Pelosi re-elected as Speaker of the House
Here's the headline: Pelosi narrowly reelected speaker, faces difficult two years. There has, as part of this vote, been a lot of handwringing reaction to the fact that some of "the Squad," including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, voted to re-elect Pelosi.
Folks, you're not going to get the government you want until you create the party you want. One of the reasons I put out all of those diaries last year about "nice liberals with big egos" was that there seems to be this ego about that says over and over again that "sure, we can do politics within the existing party structure." We can't. Nick Brana pointed this out in one of his speeches: forty years of struggle and next to nothing to show for it.
Find your local Movement for a People's Party. Get them on the ballot. Recruit some candidates to run for office in 2022 and 2024. See if you can't get the Squad to join up once you're established.
Okay?
Comments
Okay! If you let me into the US, I join.
Nick Brana is a favorite son. I met him once without knowing then what he would become. Too bad I had to leave the US. I don't remember when I met him 'working' the folks to organize. Must have been more than 10 years ago. or may be less.
My soul has no holes, but my brain is full of them, with apologies to the cheese in my brain.
Madame Pelosi, another person who can't resign with dignity.
I understand, though I do not agree
Say we threaten Pelosi, her response would be, "So what do you get in my place? Someone who's just as evil, just as corrupt, just as ruthless, and twenty years younger." And it would be true. Millions would suffer, really billions would die, but that's going to happen with Pelosi.
Scenario 1, We force a vote. (Pelosi has to go for this to happen) So we lose M4A (that's a given, though it may take the senate) but we expose the true villains and there will be a People's Party wave in 2022. Maybe. The Demos could blame the Turtle and the PP can't get running fast enough and 2022 could be an R wave.
Scenario 2, We get rid of Pelosi. The new speaker doesn't give us a vote on M4A either. And the duopoly doesn't let us get on the ballot so 2022 is an R wave. Millions suffer for nothing.
Scenario 3, We don't get rid of Pelosi. We don't get a vote, and we're fighting a war to the death in her territory on her terms.
I say we don't have a choice. To quote Mr. Spock at the end of Spock's Command, "The only logical act was an act of desperation." but I can understand why people are reasonably afraid of almost certain failure.
On to Biden since 1973
There will be no People's Party wave in 2022
or anytime, if there's no People's Party.
Does anyone here recognize how pathetic our government is at present? Our government is pathetic because our Nice Liberals with Big Egos have all focused their attentions for the past forty years upon the matter of "OMIGOD we need to vote for the pathetic (D) otherwise the pathetic (R) will win." And in this fight, the Nice Liberals with Big Egos have conceded everything: reality, perspective, moral vision, the possibility of anything better. Now, with the bill collectors and the landlord at the door, the US government doing an absolutely pathetic job distributing the vaccine it rushed into approval, climate change ripping a new one onto the planet's surface, no possibility of travel, libraries panicked by COVID-19 into closing, and no health care available anywhere in America, the legislatures STILL can't be bothered. "I'm sorry, I'm busy accepting corporate 'donations' and running cover for other people's crimes. Could you call back later?"
Think about what it would take to create a majority government at least preliminarily capable of focusing upon reality. You'd need a People's Party on the ballot in fifty states (right now you've got one, Maine), and you'd need at least 220 eligible individuals to run for House seats and 50 more to run for Senate. And you'd need it fairly soon. Maybe they could start out as Democrats and migrate to the People's Party after the dirty tricksters rig the primaries against them. I don't particularly care at this point. Yes, motivate a lot of people by getting them angry. But, as you get them angry, please focus on something resembling a genuine task at hand.
Okay?
"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 agree
However I don't think the 1920's Democratic Party was that much Left. IIRC, at the dawn of the 20th century, the (R)'s were the reformers and the (D)'s were conservative and corrupt. Even Roosevelt tried to govern conservatively his first year. He only turned Left when that didn't work. He was a pragmatist.
Historically, third parties are absorbed by one of the majors. If the Peoples' Party was absorbed by the (D)'s by means of the (D)'s co-opting the policies, I'd be happy. But first the (P) party has to exist and be a threat. If the Congress were 40% (D), 40% (R) and 20% (P), the Peoples' Party could cut deals.
Why not the Green's? They have been around a while and have they ever elected a single Congressman? I think one problem is the name. "Green" is associated in the public mind with smog devices that make cars run crappy, stupid "energy saving" of backlights on thermostats and shutting off wake-on-lan on network devices, all to save a lousy one watt. The public has accepted LED lights because they save replacement labor and cost less to run. "Go Green" connotes "Live Poor". "Go Without", "Sift Through Garbage". The Green goal is important but what the public wants is affordable housing, decent pay, and work place justice. M4A and UBI poll well because the majority sees the benefits. But do you hear this from the Greens? No. They mention it once in a while, but to the general public "Green" means "Ecofreak". Don't argue with me, you would be preaching to the choir. But listen to what I'm saying. You don't get votes by scolding people. You get votes by promising bennies or by demonizing the opposition. In our case, it should be easy to do both.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
German Greens’ secret sauce: leftism, diluted with conservatism?
https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-green-party-how-it-evolved/a-40586834
Though out of power on the national level, on a state level German Greens are part of 11 out of 16 governing coalitions.
