@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Monsanto - killing off life to corner food monopolies.

#5.1.4 I think we've already got most of the authoritarian bullshit you mentioned in your examples--or, if we don't have the government deciding those things, we have the wealthy doing it, or the wealthy and the government in cahoots with one another.

It's not as extreme as it was under Lenin or Stalin--yet. But the thing is, I don't believe that the economic system one chooses is automatically authoritarian or free. It seems fairly clear that both capitalism and communism can be turned into authoritarian shitpiles.

@Pluto's Republic

...Or maybe I dismissed it because there really is no such being as a Democrat. There are "Republicans," and there are "people who are not Republicans" who have a Party, too. They are comprised of the other five missing political parties in a country the size of United States. The most prominent of them right now are the Reagan Democrats. ...

US industry/billionaires can't take having any competition, especially as regards any other than their two purchased political parties - so they make damn sure no other parties can get anywhere near a chance.

If only a 'People's Party' could get in over the hurdles, a truly 'Fair Vote' system and the enforcement of clean elections with independent oversight could be installed, which would allow a 'People's Party' to get in to install a truly Fair Voting system and the enforcement of clean elections with independent oversight so that a 'People's Party' could get in...

You seem to have some conviction that a bottom-up cleansing of the system is possible — because, of course, new authentic talent can only be introduced through the doorways with the fewest power-grabbers standing guard. Enough uncontaminated and uncompromised souls coming in at the bottom will wash away some of the filth — and they may then percolate upward toward the Pretorians that run the place.

(We won't discuss how they handle their mandatory free trip to Israel, learn how it works, clock their first million, get the first glimpse of their post-political career possibilities, and spend every waking moment from Day One working on getting re-elected. We will assume that they remain untainted, even after they come to realize that sometimes the end really does justiny the means. Every great endeavor has an underbelly.)

You are exactly who you say you are. I am sort of surprised that you have been challenged on that. I am sort of surprised, too, that your credentials center around NOT being a Democrat for a long time. I've never thought about that as a criterion for anything. Or maybe I dismissed it because there really is no such being as a Democrat. There are "Republicans," and there are "people who are not Republicans" who have a Party, too. They are comprised of the other five missing political parties in a country the size of United States. The most prominent of them right now are the Reagan Democrats.

If you had not led with the business about not voting, and instead put it at the end, I would have probably nodded along with it because it was contained in a cosy narrative that I am in agreement with. But when you put voting up front, without all the mitigating circumstances and political intentions and references to intimate local elections birthed in people's living rooms — it is exposed as intellectually dishonest. Because it is. It pretends that the anguish of the voter who must decide which bullet he will be shot with — is not the grim dilemma of voting in America.

Look at this disgrace of a nation. That's how we got here.

Now, all that being said, I think you are on to something with the voting theme. There seems to be a lot of activism surrounding voting procedures at the moment. And since the US is too lame-assed to have a grown-up national voting system with full-on transparency — we have 50 cheap and going broke, military-armed fiefdoms where intensely effective political agendas can take root. In recent months, I've seen movements to strengthen the electoral college and make it a crime of treason to challenge it, and I've seen movements for dual paper ballots and electronic accounting. There are proposals to move election days to the weekend and proposals that make voting lines with waits over an hour financially lucrative for those forced to wait.

There are movements to tighten voter registration requirements and movements to do away with voter registration altogether. This last one has caught my attention. Other nations don't have cumbersome voter registration, most don't have any such thing, and they seem to do just fine. Think about it, This nation has a credit reporting system that can verify the residence of every single one of us for a $20,000 loan in under a hundred seconds. The federal government probably has one, too. Surely we can borrow it once every couple of years.

This voter registration Ponzi we have been lashed to is just anther money-pump for fundraising and suppressing votes. Otherwise, it is just a dumb system for gullible people. This country needs more spontaneous voting by more people who are already instantly empowered to do so. I think when a nation is set up like that, as the constitution implies, the fresh blood can start pouring in at the top where it can do some good.

