FWIW
This essay is intentionally subjective.
My feelings -- I'm still for Bernie. I know people who are terrified of a Trump Presidency and I don't argue with them. I understand, because I feel the same way about a Clinton Presidency. That's because I've researched her and I haven't really listened much at all to Trump's media show, not having a television and not tuning in to Corporate Media.
I accept that Bernie is sincere that he finds a Trump Presidency more scary than a Clinton Presidency.
I accept people here who fear Clinton gaining power more than Trump gaining power.
I don't really feel like challenging what anyone feels because I'm too busy feeling my own raging feelings. I doubt I'm alone in this, but I can only speak for myself.
I listened to a Tim Black video (don't have a link) that disturbed me - he pretty much claimed outright that Black Lives Matter should change their name because of what happened in Dallas. He was almost brutal in how he said it, in a very no-nonsense tone. I've read white people's making the same suggestion, but I strongly feel it's for different reasons.
To me, nope, no siree.
I didn't understand a crucial aspect of our nation's politics regarding social justice until a couple of women from Black Lives Matter interrupted Netroots Nation and said their names. Say Her Name. Say His Name.
For some reason, when I said the names outloud, I had a different vision, it finally got through my head what was being talked about, the emergency nature of Black people getting shot and killed by police on a daily basis, and that this has been going on since Black people first arrived in chains in the USA.
But for some reason, even though I had all the correct white liberal intellectual understanding about this, it didn't hit me emotionally until I said their names outloud. Then it hit me emotionally to the extent I could never go back to thinking as I had before - just as learning from Bernie's campaign means I can never go back to thinking as I had before.
It's like falling in love, I guess, you can't resist it. It's such a strong force. And frankly, I don't want to resist it.
Bernie also admitted that he learned something from Black Lives Matter, and in particular he was struck by Sandra Bland and spoke about her often. He also finally got that this would not have happened to her if she had been white.
There's also an article on "Fusion" that talks about Bernie's failure to gain the Black vote and how his campaign didn't hit the mark with Black people. And there's a refutation article somewhere else that critiques the Fusion article as not quoting so much from Sanders' staffers as spinning their words. Both articles are thought provoking, but I'm not going to link them either, because I'm not into providing any digression from my subjective essay.
There's so much going on right now, so many new connections are being made, old connections being broken, other connections being completely transformed. So I don't even bother to try to speculate on what will happen - I just try to receive the energy that's being put out without 'sploding from it all.
The Dem Platform speeches in Orlando were quite amazing. Again I have contradictory feelings -- clearly there's something going on when Cornel West is a speaker at an inside Party event. Nina Turner as well. Nina said at one point "Welcome to the NEW Democratic Party!" Heh. So there's lots of stuff going on there, even as I know, at the same time, the Platform itself is not legally binding and that Hillary won't hesitate to act against it if her donors demand she does.
Cornel said something about distinguishing between declaration and execution and stressed that the work of citizenship has to be performed both within and without any political party.
Then there's Jill Stein. I know very little about her but at this point in time I'm inclined (that's the word all the cool commenters use) to vote for her.
I won't be rushed by anyone - not because I'm some big strong Amazon, but because I just can't be rushed. It's all too happening right now. I don't know any other way to put it.
There's a lot of puzzle pieces that don't seem to go together at all, but if they have to do with social justice, even if they don't fit together, I believe they eventually will if I think Big. And maybe it seems those pieces don't fit together because there are still more pieces to come, with those little curved or straight tab thingies that connect one piece to the other. And those tab thingies, they are made of something called solidarity.
Comments
... for a while, there, I wasn't sure that
"Black Lives Matter" mattered to me, either (older, middle-class white dude).
Self-reflection, self-criticism, and history happening in the streets, taught me that BLM does, indeed, matter to me.
When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.
It's all about understanding
It's all about understanding that real people are involved.
When gay people were brave enough to come out of the closet and be 'loud and proud', they became visible as people, so that more people came to realize that people have a right to love where they will and that they were criticizing and attempting to control the private lives and loves of other people. For me, abuse and harm aimed at/done to any specific identifiable group brings to mind nice people I have known of whatever colour/nationality, so I very personally feel it - but for those who may have lived perhaps more restricted lives, the name evidently makes people realize that these are real people suffering and dying, simply because of some weird reaction to their skin colour.
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.
