't even do that but you can't figure a way that doesn't admit that for thirty years you've been used."
Go down the list. Determine who is which and take appropriate action. We'll make a few mistakes, we'll lose (almost as much as we are already) but it has to be done.
On to Biden since 1973
Chris Hedges certainly called it in 2010.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131166027
That manipulation has been going on
since the wake of the biblical flood. I have one beef with Hedges. I agree with him. He's an excellent lefty writer, but he never offers solutions. At least, I've haven't read them. That could be on me as I got so fed up with the negative, I quit reading him! Rec'd!!
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
@MrWebster Academia, being much
Academia, being much funded by the government, couldn't do much when the government started making cuts--they had to turn to the private sector more and more to remain a going concern.
That said, probably what needed to happen was a deep, honest discussion of what was happening to our institution, and whether self-preservation is always worth the cost. Also, what we might have transformed into once our older self "died" under the blitz of budget cuts.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Cut. Them. Off.
Any organization that is assured of getting its donations/dues will continue to get worse about protecting its turf and its access and its media exposure and cachet, etc. Cut them off. Every organization that is not working with every facet of its being for the little guys deserves to be rejected by the little guys, us. No money, no support, no LTEs or petition signatures.
Same goes for politicians.
Same goes for businesses.
To the degree we can, cut them off.
With our time, with our resources, with our contacts and ideas, create alternatives to each of these. Create or support organizations that do fight for the little guy. When they come under attack (and they will), don't stand with those organizations that ask you to defend them, their leaderships, but stand with those who ask you to stand beside them to look out for the little guy at every step. You can see when an organization stops being about its mission and becomes about itself, its leaders' perks. Cut them off. Support representatives that actually, y'know, represent us. Support businesses that benefit us, not their managements and shareholders. Cut everyone else off. Clean. In any way you can.
There will only be change when we make change happen. It won't happen with anguished cries when leaderships look to their own benefits. It will happen when we replace their cronyism with better organizations, better coalitions, dedicated to their missions, not their comforts.
If we do that, if we show them what austerity is, what we face everyday, change will come, and appropriate comforts will come, too.
substitute unions
With respect to unions, the solution isn't to "go scab" (de-organize and leave yourselves at the bosses' mercy) but to organize with another union -- one radical enough to earn its dues payments by doing its job!
UE is one such union. The IWW is another. So is the United Farm Workers.
Most member unions in AFL-CIO are not, and deserve to be cut off; but "Right to
WorkSlave" is emphatically not the way to do it!"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
I thought IWW was extinct.
Our American History textbook back in the '60s sounded like that.
BTW, my grandson's American History textbook did not mention unions at all!
Say "Samuel Gompers" "The Wobblies" "River Rouge" "AFL-CIO" to them and get a blank stare back.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Reports of the death of IWW
...... are greatly exaggerated. The union has continuously existed since its founding. Its website is here. Check them out!
Kali Jesus Fucking Mutant Cosmic Star Goat Xenu!!!
What passes for "education" these days flatly sucks!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
@thanatokephaloides That's the best
That's the best explosion I've ever heard. Gotta make a note of that one!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Many cannot cut them off.
Dues are automatically deducted from paychecks and membership is mandatory in many cases. I imagine there is some law that needs to be changed?
@dance you monster That is my conclusion,
That is my conclusion, as well. I just can't help feeling guilty about Planned Parenthood, because of their low-cost clinics.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@dance you monster With our time, with our
With our time, with our resources, with our contacts and ideas, create alternatives to each of these. Create or support organizations that do fight for the little guy. When they come under attack (and they will), don't stand with those organizations that ask you to defend them, their leaderships, but stand with those who ask you to stand beside them to look out for the little guy at every step. You can see when an organization stops being about its mission and becomes about itself, its leaders' perks. Cut them off. Support representatives that actually, y'know, represent us. Support businesses that benefit us, not their managements and shareholders. Cut everyone else off. Clean. In any way you can.
DYM, you might have just articulated the heart of my current political philosophy. +4!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
When I was young I supported Unions Unconditionally
As I began my career I was offered the opportunity to join a faculty union ... actually a collective bargaining association ... pretending to be a union. They know how to talk the talk but as for walking the walk ... not so much. I actually thought about becoming a member of this association. I was naïve, thinking other faculty members would have similar interests to my own. I was never (in 35 years) able to organize anything of import with respect to the population of faculty members.
But, as I soon discerned, this institution was a top down corporate entity producing product (graduates) for profit (political capital and prestige) and security (principally in the form of administrative positions). Did you know that there are faculty that actually aspire to ascend into the administrative sanctum sanatorium. Strange but true.
Perhaps this is one area for which KSC/UNK lead the nation. In their zeal to kowtow to their betters I learned I was on my own fighting a corrupt hierarchy. So, while I know virtually nothing about the machinations of national politics I fail to be surprised by anything that gets uncovered. The putrefied sludge that passes for leadership is just a variation on a tired old theme, time worn to the point of obsequious cliché.
@PriceRip I so feel this:
I so feel this:
I fail to be surprised by anything that gets uncovered. The putrefied sludge that passes for leadership is just a variation on a tired old theme, time worn to the point of obsequious cliché.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I thought about ...
... that wording for a time. I was inspired by the plumbing repair necessitated a few days ago and several hundred miles to the East. My muse is fickle and and a bit uncouth at times.
@PriceRip Very nice! Great
Very nice! Great image.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
ummm... it IS the top 5 and 10 and 20%
who are the people in charge in these orgs: Dim-0-CRAP enablers of Dem-0-RAT$, the dilettante cla$$e$ running the NARALs and PPs and Unions...
