The DK argument to end them all.

I just had the Daily Kos conversation to end them all. Quite literally possibly, I may get banned at some point. It was sad, amusing, and tragic all at the same time.

It started about Mark Warner, a Democrat who has taken the position that to save the country from becoming a walled off series of slums, we must cut back social security and further cut corporate taxes. Yay. Someone defended him because he said that Warner wasn't saying he wanted walled off slums.

He was just saying that slashing social security and cutting corporate taxes would help prevent walled off slums. So, you know, it's fine.
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/1523315/61394188#comment_61394188

See, you all think the “bully pulpit” is some magic wand. You should ask Obama about that some time. If talking good is all you need then Obama should have had gun control passed, infrastructure repairs, a bailout bill for the states, a clean energy bill, union card check, and everything else he wanted. But no, that’s not how it works and you know it, but you all keep believing in the fantasyland version.
Truth is FDR had a Democratic majority in the House and Senate that was filled with corrupt racist assholes who needed to be prodded and threatened and bargained with — many of them way worse than the Mark Warners of the world. That’s how The New Deal happened. Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress.
If Sanders and his fans want to help they should work on that and keep their inspiring words and suggestions to themselves.

In a way that response really encapsulated what I hear from kossacks very often. My response:

Do you have any idea how insane it is to say, “They should work on getting a majority in both houses of congress… and keep their inspiring words and suggestions to themselves!”
Wow, you’ve got it right! What were we thinking...
Thank you for getting me to laugh this late at night.
So much rage, so much cynicism. I’m sorry. I really am. I’m sorry the world is like this. I wish you didn’t have to live in it either.

I think that covered it for me.

They want progressives to show up and hand out flyers for free, but we shouldn't feel that we can afford to live after we are 65.

If we can allow a Democrat to talk about cutting social security and cutting back corporate taxes at this point, then we will allow anything. There is simply nothing that won't be tolerated.

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

lunachickie's picture

There is simply nothing that won't be tolerated.

They should try to gut Social Security. I triple-dog dare them.

up
0 users have voted.
martianexpatriate's picture

If this bastard can sit there and go to his donors and talk about gutting Social Security, what are the chances he would ever support helping the fun, or extending benefits? We need to do that, and we aren't.

If a Democrat can even talk about hurting people retiring like that, then it means that some Democrats will be totally unwilling to do what is needed. They won't just refuse to help, they will be an actual impediment to getting anything done.

up
0 users have voted.
lunachickie's picture

should have ever been supporting Clinton. The Catfood Commision will be grateful to work with her, because she'll get stuff done.

They won't just refuse to help, they will be an actual impediment to getting anything done.

Depends on what they're doing....

up
0 users have voted.
Alphalop's picture

the people at Brand New Congress.

We gotta get the ball rolling for 2018 regardless of what happens this Primary...

up
0 users have voted.

"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me

elenacarlena's picture

You'd have one party that wanted to cut SS, and another party... that also wanted to cut SS. Who ya gonna vote for?

up
0 users have voted.

Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.

kharma's picture

up
0 users have voted.

There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties.. This...is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.--John Adams

Azazello's picture

That's her whole thing, right ? Maybe she can get the Grand Bargain done. Bill and Barack weren't able to do it, maybe we need a woman's touch. It'll be a hard choice, but she's a fighter.

up
0 users have voted.

We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

edg's picture

to screw over seniors by getting Social Security cuts passed by a Republican Congress. Hillary may just be The One.

up
0 users have voted.

It won't screw over seniors (her voters). Just us meddlesome kids (under 45yrs) who "voted wrong".

up
0 users have voted.
lunachickie's picture

Look for the cutoff to be 1960. That hits a LOT of fifty-somethings at this time.

up
0 users have voted.
lotlizard's picture

After they get through with their little shell game — remember the “chained CPI” discussion over the last few years? — many seniors will descend into poverty and poor health, as the “reformed” Social Security cost-of-living increases fall further and further behind the real increase in the cost of living with each passing year.

up
0 users have voted.
riverlover's picture

Comes out of that monthly SS deposit. And SS sits there, no COLA, because gasoline.

up
0 users have voted.

Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

to help pay expenses -- and those who have moved out better make sure they have a spare bedroom for Mom and/or Dad.

up
0 users have voted.
Lisa Lockwood's picture

information Repubs were the ones who could be counted on to vote against their own self interest! Pah! And a pox on both their houses!
Touch that 'third rail' at their peril.

up
0 users have voted.