@polkageist

It offers a constructive resource that can bring understanding to those who are uncertain about what is clearly going on. Thanks for the link to Nonconsensual “Democracy”. So many people are in deep denial about the parenthetical point of the title: (the Degradation of the American Electorate), that we have been unable to muster a serious national conversation about it in the United States. Of course, that is understandable since all the People's hopes for the future need to be vacated if they are to accept the challenge of that reality.

Our avoidance of the difficult and inconvenient truths about ourselves (and our planet) is the mechanism by which we are controlled by the special propaganda that the state broadcasts to us.

Ms. Piety notes the most insidious narrative of them all:

"Voters are bombarded with propaganda to the effect that what they want is not possible."

I recall when the Clinton campaign pounded that nail into the coffin of Bernie's hopeful campaign message about how Americans could live. Or, did they have Chelsea do that? They may have done so, because it would be such a no-brainer to pull off, when it comes to the American psychology.

"Many are so swayed by this propaganda that they can no longer think clearly about the issues to which it relates. The purpose of propaganda is precisely to circumvent rational thought."

Yep. The Aristocrats and their Deep State henchmen really have our number. Decades of propaganda and brainwashing have neutered us into surrender.

She then twists the knife:

"Not everyone is taken in by political propaganda. Some people know that not only are the political changes they want possible, they are genuine realities in other parts of the world. A special indignity is reserved for people who dare to keep their political wits about them despite the fact that they are bombarded with propaganda designed to undermine them."

Yes. We are the Putin operatives you've been worrying about.

The rest of the electorate, the sonorous voice continues, is not so forward thinking as you are. You will be "wasting your vote" on a candidate who doesn’t have a chance, and in that way, you will ensure that your worst political nightmares will come true.

Oh my god, Our Overlords were right! Donald Trump is the President.

I was meaning to address this at some point, so I will do so, briefly:

I've thought about this for years. Before Trump popped into existence, I despaired that the world would ever get off its collective ass and begin pulling their weight to evolve a vision for humanity; a utopia for all humans. This has been more than possible for a very long time.

So, when would the rest of the world step up and build a real, uncaptured Internet? They knew it was contaminated by US Intelligence and a safe and free Internet must be built as soon as possible. They also knew that the notion of using the fiat money of one nation as a global trading currency was a bad idea that had died a century ago — but they continued to prop it up because it was convenient. It was also convenient to let the US think it ruled the Seven Seas. They watched the US labor like officious thugs, posing and policing the waterways and spending our money to do so, while the world got a free ride. But the World took their time and let the mentally-deranged, US Totalitarians do all the heavy lifting.

They saw how America's easily-rigged pseudo-democracy made the morally corrupt war culture possible. They watched while the US spent all its treasure on murder weapons and foreign invasions. They saw the US waste the People's lives and money on wars while they sat back and quietly built their national and global infrastructures and strategized more modern forms of defense. We mocked and dismissed their alliances, partnerships, summits, and diplomatic milestones. But it was they who would fly into JFK to attend the UN and look out the windows of their taxis as they bumped along on the pot-holed, decaying freeway into Manhattan, staring out at the urban decay and blight that lined the roadways. Arriving at their mid-town hotels, they saw ever-increasing numbers of homeless and the destitute nearby. They watched the army of the working poor, all staring down at their devices as they made their way underground to the run-down subways at nearby Grand Central Station. This was the face that the United States showed to arriving world dignitaries because it is the only face that the US has left. The US corporatist regimes wasted all their post WWII glory on privatizing national assets for greedy cronies and funding the war profiteers who sold them dreams of bigger weapons and global supremacy. In their wake, the American Ruling Class left behind a dystopian inefficiency. You could feel public services spiraling down to hopelessness. This was the mood that emanated from underfunded local governments that were now housed in run-down rented buildings.

This is the face of Capitalism. This is what Donald Trump help make visible.

The world has seen this and they have heard it. They know what it is and they are well prepared. The change has begun. Without Trump, the World might have let the greedy fools who run this place continue on forever.

But what about us? Who is going to rescue the American people. Perhaps, once we are free of the Oligarchs and their cohort, we can rescue ourselves.

