The DGA needs to know where YOU stand!

image_19.jpg

My apologies upfront as this is less an "essay" and more of a rant about those annoying fundraising emails I am STILL receiving after almost a year and a half of "unsubscribing". Sometimes it feels like an insidious game of whack-a-mole where I'm left holding a rubber chicken in my hand each time another group gets my email address and starts sending me this hyperbolic agit-prop.

Exhibit One: Paid for by Democratic Governors Association

(I wish I could do the flashing graphics justice in this one but I'm hastily doing a copy and paste from my iPad. The verbiage will have to be illustrative enough)

Trump is making reckless and dangerous decisions that threaten our democracy and the stability of the entire planet.

Meanwhile, the tempest of scandal surrounding him intensifies every day. The Russia investigation is turning up CRIMINALS. He still REFUSES to release his taxes as he profits off the presidency. And he can't get through a day without lying to the American people or ignoring reality altogether.

We've never seen a presidency this dangerous. We're fighting back, but we need to know where 87 Democrats from 10011 stand:

INSTANT POLL
Do you trust Donald Trump?
YES / NO

I have no idea what it was about this particular line of bullshit that ticked me off so. But it did. So I replied back to them.

To Whom It May Concern:

As a former Democrat who is still waiting for their vote in the 2016 California primary to be counted, I feel compelled to inform you that my concerns about CRIMINALS in positions of power within our government are not limited to Republicans.

In fact, it is painfully clear to me that BOTH PARTIES are afflicted with the disease of corruption in their obscene quest to amass power, influence and money through whatever illegal means necessary. Courtesy of my tax dollars.

So, good luck in the upcoming election. I'll be sure to inform my family, neighbors, and friends that they should only vote for the establishment candidates the corrupt DNC endorses if they want their votes counted at all.

I hope your need to find out what this former Democrat thinks about the issues has been satisfied, as well as your compulsion to send me any more absurdly partisan emails.

Sincerely,
A constituent who is no longer willing to listen to your bullshit

I'm not sure if they'll find this kind of constituent feedback helpful, but at least they know where I stand.

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Centaurea's picture

For me, it's not just the emails, but the phone calls, from the DCCC, DSCC, and multitudes of individual candidates. There seems to be no way to make them leave you alone. It's like dealing with a stalker. The more you tell them to go away, the more they run after you.

I don't know for sure which organizations and candidates are calling, because I no longer answer. I just let the calls go to voicemail. They never leave a message, but they show up in my cellphone's call log -- at least one call everyday, often more, especially during election season. Calls identified as being from Washington D.C. (a lot of those), Maryland, Florida, Illinois, Texas, Missouri, California, places all across the country. There's also one that has their phone number masked, so it shows up as 000-000-0000.

I block them, and they switch to another line and keep calling. Day after day after day.

One day recently, out of the blue, I got a text from Emily's List. I had given them one small donation several years ago, before I became enlightened. Yet here they were, years later, apparently believing I would welcome a text from them.

I texted back "please do not ever contact me again". Someone actually responded, addressing me by my first name in their text. I found their assumption of familiarity offensive.

Do these people actually believe that hounding, harassing, and stalking people is the way to get us to support them?

That's how personality-disordered abusers act. Constant acts of boundary violation, along with self-righteous tantrums and contemptuous accusations when we don't play along.

As we've seen, that's the Democratic establishment's way: operating on the emotional level of two-year-olds.

What a bunch of bozos.

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"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi

"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone

Anja Geitz's picture

@Centaurea

In sales, that's called the personal touch. Apparently, we enjoy hearing our own names repeated back to us. Or so the data indicates. My name is tricky so they always mispronunce it. After years of this, I'd be very suspicious if anyone actually got it right.

Receiving sales calls on my cell phone seems much more personally intrusive than they ever did on my land line. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I have my ringtone set to Misty Mountaintop by Led Zeppelin and every time I hear it I'm expecting something good.

It's a trend I'm not happy about in any case.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

snoopydawg's picture

@Anja Geitz

and I use a silent ringtone for them. Most of the time I don't even feel it vibrate so even though they are calling me it is at lease less annoying.

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Anja Geitz's picture

@snoopydawg

At the very least, it won't ruin one of my favorite Led Zeppelin songs Smile

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

snoopydawg's picture

@Anja Geitz

I don't even pull it out of my pocket. I assign Linus and Lucy to all of contacts that I know I want to talk to. Family, friends and doctors. Makes life much simpler.

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snoopydawg's picture

@Anja Geitz

or one of the robo calls save them to the contact you created for those types of calls. Not one of those in my "Z" contact ever leaves a message. 21st century's insurance agents got my phone number somehow and they were calling 6-10 times a day. From different states.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@Anja Geitz @Anja Geitz And a default ringtone that I know to ignore.

The big problem is when they call while I'm driving and it interrupts the the music or story that I was listening too because the bluetooth mutes the radio.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Mark from Queens's picture

@Anja Geitz
Love that you have that for a ringtone. Another summer favorite. Such a picturesque jaunt through a park of hippies, ala San Fran in the 60’s is what I imagine.

Was listening to a 1970 bootleg this week in the car and it was perfect.

So many tunes have been the backdrop of my summers since I was about 12. Houses of the Holy, D’yer M’ker, The Ocean, What Is and What Should Never Be, Out On The Tiles, Custard Pie, Kashmir, Hots On For Nowhere, etc.
Can put me right back as a wide-eyed mischievous boy of that age, watching all the teenage chicks with cutoff jean shorts in bare feet, listening to Zep out of a souped-up car parked next to the handball courts, with the windows rolled down and trunk open with a cooler in, some long-haired dudes and girls also throwing a frisbee and the smell of pot in the air.

The eternal Zeppelin summer.

Great letter Zoe, essay and thread. Thanks!

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"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

Anja Geitz's picture

@Mark from Queens

Your description mimics mine in so many ways. Except I spent a lot of time at the beach. So it was surfboards, vans, parking lots by the beach, smoking weed, and Zeppelin.

Thanks for the memories Smile

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Mark from Queens's picture

@Centaurea
I think we need to engage with these wet-around-the-ears Neoliberal volunteers making calls on behalf of The Resistance(TM). Haven't so many of us done phonebanking or canvassed at some point? They're not essentially bad people. In fact, many have the right motives. They're just newbies who naively still believe in the system and that they're getting "news" and not propaganda from the cable networks.

Play along at first, listen to their schpiel (sp?), and then explain your credentials. They need to know you've been there too, in either the same seat they're in now making those calls or as someone who has worked for Dems in then past. Then let them have it.

I think instead of getting no answer they need to hear from real progressives wbo no longer buy into their lies. Especially those of us who really understand what's going on and can expose the bullshit propaganda. Maybe you'll change their minds, one by one. But best to let them know how many people are really on to the charade and are pissed off.

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"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

If all they ever hear is the propaganda, it's not their fault if they don't know anything different - because they haven't heard from anyone better informed.

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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.

Anja Geitz's picture

@Mark from Queens

conversations via text explaining how I got to where I was because I wanted them to understand the WHY underscoring my none participation. The most difficult question for them to answer, which I always bring up, is how we insure our votes are counted. So, yes, it can present a good opportunity to educate. However, depending on the volume of calls I receive, it's sometimes difficult to hoe that road yet again.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

snoopydawg's picture

@Mark from Queens

The ones that come to my landline are or they are those stupidly annoying calls from somewhere across the pond about my computer's acting up.

I don't know how many times I've told them I have a Mac or I don't have a computer or if they call again I tell them that I've turned their number into the do not call hotline......

Even when people are on the don't call, we're still getting robo calls and no one does anything about them.

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@Centaurea

As we've seen, that's the Democratic establishment's way: operating on the emotional level of two-year-olds.

You must have had some real "terrible twos" in your life......

Wink

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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

Never ever ever get near that outfit, unless you like SPAM. Thanks Bernie! NOT. Is he still using that database? OR too? I don't know but I think the DNC "owns" it, or rents it from some consultant that gives zero shits about regular citizens. PU Revolution Messaging my ass. hee haw

Have faith in the Alex Padilla tool? NOPE
One voter, two registration forms: Errors reported in rollout of California's 'motor voter' system
Errors? I'm shocked! NOT

California's elections officials have found themselves with an unexpected headache ahead of the June 5 primary: potentially thousands of cases where two voter registration forms were created for one person, errors caused by the state's "motor voter" program that launched last month.