"When the powerless are shut out of the media, we will make the media irrelevant" ~Anonymous~

Haikukitty's picture

if it wasn't for us meddlesome kids...

Sorry - Scooby Doo flashback. Your comment made me laugh... and if you don't laugh...

up
0 users have voted.
edg's picture

Trust me on this. I thought it wouldn't happen to me, but dang, it did! Smile

up
0 users have voted.

Snark is strong with this one young Skywalker Smile
This is a response to Azazello.

up
0 users have voted.
NWIA's picture

There are a seemingly infinite number of ways that lefties differ from righties. But I think that creativity and the willingness to be a risk taker are near the top. Is there a finding problem? The simple way out is to declare some expenses off limits to focus on cuts to others. Kindergarten stuff that refuses or is incapable if stepping back to re-envision the country we want to live in and apportion taxes and expenses to get where we want to be. Creativity is both the most human of all of our attributes and the most daunting. It's why the least humane of our species have no appreciation of people who do more than the least they can do. Accept the givens and then put your head down and shuffle toward the grave. Screw that crap. There are always new answers to old questions. But a new answer means someone different is going to be the loser in the equation. So toadies like Warner protect the status quo at any cost to make sure the winners according to the current math remain the winners. Hell with STEM and STEAM. A national focus on A (art) would bring about more problem solving ability than this country has witnessed in generations, and would force the zombie-thinkers like Warner to the back of the class where they could nap without hurting anyone.

up
0 users have voted.

The most successful scientists and engineers (and craftsfolk) of whom I am aware (including many I know or have known personally) are as creative and imaginative as similarly successful artists. The top shelf (Newton, Einstein, Feynman, Von Neumann, Turing) are comparable to any -- any -- artist I have ever heard of, in all the history of humanity, Shakespeare, Yeats and Van Gogh not excepted. Perhaps the most brilliant artist in the history of Western Europe also ranks at the very top of engineering and natural philosophy: Leonardo Da Vinci.

up
0 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

NWIA's picture

Not trying to devalue the STEM world in the least. Sadly, much of their work is now as tightly controlled and misused as it was when scientists and heretics were pretty much synonyms. The arts, in a devious way, encourage harmless and heretical thinking by breaking down almost all limits and letting the individual decide how to work and when to stop. It's literally the type of "training" that anyone other than needle nosed money pushers should value most highly.

And hell, da Vinci was not just a great painter, civil engineer, and defense contractor. He also was a great musician and new how to throw one heck of a great party. But, before he did any inventing, he trained under one of the leading artists of Florence.

up
0 users have voted.
riverlover's picture

with a touch of funneling in productive worker-bees. I do not think that creativity and imagination are budget lines.

up
0 users have voted.

Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Mark warner in it. Don't know how long you have been a member of DK so I do t know if you know that warner is a DK democrat. He was one of the MORE (and better?) democrats pushed by DK and supported by the management... He was also someone embraced at the YEARLYKOS meet-up now known as NetRootsNation. In fact Warner threw a BIG Party for YK... Complete,with a chocolate fountain (lol). I remember that because there was a big dust up about That party.

up
0 users have voted.

Orwell was an optimist

martianexpatriate's picture

I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

up
0 users have voted.
Wink's picture

And, really, not a Dem. Seems we have way too many Warners occupying seats better occupied by better Dems. That DK defends his sorry ass...

up
0 users have voted.

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

In other words, likely someone who had paid Markos for his support.

up
0 users have voted.
PhilJD's picture

and responded quite sharply. He can't be happy with the direction of the site.

up
0 users have voted.

Hillary Clinton 2016: I'm a proud progmoderate!

... When a bunch of newbie ankle biters were attacking him for correcting some Clintonite lies. "I don't know how you do it," I wrote. He responded that he was biding his time until after the election, when he hoped the fever dream would break, I guess. He misses a lot of us who aren't around anymore. I felt sorry for him.

up
0 users have voted.

Please help support caucus99percent!

In a diary defending Mark Warner and corp limo he rode into congress on

I felt sad that Even MB cannot speak freely

Today. I got sanctioned for posting the comment "who made the comment that Jews Hate PoC" to a person who IS an avowed anti Semite .who posted a much more hatefilled version of what I posted... I was immediately flagged! told my 7 word comment was sparking a fight, that I was lying and stalking this poor diarist

Jesus h christ

What the hell happened to the DK I joined 11 years ago?