I love Bernie, I went whole hog for him, but now ....
I believe Hillary's crew cheated her way to her likely nomination, but I'm not giving up hope yet that Bernie might still be our nominee. If some extraordinary break-through in discovering massive California ballot mischief appears, we may yet have a shot at the Dem nomination for Bernie, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for it.
If Bernie is out of the Dem race because of cheating by Hillbots, then I will be voting for Jill Stein, the likely nominee of the Green Party. The Greens have not yet held their General Election convention, so it might be Bernie they nominate, I don't know. (Personal note: I will be re-registering from the Democratic Party to the Green Party as soon as I can get to town to get the form to do so).
I feel really good about re-registering to join the Green Party. They really represent me better than any other Party. I'm tired of compromising my principles to vote for Democrats who are really too right wing for me just because the Republicans are worse. It's time I let my more progressive flag fly: I am a Green voter, and the Dems better learn quickly that they are not the only Party to left of the center, and they might get replaced by a better representative of the left than they are: the Green Party.
Be a Friend of the Earth, cherish it and protect it.
The Dems are NOT "left of center"
and haven't been since 1968. They moved hard right then, and have been pushing to the right ever since.
It's not the first time they've "gone there" - they used to be the pro-slaveholding party, were (and now are again) one of two virtually identical business-uber-alles parties, and were the supporters of Jim Crow right up through the end of WWII and a bit beyond.
They never were the friends of the "little people" - they just saw an advantage, for a while, in pretending to be their allies.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
America needs a second party
Republicans and Democrats are as different as two sides of a corporate coin.
Yesterday I stopped donating to Bernie and started donating to Greens.
I signed up to volunteer for Greens
There is very little daylight between the Green platform and Bernie's
My vote must reflect my conscience. The outcome of that vote is not mine to control
Dig within. There lies the wellspring of all good. Ever dig and it will ever flow
Marcus Aurelius
If the Green Party tent rises wide and deep
…we will owe them a lot for faithfully holding it open for the American people, for all this time.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
Jill Stein would be much better than Hillary
There are a lot of unknowns about Jill Stein, but it's pretty obvious that she doesn't share the very troubling knowns of Hillary. I'm hoping that by the day before election day Jill will show enough viability that a majority of people will go with her. If it looks like Trump is going to win at that point and Jill doesn't have a chance, I'm pretty sure I'll still vote for Jill, unless Trump really does show himself to be Mussolini and Hillary shows she has finally got how Americans feel about the corruption. A lot will happen and perspectives will evolve in the next 4 months before the election.
Beware the bullshit factories.
Jill looks like the only viable protest vote
I can't vote for Hillary, ever, and Trump is even worse. Jill Stein won't be elected president, but if she can pull a high single-digit vote total, or even higher, it would be a meaningful vote that would shake up the complacency and contempt of the party insiders. Especially the Democratic ones. If Stein pulled in a sizable vote, and Hillary won a squeaker, that would be even better. Hillary's certainly capable of running a close race against Trump. Those who call her 2016's Martha Coakley have it exact. If she wasn't running against Trump she'd already be hopelessly underwater.
Your vote and my vote won't determine who the next president will be. But we can send a message nonetheless.
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I agree with that
I'm hoping it's harder to rig a general election than it is a primary. Messing with people's party registration can't be used when everybody's allowed to vote. If there are 4 candidates in double digits, electronic vote switching would be a little bit harder. Closing polling stations in lower income areas might still be useful though.
Beware the bullshit factories.
Not much harder to rig a general election
The mechanics would be the same--voter purges and voter suppression to minimize the progressive vote so that electronic manipulations don't look too egregious and then manipulate the electronic tabulators, make anyone that questions the integrity of the system a laughingstock. HRC is the establishment candidate this time so if there is any rigging it will be in her favor instead of Trump"s. Many think that Ohio 2004 was rigged. I contributed to a Green and Libertarian sponsored recount in Ohio in 2004 and got regular email updates. From the emails I received each day, it was pretty clear that the recount was rigged. Precincts were supposed to be selected at random for recounts (in precincts where there the vote count was recountable [eg. there were paper trails), but they were carefully picked. Technicians mysteriously showed up to change hard drives on tabulators, etc. The people monitoring the recount were not at all satisfied that it was honest. My attitude is that if I am confident my candidate won, I want everything to be as above board and transparent as possible. The facts that things were not above board and transparent and that we do not have a secure voting system while other countries do speak volumes.
