Or here's another outcome:
Clinton wins by cornering the market on superdelegates, Sanders concedes, and the Sanderistas decide that "real" socialism isn't worth their time because the "real" socialists, i.e. the sectarians, are too hung up on doctrinal purity. Maybe they'll vote for Clinton or maybe they'll write in Sanders or maybe they'll stay home or something like that. But they probably won't be able to find the tiny and self-absorbed parties which, to date, are the only electoral entities in America to make a lasting stand outside of the two-party system.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/why-socialists-cant-wait-...
Here's the key paragraph:
Do you root for Bernie as an almost unique chance to get millions of people to think seriously about socialist ideals, or against him for planting a false flag of revolution? And if you expect him to lose in the end—which, to be fair, most socialists do—should you ride the train as far as it goes, or get off it now and throw your energy into the real revolution? Those are the questions bitterly dividing the movement, as Sanders himself storms energetically from one rally to the next.
The idea that any portion of the "movement" thinks that there's some kind of "real revolution" going on right now is a sure sign of sectarian senility. What there is, right now, is the idea that if we can bring enough people into a popular movement we can have a political revolution, which would be a good thing. The Clinton supporters are utterly wrong, in this regard, to disdain Sanders' political revolution, but they're like high school conformists. Once again, that video which expresses Clinton followership better than anything else:
The only priority less important than disdaining the Sanders revolution in the name of real socialism is disdaining the Sanders revolution in the name of Hillary Clinton, whose busy schedule is divided between playing the poseur, accumulating cash from all fractions of the owning class, and following her right-wing Methodist muse. At any rate, back to the article:
The largest and most established party in the socialist spectrum doesn’t have “socialist” in the name at all: It’s the Green Party, with approximately 100 municipal office holders across the country, most concentrated in California. The hardy leftists haven’t made much national noise since its presidential candidate Ralph Nader sent the 2000 election into overtime. This year, party leaders are banking on Bernie to create an unparalleled recruitment opportunity –as soon as he loses.
After Sanders fans “experience the frustration from his likely defeat by the Clinton juggernaut,” says Green Party spokesman Scott McLarty, the party will send them a message: “You have a choice. You can keep alive ideas like single-payer by coming home to the Green Party ... or say goodbye the political ‘revolution’ that Bernie Sanders claims to represent.”
Folks, I've been a Green Party member here in California between 1992 and the present day, with the exception of the years in the Nineties I spent in Ohio and of a brief time in 2007 and 2008 in which I tried to cast a vote for Dennis Kucinich. And so let me tell you this: the Green Party doesn't support its candidates. The candidates have to drum up their own support, and most of that support has to come from outside the Green Party itself.
Anyway, here's Jill Stein's webpage:
Pretty cool, huh? At best Stein has been able to sit on a city council. I'd like to approach this situation with more optimism.
(Postscript: did you catch this piece?
http://www.thenation.com/article/why-this-socialist-feminist-is-for-hill...
Here's the byline:
The stalled revolution for gender equity won’t be won simply by installing a woman in the White House—but it can’t hurt.
You mean like how having Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister "couldn't hurt" the UK?
At any rate, poking fun of "socialists" is the best entertainment. You should do it some time. Look, as long as we can't get out of capitalism, we're screwed. What do you want to do?)
Comments
You can front page this!
I know you can!
"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama
Sorry Cass...
I live in Illinois and usually hit the hay around midnight or so, about 10:00 PM your time. Joe is on the east coast. Promoted it as soon as I woke up.
No bigs.
Sometimes I write these diaries out of moments of late night pique... thank you for front-paging...
"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama
I'm not done mocking Hillary but will get to the Greens in a sec
Same debate, we had who made Bernie the sole arbiter of what a progressive is? I'm a progressive!...then later, Kissinger likes me!
Ok, to the Greens....here in Oregon we have the Pacific Green Party. I see a problem at the web site. Our local chapter would be in Portland. So I click on the Portland Metro link and see this: "The Portland Green Party (Portland Metro chapter of the Pacific Green Party of Oregon) will meet next on Sunday Nov 8, 2015, at 1pm, at Zoiglhaus Brewery, 5716 SE 92nd Ave, Portland, OR 97266."
It's frustrating! The most current newsletter is for March 2012.
Actually there's a meeting in a couple of weeks at the food co-op we go to. Maybe we'll check it out. As I look at the state website it seems to be strongest in the college towns (of course). I'm going to re-register as a Democrat. I'm currently registered as Working Families Party. But I'll go Dem so I can vote for Bernie, not because I think he's absolutely terrific but because I want my anti-Hillary vote known. If I like what the Greens say I'll switch again.
It's not easy being Green.
