The Rapid Decline Of The Democratic Party

Over the last eight years the Democratic Party has lost:

The House in 2010
The Senate in 2014

** 13 Senate seats
** 69 House seats
** 11 governorships
** 913 state legislature seats

**The Presidency in 2016 and with that SCOTUS for 2017 and onwards [possibly the most disastrous loss of them all].

Yet when you ask them why they have no real response except to blame everyone but themselves.

All this after the catastrophe that was G W Bush and the lunacy that is Donald Trump.

You would think they would start to wonder how the hell they fucked up quite so badly, but no-

Initially it was Sanders and his supporters for daring to challenge the coronation!

Now it is Putin and the Russians!

Rather than running around screaming at and blaming people that would support them if the Democratic Party was in any way credible and they actually changed course, but no-

The post apocalyptic decision? Full steam ahead with the same old shit!

Hell the wouldn't listen before the election and have decided that hysteria is the best solution after this self inflicted maelstrom is to merely set their hair on fire with conspiracy theories. It never is their own damn fault.

Oh how they get upset with charges of neo-liberalism and oligarchy after having triangulated and surrendered to both in a bipartisan fantasy land of banality. Given the chance to fight they hid under the security blanket of "adults in the room", be reasonable you bunch of deplorables!

Of course they have found succour in the popular vote, discounting as fast as light the 42% that have given up voting entirely. Nevermind how many fewer turned out to vote for them when menaced by an utter turd of an opponent, never-mind their own candidates unholy negatives- it was look at their candidates negatives! We will win without you!

I suppose the one ray of light for the Democratic Party is that possibly the total domination of the Republican Party in DC and across most of the land will lead to utter chaos and disgust. What a way to win, eh?

It is long past time that the duopoly was put out of its misery.

Vive la Revolution.

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have to take into account the demands by labor for better pay and safer working conditions. As bad as the USSR was, it was an alternative to Capitalismo and had influence in various "non-aligned" countries of the world. Even though the USSR was an ally during WW2, and carried on most of the effort in Europe to defeat the Nazis, Capital was sowing the seeds of conflict before the ink was dry on the peace treaties. The Taft-Hartley act banned members of the American Communist Party from union office and instituted loyalty oaths from others who were made to swear that they were never members of CP USA. The Truman Doctrine, loosed in 1947, declared hostility to all forms of social organization except for capitalism.

Capitalism cannot exist without labor being in a state of precariousness: Job insecurity; housing insecurity; unsafe working conditions; potential health disasters and subsequent bankruptcy, etc.

Taft Hartley also banned the effective sympathy strike and closed union shops. The latter guaranteed qualified workers to business but the price was too high for capital and the control was too equal when capital wanted(and needed) dominance.

Private sector unionism is about dead and the Democratic Party is as guilty as the Republican Party. This election featured the two worst candidates of the last 100 years and enough voters in closely contested states chose the one who told lies about helping workers as opposed to the one who didn't even bother to lie.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

Lookout's picture

if Wallace had remained as VP and taken over after FDR, rather than cold-war Harry Truman. Kinda like asking how the world would be different if Gore had won I guess.

We haven't profited from the profit motive of capitalism!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

and replace him with Truman. Wallace was an internationalist, an early elected environmentalist, and very pro labor. It was a mistake that we are still paying for, in my opinion.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

While Senator, Harry Truman went through the books of the war industry, ferreting out waste and fraud by examining their books. He threatened Martin with the cancellation of the B-26 due to excessive production costs.

As I once read in a book about Texas, messing with a man's money is a death sentence. Truman was messing with powerful men's money. They couldn't just kill him as I'm sure they would have preferred. Instead, they took advantage of Wallace and his leftish principles as the Cold War was ramping up in 1944. Beginning a whisper campaign against Wallace, they managed to get enough Party people concerned that a president friendly to Russia just might prove to be a security risk (Where are these "patriots" today?) and had to be prevented.

Promoting Truman as his replacement killed two birds with one stone. Wallace was removed from the Presidential succession and Truman was removed from a position where he could "mess with the money". And the world has paid the price ever since.

edited to fix some clumsy verbiage.

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Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.

solublefish's picture

Taft Hartley also banned the effective sympathy strike...

I have often thought that this may have been one of the most damaging provisions of that act. With sympathy strikes, it was possible for working people to bring a great deal of pressure to bear against the owners/managers of a business, pressure that came not only from the directly affected workers but also from the other owners whose workers struck in sympathy. Taft Hartley very deliberately and effectively prevents workers (a.k.a. The People) from uniting their voices against the wrongs perpetrated by private power against some of their number. Talk about divide and rule!

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and well as National Maritime and IBEW. The Longshoremen were particularly effective with sympathy strikes - "We don't support how you use ships' cargoes, we're not unloading them - they can sit until they sink." The sympathy strike was indeed free speech and did indeed give working people a say in how the political economy operated.