This is exactly what people are saying about her emails
Now how disgusting is that statement?
They did so much damage during their first term, I can imagine how much more they will do during their second one.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
I never forget that Bill and Donald
had a nice, long telephone chat before Trump threw his hat in the ring.
Stein was willing to get arrested three times last
time she ran, is courageous and strong. She is the only viable candidate for me if Bernie does not get the nomination.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
It's good the puzzle pieces don't fit together
That's my feeling too, and it's why I retain some optimism. I don't believe Bernie will be the Democratic nominee -- never had much hope of that. I don't believe he will run as a third party candidate -- he's a man of his word. I never thought the DNC would treat Bernie or his supporters fairly, and they haven't surprised me in that.
But the energy and the sense of possibility Bernie's run has brought to politics is something new. I haven't seen it since the early 1970's, and even then it was only a pale reflection of the era of hope of the 1960's. "There's somethin' happening here...." The lockdown corporate powers have had over politics through their ownership of both parties and all the big media is breaking up. People won't accept it anymore. Idjits supporting the status quo in the Democratic platform committee meetings have their eyes squeezed shut, their fingers stuffed tight in their ears, and their mouths covered so the Wurlitzer can drone on. Doesn't matter. They delegitimize themselves, their candidate and their party in doing so.
Delegitimizing both parties may well be the biggest story of this election cycle. The Republicans are all but dead. The Democrats have dropped their friendly mask, and the fangs of the corporate blood-suckers are gleaming for all to see. We have to drive a stake through this party's heart and kill it once and for all. There's plenty of help: well over 40% of the electorate didn't belong to a political party in the middle of last year, and chances are good we'll see close to 50% independents before this year is out. If they allow a poll to show it.
Bernie has made himself a human sacrifice, chaining himself to the Democratic party, to show us a different way forward. It's what he had to do. We must honor his teaching and his example, and strike a new path forward. May all the puzzle pieces fly around the room, while we draw a completely new picture of the future.
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I love this comment.
Thank you for it.
Also love this, from NPK:
Such good advice.
Namaste.
Great post, DallasDoc!
I agree that it's unlikely that he will run third party, but I still find value in making noise about it for all to hear. And I do want him to know that we would like for him to consider that option. That said, I would be very surprised if he still felt bound by any word given to the DNC. Now that the pace has slowed down and he has had a chance to process, I'd be very surprised if he felt any more obligated to the DNC than we currently do.
Funny, but I came to this conclusion only a few days ago. It was in the middle of typing a reply to a comment here. I didn't post it because it just sounded crazy. Killing a political party? What does that even mean? I kept it and figured I'd wait and see if it still made sense the next day. It did! Cool!! Feeling good about myself and excited that I'm about to share a brand new way of looking at this whole thing! Groundbreaking! Then I start thinking, maybe that's what people mean when they say that the Democratic Party is too corrupt? Maybe that's not just a tactical assessment based on our opponents' controlling the levers of power combined with their demonstrated willingness to break any rule to protect themselves? Then I go back and read some recent posts very differently and it quickly becomes clear that I'm not exactly the first person to arrive at this conclusion.
I'll share anyway just because it's funny:
the beauty of your choice
is that you need not worry about the repercussions of voting for any particular party or person.
Vote for Hillary, Trump, Stein or whoever. In this historical moment, you can be sure the voting will be rigged electronically to favor the establishment's pick, which I'm assuming would be Hillary unless the oligarchy feels inclined otherwise to do the ole 'red-shift' prior to November. Yes, it's that corrupt, the system is that rotten.
In time, we will change this but I don't think we the people can have the revolution for honest, accountable voting systems in place by the end of 2016. The California lawsuit is the first battle in a long war.
Yes, I'm going for Jill Stein this time, and I know that despite my decision to vote, the numbers will be fixed. So at least she will get enough votes in 2016, maybe 5 million this time -- 10 million is too optimistic. The real scamming in the machines will be done for the Dems or possibly against the Rethugs. It's hard to know how they will manipulate the voting machines this year.
Good comment, ngant17.
Speaking of choice, I'll add that this is all an illusion of choice, courtesy of TPTB.
Thanks for a well-written, honest, subjective essay.