Kermit had it right!
"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama
this is my plan if HRC wins nomination
I'll switch my recurring #10 per month (I know it ain't much, but at least it's something) to JS and go from there.
If the Democratic Party wants my vote then they need to come up with a candidate that I can support. The scary Republican crap won't work on me any longer. Personally, I think Clinton's militarism is also very frightening.
We American working people deserve much better than to be beat down into poverty while our sons and daughters and grandson's and granddaughters are blown up over seas.
Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.-Lucy Parsons
Oh wow, that politico article gives me some itching rash
ok, it was new for me that there are so many "miniscule left parties or groups" out there, but right off the cuff, I don't believe for a minute that any left party, green party, whatever socialist party is going ever to win anything and change anything with the electoral system you have. So, my all so wise Rumsfeldian advice would be, you have to live with the electoral college and dual party system you have, and can't change it to one you wished to have. Unless of course you would all decide to rather die in hell than accept your fucking electoral system. No one has taken to abandon the electoral system and replace it with something that at least somewhat resembles a democratic electoral process seriously so far. Is that a question of what comes first the chicken or the egg?
In that sense I am not with this:
Some feel they have THAT choice and choose that route, but in reality I don't believe a minute that enough people would take that route, because they know that route doesn't bring them anywhere. If the Green party would be able to keep "single-payer" alive, why haven't they? They can't by themselves.
I can't understand, why Sanders doesn't make clear, the minute he loses the primary, that he will NOT support the Democratic ticket under HRC. All the splinter left and socialist groups and the Green Party should unite before that supposed loss of Sanders happens, and announce they will support the movement Sanders is trying to build and build a united Third party movement, which hopefully will have some bite and so much strength at least to fight for the change of your electoral system.
In that sense I wished the Green Party would indicate that they would be willing to support the Sanders movement, the minute he loses and join with him together, if he would renounce the Democratic ticket. He was an independent and can be an independent right after it's clear he doesn't win the primaries. That should be "good enough" for all the other Green and left parties to build with him together a movement, HE was able to generate. I guess what I want to say is that I believe Sanders deserves that the Green Party comes to him, instead Sanders needing to go to them. If Sanders is independent of the Democratic Party and I think he should be asap than what he has started deserves the support of all other left groups and the Green Party.
Am I completely off here?
https://www.euronews.com/
I come back later in the evening, have to go, but hope
I get a response. Thanks.
https://www.euronews.com/
A reply
The Abolitionists of the mid-19th century didn't have a problem with being "any left party," which is why they ditched the Whig Party and formed the Republican Party -- and a new second party was brought into being! The problem with American politics today is not that no "third party" is ever going to win -- but rather that THE CURRENTLY EXISTING third parties are not going to win if they stay as they are. The currently existing third parties are all products of their own self-absorption, which is what makes them so inert. Lacking connections between party and candidates, and being so small to begin with, they chose to obsess over internal politics, to everyone's great loss. A political revolution could transform that.
Because Sanders cannot at this time appear to be selling the Democratic Party short. Too many of his supporters pledge allegiance to that party. Sanders is also a big adherent of the "the Republicans are worse" schtick. He is going to endorse HRC if he loses. Whether his endorsement means anything at all is another issue entirely. I'm hoping it means absolutely nothing. HRC deserves a nice tidy position as the Ambassador to the Maldives, where she can advocate for them when they start sinking underwater. I would never make anyone like that Commander-In-Chief.
Some of the Greens are in fact willing to do this. I only know this through hearsay, mind you, because I am in contact with nobody in the Green Party despite having been a member since 1992.
No.
"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama
Cassiodorous, so ...
you don't see a structural problem of your electoral system at all? It's a pretty long time that the Abolitionists ditched the Whig party. Kind of bygone times. What has this piece of history to do with today's world? ... You blame the existing third parties for their self-absorption, in short it's all their own fault? That's an easy way out.
I don't mean Sanders should sell out the Democratic Party NOW, but if he doesn't win the primaries, I think he has no moral obligation to stick with them, nor do his supporters.
I think those pledges are morally unsustainable and nothing more than mind control and manipulation of the Democratic supporters. In my opinion, even to ask to register as "something, be it Democrat or Republican or anything else" is totally a power control game and undemocratic. A voter should go to the polling station, nobody should know, which party he supports or is even a member of, and vote whatever his heart tells him exactly at THAT specific moment. It's none of anybody's business to know who he/she voted for and who he/she "pledged" voting for. I can't stand the pledges, none of them. If at all they should be private business of the voter and not be public. Public pledges are abused and are kabuki and fake, if not fraud, for the most part. Of course it's taught that they are an ethical and moral obligation".
