This Party is Split
Submitted by Dark Knight on Sun, 03/06/2016 - 11:40am
I have come to believe that the American Electorate is clearly splitting its parties, and we as the party of the 99% have an auspicious opportunity to affect generations to come.
The 2016 Democratic Primary, whatever its outcome, is spawning a party in places such as this. We no longer need newspapers for our information. We no longer tune into the mainstream media. We are not listening to them.
Time and time again we have been told that our values are foolish, that we must support a bastion in the political center; but we know now that we are not a minority.
We are growing. We know there are others. We cannot be stopped.
Comments
There are certainly factions within each ruling class political
party and they're becoming a bit more clear, particularly in the Democratic party imo. The republican party and it's supporters/followers are so frigging clueless I hesitate to give any of them any credit. One thing is clear, there is no place in the Inn for the radical left in the Democratic party, which leaves them no place to go except third parties which are not able to compete against this insidious political machine. There has been only a handful of national third party politicians since WWII. To build on that would take decades of significant and consistent activism, money and work from a lot of people, all the while battling against a rigged and corrupted political system. It doesn't even appear possible to me without a complete "All Stop" and reformation of the system or implementation of a new system.
Perhaps the larger issue now, at least to me and many others, is the divide between those that participate/vote and those that don't. Last election (2014) only 37% of voting eligible citizens voted, an all time low. Assuming we get Trump vs. Clinton, we'll probably see an all time low turnout for a Presidential election year. That seems to be playing out with primary voting. We're experiencing historical low approval ratings of the Congress and Senate, below 10%!. That's not just a majority or a vast majority, that's just about everyone with a brain. The people know this system flat out sucks.
This representative system of government is broken probably irretrievably. It's broken in Britain, it's broken in most of Europe, Canada, you name it. We seem to have reached a point where human evolution regarding society leadership has been overcome by human greed and lust for power, like it can't be changed because of the structures and systems (like the Federal Reserve System, Gangster capitalism, etc.) that have slowly been put in place by those we elect. Greed and power lust float to the top and can't be budged.
I read recently where much of Latin America is now taking a right turn from the socialist, left wing movements that made significant progress in the last couple decades. That's not good news. It's happening in Europe also and now we're seeing Donald "the Fascist" Trump getting close to the White House in the United States of What the Hell is Happening. It's not because the majority of the people want right wing government and policies, it's because those with the money and power to affect things have all the money and power, they own everything including the media, the banks, corporations, everything.
On the one hand, we're inching towards a judgment day, but on the other hand, it's still uncertain what that day is going to entail. It's going to take bold thinking and bold action to reverse the situation.
Charles Ferguson from Inside Job on Bernie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu06-r7wTs0
Ferguson video:
More from Ferguson
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-ferguson/the-tragedy-of-hillary-cl...
Yanis Varoufakis on Bernie and the dangers facing democracy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKqySLaxK4U
I believe Yanis Varoufakis
is advising Corbyn these days. I can't remember where I read it but i'll look around and link to it. There is democratic global push back to the 'oligarchical collectivists'. Populism does sometimes manifest itself in fascistic nationalism but in the case of for instance the rise of Ukip did not stick. Instead Labour's left had a resurgence and rejected the centrist corporate Blairties. A big internecine political brouhaha ensued within the Labour party and the Labour voters themselves. I agree with Yanis. There is also the fact that despite scary predictions about Greece the RW Golden Dawn lost to Syriza. Then of course Greece and Syriza got hammered by the EU austerity Goldman Sachs rulers of the world. The global corporate owned media calls Bernie, Syriza, Corbyn, any populist movement anywhere that gains traction with people 'radical', dangerous, idealistic, rotten Dr, commie rat's, who will end Axelrod's inevitable 'world as we find it'. Ironic that Milband disastrous campaign hired Axelrod and nobody bothered to vote Labour. Real democracy, equality and all that jazz really is an idea whose time has come.
Waving the latest scariest fascistic boogieman or woman in every bodies face may scare the comfortable people into voting for the designated oligarchical candidate but these rat bastards have gone too far and have no intention of backing off. Fear of the RW is hard to maintain when they tell you that kissing Kissinger or wearing Goldman Sachs Golden Handcuffs is your only choice and if you don't we'll all go over massive cliffs of fiscal destruction and that 'terrist's are gonna kill yer family'. I mean come on we've been hearing this insanity for decades and voting just gets you the same damn RW governance austerity and endless bloody war with a fake friendly progressive face. Hillary doesn't even bother with the friendly face. Bernie may lose then again he may win as this is not like other elections but if he loses it just shows people how rigged and owned our electoral system, our entire system, is.
Thanks for the video. Go Bernie and go people everywhere. Humanism is an enduring idea that is always timely. Enough is Enough!
Yes,
Varoufakis is now advising Corbyn.
What's most interesting about Corbyn is that he's sparked a wide ranging discussion about monetary issues. A subject matter that only Ron Paul and his gold nugget phatansies has managed to broach in the U.S..
"Fear of the RW is hard to
"Fear of the RW is hard to maintain when they tell you that kissing Kissinger or wearing Goldman Sachs Golden Handcuffs is your only choice and if you don't we'll all go over massive cliffs of fiscal destruction and that 'terrist's are gonna kill yer family'"
Boogiemen
So true!
Voters not voting…need alternatives.
Off year elections make things difficult - because even without a tax, many people are teed because they have to take time off from work to go vote - which can take a short amount of time or a huge amount of time.
It's not something most people can do on their lunch hour either.
By mail voting, with a decent window of time would be a way to compensate, but there's no apparatus most people know how to access to do that. Information is needed and then that information needs to be put in to the hands of the voters who want that option for themselves.
There is actually a tax - but it's a personal one. In 2004, it took my ex an I hours to vote. 5 or 6. That was time lost on paychecks, or time that had to be used from minimal vacation/personal days. I've known many people who don;t go vote because they can't afford to go vote. they are not prohibited, but they can't afford to go vote because a few hours missing from their paycheck means no lunch money for the kids, or missing something else, or being short on a bill. Yes, it is that bad, and not for just a few.
So we need alternatives.
We need statewide and national voting days which don't penalize people's income because they have to spend money by not going to work in order to go vote. 40 hours worth of pay vs. 38 or 36 hours may not seem like much, but for those living paycheck to paycheck, it matters.
And think about higher income people - look at the time they take off. Sure, they can 'afford' it easier, but look at the time and money they potentially sacrifice in order to go vote. They lose money too, but they can also absorb it more easily and conveniently.
If people are provided with the tools to participate, then they are more likely to do so. Poll taxes are alive and well, and the numbers of people living paycheck to paycheck - and the numbers of people still without jobs after the great recession occurred - tell a huge story about voting and not voting.
We vote by mail here in Washington State
but even here, although the voting rate was higher than the national rate in 2014, the turnout was about ten percent lower than usual. How much it would increase turnout isn't clear, depending on the states/regions, but it certainly is easier than going to a voting booth.
Fat chance of voting 'reform'
occurring with this lot. Both sides like a low turn out it makes it easier as the voters who do go through the hoops are more partisan. Once elected it makes it easier to blame their skulduggery on the obstruction of the other side. The Dems. really suck at being the loyal opposition and they blew off their majority as quick as you can say 60 is the magic number. This tends to make people of good spirit with a brain in their head not bother in the charade and lay low. We vote by mail here in Oregon and it has improved turnout. I was not happy about my choices in 2012 but I went for Stein and voted down ticket socialists. I did vote again for Senator Merkely as he turned out to be a pretty good Dem. progressive who represented the people in most cases.
I agree with you, Al
And those that run the world have been working towards this for a long time, but have done is slowly so that people didn't see it coming. ( Frogs in a boiling pot).
And they knew that one day we would have enough. And that's why they militarized the police.
Look at how easy they broke up OWS. And half the country cheered when they did that. And that was a peaceful protest.
Imagine what they would do if we did it differently the next time.
George Bush Sr. At old us during one of the SOTU address when he let slip the words "NEW WORLD ORDER".