I'm an old white man but I think I understand what you're saying. Especially when you say, "There's so much going on right now, so many new connections are being made, old connections being broken, other connections being completely transformed. So I don't even bother to try to speculate on what will happen - I just try to receive the energy that's being put out without 'sploding from it all."
I was a California boy in the South in 1955 during segregation and that's when I "got it"; when old connections were broken and other connections were completely transformed. I was so upset with the injustice and stupidity that one day I got on the bus and sat down in the back. Pretty quickly I realized all I was doing was making all the black people nervous, so I got off at the next stop and didn't try to desegregate the South all by myself anymore. But not too long afterward Rosa Parks did do what I tried to do, but with a whole lot more authority. I learned another lesson then too: the people who are being downtrodden have to stand up. Someone else can't do it for them.
Now it's our turn to stand up. But each of us has to figure out what that means for us. The tab thingies never come together completely because the puzzle keeps changing, but we can get most of them and can just keep working at it. You get it, most of the people here get it, and we will just have to persevere. Good luck and thanks for the essay.
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
Even as we age, the brain can rewire
Old dogs can learn new tricks. That works to some extent for many after ischemic strokes, numbed or lost abilities return. Those neurons that were killed by O2 deprivation get worked around. With effort. Or time.
I think it's important and vitalizing to learn and compare beliefs then and now. I am willing to accept an alteration of my thinking, as long as it is voluntary.
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.
Like me, you fit the model of what used to be thought of Dems
They say Republicans fall in line and Dems fall in love...
'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member
Not any longer.
The way Democrats fell in line this primary make the Stepford wives look like wild and crazy mavericks and Republicans chose the least like candidate to win out of some two score clowns.
^^^THIS!^^^
It couldn't be said any better!
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."
~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,
Weeeeeelllllll,
It should have read, ""The way Democrats fell in line this primary makes the Stepford wives look like wild and crazy mavericks."
Accursèd subject/verb agreement!
If Sanders fears Trump --
then that places him in the category of "rubes" for me.
http://caucus99percent.com/content/can-vote-clinton-save-us-trumpism
http://caucus99percent.com/content/why-trump-phobia-rubes
http://caucus99percent.com/content/fearing-trump-presidency-still-rubes
http://caucus99percent.com/content/chomsky-and-halles-contribution-army-...
I dunno. Maybe Sanders is worried that the Democrats are going to strip him of all his privileges in the Senate if he runs as an independent, and so he's got to get behind the party line, say all the nice Trump-phobic nonsense, and approve the coronation. From my perspective this looks like a lot of sacrifice: endorsing Clinton, forgiving her numerous crimes (including the ones she's committed against his campaign), and probably enduring a good degree of humiliation from Clinton subordinates lest things get worse. I really don't see what he's got to lose: he's old, and he could just as well go out with a bang.
Maybe Sanders didn't really believe in the "political revolution" after all. Revolutions are hard things to pull off, and easy things to botch. I don't see a real alternative. I know! Let's risk the political status quo until the climate change event really gets roaring. Who knows, maybe it will be as big as the Permian-Triassic Boundary. Let's trust the future to an eternally money-hungry syndicate leader, because our fantasy image of a small-time huckster is so scary, and we're not bright enough to see things through otherwise.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10157137441725440&set=a.14276609...
There's this compelling image on Facebook I want to share with you. It's apparently from France. In the foreground is the Euro 2016 football ("soccer") championship. In the background is a confrontation between participants in the French general strike and police. The big image on the screen is of football players, and it's clearly meant to keep the amassed spectators from seeing the real struggle going on down the street.
Our job, then, is to break through the media bullshit, and reveal the real struggle. We have until 2020, when the dialectic of neoliberalism and nationalism comes due, and a smarter version of Trump wins the Presidental election.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
Here's the photo
I too wish that Bernie would just say fuck it and Bern the Democratic Party down. You're right, he has had a wonderful career and has accomplished a lot of great bills that have helped so many people and he could walk away.
But maybe he feels that there is still so much he still wants to accomplish and isn't ready to walk away.
Either way, he has stripped the face off the corruption of the Democratic Party and has shown us what they are willing to stand for and he's shown us that they are just as corrupt as the republicans when it comes to protecting their interests instead of standing up for we the people.
Sure they will stand against the republicans when it comes to social issues that won't hurt the pocket books of the corporations and the elites, but as we recently saw, they won't stand up for us on issues like increasing social security, stopping the TPP and the other issues that they voted against.