But not in the USA!
Why? That is the question. Is it the name, which is good in Germany but not the USA, which I speculated on?
Is it some other reason? Are the Greens sheepdogs that don't try to win but exist to waylay other movements? Is America inherently more conservative than Germany? A good number (~40% IIRC) of the white inhabitants of the USA have German origins. Did on;y the conservative Germans come here?
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
My guess it that only the desperately poor Germans and some
risk-loving quack salvers and outright crooks came over. lol.
Not that I would know and could prove it, but my guts tickle me.
Hmmm, my late Uncle Henry
Born Heinrich D. in Berlin around 1912 was a prole. He never talked much about Germany. He married my mother's older sister, born in the USA of Austro-Hungatian parents. I always thought if them as peasant farmers, but I guess not. My mother told me that her mother bought their house (brand new) in 1930 with $3,000 that "somebody in old country died and left her". That would have been like $300,000 today. The only other thing I know about my Austrian great-grandparents was from a web site from a second cousin in Louisiana. According to her, she had hired a professional genealogist who said they had finally decided to emigrate and were on a visit to the USA. They went back to sell some property(?). Unfortunately, their ship to Europe sailed on Dec 4, 1941 and by the time they reached Europe, Hungary was at war with the USA. He traced them until 1946, but then they disappeared. My guess, and that's all it is, is that they were kulaks and liquidated by the new Communist government.
No money at all in my Italian relatives. My grandmother's parents were actual Sicilian serfs, freed by Garibaldi. My Calabrian great-grandfather (I bear his name) was a prole, specifically a potter, who participated in a brief Southern rebellion against the new unified government in Rome. He fled to the USA when the rebellion collapsed. First to New York, then to Chicago as a railroad worker. Chicago was (is?) a major rail center and immigrants from many companies worked on the railroads. And the stockyards, but those jobs were brutal and smelly.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
I am sorry for having made a joking shit comment
I am just starting to find out of my ancestors. Peasants and serfs as far as I could understand so far. I never digged into it before, just tried to find out who was a Nazi and who wasn't. Most documents have been destroyed during wwII's bombardments of Berlin and in the Silesia. Almost all of them died during wwII or shortly after. I didn't know any in person. The oldest documents I found were from my grandfather. A diary about his life. Definitely a very poor peasant from the Polish area.
I have some who emigrated to the US. They were very poor and pretty much on their own. Didn't last long. They managed to become quite well-off. Meanwhile they are all dead.
I didn't mean to upset you. I am just tired.
I'm not upset at all!
Just providing some data! My maternal grandparents also had an Austrian neighbor. Mr. O.
Mr. O. was a tailor and a WW I vet (Austrian draftee). He was a real nice man and altered my off the rack suit for my wedding. While he was working on it he told me about being in an Austrian invasion of Italy in WW I. That was his one and only battle and he was glad to be captured because he wanted to neither kill anyone nor be killed! He learned Italian in the prison camp and earned cigarettes, the camp money, by repairing the guard's uniforms. He also liked my father, although my mother's parents were aghast at her marrying an Italian. My parents had met while both were clerks at a big Loop department store that is now gone. That's why when a Chinese immigrant friend of mine told me his daughter would only marry another Chinese, I told him, "I guarantee that if you don't have half-Chinese grandchildren, you will have half-Chinese great-grandchildren." It's the melting pot. I can't wait for us all to melt together and put an end to this stupid IdPol.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Fully agree on your last sentence
and thank you to share your ancestors with us. I wished I knew that much of mine.
I think I will not have biological grandkids, so may be I adopt a super, duper mixture of everything ... (joking). Well. if I can still do anything by then.
Thanks for the nice chat. I enjoyed it.
Why always her???
Who were the alternative candidates for Speaker? WAS there any?
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Let me take a crack at some Answers.
Why Pelosi? Because she's a master fundraiser and she's not afraid to use the power of the purse strings. Fun fact: the whole reason she is in politics is she was a rich housewife who threw killer fundraisers so the Dems recruited her.
Who was the alternative? There were none. To me, this is the takeaway I hope people get. The "progressives" had no alternative! There are zero special qualifications one needs to be elected speaker of the house. As I understand, you don't even need to be elected to the house. You just need to corral the votes.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
Now I’m imagining the GOP trolling everyone by, after winning
a majority of the House in 2022, electing Trump as speaker. Wouldn’t that make terrific reality TV? Trump could even demonstratively tear up a copy of Biden’s State of the Union address.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/can-outsider-be-speaker-house-...
So much winning!
Hahah, I love that idea!
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
So we should pray for a heart attack?
A stroke wouldn't do it. It would be hard to tell a zombie Pelosi from her current behavior.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
I've heard the claim she's not running again after this one.
I'll believe that when I see it.
I've also heard there's a granddaughter she's been grooming for a handoff, which I find more more believable.
And at the risk of sounding ageist, the Dems have a real problem coming up as their leaders will be aging out and they have no one in the pipeline to replace them. The "progressives" should be working to take advantage of this, but it seems they are not.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
I'm 75
And I have a hard time believing pols as old or older than I are still in their prime.
And I HATE hereditary seats. Is it the House of Representatives or the House of Lords?
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.