Inside v. Outside is a false choice.
True political movements transcend mere party affiliation.
If you feel the best use of your time and talents is to work inside the Democratic party to further Progressive policies, more power to you.
If you feel the best use of your time and talents is to work outside of the Democratic party to further Progressive policies, more power to you.
We need you all!
If we are ever going to create the positive change we so desperately seek in this country, we need everybody to advocate from whatever vantage point he or she feels most capable.
We need advocates within the Dems who are not content to let the crooks run the show. We need advocates outside the Dems who will create real competition for seats and thereby force the Dems to reform or die. Heck, we even need advocates within the Republican party to make those voters aware that many of our issues are also theirs.
There are many paths to achieving change, and we need Progressives marching on each and every one of them if we are to create the popular consensus necessary to make that change a reality.
Bickering over which group is best able to effect the change we all seek solves nothing, and is in fact tragically counterproductive, because it only serves to divide us over petty labels and thereby aid those opposed to our common goals.
This movement is bigger than any one party. It's bigger than any one country. Indeed, all over the world, we see more and more people on every continent fighting their own individual battles in their own ways for a more just and egalitarian future.
Each of us has a role to play in making that future a reality, and it is both our privilege and our right that each of us decide for ourself what that role may be.
Inside OR Outside is a conceit we can ill afford in these perilous times.
Inside AND Outside is the strategy that gives us our best chance of success.
Comments
Eyes on the prize.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
On this, we are in full agreement.
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.
POC or White, Left or Right, LGBT or straight, male or female,
minority or majority, “on the [autistic] spectrum” or neurotypical, religious or agnostic or atheist — I don’t think any of those polarizations should divide people as much as they do either.
But that’s just me.
Pro 1% or pro 99%, honest or dishonest, or for war or anti-war, on the other hand — now those are worthwhile distinctions that, in my view, should be harder for political activists to hand-wave and paper over than they currently are.
Right.
We need to keep the focus squarely on issues, not foibles.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
For close range, a short gun works best.
One thing I know for sure, each solution must create pain or the status quo. If it creates pleasure for the status quo, like electing Northrop, it is a setback.
Futility seems to be the soup of the decade.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Amen.
Frederick Douglass said it best in the 19th century and it's still true today:
"Just call me Hillbilly Dem(exit)."
-H/T to Wavey Davey
It's not a setback.
The Corporate Dems merely held their ground in the VA race against an equally bad Gooper. Let's not give them more credit than they deserve.
Not to mention they were riding the coattails of a Progressive surge down ballot. That is bound to happen occasionally in General elections.
The real action from here on in is going to be in the primaries.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
It's a good point. A single strategy is easily countered.
Every successful political movement against major powers has always relied on a carrot and stick strategy.
I have no problem playing "Bad Cop" in this situation. After all, The 1% better work with the more reasonable people who might possibly be satisfied with socialized health care, living wages, decent rent and hell with it, ALL of Roosevelt's Four Freedoms...
Because the alternative is the angry mob with torches.
It is after all, how we got the New Deal in the first place.
Edit: The Right wing has been using this strategy for YEARS, I don't think I need to point out. The reason the Nazis are on the street... is so that the politicians will work with the NRA.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
I can't remember who posted a link about this here
But it was about how FDR was able to pass the New Deal legislation, in part because the TPTB conceded to FDR in return for escaping prosecution after they were caught hatching a plan to quietly overthrow the government. All of which was brought to FDR's attention by a respected general who was approached by a cabal of robber barons and became a whistleblower.
Also fascinating was how the congressional testimony of the whistleblower was done behind closed doors but records of it remained. Wish I had the link...
.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Just do a search on "Smedley Butler"
The link you want will pop up sooner or later.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Thank you!
I'll do that
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
I would go so far as saying forget political parties
Here in the red state of Alabama you've got to reach out to republicans cause democrats have largely disappeared. (Although we do have a chance of defeating Roy Moore with democrat Doug Jones).
Ralph Nader continues to remind us there are many right-left issues we can unite around...starting with (IMO) getting us out of these senseless wars (where we continue to create "terrorists"), and bring our people and resources home to help in the US. This message resonates with everyone I've talked with right and left.
Fair elections are another common issue...and there are many more. Find common ground and resist the imposed division based on class and race and religion and...
Sadly neither party is the anti-war party, neither party works for working people, both parties are controlled by the elites. From my view we need a focus on policy not party. We have to find allies where we can, and not alienate those who hold similar positions. For example Rand Paul is at least anti-war although I find his anti-government assistance position revolting. From my view, we need to work with whoever supports our positions in whatever ways are open to us.
I do like you message of unity.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Amen
I support the progressive insurgency within the Dems.
I mostly support the Greens.
I even support the Libertarians in some instances.
I don't support giving up.
Wrote this with you in mind.
Your hard work day in and day out is an inspiration to us all.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg?
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.
He's over there =>
SPLITTER!
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
You don't try to reform the mafia from within
You burn it to the ground. Working with criminals (DNC) just makes you complicit in their corruption, and just makes it far too easy to have good ideas and good people go to a party that will let both wither on the vine.
Until both parties are in the dustbin of history we will never see real change.
See, their morals, their code... it's a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be.
-The Joker-
And just how do you
do that?
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.
The "party" is just a brand.
Whoever controls the party gets the benefit of the brand. No, you will never get the current mafiosi who control the party to do anything useful -- but burning the party to the ground makes no more sense than burning down Little Italy to get rid of the Mafia, or blowing up a Cathedral to get rid of the corrupt priests.
You don't burn the party to the ground, you launch a hostile takeover. You don't try to get the people "in charge" -- those who have currently seized control of the brand -- to do what you want; rather, using any legal means available, you get rid of the people "in charge", and take their places. They do not own the party; they do not define the party; they are not the party, and the party is not them. Don't destroy the party, don't reform the party: BECOME the party.
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.
@UntimelyRippd If we're really
If we're really adopting a live-and-let-live-work-where-you-want philosophy, then wouldn't the responses to Dragonkat be more like "If that's how you feel, then work outside, nobody's stopping you, and you might even do some good. But please don't tell other people how or where to work?"
Way I see it, we have three choices. We can continue as we were, with people occasionally fighting over this issue. We can agree to disagree, with the overarching philosophy that people should work wherever and however they want, whether we think it's a good idea or not. We can split, like most communities do.
Personally, I have a smaller goal: maintain a space for communication that isn't dominated by tribalism and character attacks, but by reason and evidence, a place where people can argue fiercely over issues (including this one) without attacking each other's characters or telling lies. The only unity I'm interested in is a loyalty to those standards.
It's possible that not even that center can hold, since the two sides are seeing fundamentally different realities, but I think it's still worth a try.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
sure. despite my framing that mini-rant in the imperative,
it was intended as more of a justification than a marching directive.
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.
Brand is one part
Last year I also described a party as an attractor in political phase space. The Centre of the attractor moves around in time, and not all movements are smooth. I wrote one of my few postings about this last year (the one on catastrophe theory). I’m wondering now if Tuesdays socialist victories are an example of this.
(Sorry to be so vague but I’m on a crowded commuter train.)
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
mafia
Actually, sometimes you do work to burn it down from within.
Google yourself some "Donnie Brasco" for details!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Who said anything about 'with'?
Working WITHIN the party AGAINST the corrupt elements is what I'm talking about.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
@Dragonkat
The idea seems to be to replace the corrupt with those who actually work for, rather than against, the public and country's good.
A Fair Voting system and multiple parties to provide real choice are needed, but the game is so set against anyone outside of the Two-Faced Corporate-Party Trade-Off being permitted even enough votes to reach the debates that when Green Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein attempted entry to the Presidential debates, she was kidnapped by police and kept hand-cuffed to a chair for the entire duration of the debate. So all pacific options must be tried, in the hope that one or more may succeed, but the reality of what's being dealt with must be taken into account.
Electoral change is not easily accomplished in a fascist State.
Edit: my upvotes have long been iffy about staying on, but today I've re-clicked some comments - nearly (edit: all) on this thread, it seems - several times, only to have them vanish immediately, which I'd just started deliberatively checking. So you guys are definitely getting more upvotes/readers than are shown... just thought I'd mention.
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.
Amen. Or, hell, like
me, work both Inside AND Outside the party, hedging my bet. From what I've personally experienced (as well as talking to others outside my local party), the party is borked from Top to Bottom. It's not just Washington. It's everywhere, across the board, sea to shining sea. I walked out on the party here with an hasta la vista becuz I could no longer stand playing Repub Lite, where it counted more to hobnob with the "right people" (Repubs) than actually beating them at the polls. But it's slowly turning, some of the old guard gone, and I'm creeping back in. Slowly. Point being, there are several ways to crack an egg. Find one that works for you and work it.
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.
The Bernie approach:
Some people object to the lack of clarity, but he's shown it can be an effective tactic.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
Autonomous Action
A little late to the party here. Autonomous Action was a big theme at Occupy. Everybody sees the problem and the solutions a little bit different. Choose the path that suits your talents and inclinations and try it out.
Re-evaluate the results and adapt. There will never be universal agreement on the "best" approach to reform. Or try herding cats and see how that works out for you.
"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
We need to demand our candidates be both.
Inside, then outside. If they run from within the Dem Party system and find their primary is rigged, then they need to declare as an Independent. The purpose of primarying the Dem candidates is to get rid of the corporate sellouts. If they play dirty, so should we. An independent progressive alternative will strip them of enough votes to cost them the election to the Republican or even give the progressive the win. Either way, more and more dirty Dems will be ousted and that's the goal.
The dirty Dems will scream hell and high water, but the public will come to realize that there is an option out there that's not the lesser of two evils and the Dems whining will fade away as they do.
YESSSSS!!!!! Thank you!
YESSSSS!!!!! Thank you! Possibly the most important point that can be made!
Solidarity!
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.
Outside Inside
http://thetubes.com/disco/oi.htm
She’s A Beauty, they said, so go with Her.
But for me it was more like No Not Again!
Rigging turned the primaries into The Monkey Time.
So, many DemExited to get Out Of The Business.
Throwing stones at Trump while living in a Glass House?
U.S. democracy and justice, just a Fantastic Delusion?