And I think Bernie has no obligation to the Democratic Party with regards to be loyal to them and not sell them out. The Democratic Party has not been loyal to the people in providing them with rights and services they have a right to get. They have sold out the people, who supported them. At least Bernie in some areas tries to prevent this "sale" of the humanity any person deserves to get equally. I don't say he will really be successful doing it, but he at least tries to. Democrats so far don't even try. They shit on fairness and humanity, but they use very fancy toilets for it.
end of rant. ah, may be not.
https://www.euronews.com/
A reply
Was the system radically different then from what it is now? Did the America of 1856 have proportional representation or choice voting or Instant Runoff Voting? Answer: No, and no. I'll tell you, though, what WAS different back then: they didn't worry about "omigod the Republicans will win" as much as they were confident that THEY were going to win. The 1860 Presidential election had FOUR candidates from FOUR parties, each of which gained electoral votes. Actually, this mentality that "we'll win" was there as late as 1968. George Wallace was another badguy, but he didn't freak out about the possibility of contributing to a Humphrey victory.
No, the easy way out is to blame the political structure for something you are doing yourself. It was pretty clear by 2004 what a Green Party looked like that didn't dare to be a "spoiler," back in 2004 -- here's an Internet fragment of it:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&add...
So what does a Green Party look like that doesn't dare to be a "spoiler"? It looks like a tiny sliver of the Democratic Party, which is what it is. This tiny sliver, by the way, managed to manipulate the "vote" at the 2004 Milwaukee Green Party convention -- which is how they, and not their more numerous competition, became the Green Party.
http://www.greens.org/s-r/38/38-13.html
Do you still want to say that you don't think internal politics makes third parties what they are?
As for Bernie Sanders, he's as much a part of that Democratic Party mentality as any actual Democrat. If Hillary Clinton "wins" the primaries by keeping the superdelegates well-paid-off and by scoring enough of the damned-fool vote to make it look "democratic" (think Iowa writ large), he'll support her. Making ugly compromises is part of who he is -- never mind that this is the last time you will ever see Bernie Sanders running for President.
So do WE have to behave like sectarians or like Democrats? Of course not. All we have to do is to form a non-sectarian, non-Democratic, political party.
"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama
You're not "off" mimi, you're right on the money.
You always pierce the truth using questions that appear as guileless. That instinct to pose questions to reason out the fundamental truth about any reality you observe, is the entire point of Plato's Republic. Like you, Plato asked questions in the form of imperatives, although he had but one in the realm of the city and the state :: "Is it always better to be just than unjust?" In Plato's Republic, institutionalised unjust behavior, exceptionalism, is how states destroy themselves.
What is unique about Americans (and no other culture) is that they never, ever ask questions. They only react, and always from a perfect void of information. I found it horrifying that no American ever asked "Why did those people attack us on 9/11? What made them so mad at us?" And yet that question is still avoided; the very existence of the question threatens Americans. Ironically, the answer to that question is the only truth that can empower Americans to take control their government.
This is quite the dilemma. Americans are holding themselves prisoner because the truth is inconvenient and scary. Little wonder they are far more religious than any of the other advanced and educated OECD countries. Metaphysics is their only escape. Divine intervention their only hope.
You are quite right that it is "impossible" for Americans to change the electoral system. It is impossible for them to amend their constitution. It is impossible for them to talk about revising it. It is impossible for Americans to challenge the two-party system. It is impossible for them to demand any of the Human Rights that all advanced nations and most emerging nations have long enjoyed.
There is no such thing as a "partial" Human Right. One either has a Human Right to life and the medical processes that continue that life — or one does not have that Human Right. There is no incrementalism to the Human Right to health care. It is unjust and this nation is hopelessly flawed and corrupt to allow such injustice to exist.
Martin Luther King did not demand incrementalism, not did he plan for it. He went straight to his vision of racial justice, he maintained only that vision, and his vision opened a portal into the future.
Bernie Sanders has a vision. He knows exactly what is unjust in America. His vision isn't about "partial" justice and partial Human Rights in America. His job is to hold the vision so Americans can act.
But the unquestioning Americans react to leaders with a "vision" just as zombies react to smell of a human who is alive. They need to kill it and eat its brain.
This essay began with this:
and you posit:
And I maintain, it is impossible for change to come from inside the US. All political solutions have been neutered and disarmed. It can only be changed from the outside, by the rest of the world. And it will be changed because it is too fucking crazy to be lurching about on the world stage.
[edited for html error]
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
thanks for that comment, Plato, err Pluto ... so well said
... I like very much how you can formulate this out so comprehensively. I start to think you are really right. But may be the shame over it's own incapability to change the system makes them so "crazy" they will explode in discontent and find a solution. I don't know. It's really a very disturbing situation to watch.
https://www.euronews.com/
I will support Bernie to the bitter end.