Here is an essay I published here in March of 2016. It is just as true today as it was then:

******

"I have just finished reading Nonconsensual “Democracy” and the Degradation of the American Electorate by M. G. Piety published in the March 7 issue of Counterpunch:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/07/nonconsensual-democracy-and-the-d...

It is a very well written and succinct exploration of the "lesser of two evils" conundrum. The competition between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton makes this article so very pertinent for people like me. I'm 80 and was born and lived in a golden age for lower and middle class citizens. For the last forty years I have been fighting ineffectually against the rising power of oligarchy that has been at work since Franklin Roosevelt began the New Deal. The open warfare began with Ronald Reagan and accelerated under Clinton, both Bushes, and Obama. Now with Bernie Sander's candidacy I have some hope we can repair the damage. I don't know how tenuous that hope is but I have hope. That's important.

There is a discussion among progressives about whether or not to vote for Clinton if she wins the nomination because Donald Trump or Ted Cruz are waiting in the wings with a good chance of beating her. I have come to the conclusion that I cannot vote for her. Ever. I never voted for Bill either. My decision to vote for Nader has made people angry with me for years. The fact that Nader wasn't a spoiler as so many contend isn't much comfort when so few believe it. But the lesser of two evils has bothered me all this time because I've never been able to describe the problem adequately until now when Ms. Piety did it for me.

Here is a pertinent excerpt from her article:

“Voters are bombarded with propaganda to the effect that what they want is not possible. Many are so swayed by this propaganda that they can no longer think clearly about the issues to which it relates. The purpose of propaganda is precisely to circumvent rational thought. It works like a drug, depriving those it influences of autonomous judgment. Of course, people conclude, if these things were possible, then we would all do our best to see that they became actual, but, alas, they are not possible, so to work for them is a waste of time.

Not everyone is taken in by political propaganda. Some people know that not only are the political changes they want possible, they are genuine realities in other parts of the world. A special indignity is reserved for people who dare to keep their political wits about them despite the fact that they are bombarded with propaganda designed to undermine them. These people get to be fully conscious participants in their own degradation. Okay, respond the powers that be, you go ahead and vote your conscience, vote for someone who promises to bring about the kinds of changes you want. You know what will happen? You will get someone far, FAR worse than the “moderate” candidate you deem not good enough for you. The rest of the electorate, the sonorous voice continues, is not so forward thinking as you are. You will be "wasting your vote" on a candidate who doesn’t have a chance, and in that way, you will ensure that your worst political nightmares will come true.”

And that’s it. I’ve been looking for these words for a long time. Now I will continue to donate to Bernie and will vote my conscience in hope that a better day is at hand. More importantly, for whatever time I have left, I will vote for my candidates wherever they show up on the ballot.

******

Well, I can't vote for Bernie this time, but I sure as heck don't have to vote for the creeps the major parties put up. Even though California has loaded the dice, I'm finding some good people to vote for. I never waste my vote, I cast it.

@detroitmechworks And then there's the outright fraud, which is never stopped and for which there are never any consequences.

Especially after Dr. Stein's little Recount stunt, we may have to accept the fact that third parties, like every other party, is made of up politicians.

I have realized that I do not want to vote for politicians. I do not like politicians, and they do not like me. Neither of us thinks the other gives nearly enough money.

Voting requires trust. If you do not and cannot trust the results, participating in the system is akin to accepting the lies of someone because you are convinced that they'll come clean and do the right thing because they secretly WANT to do the good thing.

The PTB will carry on with or without our votes. The more they're forced to show their blatant manipulation, hopefully the more people will wake up.

@thanatokephaloides

bit of history. Unfortunately, in this case, of course, people not voting are rather likely to be those who would have voted democratic socialist, rather than for religious-corporate or other Corporate-Right, whether being labeled as Repub or Dem...

But I also have read about the first Progressive Movement 1890-1920. It had to overcome very similar levels of corruption and wealth concentration (not to mention institutional violence).
To a certain extent, it made remarkable progress despite everything against it. There were countless stories of individual, working class heroics.

