where your coming from. Not to be snarky, but I am working on empathy for Hillary and her supporters, even though honestly, her supporters I can live with, many of us have had sisters and brothers we've fought like cats and dogs with, but remembered in the end we're family, but Hillary would be a YUGE pill to swallow, at least in my perspective.

I'm lucky, I voted in my primary, Texas, for Senator Sanders. Right now, for me anyway, the delegate math might be a snowballs chance in hell, for the moment, ultimately as of this point, we still have the convention and the voluptuous lady hasn't begun to vocalize yet. So for me, the convention isn't over, this race isn't over. We just might pull off a miracle, god lord knows we need one that's for sure.

Now, also something I'm not banking on, I'm not outright dismissing it either. The shit storm that is Libya (in the e-mails), as well as the FBI investigation about the e-mails and whats in them, the donations by foreign governments and the state department approvals of record weapons sales to said same contributors to her foundation. These three "unknowns" can blow up at any moment, and side line Hillary in a heart beat and would make Bernie our presidential nominee, unless the "party" goes full blown republican and tries to upend the nomination and broker the convention or some batshit crazy rule changes or something. I'm not banking on it, but it is out there slowly gathering steam.

I can't vote for someone that supports the death penalty, nor that doesn't recognize Palestinians as humans. The lack of support of healthcare and education as a human right turns me off as well. I won't pound you with a bunch of reasons why I do not like her, at all. I do apologize if I have crossed a line in my comment here, I admit I'm not a wordsmith.
Peace!

Welcome to the warm, blue ocean! Come on in the water is fine!

(However I might recommend one not saying "reality based community" (anytime or anywhere), some of us might go into convulsions as our heads explode! lol / snark)

LOL, To me, it's bread and circuses.

What can we do, well..

From the gowl (great orange waste land)
We can take back the party.

There are 191 people running (state and federal offices) supporting Bernie's platform.

From the Warm Blue Ocean there's this great Essay by TomPfromdailykos.

It's not the end of the world, not yet, if Hillary some how gets elected. We the people, the movement can just protest that much more, with TWO national figures (Warren / Sanders) using their political megaphones egging us on!

Never give up, Never surrender!

first, welcome.

now, to the sig line: if we can only deconstruct this: speaking truth to power or to stupid . . . the point is this: they either don't care or don't get it. and yet we think this is a strategy to pursue. I read it all the time: let's speak truth to power. we oughtn't be wasting our fucking time. or energy or creativity to bring enlightenment to those stuck in a system ruled in the dark.

so how does this relate to Hillary? she is completely entrenched in the system, believes in it, will defend it to the death of this planet. and she really believes the massive mess in which we find ourselves can only be solved by the very system that has created it.

so vote for her. fine. by there isn't more than a hair's breath of difference between her and any rethug that gets elected. in fact, the last eight years have been a disaster. we have been led to believe that this mess has been caused by an obstructionist Congress. i beg to disagree: it's a ruse because the really important stuff they don't tell you about: agreement on war, expanding arms sales, opening up more of the earth for energy extraction, more privatization... i could go on.

the only way to possibly (and by no means is this a sure thing) to mitigate this mess is to begin governing outside of the existing Dem / Rethug / Corporate / Military system. We need accountability, to bring back the draft (and make service mandatory to stop the privatization of the military, one of the most dangerous things really ramped up under Bill Clinton, and expanded under both Bush and OBama). We need to figure out how to work locally, network with groups like #BLM, Occupy, First Nations, the stop fracking and stop TPP groups . . . to exert muscle and force it up. As well, we must find ways to help local businesses flourish (and truly beat back this global economy), reinstate anti trust, and yeah, while we are at it, the rule of law.

Bernie Sanders is remarkable. Not for his last 40 years, but for these last few months . . . this campaign, seeing the issues, seeing peoples' response to sanity . . . he isn't the same guy who started this almost a year ago. he could be the George Washington of our time (flawed but great none-the-less). we can't bring light to Hillary, but we can all shine light on the corrupted system and force the vampires into the open.

well, that's my view from the cheap seats.

being a great risk to our nation. It is a sign of our national cowardice that we will pay mercenaries upwards of half a mil a year, but refuse to serve ourselves in the 'wars of choice' we create. It s my view only (I think) that largely because WJC is both morally and physically afraid to put his life on the line, that he opted for an easy option to warfare. That the use of these escalated under Bush is likewise explainable. The increase under Obama is likely due to his complete lack of understanding about the military, rather than the Clinton/Bush issues. What had previously been a duty and an honor to perform became anathema and something that the elites washed their hands of. At least in terms of doing the real work, that is, military service.

The dangers of this are multi-fold, but include items that I might go into in an essay, but the list should suffice for now. These include loss of control, lack of discipline, conflict between mercenary corporate goals and national goals, compromise of national security, selling of services to the highest bidder, and financial theft. This list is not complete by any means. A good summary of some of the issues is in the following link.

https://theintercept.com/2016/03/24/blackwater-founder-erik-prince-under...

she is "something vaguely resembling progressive". Its so vague it looks like Republican light to me.

Nothing vaguely resembling a progressive. She's to the right of President Obama. She's to the right of Trump on a lot of important issues. Hillary claims to be a "progressive" because she has contempt for her own voters and thinks they will believe anything.

This is a nice place. Hope you like it. I read your diary 3 times and honestly still have no idea why you voted for Hillary.
Perhaps it's as you said here:

I voted for Hillary because I want to see a machine behind something vaguely resembling progressive.

A machine. It's not even vaguely progressive. It's an oxymoron.

SMH

I can't help wonder why you would come here (or anywhere) with that story. Just doesn't feel right to me. You have gotten lots of comments, lots of sympathy and understanding...but so what? I don't feel any movement in your position: My guess is that you will do it again. The love of the machine is impossible to break once you accept the implant. This essay feels like a trolling mission to me.

I have to say that I disagree with this part.

But I also know that change is fucking slow. We've seen how process kills progressive ideas. Congress sucks.

It is not some inherent internal feature of some mysterious and unnamed process which kills progressive ideas. It is a corrupt government backed by corporate money and doing the bidding of the wealthy elite which does so. That isn't really a matter of debate any more in a reality based discussion. That's what needs to change in order to get any of your "progressive" ideas implemented. In essence, you voted for the oligarchy which is your right. But that vote lies at odds with your stated goal of progressive ideas.

This, more than anything, is the job of people like me. To somehow convince people like you that the US is an oligarchy and we are ruled by plutocrats. Gilens & Page say that's true. Noam Chomsky says it's true. Jimmy Carter says it's true. And just plain common sense says it's true. Something like 82% of all voters want Citizen's United repealed. Ask yourself why it isn't repealed when such a massive preponderance of voters want it done. There's a wide variety of other issues just like that.... issues which have more than 65% support and more than 50% support across both parties yet they are not implemented. You don't need to do the actual math Gilens & Page did in order to see the results of it writ large.