If he loses, I will likely write him in anyway or give it to Stein. I wonder if the Working Family Party can do more than Green. The system is so rigged, it makes no sense to participate. It only legitimizes the charade.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
As long as the reality is that third parties
have absolutely no chance on the national stage, it will stay the way it is. I voted for Stein last election but this election I will not vote for President, I'm boycotting a rigged and completely inadequate (for democracy) system.
I actually did vote yesterday here in Washington State. We had a special election for a school levy, a yes or no vote on whether to raise property taxes to fund new schools and school improvements. I voted yes. Direct democracy in action.
But under this system of electing a President for 330 million people, I have no voice at all. I can vote for a lesser evil politician then sit back and watch what the 535 politicians and One President do. That's it. They don't represent me at all and I don't want them to represent me. I want to represent myself.
I think the political system needs to be changed and it won't happen by trying to make a rigged system work.
330 million? That's some future shock
I remember, as a lad, going to the New York World's Fair in 1964 where they had a big board with the current population. It was around 190 million. I also remember that it intrigued me enough to look up the history of the population of the country and saw that the number in 1930 was around 125 million. "Wow, it's so crowded now!" I thought at the time.
Fun fact,
Congress capped the size of itself at 435 in 1911. The U.S. population has more than tripled since then.
and they haven't even increased the number of
Supreme Court Justices. Germany has a population of 81 million and our Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court of German) has 16 judges, each of which is elected for a 12-year term, but they must retire upon reaching the age of 68. A judge must be at least 40 years old (heh ... I think that's all pretty good). You might read under the above link the section "Scope", because it says something I found interesting. But YMMV. The court has struck down 600 laws up until 2009. Tells you something of those Germans, who don't want to obey our Basic Law and Constitution. No wonder they need 16 judges to hold the bad guys under control.
Well, just saying, imagine you had proportionally to Germany a good number of 41 Justices . At least one oily Scalia or mum Thomas wouldn't make such a dent in the group and you wouldn't have to live with them for their and your whole life. Wouldn't that make you all happy?
Sorry, for being eeny-meany. I just had to get this out of my system ONCE in my life.
https://www.euronews.com/
The lack of generational sovereignity
…is one of the chief sociological and structural flaws in the US as a functional nation. Generations of Americans are disenfranchised, stuck with laws and systems they had no voice in. That's where a lot of free floating rage comes from.
Jefferson was worried this would happen; that's why he wanted the constitution to be revised every 20 years or so. Being stuck with an archaic slave-owners appeasement constitution created the perfect legal foundation for a corporate and plutocratic takeover of the entire US plantation. Jefferson was also concerned that the politically-appointed Supreme Court would start to interpret the antique constitution rather than dealing with civil cases. And this would further disenfranchise the people. He was right. Sadly, the people are terrified to harness their own destiny; they've conflated the constitution with the bible.
Anyway, I posted this to say that quite a few nations appoint justices for life. I'm sure that made sense in 1790, since the average lifespan was 46 years or so. The majority of world constitutions, however, specify a term limit (if a formal high court is seated). Me? I just want them to get a periodic brain scan, pee in a cup occasionally, and wear an ankle bracelet while performing court duties.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
... That's where a lot of free floating rage comes from...
.. no voice and no fair and just human and civil rights ... the system is generating its own floating rage in its people under the radar and more dangerous than many might believe, I think. Too much injustice all around.
https://www.euronews.com/
Well you have three choices then.
You can vote Democrat, you can vote Whig, or you can abstain.
No, wait...
"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama
heh...
heh, it would be pretty funny if the democratic party started resembling the gos, which last i looked appeared to be on the verge of something or other.
how weird...from the dKos help center
this was posted this morning. I'll just quote some of it.
Isn't that odd? Not support Hillary OR Bernie. I know Markos wants a site that supports Hillary just like the big boys do and just like the national Dems used to, a few months ago. Sending out special invites to increase Hillary's support means he's freeping his own site! What a riot!
lol
Hard to be a DNC blog when all you have is bernie diaries and supporters I went looking for that post at the help deak. It is either gone, or I don't know what I'm doing.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
here it is!
Thanks to your post I realized I didn't know how to look either. There've been several posts there since this morning so it's not on the list of the 5 most recent "questions". But, after trying a few things, I found above the "recent articles" there's a link to "All discussions (authenticated)". Clicking that brings up everything.
http://helpdesk.dailykos.com/discussions/dk-5-daily-kos-beta-design-feed...
Thanks
I'm sure some of the more prolific writers over there would find this interesting.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon