the Hillary coalescense is more proof the fix is in

When it comes right down to it, labels like "republican" and "democrat" take a back seat to what's really important: heeding the demands of the $$$ behind all of them that the current regime of unaccountable looting be upheld at all costs. Thus, you see establishment "left" and, in a slightly less open manner, establishment "right" falling in line to elect $ellery, because the $$$ knows their game will be safe in her hands. Revealing that our "democracy" amounts to going through the motions of a pre-scripted and predetermined media event is a price they're willing to pay, since they assume there aren't enough people paying sufficient attention for it to cause any real backlash. Corporate media is fully engaged in the effort. $hillary is being imposed on us whether we want it or not. (Of course we're told we do)

It seems in the EU the game's the same as here: no matter who or what you vote for, you get pretty much the same thing. That's no surprise since Wall St runs or inspires everything there like it does here. It's all the same neoliberal regime whatever you call it. Here, there's the appearance of "democracy", as we're allowed to vote on a meaningless slate of policies tailored to appease some constituency stitched together in the hope they'll provide the required 50.1% to gain a "mandate", promises which are then largely discarded after the "election". (We voted the gop out in droves and gave BHO and the dems a clear mandate to address our concerns; instead, the president bent over backwards to find a "consensus" with that same gop, and nothing really changed; $hill promises more of the same) There, people vote on who or whatever in their countries, then the EU imposes what $$$ demands. (Their national gov'ts are necessarily complicit, of course)

(I look at "globalization" as an attempt to impose neoliberal capitalism, consistently, on a large enough scale, interconnected, international and borderless in scope, so that no individual nation will be able to challenge it. Any attempts, such as brexit, to address it, will just result in more pain for those who resist, and possibly for their "leaders" who failed to keep them in line. Such concepts are baked into so called free trade agreements)

The thing that's struck me when reading about brexit from the English pov is that many of the same discussions we're having on this site are going on there, almost as if it's only specific to them, and in some ways it is. Similar stirrings are going on elsewhere in Europe. But missing from their discussion seems to be any kind of connection to what's going on here, or the idea of any kind of interconnectedness between all of these individual struggles. Despite differences in some of the details, it's really all the same battle. Unfortunately, due to the nature of modern media, and the standard use of fear to advance various self-serving agendas, upheavals tend to inspire reactionary responses, and the proposals getting the most play tend to lean towards trumpism and right wing solutions.

What this all says to me is that the time is right and conditions are ripe for a "Workers of the world unite" type of movement, and an international political coalition that supports Labor as its only constituency - "labor" referring to people who work for a living, or would like to, as well as all others left out of the feeding frenzy of greed that's been imposed - and makes no distinction between white or blue collar workers, poor or middle class, since we're all on the same chopping block - essentially the 99% whose interests have been sold out or ignored for the last 40 years.

BTW... I pretty much concluded the fix was in when the cheney regime was installed, voters be damned, because they demanded it was only fair that it be so.

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Meteor Man's picture

It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes.

Even if he didn't actually say it:

Now, I don't want to sound too obvious here ... But has anyone ever wondered why a man who a) never had to stand for election for anything, b) never had to hold an election for anything, and c) would ordinarily never give a crap about anything to do with elections in general since he was a TOTALITARIAN DICTATOR... would even care about votes at all?

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/dubiousquotes/a/stalin_quote.htm

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"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

It's the "new world order" pappy Bush told us about.

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

josb's picture

A sufficiently charismatic person like Bernie can temporarily give the left in the US some much needed cohesion, but overall it is too divided to have a real long-term impact. It's not that there are no groups to organize around, it's chiefly that there are too many, and as a result not much gets done for the movement as a whole, because of infighting, fiefdoms and disagreement on direction and strategy.

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Anyone who goes somewhere and works and gets a paycheck for it is in the same boat. Whatever one's work or job is, we're almost all exploited. Some may get a little better deal than others, and that is used as a wedge to keep them from feeling kinship with lower paid workers. (I think the more you make, the more you're asked to sell your soul) You know other wedges: race, religion, politics, etc. Labor is what we all have in common, it's why the 99% outnumber the 1%'s $$$ if we want to, and it's the only leverage we have over capital. I think labor is the most likely thing to unite behind. The problem is that at least a generation has grown up post-Reagan and have accepted the destruction of unions and capital having all the power as normal...

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Pluto's Republic's picture

I think you have it right.

If people want a third party that has legs, then forget about bullshit idol names like Democratic or Republican or Green, all of which need slogans and indoctrination to grasp what they mean and what they stand for. Those names are easily sabotaged.

Name your party LABOR and you won't need a "charismatic" Leader to finesse the people. Everyone already knows what Labor means and what it stands for.

LABOR puts the reality of a national strike into play. The American people might become as powerful as the French are, and live a better life.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

"You work for someone? You're LABOR." "Does your boss need more power? Or does LABOR?" "They can't make their million$ without our LABOR" "My LABOR is stronger than your capital" "Anti Union = Anti LABOR"

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Pluto's Republic's picture

People will coalesce real quick like around LABOR. And we have the Proof of Concept in hand. Labor did something absolutely historic during the Primaries. They supported outsider-candidates (who are not really even party members) who overwhelmed and panicked both party establishments. And, the Republican majority-labor coalition actually beat the establishment. The Democratic majority-labor sympathizers came real close.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

uniform or even very smooth. It's very clumpy with high concentrations in some regions and next to none in others.

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Is it just my wishful thinking, or are some of our most prolific progressive groups coming together?
I have seen the cooperation of these groups, and others, working hard together to make the Democratic Convention count, but it is all online as I can't get out much. And I have definite biases about the outcomes I would like to see.
No doubt we could do better.

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'Well, I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years, Doctor, and I’m happy to state I finally won out over it." Elwood P. Dowd "

josb's picture

I personally have little visibility into the current efforts to come together for the convention. Maybe you are right, I'm not sure. Certainly the Internet helps as a communication tool to this end. What I'm looking for is a sustained, long-term congealing around a single principle. This is where I think the charismatic leader comes in. For sure, it's not about that person - it's about the ideas that bind people together. That person gives the effort direction and cohesion, as it lets the movement speak with one voice.

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Maybe it will coalesce behind a cause like Climate Change, etcetera, and leaders from other causes come along after the people find the ONE cause to give the first great shove.

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'Well, I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years, Doctor, and I’m happy to state I finally won out over it." Elwood P. Dowd "

snoopydawg's picture

In his SOTU address, but people thought he was joking. Too bad that he wasn't joking.
This has been in the works for decades if not longer, but especially after the New Deal and the people who run this world didn't like to see their money going to help the peons. Our job is to help them make their companies successful and to make profits for them.
Our parents worked their tails off to build those companies up and they repaid them by shipping their children's jobs off shore.
We saw two previous elections stolen when they installed Bush as their puppet and increased their agenda with the PNAC.
Clinton set the economy to fail and Bush, Greenspan and the republicans finished it, while the democrats stood by and either watched or help.
In 06, they ran on 'put us in power and we will roll back the bush abuses'. And we did. How were we repaid? No impeachment because they had to keep their powder dry. Whatever the hell that meant.
So along came Obama promising us the things we wanted to hear, and instead got the rerun of the Clinton and Bush administration.
I think his main job was to shut down the anti war rhetoric and it worked.
I see comments saying that he's ended two war and hasn't started any new ones. Funny, we are still in Afghanistan, back in Iraq, flattened Libya and Syria, overthrew the governments in Honduras and Ukraine.
Now he's surrounding Russia with the help from NATO, and pissing in China's oceans.
And still people say that he is the best president since FDR, even though income inequality is as bad as it was in 1928.
Next we saw Hillary and the DNC steal this election. We saw the democrats stand behind the status quo instead of the candidate that actually represents what they say that they do.
And finally, we saw Hillary's true agenda at the recent event where they were for the TPP, fracking and against increasing the minimum wage and protecting people's pensions.

This is a great article about neoconservatism and global corporate hegemony. http://www.globalresearch.ca/neoliberalism-and-the-globalization-of-war-...

I think what needs to happen is a global work stoppage too, but this country is so divided, I don't think it will happen.
Both the tea party and OWS sprang up because they bailed out the banks and left us hanging, but both sides laughed at each other. The right wing was happy to see people get roughed up by the police. And they don't give a damn about how many innocent blacks are killed by the police.
I have no idea how to turn this around, but I saw people choose not to try when they picked Hillary and Trump over Bernie.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Alligator Ed's picture

It's the nature of the beast. Leftists are antiauthoritarian. Hence they coalesce much like vinegar and oil. The more you shake things up, the more likely the leftist fringe will be intermixed with sufficient "others" to make up a sizable combination. I agree with josb:

It's not that there are no groups to organize around, it's chiefly that there are too many, and as a result not much gets done for the movement as a whole, because of infighting, fiefdoms and disagreement on direction and strategy.

So pardon me while I go all-out Godwin: in the 1930s, AH made a speech, which was pretty effective as judged by the closed captioning and the crowd's reaction, in which he joked about the left having (please correct me if I'm wrong) 24 labor parties (by which he included most of the leftist parties)--the Communists he dealt with differently.

For reasons of social psychology, too lengthy to describe in a comment, no truly far left organization can ever gain enough popular support to rule. Please do not conflate Communism with leftism--it just ain't so.

Take home message: without a charismatic leader, such as Bernie Sanders: a) there will be no pure leftist movement (only a partial leftist movement) and b) a pure leftist party (if such indeed exists) will never corral enough left-leaning people to constitute a significant minority. By significant, I mean large enough to exert political power. Analogy: it's like herding cats.

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josb's picture

Upthread it was suggested that we organize around the shared concept of labor. Unfortunately it would just be yet another leftist group, and make the situation worse.

We really, really need a way to address the fragmentation problem.

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riverlover's picture

IIRC, the EU when formed had a combined population about as large as the US. That was one of the rationales to form an economic power bloc equal to the US. Look how that is turning out now.

Is the Left side too spread out to be cohesive? Are the fiefdoms regional or single-issue? Single issue groups get fixated on something and are impossible to herd into a larger viewpoint. Look at gun regulation. Most Americans are for tighter regulation of sales and types of weapons allowed, but Congress won't do anything. Not quite the same. But our current government systems quash all movements that are not D or R, whatever those stand for now.

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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.

josb's picture

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Labor isn't what it used to be, and that's a big part of the problem. Unions have been so weakened and demonized by both parties since Reagan broke the air traffic controller's union, that workers no longer think they're entitled to much of anything in exchange for their labor. And the "sharing" or gig economy lowers labor's expectations even further. But our capitalist overlords have even bigger plans for workers: replacing them with robots and AI in the not too distant future. So yes, labor's days of bargaining power are just about done.

I think a united front against inequality might be a more effective approach, since there are so many suffering under the big tent of inequality. That's a condition that we can ALL rally around.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

…is that all their problems — from inequality to their essential lack of human rights ranging from voting rights to health care — spring from their deadly flawed Plutocratic constitution. It's killing them, physically.

It was written and structured to appease slave owners and neo-corporations, written when a single communication could take weeks or months, at a time when productivity was only measured in man hours. It was written before the invention of weekends and labor laws. Most importantly it was written with the expectation that the average lifespan would not exceed 40 years — because it is not structured to deal with the latter stages of life.

No rights are directly conferred on the people so that they can be revoked or ignored when convenient. For the Oligarchs who wrote it, it is a license to kill.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato