@QMS
it looks like the DNC is going to get reformed whether it likes it or not. The old guard is panicking at the thought of losing power and the purse strings. The youth have awakened and are pushing back hard. The Party is in crisis mode.

The question is, in my mind anyway, is this surge by the DSA organic or is it being engineered?

The publicity the DSA is getting is giving the Republicans ample messaging opportunity to scare their voters back into the booth, while many of the Democrat's old guard are threatening to jump ship and leave the Party.

These are manifestations of a failing empire and a potential power vacuum that may arise.

.

Interesting how the DSA platform closely mirrors the open discussion
we had yesterday in our Farm Coast Voices for Democracy group.
Although DSA was never mentioned, I was tempted to bring it up.
It is pretty obvious to me reform is needed in the DNC.

Thanks for the OT.

@Cassiodorus
"form your own political party". I'm done with conformity and cliques. I'm done with being told what to think. I'm done with the fake and rigged system.

Too many people, though, are disinclined, either by laziness or apathy, to do their due diligence in forming their own opinions. So, they take the easy way out and rely on the contemporary zeitgeist do their thinking in proxy. That's a big problem that was recognized early on in the concept of democracy by the ancient Greeks.

Your proposal is interesting. I see it as a way to put power back in the hands of the people rather than a party or parties that serve their own interests or the interests of the hands that feed them money. That portends rethinking of "The Way".

We are in one of those pivotal times in history when big changes happen and this one may be the biggest. The old paradigm will not relinquish power easily, it will thrash about and lash out until it is exhausted, and then, it will be the time of new ideas.

We are now in the stage of dreaming those new ideas.

Interesting times, my friend. Keep on thinking free.

“In Marx’s view, socialism would thus constitute a far more pluralistic order than the one we have now.” – Terry Eagleton

The example below is meant to provide one possibility among many of how the human imagination can be applied to the problem of focusing upon what we might actually achieve.

Political thinking in the US is stuck at the high-school level; it’s full of conformity and cliques. Historically, from the Federalist Papers onward, it can be shown that the Federal system in the US is a system to make it easier for established power to gain the public’s consent while at the same time any general public will that might form in the US is continually thwarted. So none of the conformity is of any consequence and the cliques decide things. Today, voting does not appear to matter because you vote to choose among two, and only two, preselected candidates as regards who will enact decisions which have already been made. In the US, then, you are generally denied the opportunity to be responsible for your politics. You do not vote your politics, nor (for the most part) is anything you want on the ballot.

My proposal, on the other hand, will stand in opposition to conformity in political thought. The kernel of it is this: each of us should form her or his own political party, and for the individual political parties to merge according to what their creators think needs to happen. The notion, here, is to promote the idea that one’s political opinion should be what one wants it to be. The heavy lifting of this proposal could happen in conferences at festivals; people would organize politically according to their preferences there. We might, for instance, form a Peace on Earth Party, or a Medicare for All Party, or a Let’s Not Burn Everything to a Crisp Party, or a Make Sure Everyone Has a Place to Stay and can See a Doctor If They Need to Party. Readers are invited here to insert their own preferences. The kernel of this proposal is expressed by the name of the political party “Your Party” in the UK, though at some point it appears that the Your Party partisans decided, like everyone else, that “omigod we can’t let ordinary people decide on their own because that would be chaos.” This proposal invites the chaos. Could we do worse than what we’re doing now?

The argument that “nobody votes third party” will not stop my proposal. The individual parties might choose the status quo, though at some later point the sense of desperation of those pushing the status quo will catch up with such a choice. And we might observe that damned few people vote for, or even follow, their own self-interest within the status quo. Instead, the system fabricates everyone’s ideas of self-interest. The end result is universal irresponsibility, plainly evident in war and genocide.

“Form your own political party” will be the position of “try however lamely to stop blaming the establishment parties for what you yourself are doing.” At the very least my proposal will, if only minimally changing voter habits, set up a system of dual power.

@Lookout
we are in accordance.

I think the DSA candidate that wanted to get rid of Thanksgiving was defeated in the primary.

I'm a constitutionalist. Capitalism worked well in the 50s through the 70s until Reagan began loosening regulations that taxed the richest at a much higher level than at the present. Add to that our factories were closed here and reopened in other countries for lower wages and a larger bottom line for the corporations. Those high taxes on the wealthy and a solid manufacturing base created the middle class. The middle class that is now being decimated by the shifting of the tax burden onto the middle class themselves. And the loss of jobs.

If the nation reverted back to adhering to the Constitution, and brought back a higher tax on the wealthy, closed all of the military bases around the world and minded our own business, and brought manufacturing back to the US, things may change for the better. Maybe.

But big corporate and big money is entrenched, so I agree we probably wont be able to vote our way out of this mess.

Economic collapse may be our best bet, with all the pain and suffering that entails. We may have to go through that hell to get to a better place.

Got out weed eating early cause it is hot as hell. Still got drenched with sweat, but cooled down and changed now.

I've lost all my faith in politics. The purpose seems to be to make you think you have a voice when you don't. Both parties are rigged. DSA has issues also. Chas said yesterday one of the candidates wants to get rid of Thanksgiving? Of all our issues and problems we need to address....endless wars, crumbling infrastructure, exploding debt, and so on are the issues we need to address. I'm not holding my breath.

So color me doubtful that we can vote our way out of the mess the oligarchs who own our government have created.

In a post constitutional nation there is no law. Back to the wild west.

Thanks for another thought provoking OT!

@on the cusp
of the cracks in our political system and how well the divide and conquer tactics work.

I agree about Hasan Pike being an operative, but for whom?

It's pathetic when politicians do what ever is necessary to keep themselves in power and to keep themselves out of jail. That seems to be happening in several places around the world.

Thanks for the on the ground input, my dear.

It stemmed from a commissioner's court session. The chair of the county Democrat Party made a public complaint about the election chief refusing to approve a single democrat applicant to work at the voting booths or to monitor the vote count. It was claimed this violates our election code and the chief needs to comply at the general election or be fired. The whole discussion was postponed for more input and a vote next month. The Republican judge went out of his way to be insulting, crudely expressing that the Democrat would only be satisfied if a rope was taken from the judges truck and used to hang the chief. I hope to inform the Dem chairwoman about how to file a Judicial Conduct Commission and get the smart ass judge taken to task. A staunch Republican mover and shaker pal asked me to join in on a complaint. Republican loyalty is cracking?
I spoke with a Democratic party operative who is walking away from activism due to her disdain of the party's stance on DEI, trans issues, and open borders. There would be no Democratic party in the county had not she and her husband organized it. Democrat loyalty is cracking?
Hasan is suspicious to me. Not genuine, but a genuine embedded operative.
Multiple parties and coalitions have failed in several countries in Europe, and it is the system keeping Bibi in office and out of prison.
I have no ideas, and dislike the ideas and systems in place. We need something new and different.

@Cassiodorus
and a righteous rant to boot.

I have to ask why, and to what end?

Yes of course Trump's agenda is to destroy America and blame the woke people. Yes of course the rest of the Establishment is on board with this agenda -- why do you think they keep him in power even though it's obvious to all that from the outset his only friend in the world was himself?

It's so bizarre to hear the "conservative" commentators on other podcasts not getting it. They denounce Trump as if their denunciations were news to the world. Yes of course Trump's agenda is to destroy America and blame the woke people. Yes of course the rest of the Establishment is on board with this agenda -- why do you think they keep him in power even though it's obvious to all that from the outset his only friend in the world was himself? Yes of course the global working class hates Trump and the main reason the US stays in business -- for now -- is because the cost to the capitalists would be too high were they merely to fold up the US tent and ship all they really know and love off to New Zealand or somewhere like that. Yes of course it will happen anyway because the nastiest withdrawals will eventually happen after some future summer -- like the one we're experiencing now -- burns the rest of the US to the ground and fills the US public's lungs with the resultant soot as climate change schedules Earth's complete incineration for a few years down the road. Yeah the big news is that this stuff has to be explained to people in the US.

Somewhere in this video below -- it doesn't matter if you look it up or not -- Chas Freeman is complaining about those kooky DSA people. Yeah, they're the kooky ones, Chas.

@enhydra lutris
yes I remember those infiltrators well. I also followed Hoffman and Ruben back in the day, Piker reminds me of them as well. That kind of agitprop was common back then, I'm sure you're very aware of that.

Yes, I also remember that AOC and her cadre changed the Dems, but not to the extent of this newer crop.

It boggles my mind that they think they could possibly pull this off. That's why I'm very suspicious of this whole thing.

Love that rendition of Big Rock Candy Mountain.

Muchas gracias, mi hermano.

morning and have to get back to it, with no real time to think about all this, but I do know one thing:
In innumerable meetings throughout the years, other earlier avatars of thet Piker dude have materialized with similar or parallel ideas and rhetoric and, in every case the verdict was immediate; cop, feeb, spook, provocateur, or equivalent.

Changing the Dems from within has already been done, AOC and her cadre did it, remember.

The DSA platform is clearly written to be very attractive to various cadres of idealists but pretty damn impossible to bring to fruition and to keep running. I mean, really? I've also heard that before:

be well and have a good one