And how in the f'in world does the dem party expect we will ever again unify.

up
0 users have voted.

Orwell was an optimist

lunachickie's picture

They want all us poor trash to abandon the Democratic Party, so they can have it all to their wealthy-ass selves.

It's ceased to be the party of FDR. We're going to have to either make another one, or go Green and hope they'll have us. And then grow the hell out of it.

up
0 users have voted.
Slightkc's picture

The Democratic Platform sounds the same to the untrained ear, but it hasn't echoed the FDR platform for a long time now. The NeoLibs have gotten so good at the doublespeak they're right up there with the NeoCons! That was an unsettling epiphany I had a few weeks ago, too late coming to keep from kicking off a stress-caused fibro episode, tho.

It's not for nothing that it's always been said: "Only a Democrat can kill Social Security." I'd say the same basically holds true for Medicare, too. And this "chained CPI" ranks right up there with the greedy mortgage CDOs and Swaps. HAD to have come straight from Wall Street!

This country has WAY too many people on it, currently; and we're still reproducing exponentially. The Corporations have poisoned the air, the land, and the sea. They're poisoning and radiating the ocean's mammals and more; birds are catching the flu and dying in waves like I've never seen before. Now we've got gov't authorities knowingly poisoning our own kids with dirty water, and allowing filth- and poison-spewing fumes set up shop next to schools and homes.

Over the last 20-30 years, autoimmune diseases have become a near silent epidemic, especially among women. Our bodies retain more of the poisons for longer time frames, and then we wonder why our immune systems are compromised?

And STILLL we go to war for the natural resources of the other guy, rather than coming to an equitable trade for them - a one-on-one type trade in resources; not this whole-world, little people be damned kind of trade deal.

Kinda makes you wonder if "THEY" know something about the future that they're not telling us... (when what WE know is dire enough!)

up
0 users have voted.
stevej's picture

Markos has shown that he doesn't give a flying crap about those of us from a similar place on the political spectrum as MB. He has lost our trust and will not be prepared to do the work to win it back. As far as the Left goes Dkos is toast imo.

up
0 users have voted.

“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” -Voltaire

The first "Yearly Kos" was in Vegas, and Mark Warner had a nice party, not a chocolate fountain - it was martinis or "Kostinis" and people were happy to be there, but not overwhelmed by him personally, at all. People used to throw parties - Wes Clark at the Hard Rock Cafe, as I recall. It was NOT endorsement - prospective candidates came to Kossacks for supports, money, boots on the ground volunteers. I do not recall Warner getting a lot of enthusiasm after that, Like Jim Webb, some people came for support, but found their moderate to conservative views did not gain momentum. Or they ran for office progressive and then shifted way right and lost us.

What IS sad to me is to find defenders of people like Warner, who were long considered irrelevant to progressives. It is like people there did not drink koolaid, they took roofies and have amnesia about netroots history. If they start defending Joe Lieberman, someone do an intervention.

up
0 users have voted.

He didn't get much support and eventually the whole conversation died. I didn't go to NN that year, but I remember all the dairies that were written about it. It was a huge deal. We felt like we had arrived. We had all the big dogs posting at dailykos, attending our events, currying our favor. Back then we were progressives and they had to earn our vote and our support.

After we successfully primaried Lieberman, Bubba took the bloggers to lunch at his Harmlem pad and that was the end of everything we had. Kos put his tail between his legs and went off into a corner with his blog never to challenge the party line. Politicians quit showing up. We did nothing but talk about "more and better" and give Kos money to bundle. Apparently a deal had been cut to shut us up, and we were done as a movement. I don't know if the Clinton machine paid the bloggers money to shut up or promised to allow them to do business as long as they didn't get too big for their britches. Either way, it was all over for dailykos and the blogger led movement.

up
0 users have voted.

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

All over for THAT blogger movement. I think brand new congress might fit the niche, or another will arise. Reddit doesn't have the integrated tools but damn are there motivated maker-hackers therein.

up
0 users have voted.

I watched Reel Time and heard the same arrogant and ignorant sense of entitlement from Maher and Rob Reiner toward's what Frank was trying to say. The jobs are gone people - suck it up. Globallization, yada, yada, yada..... Frank tried to explain that Trade deals are not written by god. They come from lobbyists looking to benefit at the cost of someone else. Winners and losers are chosen - not ordained. The two "kool" and enlightened assholes representing our side couldn't even shut up long enough to let him finish a sentence. I mean afterall, who did the research? Same thing with dailykos. These people are the 1% meritocracy wrapped in a veneer of humanity so they can protect the Tessla shoved up their arse.