The curtain has been pulled back and we got to see the Great Wizards that runs the Democratic Party.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
We still can't identify the wizards.
My FB group on the email timeline, we are group-sniffing, now to the point of trying to ID every background face in some Congressional hearings. With some, nearly impossible. Others, OMG who ARE these people who have been somehow government-associated for decades and nobody knows their name?
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.
That photograph is unbelievably fantastic.
It is just amazing. It is almost perfect in describing what is going on in our world. A visual wake up call.
The real problem is...
The crowd WANTS the screen interposed between them and reality.
Yep.
And this week, it's Pokemon Go.
There are transitional phases and there are TRANSITIONAL phases.
FWIW, I think it'll be quite some time before we can fully deconstruct everything to examine in a cold analytical light and I expect that we'll get caught up in a few more waves of momentum before that happens. I feel you, though. That damn Bernie has already rushed me enough. Transitional phases are really something. You think about things the same way for 15 years, and with only slight change from gradual evolution during the 20 years before that, and then suddenly you're on a turbo-charged nitrous injected roller coaster that never seems to stop. You look to the side and the entire world appears upside down, but you get the sneaking suspicion that you're only just now seeing it correctly for the first time. You're screaming to stop, but Bernie is at the controls and he is being a dick, "Huh? Did you say go faster? Okaaaay."
...
If Clinton wins, forget about anything Bernie tried for.
Thank you for your post.
Unless you live in a swing state, how you vote for President really doesn't much matter. If you doubt that, you can follow the polls in your state up until election day. If the Democrat nominee is leading by a large margin, you can feel almost 100% certain that your vote will not matter. (This is a separate issue from the issue of crooked machines, which is an argument for never voting at all.)
Second, once Bill Clinton won re-election, the history of the Party from FDR to Carter went right into the hopper. Never mind that no Democrat but Carter who ran for re-election in modern times failed to win. Truman and LBJ did not run for re-election because they thought they would not win. However, both had succeeded deceased Presidents and had already served longer than four years and no one knows if they would have won if they ran. Very likely, they would have.
In any event, Carter was the only Democrat in modern times actually to run for re-election and lose and he was dealing with oil issues, the hostage situation and a very unusual opponent. Also, Clinton had Perot's help in both 1992 and 1996. But, facts rarely matter. The messaging was that only Republicans and Pub Lites could win elections and the messaging prevailed because rich and influential people wanted it to prevail.
Once Clinton won re-election, out the window of election-hungry Democrats went everything but the gospel according to the DLC. New Democrat Obama's re-election confirmed the belief that Third Way is the only way to be elected and re-elected. If DLC co-founder and wife of the first DLC President also becomes President, this country, in my opinion, will never separate from alternating between volleys from the third way and volleys from Republicans. As it is, it's bad enough she got more primary votes (supposedly) than did Bernie. However, at least in part, that is because voters have bought the "I don't want Democrats to nominate another McGovern" fairy tale.
I also don't discount the possibility that Trump was exactly the candidate the establishment wanted as the Republican nominee because they wanted to be sure Hillary wins this one. The media sure as heck helped Trump out--until he got the nomination. Morning Joe is a perfect example. Joe and Mika fawned all over Trump, to the point where they were being accused of gross unfairness. However, once he got the nomination, their praises turned to disgust, yet Trump has gotten no worse. While the beginning of this post does not rely on that theory, I don't discount the possibility, either.
I will not be voting for Trump, but my level of concern about a Trump win is no greater than my level of concern about a Clinton win. In fact, looking at the long term, a Hillary win concerns me more than a Trump win. If no one is pushing back hard at Republicans anymore, the nation and the planet are both doomed.
Finally, I think this statement is a disservice to Bernie: "He also finally got that this would not have happened to her if she had been white." I think Bernie has known things like that all his life. As a college kid, when Hillary was canvassaing for Nixon, and most whites were oblivious or fearful of civil rights, he was literally chained to two black women, not to two white women. Assuming someone as smart as he is who fought that battle then didn't "get" it until 2015 is untrue, I think.
When it comes to his comment about Sandra Bland ...
... I was using Bernie's words, not mine. And I understand where he was coming from.
Back when Bernie was protesting, we didn't have the kind of technology we now have to illustrate viscerally what was happening to Black people on a regular basis as far as police brutality/murder was concerned.
I know my history as well, but I didn't "get it" until Black Lives Matter. I don't think Bernie was confessing ignorance of racism by his comment, but enlightenment of what is happening right now as opposed to prior generations, how the form of structural racism has revealed itself.
Beat in the USA.
Bernie said "I FINALLY got this would not have happened to her
if she had been white?" I honestly don't think those were his words.
On edit: I found Bernie's statement. These were Bernie's words:
“Sandra Bland should not have died while in police custody. There’s no doubt in my mind that she, like too many African-Americans who die in police custody, would be alive today if she were a white woman. My thoughts are with her family and her loved ones tonight. We need to reform a very broken criminal justice system.”
His words give no indication that he was clueless about such things until Sandra Bland's death.
This were my comments from my prior post on this topic:
I don't think his words imply that anything I said was off the mark. I also don't think what happened to Sandra Bland is very different from what might have happened to her when Bernie was a college activist.
No.
He didn't use those words; I did. He did, however, say his eyes had been opened to the reality of what's going on today by the kinds of events illustrated by Sandra Bland's death. He has made the claim often that his campaign has shown him things he didn't know previously, which I find to be a positive.
I also believe that a lot of white liberals "finally" got what was going on through exposure to Black Lives Matter in a way that we hadn't fully understood previously.
Beat in the USA.
Have a link to that kind of statement by Bernie re: Bland?
I have been looking for a link.
But haven't found one yet. I heard him say this on some interview or another that was on my Twitter feed, probably. It wasn't that he said he learned something about Sandra Bland per se, but about what Black Lives Matter has been trying to teach people and he used Sandra Bland as an example.
I agree with you that Bernie was never "clueless" about Black issues. I had no intention of implying this but I can see how you could view my statements that way.
Beat in the USA.
Just a moment in time. But a beautiful one.
And one that is known to others only because Reverend Bonner broke ranks and decided to share:
I looked for a link before I asked you.
Duplicate.
I looked for a link before I asked you.
I didn't find any comment like that by Bernie, either.
Carter
not only was dealing with an oil issue, he was dealing with stagflation throughout the 70's since Nixon took the US off the gold standard for settlement of international trade (Bretton Woods). The oil issue and the stagflation were both a result of the removal of the gold standard.... all to accelerate vietnam (nixon)! The republicans have, for decades, blamed carter for the stagflation because their constituents have been too stupid to realize that the removal of the gold standard led directly to the oil embargo by OPEC and the stagflation of the 70's ... and the war was lost anyways... savings and earnings have declined for most workers since then... the charts don't lie .. and trade imbalances are promoted by unsound monetary policy... money printed out of nothing and in infinite amounts
I am
fairly convinced of this:
The Evening Blues Ain't All Fun and Games
Joe shikspack has an excellent news aggregation. Some excerpts:
And
And
And
Read all about it: http://caucus99percent.com/content/evening-blues-7-11-16
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
Speculating before 7AM is acceptable
so here is mine. Lone crazed gunman, black, war vet killed by a robo-bomb. Sure. Way convenient. Except for the war vet part, is someone going to start invoking PTSD for all murders? Perhaps we should not ship off people to have them return war-damaged? Now bomb-making equipment in his house? Again, too convenient to slur the dead by cop. But normal now. Be afraid resonates like ricochets between tall buildings.
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.
The "authorities" are already trying to claim he underwent
some sort of "radicalization" in order to brand this an act of terrorism. You know who are victims of terrorism? Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, to name but two, victims of the terrorists in blue. (Although, really, as dark a blue as the uniforms are now, it's really black. Gestapo black. Stasi black.)
"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it."
-- John Lennon
for the last couple of weeks
I have been struggling with the reality that we are facing. It has paralyzed me. I find myself commenting less and less because the well has run dry for me. We have tilted at windmills for so long and the situation is now worse than ever.
I have felt great empathy for people of color for a long time, but I never could adequately put myself into their shoes. Listening goes a long way, but it is not enough to feel the real pain that they feel on a daily basis. Every day brings a new hurt and it never seems to stop.
Why do we insist on hurting other human beings? Grappling with this question and the realization that our elected officials, and by extension, every one of us, have condoned evil has deeply affected me personally. Writing my weekly Open Thread has become a chore too because the world is so negative right now. The future for this country and for the world has grown very dark. We could have done so much better and instead we are being presented a choice between literally two evils, neither of whom is lesser, just different.
Thank you NPK for this essay. It has been somewhat cathartic for me. I truly appreciate your thoughts.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
HEY! This is an audience participation song
LOL go Stephen! LOVE
Audience is funny when artists play a different tune. Once I saw the most amazing version of "Our House" by CSNY in the Oakland Coliseum, another mind blower :-D. What a rush when the lights come up and 10,000 people start singing together "our house is a very very very fine house with two cats in the yard life used to be so hard now everything is easy 'cuz of you". Yeah that just poured off my fingers like yesterday.
Cheers
I grew up listening to CSN & Y
My mom played it all the time on the awesome turntable we had. It was actually a piece of furniture. Those were the days.
I remember an assignment in fourth grade where we had to write the lyrics to a song and then explain the song. I chose "Marrakesh Express" by Crosby, Stills & Nash.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7XIL67QSME]
Hope I did that correctly. First time trying to do a video!
NPK,
Thank you for writing your subjective essay. It's beautifully written and it spoke to me on almost every point. I bookmarked it because it gives me comfort that someone else (and I know there are many of you/us, thankfully) feels the way I do.
I too, am busy and have been for countless months, feeling my rage. It's rage against the machine and Bernie is the only one who has pulled back the curtain. I know there are others out there pulling back the curtain, but not enough people are willing to see. Plain and simple. Is it the flouride in the public water systems? Is it they're just so complacent with what the teevee shells them with on a daily basis? Technology and FB? Is it upbringing? Is it FEAR? Love of money? I don't know, but I think it's a combination of all of those things and possibly more.
Speaking of the teevee: first off, we don't have cable so I really haven't witnessed the turning to evil that some of you have seen, i.e., Rachel Maddow and others falling to greed or threats or both. But I thank you all for writing about items like that. I relied on figures like her and Thom Hartmann for years to bring sanity to the RW craziness in the msm. I no longer trust any talking head. I've been on vacation and couldn't get Thom on the radio and maybe that has finally weaned me from listening to him almost daily. I trust Lee Camp and Abby Martin, and writers like Chris Hedges, Amy Goodman, and Naomi Klein for sanity. I'm sure that some of you could add others to the list, but those are the ones I can think of right now.
I have had feelings of almost crying I'm so mad at the way Bernie was treated throughout this primary. I see the videos that some of you have posted of the shenanigans that happened during the primary. Viewing those are what leads to others and I just have to walk away from the laptop because I get so angry. I can't be angry all of the time. Funny thing though, in the past two weeks Bernie's been in my dreams. He's the nicest, kindest, comforting person-and I'm sure he's like that in real life and more! We know this because of his record/history. I know that whatever happens to come out of his mouth today in NH won't really be what he feels. I'm hoping he does go to the convention and rattles feathers. Lots of feathers. We need this-our country needs this. I'm not saying it's his responsibility to do so, I believe he feels it in his bones that change has to happen. I hope that people don't fall for the sh*t that is out there that some high percentage of Bernie supporters are going to support HRC. This woman isn't falling for it. I'm de-registering as a Dem on 7/29. I've been one all of my voting life. It feels ugly now and I have a tinge of shame about that. It's like I replied earlier to ngant17...it's all been an illusion of choice. Yes, we still have choices, ultimately to even participate at all.
Last thoughts: I don't understand why people reject him and his ideas. It's like they are permanently enslaved. We're all slaves in one way or another. Which brings me to Dallas. My personal opinion: it was bound to happen. People are fed up being enslaved. There will be pushback. No justice for a huge part of the population that's being fuqued over and over and over again? Something was going to happen. I find it almost disgusting to live in this country at times. This is one of those times.
Thank you, NPK, and so many others here on this site. It's my favorite political site and I feel like many of you are my touchstones to sanity and friends.
I appreciate this essay.
It describes many of my own thoughts and feelings. In the comments, I see that many have similar thoughts as well. This is an important function of this site, it helps us see that others have similar reactions to our own about (what I feel are) the horrors around us.
Not that we really should need validation from other people (online no less) but it helps a bit. It helps me forgive my own indecision and uncertainty about what the path forward should be. It helps me look at other people's ideas. So thank you for taking the time.