But local and state officials said Wednesday they don't believe the foul-up has resulted in actual mistakes in California's voter database. The errors are being resolved one at a time in each county's elections office, a lengthy process that coincides with one of the busiest periods of the year.

"We don't have the time to be researching this, but we have to because we're being thrown into it," said Kammi Foote, registrar of voters in Inyo County.

motor voter voter
good job alex
keep failing up

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@eyo in every comment you post?

I've seen two of your posts today in completely different diaries, and in both you managed to slam Bernie even though he was irrelevant to the topic.

Why not focus a little more on the underlying issues, such as the monopolistic, out of control communications industry, or the way consumers have no power to stop things from being forced upon them. This is one area, among many, where many powerful people are able to override anything the general population wants, regardless of what Bernie does.

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dfarrah

@dfarrah Peace brother, and no I don't slam Bernie in every post. I'm sorry to harsh your buzz and will chill out after 'splaining myself. It was my phone-banking for Bernie that connected me with ngpvan, and then I couldn't get away from their unsolicited requests for money. It's been years and their unsubscribe is still broken, as far as I can tell. That is not Bernie's fault. I was srsly wondering if he still associates with the same people because CA Primary is June 5, and I want to know as much as possible before I fill out the ballot.

Bernie is "the most popular politician" now, right? He is also a wealthy plutocrat, that is not my fault.

Peace

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Anja Geitz's picture

@eyo

It's been years and their unsubscribe is still broken

I can't help but wonder if that's intentional.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

@dfarrah

He is the biggest waste of a President, Democrat, and human being in my lifetime. It is amazing how many things remind me of him.

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

Anja Geitz's picture

@lotlizard

An apt description of Obama. Any defense that he embodies liberal progressive ideals is either hopelessly infantile or deliberately deceitful.

I suppose Obama’s 2012 campaign manager and former deputy chief of staff, Jim Messina, deciding to help Teresa May's campaign instead of Jeremy Corbin is another embodiment of progressive ideals, eh?

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

@eyo

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

mimi's picture

they constantly tell me something pertaining to my physical locations and the locations where my mind was last. That's why I decided to put a ...
[video:https://youtu.be/PwXai-sgM-s]
on Uncle Sam.
Wacko

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detroitmechworks's picture

Will you go to the Prom with me? (Check the Right Box)
1.YES
2.MAYBE

No, really you have to go with me because if you don't the only other person you can go with is that fat jerk over there...

NO, you HAVE to go to the prom, or you're not showing proper school spirit!

No, you can't have your own prom, that's against the rules that we all agreed on.

You weren't there.

Well, even if you were there, the vote was against you.

Well of course there wasn't a VOTE, but as a private entity, the group that oversees the selection of the dating pool doesn't HAVE to vote.

Those other social groups are terrorists.

/snark

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr9Oubxw1gA]

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Anja Geitz's picture

@detroitmechworks

I wonder if they have a database that gives them a breakdown of who among us is still in the "useful idiot" column and who is not?

Great song Smile

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

detroitmechworks's picture

@Anja Geitz I'm sure that somebody's got a file on me somewhere that isn't publicly available. (Considering my luggage is ALWAYS searched, a holdover from the Obama years, when I think I was entered into a "Potential Revolutionary" database...)

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

CS in AZ's picture

@Anja Geitz

if they would just check the box for me that tells them where I stand is: “never going to buy your product, don’t bother marketing to me, I’m a waste of time” — that would make me happy. I’ve tried everything but they keep emailing, and calling, and recently even texting me.

For some reason the text pissed me off the most. It felt really invasive because the “message” pushed itself onto my home screen, and I was reading “can we count on your vote for Ann Kirkpatrick ...” before it even registered, those vultures are texting me now?? FFS!

I was really annoyed, so much so that I thought about replying to say “NO. I don’t know Ann Kirkpatrick, I don’t care, and I don’t vote. Your text is invasive. Leave me alone.”

I hoped it might get me marked in the database as a don’t bother.

But then I figured nope... it will check the box “successful engagement” because I reacted to the message, they see I read it, and responded to it. That counts as a success in the marketing world, and would only encourage them. So I just blocked the number like I do many times a day for the phone calls.

I appreciate the rant Zoebear. I hate this harassment too. I would like to be able to make them stop it.

I’ve also been wishing for a voter referendum to outlaw those roadside political signs. They are completely uninformative, and make a huge cluttered ugly mess on every intersection corner, for months! They are soooo annoying. I’ve done some informal polling of my friends and they all agree with me -grin- so I’m thinking this referendum could work. Haha, why not? That’s one way to fight the system, in states that have a voter referendum process. And let’s go after these invasive phone callers, emailers, and texters too. No one likes or appreciates it.

Thanks for the essay!

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Anja Geitz's picture

@CS in AZ

From volunteers for political candidates from Our Revolution about a year ago. Since they were real people using their own phones I did engage with them and told them where I stood and why I don't want them texting me again. It worked. They never texted me back. But, yes, the texting is really really intrusive.

However the trend that I am finding very abusive are the phone calls from scam artists posing as the IRS, or bogus law firms, where they threaten you on the telephone with "possible" arrest because "you have numerous outstanding claims against you". Their scare tactics eventually fizzle when you press them to send you copies of these claims in the mail so you can respond to them through your lawyer. And then they just hang up. But it really pisses me off that they can get away with this. I told one person on the phone that she should be ashamed of herself that she chooses to make a living this way.

Yes, we definitely should get involved and protect ourselves against this kind of harassment. Back in the old landline days you could get an "unlisted" number for an extra fee and didn't have to worry about solicitors. I'd like to see a cell phone equivalent of that being offered.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

@Anja Geitz
who urgently needs to fix my computer. Like fixing the cat?

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

thanatokephaloides's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness

Yaeh! And the scammer cliaming to be from Microsoft
who urgently needs to fix my computer. Like fixing the cat?

I love fucking with those assholes.

"I don't use Microsoft."

That one's usually enough to thoroughly confuse them....

Wink

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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

Creosote.'s picture

@Anja Geitz

And a brief message. Anyone who knows me waits for the message to end and then says my name, or theirs.

I have not answered any of the other calls for at least three or four years, and now get far fewer of them.

One thing I do with the phony IRS and similar calls I do somehow get is this: When they say "press 1 to speak to a representative now!" I press 1 for about two solid minutes until I can hear that they've finally disconnected. My aim is not only to stop getting more calls, but also to block anyone else from getting through if they "press 1."

Another thing that works well if call is from a real person: In a rushed and wildly anxious voice I say "I can't take this call right now!"

The only times I do pick up are when I know someone plans to call me at 7:30, say, and I answer some other party who happens to ring in then by mistake.

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snoopydawg's picture

@detroitmechworks

I'm spending my surfing time listen to Stevie and crew. Love the 7 Wonders. Stevie was in a few American Horror story Convent episodes and boy does she still have great pipes. Both her and Christine McVie have incredible presence.

Stevie is turning 70 today. How the hell is that possible?

“Stand up straight, put on your heels, and get out there and do stuff"

,

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detroitmechworks's picture

@snoopydawg But then, I just was getting tossed around by a 70 year old gentleman from Japan last night...

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

CS in AZ's picture

@detroitmechworks

That’s excellent snark.

when I think about the relationship between the democratic party and the so-called berniecrats or progressives who keep going back to them, despite the never-ending abuse, because they believe they can “reform” the democrats and make them change, this song often comes to mind.

Democrats to progressives: We hate you. But Please Don’t Leave Me

[video:https://youtu.be/q-XLvUpvjZo]

I don't know if I can yell any louder
How many time I've kicked you outta here?
Or said something insulting?

I can be so mean when I wanna be
I am capable of really anything
I can cut you into pieces

When my heart is, broken

Please don't leave me
Please don't leave me

I'm always saying how I don't need you
But it's always gonna come right back to this
Please, don't leave me

How did I become so obnoxious?
What is it with you that makes me act like this?
I've never been this nasty
Can't you tell that this is all just a contest?
The one that wins will be the one that hits the hardest

But baby I don't mean it
I mean it, I promise
Please don't leave me
Please don't leave me

I'm always saying how I don't need you
But it's always gonna come right back to this
Please, don't leave me

I forgot to say out loud how beautiful you really are to me
I can't be without, you're my perfect little punching bag
And I need you, I'm sorry.

Please, please don't leave me
Baby, please don't leave me
No, don't leave me
Please don't leave me

I'm always saying how I don't need you
But it's always gonna come right back,
It's gonna come right back to this.
Please, don't leave me.

I always say how I don't need you
But it's always gonna come right back to this
Please don't leave me
Baby, please don't leave me

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detroitmechworks's picture

@CS in AZ I admit mine has become a bit more Ray Stevens...

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFkDtA0Fz2I]

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

CS in AZ's picture

@detroitmechworks

Reminds me of another one...

[video:https://youtu.be/KJNSWkgPr9g]

Saturday morning music therapy. I’m liking it. Smile

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@CS in AZ

and make them behave.

They're trying to replace them with grassroots-supported members fighting for the same things people actually want and need.

Just as a stolen get-away car would revert to being a family vehicle when recovered, cleaned out and returned to its owners, the Party label isn't the corrupt part, the corpoDems who've taken it over are; fill it with people working for the public good, and you have a party that's actually democratic in nature.

It surprises me how many people don't seem to get the difference...

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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.

CS in AZ's picture

@Ellen North

What surprises me is how so many people believe this mythology.

But then I’m also surprised how many people sincerely believe in various religious mythologies.

As a religious atheist, I can’t be convinced that there’s a personally interested god pulling any strings, and I can’t believe in a savior. I mean that literally. I can’t. No more than I can believe in Santa. Even though it would be great if it were true. I’ve said sometimes I’ve envied people who can actually believe it enough to find comfort there. But I cannot join them, even if I wanted to.

It’s recently becoming clear to me that belief in politics is actually quite similar. In many ways. And I was a believer until this past year. So don’t think I don’t understand the message. I do. I just don’t believe in it anymore.

I’ve converted to political atheist along with my religious atheism. And I can’t go back to believing anymore.

Now I see it for what it is. And Pink’s song tells you all you need to know about where that mythology is gonna get you, and who you are trying to defeat. I’m sorry. Sincerely. But they are using you.

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and they think they can use it to brainwash us. I can see some very frustrated political strategists yelling at us to get brainwashed, dammit.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

Anja Geitz's picture

@Timmethy2.0

About the chain of custody for that goldmine of data than you are.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

@Anja Geitz

While trying not to be paralyzed with skepticism, which is what fascists want from us.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

Anja Geitz's picture

@Timmethy2.0

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

@Anja Geitz
That's what they want...I think.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

@Timmethy2.0

that when the Clinton campaign (who also had moles in and sabotaging Bernie's campaign) accused Bernie of trying to steal their info, they were using their VAN system to let down the barriers to get at Bernie's and to make an excuse to lock his campaign away from their own data at a particularly harmful moment.

They always made a fuss about Bernie not handing over his donor list, and it was certainly suspected by many that they already had swiped it along with other data and wanted to use it without revealing their theft, but now that all pretenses have been coming off, they may not care about showing that they steal more things than votes and nominations.

Feel free to ignore this following, I personally happen to feel that it's essential, so it's here in case anyone else does.

I'd guess they'd probably assume that people would think that Bernie let them have it after all, since there's been so much work on a Blame Bernie attack 'from the Left' to continue to nobble not just him but the Progressive movement itself, some of which seems to be tossing out the baby with the bathwater.

TPTB have to nobble Bernie, as currently the only possible 'across-everything' country-wide unifying source, (if anyone knows of another, please speak up!) and a lot of people seem to be unwittingly going with that plan, not understanding that this boils down to a life-or-death-for-life in-the-near-future battle between psychopaths and humans or that getting the psychopaths out of what should not be regarded as power over the public, and human beings into public service, is the essential.

You can't even hope to reach or appeal to a psychopath; the missing human portion is what defines the condition.

Anyone unable to feel normal human empathy and incapable of ethical behaviour - anyone without conscience - is obviously disqualified from any position of responsibility or where any power over others could be exerted and abused.

Humans are always imperfect, (and nobody is ever going to agree with everyone else at once) but not only our ability to reason but our human capacity for empathy and ethics - our humanity - forms our species survival potential and our potential saving grace.

That also being a reason why machines can never 'replace' humanity and why psychopaths can't understand this or anything else involving humanity in either sense, except as what they see as a 'weakness' useful for them to use to manipulate us, which is easily done as long as they are not recognized as what they are.

Political Ponerology* was crushed so thoroughly for so long for a reason. To keep the public uninformed and more easily conned, not knowing what they were dealing with, or that these 'dead-eyed granny starvers/charming psychopaths' could not be expected to react or function on a normal human level. Appeals to human emotions they simply can't feel won't work; they can't be made to care; they only understand and use manipulation and force to achieve whatever it is they want.

Now that we know what they are and do and how to identify at least the more obvious ones by their attitudes and priorities/actions, we need to clean them out of public policy while there's still any planet to save.

I very strongly believe that we need to support the best humans available, those fighting for at least some of the policies you believe to be most important, under whatever label they run for public office.

At the least, you then have someone who'll listen to reasons why a chunk of the public might disagree on other policies either unmentioned or objectionable, because - as grassroots humans themselves, and supported entirely by their fellow-citizens - they realize that they're working for the public good, unlike those corporate stooges being bribed to work against it by their paymasters.

But how many people out there are unaware of all this? And how to get it out and get the propagandized to wake up and help to save themselves in the limited time remaining?

* https://cassiopaea.org/cass/political_ponerology_lobaczewski.htm

Political Ponerology: A Science on The Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes
by Andrew M. Lobaczewski
with commentary and additional quoted material
by Laura Knight-Jadczyk

...Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken.

And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools.

Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless.

You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice water in your veins is so bizarre, so completely outside of their personal experience, that they seldom even guess at your condition.

In other words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and your unhampered liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is conveniently invisible to the world.

You can do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the majority of people, who are kept in line by their consciences will most likely remain undiscovered.

How will you live your life?

What will you do with your huge and secret advantage, and with the corresponding handicap of other people (conscience)?

The answer will depend largely on just what your desires happen to be, because people are not all the same. Even the profoundly unscrupulous are not all the same. Some people - whether they have a conscience or not - favor the ease of inertia, while others are filled with dreams and wild ambitions. Some human beings are brilliant and talented, some are dull-witted, and most, conscience or not, are somewhere in between. There are violent people and nonviolent ones, individuals who are motivated by blood lust and those who have no such appetites. [...]

Provided you are not forcibly stopped, you can do anything at all.

If you are born at the right time, with some access to family fortune, and you have a special talent for whipping up other people's hatred and sense of deprivation, you can arrange to kill large numbers of unsuspecting people. With enough money, you can accomplish this from far away, and you can sit back safely and watch in satisfaction. [...]

Crazy and frightening - and real, in about 4 percent of the population.... ...

They need to be replaced by humans...

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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.

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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.

Big Al's picture

It's kind of like being formerly married, it never really goes away.

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CS in AZ's picture

@Big Al

since about 1998. My family were democrats so I was too when I turned 18 and registered to vote for the first time, it was a default that i didn’t question for a long time. But when I moved out of state in 1998 and was faced with a new voter registration form, I knew I wasn’t a democrat or a republican, so I chose independent or not affiliated or whatever they called it and been that ever since.

But I think it goes along with having voted for and donated to and volunteered for more recent democrats, like Obama and Bernie Sanders. They believe I’m potentially still ripe for picking my pockets because I’m a relatively recent customer who bought their products, and parted with my money. They, like any other pyramid scheme marketing organization, does not retract its claws easily. It will take time to fall off the radar, but I hope that by giving them the cold shoulder for long enough, they will eventually give up.

Are you saying you don’t get these marketing calls and emails? If so, I’m envious!

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Big Al's picture

@CS in AZ But no, I don't get anything. Every now and then I'll get a phone call that says Wash D.C. but that's it. Don't get any emails.
I guess it's like anything else in marketing, once your name gets in their somewhere it's almost impossible to get it out.

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Anja Geitz's picture

@Big Al

Were never spoken.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

@Big Al once judged, forever labelled. Regardless of change.

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Meanwhile, the tempest of scandal surrounding him intensifies every day. The Russia investigation is turning up CRIMINALS. He still REFUSES to release his taxes as he profits off the presidency. And he can't get through a day without lying to the American people or ignoring reality altogether.

Well, there was the Woman's March which covers Trump is bad. (BTW many people who stabbed Bernie in the back electorially were featured speakers in DC march). These following were later marches organized and affliated with the Woman's March.

Yup, a march on the Russian probe.

Yup, a march on "tax day" to demand Trump show his taxes (dems more concerned about Trump's taxes than our taxes).

Each march got progressively smaller. Can't even get out the hardcore loyalists. And now they repeat the same themes in a fund raising message.

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