Justice Democrats: Sweeping Up the Glass Without a Broom

I'm a subscriber and a pretty regular viewer of The Jimmy Dore Show. Recently, he ran a show called "Progressive Primarying Corporate Democrat In Washington State."

The woman running, Sarah Smith, seems like a good sort. Also, she has the name of one of my favorite Dr. Who companions:

elisabeth.jpg

Primary corporate Democrats! is an appealing idea because it's positive. It provides an optimistic vision and ready-made roles for people to play in the work--work which won't threaten one's livelihood or well-being. Nobody has to invent new ways of doing anything, which is hard and frightening. People can just take up the roles they've taken up so often before: knock on doors, phone bank, donate money, hand out flyers, organize events, turn out the vote. We all know the drill. And it feels good to go through the drill again, doesn't it?

Of course the problem is this:

How are you going to stop them from flipping people's party affiliations so they can't vote? How are you going to stop them from purging people off the rolls, so they can't vote? How are you going to stop them shutting down half the polling places, so people can't vote? How are you going to stop the media from announcing that your opponent has won before your opponent has actually won? All these things happened last year, and more, to successfully stop Bernie Sanders from becoming the Democratic nominee.

Jimmy Dore actually--sort of--addresses this:

We've seen time and time again, like just in CA, not only on the national level do the Democrats have a rigged system to protect the establishment, meaning superdelegates and things like that, but, also on the local level, like just in CA, they kinda just pulled the same thing, and right now the CA Democratic Party literally just elected a pharmaceutical lobbyist to be the chairman of the party, a guy who fought against Bernie's cheaper health care bill...that's how bad the Democratic Party is--what makes you think that you can change it?

That is a nuts-and-bolts political question. How are you going to take power?

Sarah Smith's response is the political equivalent of a marshmallow: sweet, pleasant, and comprised largely of air.

Because I mean the sentiment that I've made before is when a window breaks you don't just stare at the glass and wait for it to fix itself. Someone has to get in there and sweep it. And I think that it's time that we swept out all the broken glass and we just made change. Regular people stepping up to the plate and actively taking part in their communities, whether that's at a city level, a state level, a local level, a community level, more people coming out and stepping up is going to make sure we're getting out every last piece of broken glass from that window that's shattered, and we're replacing it with a new one.

I have a lot to say about this statement. But first, let's just take it on its own terms. Let's say we agree with everything she said.

Jimmy Dore's question was about how the Democratic establishment rigs the game. "Rigged system" were his words. He was asking Sarah, How will you beat the rigging? To use her metaphor, he was saying: If you want to sweep that glass out, where's your broom?

She doesn't answer that question. She responds to tactical questions with vague moral exhortation. This is sort of like if you asked someone how to build a bench out of sticks or how to fly-fish, and they responded "God helps those who help themselves!" and "Early to bed and early to rise!"

You don't just stare at the glass and wait for it to fix itself. [Subtext: I'm not lazy or a whiner. I'm a hardworking problem-solver.] Someone has to get in there and sweep it. [I'm a hardworking problem-solver.]

That's not an answer. That's a moral exhortation which has nothing to do with his question. If Jimmy Dore were practicing real journalism in this interview, the next question would be "That's great. We all agree we want to do something, and we're all willing to get to work. So, like I was asking, how are you going to succeed in a rigged system?" But since, when it comes to Justice Democrats, Jimmy Dore cannot practice journalism, but only hagiography, he talks about what a great metaphor the broken window is and then moves immediately into asking her yes or no questions about policy: "Are you in favor of single payer?" "Are you in favor of free tuition?" etc. The only nuts-and-bolts political question he asks after accepting Sarah's marshmallow response uncritically is "Do you take corporate money?" which of course he knows the answer to, since she's a Justice Democrat.

In fact, I've now listened to the entire video--I've been listening while I write. I've now listened to all of it. And Jimmy Dore never returns to the question of the rigged political system. He discusses policy, talks about not taking corporate money, asks for some biographical background, throws a couple of deserved barbs at the corporate Dems, warns her that the media will try to smear her, and thanks her for running. It's actually quite weird; while he's warning her of the Dems' character assassination tactics, he says the establishment will do anything short of physical violence to stop her.

Yeah--a rigged system.

So, do we, I don't know, want to talk a bit about how we're going to deal with some of those short-of-physical-violence things the Democratic establishment might do? Not all the nitty-gritty details--nobody's asking you to reveal your entire playbook online. Just enough to reassure the people listening to you that you're actually on the job: that you see the actual fraud that, like a nerve toxin, paralyzes our ability to take political power electorally, and you're making concrete, specific plans to deal with it.

Nope. Apparently that answer of Sarah's is the only answer we're going to get.

Given that, let's poke at this answer of Sarah's a bit more before we leave it:

Regular people stepping up to the plate and actively taking part in their communities, whether that's at a city level, a state level, a local level, a community level, more people coming out and stepping up is going to make sure we're getting out every last piece of broken glass

So the way we are going to get rid of the Bad in the Democratic party--the broken glass--is to get people more involved.

Remember that Jimmy Dore asked her a question about how she was going to succeed when the political system is rigged. She doesn't deny that the system is rigged when Jimmy says so--she's nodding in the video. So Sarah, running for office in a rigged system, knows she is venturing forth into a political terrain of wrongness, because a "rigged system" is not simply a system that's doing wrong, but a system that's defined and maintained solely by its wrongdoing. What's the answer to this problem, according to Sarah?

Getting people more involved. Getting more ordinary people to run for office, getting more ordinary people to provide volunteer labor for the campaigns, getting more ordinary people to "be active in their communities" (I never know WTF that means, whether it means sponsoring a neighborhood cookout or volunteering at the Food Bank).

Isn't it interesting that it's the ordinary people who have to make a change--not the rigged system which Sarah Smith doesn't even address? If only the American people cared more. If only they weren't such a bunch of lazy whiners, Negative Nancys, keyboard warriors, armchair quarterbacks. If only they got involved in their communities. If only more of them ran for office. If only more of them voted. If only more of them became involved in their local Democratic party. If only we had a hard-working, deeply committed populace filled with optimism and faith!

By the way, note that, in Sarah Smith's broken-window metaphor, the people who are "sweeping up" and "replacing the glass" are the people participating in the electoral process, like her. What does that mean about those who aren't participating? How about the people who have lost faith in the electoral process? Are they, analogically, the ones who stare at the glass and don't sweep up? Because her answer to election fraud was "Try, try again. Work really hard on that next campaign!" I'm sensing the implication here that people who tell the truth about election fraud are a bunch of lazy whiners. Not like those hardworking problem solvers that believe in the electoral process.

Overreacting? Maybe. But how come there isn't one moment in her response when she mentions the words "superdelegate" or "election fraud" or "voter purges" or "corporate media" or "DNC" or anything referring to any of the cheating and bribery and fraud that went on last year? The man asked you the most fundamental question there is: is this game winnable, and if so why?

How can you answer that question without specifics? Why no specifics? No specific discussion of election fraud, voter purges, a corrupt media, a corrupt DNC. No. Only a discussion of how the little guy needs to get more involved.

Let's bring it down to brass tacks.

You have a strategy based on people voting and having their votes counted accurately. How are you going to make sure they can vote?

How are you going to make sure their votes are counted accurately?

Specifically:

What are you going to do when the Democrats start flipping people's party registrations to the Constitution Party or the Libertarian Party, like they did last time?

What are you going to do when they purge thousands of voters off the rolls, like they did last time?

What are you going to do when they close half the polling places?

What are you going to do when the media informs people the race is already won for the corporate candidate when that isn't true?

You have an electoral strategy that doesn't address these issues. Until you address them, you don't have an electoral strategy.

What are you going to do when they do this?

nevada.jpg

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

I even have some sympathy with the fact that he may find it difficult to pitch difficult questions to Justice Dems. I want The Jimmy Dore Show to continue, and for all the people currently employed there to remain employed (I'd like to see Graham Elwood more often).

However, illogical argument needs to be called out. So does trading on implications that the little guy is a lazy, do-nothing whiner who only wants to criticize and never wants to work.

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"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

and I don't know why.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

What are you going to do when they do this?

nevada_0.jpg

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"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

dervish's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal to just keep on going as if nothing has happened. They want our money, our effort, our talents and our support, but at the end of the day, we'll end up working hard just to see more corporate whores elevated to public office.

We don't need any more Schumers, Manchins or Feinsteins. We don't need any more Hoyers, Browns, or even any Pelosis. These people sell us out and make excuses.

Millions are ready for real change.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

Looking forward to your comments.

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"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's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal Back now.

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"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

These are the brass tacks, as you say.

The reason the Seth Rich murder interests me is not that I think he was the Wikileaks leaker of the DNC emails, because I don't. But he may have been involved in the lawsuit over exit polling data in the primaries, and that is another subject of course related to disenfranchising Sanders voters. It's getting down to brass tacks.

It resonates with me because I worked as a Democratic canvasser in the 1972 election, and I came away with a feeling and a realization that the reported voting results in districts I canvassed may have been fraudulent.

The smoke filled room defense of the DNC has no resonance for anyone. If the Party leadership thinks it can run this thing on the work of volunteers with hands and feet but no eyes and ears, they are kidding themselves.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Linda Wood Thanks, Linda. How can you have an electoral strategy without having an election integrity strategy?

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"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

@Linda Wood

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Solidarity forever

@Akze
say more about this here or in other threads. I don't know what the term, "limited hang out," means, but I would like to know.

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@Linda Wood is intelligence jargon for a form of propaganda in which a selected portion of a scandal, criminal act, sensitive or classified information, etc. is revealed or leaked, without telling the whole story. The intention may be to establish credibility as a critic of something or somebody by engaging in criticism of them while in fact covering up for them by omitting many details; to distance oneself publicly from something using innocuous or vague criticism even when ones own sympathies are privately with them; or to divert public attention away from a more heinous act by leaking information about something less heinous.

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Solidarity forever

@Linda Wood

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orlbucfan's picture

The JD logo still makes me uneasy. Its pattern and shape is similar to a swastika.

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Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.

@orlbucfan is flat out silly. Reminds me too much of this:

The combo of the name and logo have made it hard for me to take this seriously from day one.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

It is odd that an outsider running as a Democrat will not admit the obvious: the voting was rigged.
Guess this hard working lady will find out the hard way.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

@on the cusp

to discuss that now? (Words to that effect) IIrc, That was while he was campaigning for Hillary.

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or Fallacy take your pick. Probably 'cause I've been reading too much on propaganda that's all. Thanks for writing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

The broken windows theory is a criminological theory of the norm-setting and signaling effect of urban disorder and vandalism on additional crime and anti-social behavior. The theory states that maintaining and monitoring urban environments to prevent small crimes such as vandalism, public drinking, and toll-jumping helps to create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness, thereby preventing more serious crimes from happening.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_window_fallacy

The parable of the broken window was introduced by Frédéric Bastiat in his 1850 essay Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas (That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen) to illustrate why destruction, and the money spent to recover from destruction, is not actually a net benefit to society. The parable, also known as the broken window fallacy or glazier's fallacy, seeks to show how opportunity costs, as well as the law of unintended consequences, affect economic activity in ways that are "unseen" or ignored.

Sarah Smith equals "out of sight, out of mind." lol, thanks but that doesn't work for me much.

peace

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Alligator Ed's picture

@eyo One step back; one step forward. Sweep up the glass, put in a new window. Have we made progress? No, we are back where we started. We need second, third, fourth steps, etc., in order to make progress. Such is the vapid verbiage of Sweet Sarah.

Perfect title, CSTMS, Sarah has no broom. Jimmy Dore, by giving her a plug on TV is simply giving her a broom handle with no bristles.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Alligator Ed Thanks, Ed

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"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

riverlover's picture

answer. She is young and seems unprepared. Oh well, they will appear. I still like JD, but his cynicism shines through where building should be happening. He is best attacking the status quo.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

@riverlover but the way he steamrolls his guests by asking a question and then going off on a rant about the question and leaving them little more than to agree with him has gotten old. So many times, I found myself yelling at him to shut up and let them answer the question.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

TYT is also wearing on my nerves. Talk about endless prattle and chit chat. Ana Kasparian is not one of my favorites. Not only is she often emotional and wrong, she is certain she is right.

The JDs are a waste of time and money.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

ZimInSeattle's picture

@dkmich Perhaps Justice Democrats are faux opposition for incumbent Dems. Thus making it easy to keep their seats and superdelegates calling the shots.

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"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020

@dkmich

the right of the GOP within the fold.

Maybe Justice Democrats do the same for the left of the Democratic Party?

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@HenryAWallace So far, everything I've read or watched dealing with them really doesn't seem to address any of he real issues (as CSTMS points out) and keeps their resistance with DNC approved parameters.

Has anyone followed the money with JD? I'd be interested to see where it leads.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

thanatokephaloides's picture

If only we had a hard-working, deeply committed populace filled with optimism and faith!

"Faith is believing what you know ain't so!"
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@thanatokephaloides

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@HenryAWallace

Is "faith and optimism" the new "hope and change?"

that's not working, if that's the way you do it.
jamming.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

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"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

Strife Delivery's picture

How are you going to stop them from flipping people's party affiliations so they can't vote? How are you going to stop them from purging people off the rolls, so they can't vote? How are you going to stop them shutting down half the polling places, so people can't vote? How are you going to stop the media from announcing that your opponent has won before your opponent has actually won?

How are you going to stop--

You can't. You can't stop them of any of that. I mean, I'm not defending her as a candidate or JD's or any of that, but I'm not certain a decent answer to those questions.

Perhaps a better question is: What should her answer have been then?

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Strife Delivery Apparently, my comment in response to yours didn't post!

I'll try again: the point of my questions is not to reproach them for not being able to do it. I'm reproaching them for pretending to have an electoral strategy that will work, and getting people on board with it, when a fundamental piece of the strategy is missing. If you can't guarantee clean elections, or at least something fairly close, you can't rely on elections to reform the system. If it's rigged, then the most powerful are the most likely to be able to manipulate the system the way they want.

It's not that I expect Sarah Smith or Jimmy Dore or Cenk Uygur to have the answer to election fraud. It's that I don't expect them to hard sell progressive America on their electoral strategy when anything they do could be compromised, and they've got no way to prevent that. In other words, they're setting people up for disappointment and failure, and we've already been through that three times in the last seventeen years (2004, 2008-10, 2016).

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"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

@Strife Delivery
what is the answer?

Because the question only lightly touches the subject. What about the fact Homeland Security is now in charge of elections? What about the cheating electronic voting machines? Is there any hope of taking the corrupting influence of money out of elections? What about a media that serves to influence elections rather than report on issues?

The problem is deep and wide and looks insurmountable to me, unless a whole lotta stuff gets toppled. Whether that is possible is a much more interesting question to me.

Another question I have is this: We've known, if only subconsciously, that the system is rigged by TPTB for decades, but we trusted that they needed a big, healthy and happy middle class to ensure their continued success. By all indications, it appears TPTB no longer want or need that tamed but happy bunch because they have begun to suck it dry. Why? What has changed?

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@gustogirl
they want the world to be like Saudi Arabia, stinking rich and desperately poor and securitized by Booz Allen Hamilton to spy on everyone and make sure even the rich will be crucified, beheaded and/or tortured to death if they make a joke about the government on the Internet.

I think that's their idea of a perfect society, the desperately poor doing all the cleaning and scavenging, unpaid foreign workers cheated out of their indentured wages and killed in ships on the way home, and strategically guided bombs landed on the poorest people on earth in Yemen as target practice to demonstrate the government's cold-blooded, ruthless, sadistic, obscene wealth and power.

You have to admit it's a very clear picture, not vague like the European Union or Brexit visions, which are speculative works in progress.

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She has a role to play - she will either be cheated or allowed to win and then they will try to co-opt her. She will then see that the establishment is irredeemable and become a hard worker for reform in an effective way - but for reform to succeed the "reform from within" delusion must be absolutely disproven. That's why I say do not form a third party before the 2018 elections, because the Democrats will still have the strength to crush us, but after 2018 the illusion will be shattered.

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On to Biden since 1973

Alligator Ed's picture

@doh1304 ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL
ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL
ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL
ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL
ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL

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@Alligator Ed
but some people need first hand experience.

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On to Biden since 1973

@doh1304

My guess is the latter will manifest, if it has not already. Who knows? Dems may be covertly recruiting people to run as JDs.

No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.

Lily Tomlin

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@HenryAWallace Ro Khanna. Nuff said.

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"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

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There is no reason to vote. There is no reason to register to vote. There is no reason to campaign for a candidate or phone bank, or canvas neighborhoods, or register voters, or campaign for anyone, unless of course you will profit. If the game is rigged it's just an exercise in futility. Perhaps we can all go to the polls and not vote.

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@randtntx We could also petition the U.N. to monitor our elections. I would dearly love to see that.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@randtntx God, so would I.

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"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's picture

@randtntx Well, there are other things we might do. There's actually a lot of work we could do that would be worthwhile whether we ever got control of our government back again or not.

I'm not exactly counseling despair. It just seems silly to keep marching back and doing the same thing that doesn't work over and over again.

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"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

@randtntx

candidate for whom you vote will lose.

https://caucus99percent.com/content/word-about-voting-november-okay-many...

http://www.salon.com/2016/12/02/jill-stein-spoiled-the-2016-election-for...

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Very good essay.

Bernie won Washington state by 72%. Of course, all the superdelegates went for Clinton, including Adam Smith. By all appearances, Washington looks to have fairly clean elections. In various election integrity websites, I found no claims that suspicious shit happened in Washington.

But the question of election integrity should be asked especially in states where activists have noted possible cheating of various sorts.

Sarah Smith will lose because from what I have seen over many decades now, that people holding national office come up through the ranks--winning local office, state offices, then national. They developed contacts and relationships with party activists and with donors. Witness next door in Oregon with Merkeley and Blumenauer who are two very liberal members. Adam Smith also worked up through the party.