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
Here's how I'm thinking we
Here's how I'm thinking we could have a viable 3rd party sooner than later. I'm a UAW CAP officer, the political arm of the UAW, and I've been advocating for this. My CAP council is in a very red area in Ohio. The US congressmen in my council are all republican. Only a republican can win in these districts. We need to primary these positions with pro-middle class&poor/labor people. I think we could take a few of these positions country wide. In my district, voters are sick of our do nothing congressman but they keep voting for him because he's an R. I mentioned doing this over at Dkos a few times and got piled on with shit like "that's cheating! and that's what repugs would do!" Like there's some code of ethics in our political system.sheezz. If we could primary enough corporate Dems and any repub, we could then create a 3rd party within the 2. Once you had a hundred or so congresspersons and 20 or so senators you'd have a third party and then call it as such. This is the only way I can see doing it in a viable way. It would take awhile and hopefully the ones we could get in would stay true to the cause and not get bought out. The other option is to create one from the ground up and to me that would be next to impossible...Just thoughts...
This is interesting:
http://uncommonsense.is/post/140558640374/the-landscape-of-american-poli...
"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 was thinking about it a different way
The GOP is headed for an epic implosion this fall. The GOP establishment and the voters are clearly on different pages.
The country hasn't seen something like this since the Whig Party imploded.
It's impossible to predict how this plays out, but it won't be over in one election cycle.
The Democrats are much more stable, but there are signs that the Dems are splitting too.
The Dems might be only one or two election cycles behind the GOP.
Signs?
How about billboards?
Love the comment about the Whigs!
Whigs weren't the first time, either
Once upon a time there was the Federalist Party. At first it was the only party, and then an opposition party (originally calling itself the "Anti-Federalist Party") developed, and politics got nasty, dirty and vicious (read up about the 1800 election some time!!!).
The "Anti-Federalists" got the upper hand, renamed themselves the "Democratic-Republican Party", and proceeded to steamroller the Federalist Party into irrelevance - aided and abetted by some serious miscalculations from the Federalists, like trying to talk New England into seceding(!).
For about two election cycles the "Democratic-Republican Party" (which was already beginning to drop the back half) had things all their own way - and then the internal stresses became so severe that they shattered.
In 1824 there were no parties, just loose and shifting coalitions. But by 1828 the largest fragment reconstituted itself as the "Democratic Party" and aligned behind Andrew Jackson, while a large but unstable coalition called itself the "Whig Party" and defined itself by being against everything the "Democratic Party" was for.
Unstable coalitions don't last, and by the 1850s the "Whig Party" was out of business. (The "Know-Nothing" or so-called "American" party was not part of the "Whig Party" - it moved into the vacuum left by the "Whig" coalition's dissolution, and it was a mainly short-lived phenomenon. As soon as the nascent "Republican Party" became strong and well-defined enough, a lot of former "Know-Nothings" defected to it, reducing their "anti" rhetoric to "anti-slavery".)
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
I'm joining
the Know Nothings party, what a handle! Oh wait I just stopped being a member of a party with this descriptor. I'm now in the party limbo and had to change back to the know nothings to vote for Bernie. With 43% and rising number of voters being independents why can't they be a viable party and field candidates? No money? Is it illegal or something? Why can't Bernie run as an indie if the inevitable one wins?
Thanks for the historical perspective, OtherMaven
This election cycle seems to be provoking references to other times other places when Political Parties imploded. Trump's presence exacerbates the comparisons, including his to Andrew Jackson. I ran across a piece in The Guardian the other day:
Then this:
Seems to me the the author told only half the story, since Hillary's election would roil the Bernie Democrats massively. A Hillary Clinton Presidency would likely rip both parties apart, and 2020 would be a whole new world.
Trail of Tears is always blamed on Jackson, but
the full implementation came in "Jackson's third term" - under his ascended Vice President, Martin Van Buren.
Between Van Buren and Bush the First, we have two very strong arguments for not electing Vice Presidents for "third terms".
I'm not sure whether to count John Adams too - there really wasn't anyone else ready for the job yet, and nobody knew how it would work out.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
With the authoritarian shift in the "Whig"
party, it's only natural the Democrats will try to capture some of the old school Republicans left behind. I for one am not going with them.
I love the smell of reckoning in the morning
Time to dust off the history books
Let's for forget the Know Nothings
Born of tthe Whig Party meltdown
Hmmm. Sounds familiar
did they actually
name themselves the know nothing's? I take that back i'm not going to join the know nothings GOP. But you have to admit its a funny snarky name for a political party.
they were officially the american party...
but they had some colorful nicknames like, "know-nothings" and "plug uglies."
the party had affiliated nativist gangs of thugs (the movie gangs of new york was loosely based on them) that did all sorts of evil deeds, including a practice called "cooping." they would gang up on vulnerable homeless men, immigrants and anybody else at hand, trap them in shacks, barns and basements and get them drunk or drug them. then they would take them out to the polls to make them vote for their party often having them vote in several different polling places.
it is generally thought that edgar allan poe was drugged and died as a result of an election drive by the plug uglies in baltimore.
Only thing I worry about...
is what ELSE happened in 1860 besides the fracturing of the political parties...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAwhC_btAUU]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Yep
Room on the left
I left a comment on another thread that is more applicable here:
TV vs Internet
A recent news item validated what many of us already suspected, that Sanders supporters were least likely to get their news from cable television. But there is a large sector of the electorate out there that is not plugged into the online universe the way many of us are. These people are targets for the sort of narratives that cable/network news wants to propagate.
Remember the Dean scream? That was a clear indication, in 2004, that TV could shift perceptions in a way that the internet, then still a toddler, was powerless to stop. Online social media is much more sophisticated and widespread in 2016, so it's more of a fight, but TV is still a force to reckon with.
The Young Turks are helping
The Young Turks are helping to challenge the paradigm of how we get informed about politics. To me they're doing some of the best work right now, digging much deeper into the issues and doing the kind of interpid coverage the networks are frankly afraid to do.
This is a great clip illustrating how good their discussions are, and specifically dealing with the way the current MSM is completely outmoded. This election is many things, from fascinating to frightening, but there's one thing for sure, people are turning away from the morally and intellectually decrepit standard cable tv, talk radio and newspaper modes in favor of truth-tellers and more real less sensationalized coverage. In it the TYT staff dissects the way media filters information, biases, how they interpret polls, etc.
"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
More like —> Hillary Clinton: the Wolf Blitzer of politics. —n/t
Jefferson, on political parties
Please ignore that this is Fox News
It's still interesting. It tells you something about the state of the GOP
How about the state of our party?
We are splitting too.
Dang, that lady has a lot of
Dang, that lady has a lot of anger. She definitely is speaking the language of most of the GOP base. And it's really not that different than ours. Two completely different philosophies with one thing in common. Both are sick and tired of the establishment and their lackey puppet politicians...
I have been hearing much the same
From local republicans. While it is an unpopular thing among most Democrats I like to talk to republicans. For a very long time now I have noticed everyone of them agrees with my opinion on what's wrong with the country lately though I have noticed a shift as have started to agree on the root cause. It isn't going to be long until we agree on how to solve it. Interesting times anyone?
Right & left populists could agree & neuter the Federal Reserve
The Federal Reserve operates like a separate, autonomous branch of government …
owned and operated by, and for, an oligarchy of banks and bankers …
and deliberately designed to be beyond all accountability, out of reach of We the People and our so-called representatives.
i have been trying
to tell people exactly this. this movement, this revolution is spreading like wildfire. as Bernie says....this is not about me it is about us.
WE are basically crowdsourcing the presidency and it is growing by the second!
whatever this becomes it will be great for democracy and this country possibly for centuries to come
Thank you!
This is exactly what is happening all around us & I didn't know how to convey this when I speak to people about what we're doing..
I've talked to all of the millennials I know, & a many I don't, telling them to take over the Democratic Party because this is about their future more than mine. I explained about Al From & the DLC Third Way Dems with their "bloodless coup". They of course had no idea that what they've experienced their whole lives isn't how it's always been. Now that you've given me another way to explain it I think they'll understand what I'm trying to share with them much more quickly.
Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible. ~ Frank Zappa
Exactly right. His campaign is crowd-sourced.
When I first heard this idea floated I think it was in a conversation a couple of years ago between Max Keiser of RT and Russell Brand, who were talking about George Galloway's possible run for Mayor of London. I thought to myself, the first candidate who does that here, in the era of Citizens United, unhinged crony capitalism and a festering anger at the Economic Terrorists of Wall St, stands to be ingratiated in a big way to the American voting populace and could run away with a populist landslide.
Lo and behold Bernie's done that and more. He's accomplished so much already. It's coming down to time. Will he have it to close the gap? I fucking really hope so.
With these latest caucus wins the rumblings keep coming, showing he's not finished. The people will speak.
"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
Third parties are dangerous.
So where is the Green Party in this? My 30 year old daughter has left the country, but her comment in 2010 was if she were to join a party it would be the Green Party. It seems to me they fit Bernies message pretty damn close, they actually have some standing with members in local power, they have an infrastructure going.
My thinking has been that a rise in the Green Party would benefits the Republicans the most by splitting the Democratic vote. It was this issue that made Bernie join the Democratic Party. And there he is, inside the party and the division is happening anyway. Thank god the GOP is coming apart at the seams else Trump would be a shoo in. As it stands the danger is still real.
The issue is really tricky, because as Shahyah points out all politics settles down to just two points of view. That is the stable place. That is why I would like to see the Democratic party stay united. And this is why I don't see this issue working itself out in just one cycle.
As it stands today I think Hillary is going to be the next president. What, or better yet who, will it take to mount a challenge to her in the next presidential election? Will Elizabeth Warren be ready by then?
And meantime, all down the line we need more and better Democrats. Anything else is going to be a mess, unstable and dangerous. What I would love is for places like this to let some Green Party energy come back to a left moving wing of the Democratic party. As it stands the Hillary worship will only drive everything into the mud. We need clarity, which is where Bernie shines. And Elizabeth.
FWIW I am DK lurker and I don't see them handling this in any way appropriately. Kos has stumbled badly.
"If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back" - Regina Brett
This diary was not meant to advocate
for a third party... The point is we've been abandoned and told to get in line behind their neoliberalism. In a winner takes all election we will always have two parties.
With the shift to the right by the "new" Democratic Party they are opening themselves up to challenges from our side of the aisle in each and every election from here on out. We need to pull them back to us.
third party
While I can understand that you would want to make that clear for various reasons, please permit me to remind you that third-party advocacy is expressly permitted here; the rules of this site are not listed as reasons you would want to do that.
"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 don't see any future
I just don't see any future in our 2 party system. The Dem and GOP establishments are so corrupt from the oligarchs money that changing them would be next to impossible. What choices do we have? We truly vote out of fear and have been for decades. I don't think we have the time to wait a generation or two to get rid of these corrupt bastards.
let's also retire the Electoral College
I think another part of the problem is the Electoral College.
It dates all the way back to 1804. That's a generation before the first railroads in the US. There was a horse drawn railroad that opened in England in 1803. Maybe in those days it made sense organize the vote using the Electoral College for pragmatic reasons given the primitive infrastructure and poor communication speeds available at the time.
But here we are now, in the 21st century, connected together with the internet, conversing with one another at the speed of light from pretty much any place on the planet.
For comparison, let's consider the Erie Canal. The Erie Canal didn't open until 1825. That's 21 years after the first vote in the Electoral College.
Unlike the Electoral College, as newer modes of transportation (e.g., railroads) became available and preferable, they were quickly adopted.
It's time to upgrade the electoral system in this country.
There is run off elections
We have these in Washington now. You vote among everybody in the primary then the top two picks in the general.
Have no idea how it would work nationally. I do know when it was under discussion both parties opposed it. That's a plus.
The Green Party is an empty shell
And it is so because far too many people in America believe in this nonsense about how the Green Party would benefit the Republicans. The Democratic Party is helping the Republicans overtime, and has been doing so since 2009. The Republican Party has made unprecedented gains under Obama. If we all keep punching the hippies we'll get Donald Trump, or worse (i.e. Ted Cruz).
“The loyal Left cannot act decisively. Their devotion to the system is a built-in kill switch limiting dissent.” - Richard Moser
Ralph Nader demonstrated the risk
I am not a US citizen - I just live here. My politics began with the Values party in New Zealand which challenged an entrenched two party system very similar to what we have now in the US, except things here are far more unstable than things then. The fact is the Values party never won a single elected office, but it changed everything. It used the danger of a party split to force the Labor Party to adopt a number of sensible positions. It was extremely grassroots - I was a student at the time, and a branch coordinator (a pretty meaningless position, actually, and I was very clueless, but I got a ring side seat). What we did was publish a manifesto - a printed booklet of who we were, and a number of policy positions we wanted to have happen. They were neither left nor right, just sensible. Today they would include things like improved gun regulations, improved police regulations, improved carbon emission controls, reducing military expenditures, acting on regulations on finance industry etc etc. What happened was every single position became law because the party took the position they did not care about gaining power, they cared about getting these policies in place. And if that meant they must get in power, so be it. And they showed up with candidates pushing this very publicly available agenda, and the public liked the agenda. So the existing parties stole their thunder by enacting all of it, bit by bit.
I love Bernie as I see him working a variation on this lever on power. He has an agenda. He does not need to get elected, but if that is what it takes so be it. His positions are very sensible, well laid out, and obviously popular. And the kicker is he is working outside the corruption. He has already cracked the system, all that is needed is to keep funding what he has started, keep funding candidates that will push these popular and desperately needed policies. The corporations created ALEC to write laws for the corporate benefit. There is no reason a grass roots group cannot do the same thing.
The party affiliation is less important than the position papers and the funding to anyone who will push them. The real issue is the funding. Candidates need to eat, staff are needed to research and write good laws. Supposedly that is what we pay Congress for, but the corruption of the Kochs and ALEC etc has killed it. Public confidence has tanked. And that is where Bernie has demonstrated how to fix this thing. The more the public learns about Bernie the more they like him.
I also think Hillary could be moved by a group like this. She is already trying to take over Bernies agenda. Good! But what she lacks is public trust. She is not actually the leader. Bernie and these positions are the leader, even if he never gets into a position of power, simply because they address the issues of the people and they are popular.
And best of all this stuff does not pause for elections. Yes, elections matter. But the machinery can be pressuring anyone in power all the damn time. It is how the Tea Party has created Ted Cruz et al. And Trump is really just a right wing Bernie - someone who is working outside the corruption of Congress.
I am not sure building up the Green Party would do much good. It is not so much about putting people in power and then having them legislate as writing the legislation and then funding anyone who happens to be in power and who will present it. And making sure the public is aware of these recommended bits of legislation.
I could see Elizabeth Warren in a starring role here. She is right where she needs to be, right now. She doesn't need to be president. She needs to be presenting kick ass legislation.
"If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back" - Regina Brett
And none of it will matter
If we don't STAY organized after November. That is going to be the hardest part. Most of the folks supporting Sen. Sanders are new and newer voters and haven't gotten to the point where we can depend on them to show up mid-term.
We need to start figuring out how to either grow a 3rd party to be viable, or reclaim our own. I think it would be easier to pull our party back from the corporate wing. To do it, we'll need to fight precinct by precinct.
The good news is that in a lot of places, the local party is so atrophied that we could surprise them in the 2018 cycle.
I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."
John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873)
Hear Hear!
Remember Dean in 2004
running on the idea of reforming our health care system? His campaign got squashed early and thoroughly.
Yet, lo and behold, candidates running in 2008 were pushing health care reform.
Believe me, there are politicians out there noticing what Bernie is doing and how he's doing it. Maybe also people who haven't gotten involved in politics yet because they hate the idea of grubbing for money from corporate interests and didn't think there was any other way.
Unless Bernie wins the nomination and the presidency, discontent with the corrupt system is only going to grow stronger. And there will be good people who want to ride that wave. It will be our job to support them, too.
Even the smallest person can change the course of the future
As for 'reclaiming' it, I think that we need
to watch what influence "No Labels" exerts during this election cycle.
I'll assume for the sake of discussion, that Everyone knows who they are, and what they represent (their mission). In case a few folks aren't familiar with them--they are the equivalent of a nonpartisan "DLC." Their members are Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. They are major fiscal austerians/budget hawks--first and foremost.
Currently, they are working feverishly to ensure that the 'likely' Democratic and the Republican Presidential nominees are 'NL' friendly, so to speak. (BTW, Bush and Clinton political hacks founded the organization.)
As we all know, Jeb! has been eliminated from the race. NL believes that FSC will ultimately be the Dem nominee. So, they've begun in earnest to attempt to force a brokered Republican convention, so that they manipulate the nomination for fiscal austerian John Kasich from Ohio--ensuring that both legacy parties nominate a neoliberal candidate. (That's their goal.)
My point being, if the left and/or the Dem Party Base doesn't try to organize against this group's influence/power, I'm not sure that it's even possible to elect a President who is not a neoliberal.
Now, I'm clueless as to how to go about this. Especially, since the organization (just like the DLC) has been quite successful in not causing alarm among Dem Party activists.
No Label's succeeded in taking between 60 and 70 seats in the 2014 midterms. Clintonite Mark Penn's spouse--Nancy Jacobson, who is one of the co-founders of NL--'tweeted this' election night.
Bottom line, NL's record is pretty darn impressive for a supposed 'non-Party.' I fear that we continue to ignore them at our own peril.
Hey, thanks for this post. And welcome!
(Music City) Mollie
elinkarlsson@WordPress
"Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare."--Japanese Proverb
"Every time I lose a dog, he takes a piece of my heart. Every new dog gifts me with a piece of his. Someday, my heart will be total dog, and maybe then I will be just as generous, loving, and forgiving."--Author Unknown
Visit Us At Save Our Street Dogs (SOSD)
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
if Hillary loses the "usual suspects" will want to run things
that is, should Hillary be the nominee and lose to a Republican we'd all give the appearance of agreeing that the Republican is awful. It would be true, the Republican would be awful but we'd still have big-time disagreements on how that Republican got into office. Despite the superficial unity there'd be a power struggle for 2020 and those DNC types would be pushing their weight around wanting to be the center of "the movement".
Just something to keep an eye on, should the worst happen.
Which is why we have to stay ingaged after Nov.
We'll have a 4 year window to recon & seize the high ground early.
The DNC doesn't pay that much attention at the lower levels - we could seize the party apparatus before they realize what we are up to. That is how the crazies took over the Republican parties from the country club republicans - they did the scut work and showed up to every single meeting.
I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."
John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873)
My county Dem. party
started atrophying right away after the 2006-2010 Democratic wave. Obama's coat tails got the crooked, corrupt, bent so called progressives in and once elected they started wrecking the place. 'Open for business' and shipping coal down the river to send to China is not exactly why I was became a Multnomah Democratic party member and worked my butt off and opened my meager purse. Good look using this corrupt party awash with money on every level from dog catcher to governor to even allow insurgents on the ballot. Taking it back precinct by precinct was what Dean said when came to our local Democratic functions to promote and look at him now. A lobbyist for Big Phama. Reclaiming the D party's nest of vipers on every corrupt level is going to be hard and honest contenders are not going to get funded or have enough money to be any threat to the owners of every place. sorry to be so pessimistic but I'm living under a solid Democratic city government that is so corrupt it's frightening.
Little old Clark County
Has succeeded in putting down the largest two oil ports at Longview. The port commission withdrew from negotiations with the two oil companies possibly because the pitchforks from the 3000+ community members that came out against it were looking mighty sharp.
Grays Harbor will fall too. Suprisingly enough another of our dark red counties has managed to rise up to protect their environment. Considering they are one of the timber towns with a 13.5% unemployment rate it is amazing. Now the fight over Vancouver it has been brutal but I suspect that old fossil running things is the problem. Eric Le Brand elected with 65% of the vote is a Bernie guy. He was elected because he opposed the oil terminal.
Bring it!
The parties are splitting? Good. It's past time for a realignment.