There a few real trust funders, the sans souci dilettantes, who get to jet around and write big checks and who are NOT affected in a real way in their security of living in a safe place, in their security of having easy access to high quality health care, in their security of having a reliable retirement and quality transportation and plenty of career options. Then there is this enormous horde of posers whose REAL goal to be 1 of the club of dilettante insider, the above the fray, waving the champagne flute while the noblererer nose in the air.
While it is important to document their lies and their sell outs and their inconsistencies, WHY are they who they are???????
Cuz they're groveling suck ups to rich pigs. Ta Da.
rmm.
[disclaimer - NO fancy graduate degree work into the preceding claims, and my only credential is a B.A. in math from u.w. seattle. I'm 57, spent many early years in an o.k. neighborhood on welfare, have been on mucho programs, still owe student loans, am in career #3,
and am bored outta my mind with loooooooooooooooooong complicated analysis which trying to figure out why fucking suck ups are suck ups.]
But then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villany
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;
@seabos84 Short and sweet: The
Short and sweet: The .01% are the real power, the 1% usually agree with them and are lesser powers in their own right, and the next 9% are a bunch of toadying asskisser wannabes.
There are, of course, individual exceptions to the rule in all of these cases.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
My definition of "progressives"
doesn't include the organizations you cite.
PINO's. They are as corporatist, neolib as the government Dems.
Also, I am not convinced true progressives have a duty to reform the establishment party, nor am I convinced it can be done.
I have no ability to predict the future, so ok, fellow progs, get after Nancy and Cory and Chuckie.
Let's all get together and cuss and discuss when you realize your efforts to go up against Big Money failed.
"I've been cheated , been mistreated, when will I (a hard core lib) be loved?"
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Yeah, I agree, if there is anything to protest
... here it would be calling many of these orgs progressive rather than neo-lib.
@GreyWolf It was very hard for
It was very hard for me to unlearn what I had learned 60 years ago.
I was raised in a hard core liberal family. Grandparents with ties to FDR, (not in a financial way, a very personal way), liberal Democrat parents sending me out to campaign when I was 4 years old for The Party.
But I accomplished unlearning a couple of years ago.
I am even more hard core lib than ever before.
And I am not a Democrat, will never associate myself with them again.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
unlearning
You are, however, still a democrat, unlike today's Democrats. (Note capitalization!)
Today's "Democrats" bring to mind old Soviet-era jokes about Pravda and Izvestiya!
In very deed, I know of what you are going through. My mother's family were liberal Dems just like yours. I live with my mother today. And the unlearning goes on; I said "Obama failed us here" (Afghanistan) the other day -- and she conceded the point, something she wouldn't have done as recently as 2015.
As Daily Kos goes, so go the "Democrats". In both cases, genuine leftists, real liberals, have been booted out the door in favor of corporatists who would have been too far to the right for the Republican Party we knew as children! (I'm 58)
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
1. No one progressive* nominated Hillary. 2. The DP will
not be reformed from within, at least not during the next half century, if ever. https://caucus99percent.com/comment/273726#comment-273726
I'd stake my life on both 1. and 2.--and I very rarely bet even $1. I've made fewer than five bets in my life.
*Assuming we're using "progressive" to mean something like leftist/populist and therefore not using the word as Obama, Hillary, et al. use it. https://caucus99percent.com/content/liberals-must-not-say-liberal-left-p...
Yes, the essay fails on this . Progressive my @ss.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
The essay is not to blame.
Our usage is messed up in general, thanks to the PTB. https://caucus99percent.com/content/liberals-must-not-say-liberal-left-p...
This sort of statement got me labeled many things
But honestly, to me it seems pretty simple. It is undeniable by anyone with a functioning brain that DC is systemically corrupt... as is Wall Street and all other loci of power in the US. Fair enough. That's the battle I'm fighting. I get that.
But once I understand that, then anyone who is an "insider" who stood with Hillary clearly declared themselves as supporting corporatism. I get how common voters have swilled the propaganda from their TV sets and newspapers and are fooled. My family falls into that category. So did I as little as 6 years ago. That I can understand. But if it's someone like the head of Planned Parenthood that explanation doesn't wash. They KNOW what's going on in DC. They KNOW who Hillary Clinton was and what she stood for. They stood with her.
What else is there to say?
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
What else is there to say? up
They are well paid or start with a lot of money, usually both.
Very well put.
There are no excuses. No "playing the game." We live in a time where this sort of information is easier than ever to find. Plausible deniability should be an obsolete concept in US politics. I don't care how much talking about progressive causes you do. You stand with Her, you're stating that you are perfectly ok with continuing to move in the opposite direction.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
They pretend to represent us and we pretend to vote & GOTV"
Every dollar received by a charitable organization from (or influenced by) a private source pressures the organization to support the source's political (and leadership staffing) preferences.
This made the Clinton's huge influence over "charitable" contributions a huge carrot and stick to Planned Parenthood and the like.
Non-leadership members of money-influenced organizations collectively took revenge against Hillary, in her general election loss to Trump, and have done the same for many Democratic establishment candidates, in ways that recall the old Soviet-era joke:
"They pretend to represent us and we pretend to vote & GOTV".
When they ask for cash
I ask how much is the top person making? More than $75K? Bye. I'm tired of 'supporting causes(their salaries) where they make a better living and more bennies than 60% of the workforce?
Don't think so.
Stop The Fucking Wars!
peace
Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .
Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .
If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march