In addition, there is the matter of timing and luck. Many elected democrats both nationally and locally only have a chance with an office is turning over due to retirement, forced out, or person went onto higher office, or if something crazy happens like a city totally failed in snow removal during huge major storms, etc. My rep. went from open state house seat, to state senate seat, and then to Congress after previous person resigned. If a situation like this develops, maybe, just maybe a JD candidate will have a chance. Bernie had a chance as people hated Hillary and a developing populist movement because people were getting fucked over.

There are now and then millionaires who never held any state office who run for a national seat, and get beaten regardless of the money as many don't have established connections and relationships one gets by working up through the party. Bernie through his years developed a relationship with the progressive base (years of Tom Hartman). Bernie just didn't come out of nowhere as he did have a base of people who knew him throughout the country.

gjohnsit has said that taking over the democratic party will be a marathon. Yup, that is very true. The Justice Democrats would probably do better writing up a 15-20 year plan, and go after available local offices first and foremost.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@MrWebster @MrWebster True enough, but here's my thinking:

It may be a marathon. But what is going to happen if or when we approach a critical density of successes--if we ever are allowed to get that far? In other words, if the establishment doesn't use its ability to rig elections to stop us early on?

We've seen what happens when the political establishment feels pressed. They double down, and triple down, and quadruple down, and they use every dirty trick in the book, including election fraud and voter suppression that, as Strife Delivery aptly points out, we don't (yet) have an answer for.

Bernie pressed her--no matter what people think of Bernie--and that wasn't in "the deal;" they were surprised and irritated, and their response was to put on a veritable clinic of election fraud. Also, when they still didn't get their way in the general, they went into propaganda overdrive, trying to rake up a war with Russia abroad and a corresponding ideological war at home.

I don't know how they didn't get their way in the general; I assume either somebody who supported Trump was engaged in manipulating results at the same time the Clinton machine was--or the Clinton machine just couldn't believe that she could lose to somebody like Donald Trump, and they didn't bother to take steps. That is just pure speculation, BTW; I have no evidence either way and apparently neither do the election integrity experts who were working to catalog the wrongs of the last election, and figure out as much of how it all worked as they can. It's apparently easier to tell what's happening when only one side is cheating, rather than both.

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"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

TheOtherMaven's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
We know both parties are capable of election chicanery, and the Republicans have been at it longer. We have also been more or less reliably informed that Her Machine took certain states for granted, and spent more time chasing illusory "might flip" states like Arizona than keeping the pot boiling in states like Wisconsin.

Shock! Horror! Ignoring Wisconsin leads to losing Wisconsin! DUH!

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

@TheOtherMaven
really pulled the curtains down, exposing their arrogance. That arrogance translated into over-confidence, which left them truly surprised when Trump won.

Arrogance and over-confidence are only the first half of hubris. The second half is that it "leads to nemesis". People seem to have forgotten the second half - it isn't even in some dictionaries, but I think it is the more important part. For the ancients, hubris was what you got for challenging the gods. Hubris as a literary device.

The second half should lead to downfall/destruction/death, but at a minimum to the kind of reflection that can lead to re-balancing. Instead, they have doubled down on their arrogance, feeling the only lesson learned was about the pitfalls of over-confidence.

Here's to the ancient Greek gods! May they continue their work...

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podcasts. Also more integrity.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@HenryAWallace Thanks, Henry.

Jimmy is walking a fine line trying to keep his platform.

Or, a sadder possibility, he's always been Cenk's sheepdog.

I keep my eyes open. All I can do.

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"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 may not always agree with you 100%, but I never doubt your sincerity and you are never glib or shallow or a snooze.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@HenryAWallace Smile I try for that: intellectual integrity about things that matter, hopefully without getting personal with anybody.

This Russia thing is vexing me because there's no way to talk honestly to someone who believes it without insulting their intelligence.

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"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

"Possibly,dear."

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@irishking I hope not.
We really need a deep analysis of corruption, how it works, and how we should respond as a (nascent) movement. It's just such a nasty topic, I hate delving deep into it. Yuck.

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"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

You've hit the nail on the head. When the Democrats haven't even really tried to deny they rigged the system (as far as the Wikileaks are concerned) and when they have argued in a court of law they have the right to ignore the will of the voters, they can primary until the cows come home and it makes no difference. Much like you can't address so many of the ills in the world without first addressing the raging financial inequality that exists, you can't try to change the Democratic Party without addressing the bogus party machinery that is in place. Otherwise, we are Charlie Brown and Lucy just tempted us to try to kick the football again.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

dervish's picture

@Dr. John Carpenter when I read this essay, the first thing I thought of was Lucy and the football.

I ain't kicking it.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."