It is why I say I will vote anyway necessary to kill the neoliberral Clinton machine.

up
0 users have voted.

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

Ravensword's picture

He has a net worth of $60 million and doesn't have to worry about his job being sent overseas, not counting overseas locations for shooting. And even if it did, he's got more than enough money for a cozy retirement. He doesn't have the same concerns as the middle class.

He can go on national TV and elitesplain to people whose jobs have been shipped overseas that they're not coming back, and that all they need to do is wait for the deluge of green jobs and infrastructure jobs that's just right around the corner. Always right around the corner. It's just up to Congress to get their lazy assss in gear, but you'll have so many jobs to choose from, you won't know what to pick. Reiner could've simply said, "Let them eat cake until the green economy arrives."

Is it any surprise that people w/ silver spoons up their asses support Hillary?

up
0 users have voted.

You must have been watching too. I was shouting at the TV telling them to STFU.

up
0 users have voted.

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

Ravensword's picture

No rob, stick to fucking films. You don't know as much as you think you know about the plight of the middle class, so just shut the fuck up and let the guy who's spent lots of time researching what's wrong w/ the Democratic Party. Just because the Dems are good to you doesn't mean good to people who don't share the same class as you.

If Reiner is so concerned about these out of work people, why doesn't he put some of those $60 million bucks of his in a green startup w/ the goal of creating those green jobs he keeps talking about? Oh, but then he would have to put his own money at stake and wind down his Hollywood filmmaking activities to be able to focus on a startup—and that's no fun. Better to wait for an intransigent Congress to do that shit.

up
0 users have voted.
Lady Libertine's picture

perfect.

up
0 users have voted.
riverlover's picture

Photos, photos, of incoming ships, decks covered with wind turbine blades. Does anyone else recall when wind energy was supposed to resurrect the steel industry in the US, same as the high-speed rail jobs?

We can't make them here. Still. Thanks, Seimens.

up
0 users have voted.

Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

between Reiner and the character he played on "All In The Family" just for LULz.

up
0 users have voted.
Ravensword's picture

Except in this case, Reiner will is the meathead. All it took was several decades of amassing moderately large personal fortune.

up
0 users have voted.
whyvee's picture

His personal vendetta against Trump is so pathetically obvious. Don't get me wrong;.. I think Trump is an asshole. But, Bill's casual dismissal of HRC's flaws makes me sick. People with money just do not get it!

up
0 users have voted.
stevej's picture

is cognitive dissonance personified. Its like the different parts of his brain don't even bother to say hello to each other.

up
0 users have voted.

“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” -Voltaire

he acts like he knows what's going on but I really don't think he has a fucking clue!

up
0 users have voted.
Hawkfish's picture

He can be funny, but as Voltaire observed "A witty remark is not an argument."

up
0 users have voted.

We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

The chicken!! ". The only thing I think is ....

Progressives are not being asked to eat chicken
We are yet again being told to EAT SHIT

Mahar, Reiner et al are "Phil Ochs Liberals"

Love them love them love them
They are liberalssssssss

(Cough )

up
0 users have voted.

Orwell was an optimist

whyvee's picture

That eat chicken remark irritated the hell out of me. I do not watch his show anymore.

up
0 users have voted.
elenacarlena's picture

income at a living wage. Maybe $30,000 per adult and $15,000 per kid per year, with maybe a third of the kid's money stashed away to be theirs at age 21. Indexed to inflation. Then take all the jobs overseas that you want. Until then, how about providing some jobs? What are we supposed to do, eat grass?

up
0 users have voted.

Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.

riverlover's picture

up
0 users have voted.

Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

elenacarlena's picture

grass that originally grew in the French Pyrenees, watered by crystal clear springs. Since only the rich will have money to buy.

up
0 users have voted.

Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.

Lisa Lockwood's picture

I woke up one day to f'ing pod people had replaced Democrats. I keep thinking ima really wake up, any minute now...
Scary, is what it is. Locusts. Dogs, sleeping with cats. There is no Dana, only Zool.

up
0 users have voted.