We are seeing a growing grassroots movement, very similar to the first Progressive Movement.
Are they doomed? Maybe. But I think it's an enormous disrespect to throw shade on them.
I have every intention of being a cheerleader for them. Please do me a favor and tolerate my cheerleading for these individuals, and don't make the silly and nonsensical mistake of thinking that my supporting their fight against the Democratic establishment makes me a supporter of the Democratic Party.

You speak for more than just you here, gjohnsit. You have done an excellent job of elaborating my own position vis-a-vis voting, as well. My greatest political activity to date -- getting Gary Hart elected to the Senate that first time -- was also my greatest disappointment; his "The New Deal is dead" bullshit was a personal affront. Had I wanted a conservative, I would have volunteered, donated, and voted for an honest, open one. The Hart bait-and-switch hurt, badly.

I am reminded of the upshot of the prohibition levied by the Roman Catholic Church against voting by residents of the former Papal States, starting in 1870. This prohibition was maintained through the Papacies of Pius IX through Benedict XV, and a slice of that of Pius XI, whose Concordat with Mussolini (Lateran Treaty of 1929) ended it. Did the non-voting restore Papal rule over the City of Rome and its environs? No. Instead, the Masonics, Protestants, Socialists, and Communists -- those opposed to the Papacy -- were handed control of the former Papal States on a golden platter. Only once Pius XI ratified the Concordat did the Papacy regain any political influence in the former States that it once ruled by fiat. And this had more unpleasant consequences, too; the first use of the new influence was, unfortunately, used in favor of the Fascists. Only when Giuseppe, Cardinal Roncalli, was elected as Pope (now Saint) John XXIII did the Papacy begin to succeed in disassociating itself from that taint.

@Big Al @Big Al

We are all entitled to our opinions and our choice of what we consider to be our favoured actions and this is the place where we can voice and discuss them without being censored and driven off into the wilds as a heretic for doing so. You'd be missed and you're needed!

We are all going to have dissenting opinions in one area or another; that's a good thing. Who wants to live in a bubble?

We all have a right to discuss, advocate for, and support our own positions, and to disagree with others. The difference here from too many other sites is that it's typically done civilly, and with all due respect, as is expected by the bulk of the membership.

But if we run from all people who happen to differ from our viewpoints in freely expressing their own, we're going to get very, very tired and very, very lonely, because no two people are ever going to agree on everything.

And a lack of agreement about the way each person wants to work to achieve something which a large group which includes them desires doesn't mean that the person on either side must be discarded, or that the people cannot work together in areas of agreement.

That's the result of decades of propaganda, designed to divide us all, and up until now used with great success to fragment the left. If TPTB win now, because we continue, as programmed, to entirely reject each other as not being in perfect agreement in every area, time for salvaging any future at all may run out completely in the very, very near future.

Better to go down fighting The Psychopaths That Be than each other.

Edit to add from the OP:

...Now if those three reasons aren't good enough for you, I can understand. I won't hold it against anyone that does the "full stop" on a rigged system.
But don't hold it against me for thinking otherwise. ...

Doesn't look much like a DKos purge to me...

You win g.
Bye bye.

@Big Al @Big Al

Or is it another ploy to get people to urge you to stay?

Look, if you genuinely want to leave, then leave already. When you've threatened to in the past, I was one of those who urged you to stay and continue to lend your voice here, but with this comment of yours, I'm seeing clearly through the bullshit.

'Cuz describing gjohnsit's explanation for why he disagrees with you as a dKos-style purge of your voice is fuckin' bullshit, manipulative drama-queen bullshit. If that's all you have to offer this community, then leave if you want. Your characterization of common disagreement as a "purge" is a betrayal of this site. We ain't got time for massaging every individual's ego with assurances of how big and right and unappreciated they are. There are bordellos for that.

You win g.
Bye bye.

@Big Al This is exactly the reaction I was worried about. This is the closest Al and I have been to agreement in a long time. The only difference is, I know a lot of you a lot better than Al does, and so I trust y'all more. Otherwise, I'd be thinking it might be time for me to move on.

You win g.
Bye bye.

@eyo @eyo @eyo
I think that's the whole point of this f**kwad top 2 primary system. And now the primary is tomorrow with most voters being completely unaware of the alternatives to, for instance, Dianne Feinstein. Nobody knows Alison Hartson or whoever is running against Gavin Newsome (well ok, I guess people in Southern Cal know Villaraigosa since he was mayor of LA). Most people in NoCal have no clue about him. The one possible, but unlikely win is Gayle Mclaughlin for Lieutenant Governor. She was the Green Party mayor of Richmond, where politics were dominated by the local Chevron refinery. She kicked out the Chevron politicians and turned Richmond around.

after slogging through a couple more videos and reading the pile of dead tree propaganda sent to my door. About half the selections only offered a D or an R, so I picked Nobody. I couldn't find more than one DSA endorsement for CA, she is NPP not a D but go on.

California needs to do a hell of a lot more to be considered "progressive". The Democrats have made homeless and poor millions of people, voting for them is effing insane if you ask me. This election is a sewer of cash dollars, too many lobbyists mucking up democracy. Unions included FTS! Ds are bringing the red wave back in to fashion.

In my view, the Democratic Party has to become a progressive party. If it does not, if it is unwilling to absorb the needs of working people, the idealism of young people, to turn away from the corporate profit motives of their large donors, to actually talk with and listen to the people around this country from different backgrounds, there will be a continued loss of faith in the electoral process, and there will be a third party.

https://twitter.com/HootHootBerns/status/1002869328969117697
wtf jane? there already is a third party, it is Green.
Peace

@lizzyh7

But that said, I do agree that our owners would prefer it if more of us sat it out. They will just install whoever they want then. It is a tough dilemma and one more way to divide and conquer. For those who can still stomach voting, I say go for it but keep your hope tamped down. Do not let them break your heart one more time by hoping for anything too real out of any of them,

That's EXACTLY where I'm at! I mostly keep voting because our owners don't want me to! And I also keep my hope tamped down. I don't let them break my heart one more time by hoping for anything too real out of any of them. Because it's not coming.

Once the vote fails, only violence remains. And the vote has failed. Now, I do not want or advocate for the violence. But any American who has no fear of that violence isn't paying attention!

bother to vote. That is one more thing 2016 and Her did for this country, make people who might actually try something to bring change see how utterly futile that is. It's a feature, not a bug, of Hers theft of the primary. I won't give any of them money anymore either.

But that said, I do agree that our owners would prefer it if more of us sat it out. They will just install whoever they want then. It is a tough dilemma and one more way to divide and conquer. For those who can still stomach voting, I say go for it but keep your hope tamped down. Do not let them break your heart one more time by hoping for anything too real out of any of them, IMHO.

@MrWebster
If that we're allowed to happen. Bernie is the rightful President and the most popular politician. If Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnel had any sense of patriotism they could right this wrong and do something like a double impeachment of Trump and Pence, a resigning of the Presidency by Paul Ryan and an elevating of Bernie to the next in line position in the Senate.

What Bernie's campaign very importantly was an example where a purely ideological campaign can be successful. Votes for him were from my point of view, an ideological victory. And if he was not cheated, he would be president right now.

In terms of the democratic party take-over there seems to be at least two models. The first is the Tea Party and the other is the gay rights movement. The Tea Party model will fail. Democratic party establishment has been very effectively at smashing insurgent movements since Jesse Jackson. Having worked back in the day in democratic party primaries, the party establishment where it can will cheat progressives. The Tea Party did not face the same hurdles. (When republicans cheat, they do it in the general election.)

The other is the gay rights movement. In the 1990s the Clintons and the democrats absolutely threw gay people under the bus with bullshit like DOMA. And now all the all major democratic party flunky luminaries reversed their positions from opposing gay marriage to supporting it.

So I will vote for progressives at all levels not so much to gain political position but to win the ideological war against both democrat and republican neoliberal war mongers.

Where honest elections can take place, voting does matter. I was hoping that Jill Stein would have gotten more votes than she did so her policy positions could not be so easily marginalized.

What Bernie's campaign very importantly was an example where a purely ideological campaign can be successful. Votes for him were from my point of view, an ideological victory. And if he was not cheated, he would be president right now.