"When the powerless are shut out of the media, we will make the media irrelevant" ~Anonymous~

this "dailykos" you all keep mentioning....here. Sounds like a shithole place to hang out. If I were blogging on a site like that I would quit going there altogether because I'll bet who ever owns a site like that is a royal asshole and I wouldn't want to put money in his pocket by clicking on his site...

up
0 users have voted.
Ken in MN's picture

..."Daily Cognitive Dissonance", which is yet more shorthand for "It's okay if our team sends jobs overseas, tramples our Constitutional rights, murders poor brown people at home and abroad or spends more on incarceration than on education, but we'll howl like a kitten stuck in a tree if the other team does it"...

up
0 users have voted.

I want my two dollars!

lotlizard's picture

up
0 users have voted.
martianexpatriate's picture

had a tendency to sell us out, but I always told myself that if I hung around in Democratic circles, I could at least have some impact on the way the party goes.

I'm not sure about that anymore.

up
0 users have voted.
Wink's picture

I walked away from our local yokel Dem HQ here becuz they act like DWS and her DNC. I thought it was just a Washington /Beltway thing. Turns out it was local, too. "Wink, we can't rock the boat. Repubs rule here, so we have to play nice... " You all play nice, I'm off to slay some Repubs...

up
0 users have voted.

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

2004 cycle was taking off.

it was embarrassing. the only high points were:

Dean's speech
Kucinich's speech
A conversation I had with Ben Masel

Mostly though, it was like being at a gigantic reunion of dumbass former high school government officers, standing around congratulating themselves for being the elite of their class.

up
0 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

about what has happened at TOP?

Damn, I still miss him...

up
0 users have voted.
lunachickie's picture

I'm not sure about that anymore.

Just wait for it, though--once your uncertainty wanes and you realize your instincts are, in fact, spot-on (and were all along), next comes the part where you get really pissed off. Thing is, you're going to turn some of that inward on yourself (as in something like "How could I have been so stupid???"). Don't do that. Don't beat yourself up for falling for it. Professional propagandists manipulated millions of intelligent people into complacency.

up
0 users have voted.

Why Bernie was always an independent or belonged to a third party until last year.

up
0 users have voted.

Beware the bullshit factories.

progdog's picture

How many times do we need Democrats to control the whole country for two years before they'll be able to do something about it? HOW MANY TIMES?!

We already did it once. It was a fucking miracle from 2006-2010, and they didn't do shit with it because they didn't fucking want to. Obama won the vote by lying to me and everyone I know about what he would do.

In the words of the hallowed Rahm, he who was selected to mold the president, "Fucking retards."

up
0 users have voted.

prog - weirdo | dog - woof

I just read that thread. OMFG - what a bunch of full blown idiots. The more I read, the more I think I have to vote for Trump. Not only do these neoliberal fools need to lose, they need to go down in a spiral of flames with rockets going off. If these are Democrats, I don't ever want to even life next door to one.

up
0 users have voted.

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

reflectionsv37's picture

I read through the comments there and was completely dumbfounded. What planet did these people come from? There was a time, in the not so distant past, where half of those comments would have been troll rated and the posters humiliated for even thinking that way. Now, it's the mainstream of DKos. I still find it amazing that Kos managed to completely change the whole thought process of that site in such a short time. I can't read any of the comment sections over there anymore. It's easier to read the comment threads at RedState. I won't be voting for Hillary in November under any circumstances. If it looks like she will end up president, I too will likely cast my vote for Trump. I fear a Trump presidency, but I fear a Hillary presidency even more.

up
0 users have voted.

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
George W. Bush

martianexpatriate's picture

But please don't vote for Trump. If you have to make a statement, vote for somebody who isn't an oligarch that has busted unions and defrauded the government out of millions using "strategic" bankruptcies.

He's an awful man.

up
0 users have voted.
lunachickie's picture

Please, please, please disabuse yourself of such a notion.

up
0 users have voted.

when people seem to take it for granted that Hillary is the lesser of these two evils. To start with, I doubt he'll ever match her body count. This woman goes to war for power. She returned children to Honduras to "send a message."

And even if they were both equally evil, her loss would have the advantage of ending Clinton control over the party and MIGHT set the party free to listen to its better angels, if it still has such things around.

Trump's loss, on the other hand, would probably convince Repubs to stick with free-trade theocrats from now on. Not good.

up
0 users have voted.

Twain Disciple

elenacarlena's picture

Remember, 66% of the voters were so disgusted in 2014 they didn't vote. If they/we all decide to vote third party, we could win handily.

Trump? WWIII.

up
0 users have voted.

Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.

who talks a big game but won't deliver in the crunch. But I worry more about the carte blanche his election would give some of his supporters to kill innocent Americans of darker skin or strange apparel -- and there are enough racists and Islamophobes in the local police departments that a lot of those deaths would go unsolved or blamed on "gang activity" especially deaths of Latinos. That's the one reason why I can't vote for Trump ever, not even to try and "send a message".

up
0 users have voted.
elenacarlena's picture

talk to world leaders as obnoxiously and arrogantly as he does everyone else? If so, he'll insult one person too many, and we're toast.

up
0 users have voted.

Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.

lotlizard's picture

up
0 users have voted.
Ravensword's picture

They're both unacceptable.

up
0 users have voted.

[deleted]

up
0 users have voted.
lotlizard's picture

there are a lot of “little people” whom the elite — the “insiders,” the establishment, the 1%, however you want to characterize them — that is now trying to close ranks against Trump or the AfD, never deign to listen to.

Furthermore, the powerful, wealthy, influential people believe they still have the upper hand and can easily steamroller both Trump and Sanders — by guilt-tripping supporters in the case of Sanders, or shaming, reviling, and mocking supporters in the case of Trump, as needed.

The Powers That Be regard the “little people” with barely disguised contempt and, unless circumstances compel them, listening to the “little people” is still totally “off the table” going forward.

A victory for a figure like Trump or a right-wing party like the AfD, whom the elite hates? It’s not complicated.

Beside the hard-core racists and xenophobes, there are a lot of people who — from their point of view, however ill-informed, misdirected, and duped by pied pipers it may seem from our point of view — have been pushed too far and ignored too long.

Now, after years of being dismissed as whiners, dead-enders, malcontents, and trash, right now they’re enjoying finally being able to say to said elite, “Oh — do we have your attention now?

up
0 users have voted.

I think the guillotine instruction downloads went berserk after this posted:
"Paul Irving of the Milken Institute Center for the Future of Aging suggested that one way to solve the retirement crisis in America was changing the conversation “from retirement as an aspiration to lifelong work as an aspiration.” Others sputtered about over-regulation strangling the economy. At a “Jobs and Technology” panel, former Forbes Managing Editor Dennis Kneale insisted that we didn’t need to give any more benefits to the poor, because he read somewhere that they get $30,000 a year from the government already.
There wasn’t really a partisan edge to the proceedings. On a panel with four state governors, Democrats Terry McAuliffe and John Hickenlooper parroted the same bromides about workforce development and support for trade deals as Republicans Scott Walker and Rick Scott. “Everyone in this room can admire these people,” said the moderator, Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google-parent Alphabet."
https://theintercept.com/2016/05/05/at-conference-of-elites-the-distress...

up
0 users have voted.

Here's a starter list:
http://www.milkeninstitute.org/about/our-team/

Including, and named for THIS asshole:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/readersreact/la-le-0503-tuesday-michael-m...

Edited to add the piece about Warner from The Daily Blues thread (H/T joe shikspak)
https://theintercept.com/2016/05/04/democratic-senator-urges-business-el...

up
0 users have voted.

if you're a desk jockey getting 4-5 weeks of vacation a year.

But if you're driving a bus or truck for 9-10 hours a day, or standing on your feet dealing with 30+ students in a classroom, or up on a roof in 100+ degree temperatures installing new shingles, eventually you need a long break. Especially in the case of bus and truck drivers, your reflexes slow down as you age and you become a danger to yourself, your passengers and everyone else on the road. I've seen way too many of Mr. Scribe's former colleagues carried out feet first, not living long enough to enjoy a retirement.

up
0 users have voted.
TheOtherMaven's picture

When the rich kept getting richer and the peons fought each other for the crumbs.

up
0 users have voted.

There is no justice. There can be no peace.

Bollox Ref's picture

DKos has been assigned a place in Dante's Hell.

Along with the paymasters, shadowy or not.

up
0 users have voted.

Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

kharma's picture

Wrestle with pigs you're going to get filthy?

TOP has become a sty.

up
0 users have voted.

There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties.. This...is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.--John Adams

Hawkfish's picture

You can't win, and the pig enjoys it.

up
0 users have voted.

We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

riverlover's picture

And then the pig, eats you.

up
0 users have voted.

Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.