I think it's no coincidence that the FBI tried every dirty trick in their book to deport Harry Bridges of the west coast dockworkers. The west coast was more militant than the east coast in my view.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

"closed union shop" because I did not think most viewers would know the difference between a closed shop and a union shop. Since you brought up the outlawed sympathy strike, I'll come clean and point out Taft Hartley outlawed the closed shop. A closed shop means that if a company wants a worker it contacts the union and the union sends over a fully qualified professional. It was a blow to working people to have this outlawed. The union shop is where the company hires a worker and the worker has to join the union that has the contract. This is outlawed in "right-to-work" states a provision of Taft Hartley.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

I am myself a union member. Several of my coworkers are not members of the local which represents us, but who are required to pay "agency fees" as allowed under Taft-Hartley. While they have no voice in the conduct of union affairs, the local is required to defend them as if they are members. They get to take advantage of our legal benefits without cost.

The local has no say in who gets hired, and the company has made some terrible selections and forced them on us. We have no say in whether they pass probation, for our complaints about incompetent probationers go unheeded. Eventually, I suspect that the company will have packed the local with enough anti-union workers that those still represented would begin to question why belonging to the union is in their best interests, and initiate decertification. So much for the "powerful" unions which FAUX decries constantly!

This, of course, assumes that Trump won't have all union rights laws repealed or negated, and to again have the courts view unions as criminal organizations subject to prosecution.

Edited to close the Department of Redundancy Department.

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Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.

pretty much illegal today anyway?

The bottom line is that revolution always breaks laws. We will win when there is still a critical mass of dissidents after the prisons are overloaded. Killing and injuring us is almost inevitable but will only serve to foment the ire.

Isn't that the way things have always been?

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But there is nothing preventing your employer from taking action against you in retaliation. Far too much of the law is on their side, and has been since Taft-Hartley neutered unions.

Employers can and have fired employees for their political expressions:

Utah business owner fires two who backed Obama By Vince Horiuchi The Salt Lake Tribune Published January 17, 2013 9:42 pm Retrieved by me 12/23/16

Terry Lee, owner of Terry Lee Forensics:

"Love it. We had to let two employees go to cover new Obongocare [sic] costs and increased taxes," Lee wrote. "Found two Obongo supporters and gave them the news yesterday. They wanted the idiot in the Whitehouse [sic], they reap the benefits."

Contacted by The Tribune Thursday, Lee said he picked the two employees in large part on the basis of their politics.

"They were Obama supporters. We just knew they were," Lee said. "I implied that sort of tongue and cheek [in the comments section] but there were other issues, too. They were not top performers."

"Is your political affiliation protected?" he added, explaining that he thought what he did was not illegal. "I don't believe it is, but I don't know."

Federal and Utah law do not prevent private employers from firing employees on the basis of political affiliation. The one exception is if they are a government employee.

His business was in fact too small to be affected by ACA provisions, but he suffered no consequences for terminating two employees and bragging about it being due to their political preference because "they weren't good employees anyway". Try being an employee and pushing a lawsuit for employment discrimination based on your politics.

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Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.

sojourns's picture

I'm inclined to disagree with this part of your comment:

"Capitalism cannot exist without labor being in a state of precariousness: Job insecurity; housing insecurity; unsafe working conditions; potential health disasters and subsequent bankruptcy, etc."

Capitalism has survived with strenuous regulation in the past and even the break up of capitalist corporations that were institutional in size, e.g. Standard Oil. When it was disseminated into smaller companies, John D. made even more money by reinvesting into the new oil companies. Similarly with AT&T.

As it is now, capitalism is brutal. And it will get worse with the new administration already hatching many plans to further commit the general population to wage slavery. However, I believe that capitalism must exist and be promoted but now without strident government regulation and fair taxation. Fair for everyone.

Capitalism is the vehicle that brings the spirit of entrepreneurship to fruition. The problem with current day capitalistic practices is that it is not profiting by R&D and investment for new products; (I exclude the relatively small group of angel venture capitalists from this scenario)--large corporations are profiting in stock buy backs (which used to be illegal) and speculation along with eating their young. The buying up small competitors or innovators of related business applications. Microsoft would be a much smaller company without having exercised that practice in the '90's.

I don't believe you can have a healthy social democracy, the type of gov't I lust for, without a capitalist backbone. Regulating capitalism will not stifle the true entrepreneur. Boy, I wish Aaron Schwartz had not succumbed to the bullying of the government. I digress

What do capitalism and communism have in common that cause them both to ultimately fail? Greed. It is that simple.

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

You write as if capitalism has infinity as its limit. That is simply untrue because the one requirement of capitalism is that it must be in a state of growth. That's why stagnation is bad, right?

To grow infinitely means there must be infinite and increasing resources (supply) as well as infinite and increasing population (demand).

Capitalism is reaching its limits now. Resources are increasingly scarce and increasingly expensive to extract/exploit. The planet is overburdened with population and all of the damage to the planet can be attributed to overpopulation and resource exploitation.

One can read those limits by precisely what you identified:

The problem with current day capitalistic practices is that it is not profiting by R&D and investment for new products; (I exclude the relatively small group of angel venture capitalists from this scenario)--large corporations are profiting in stock buy backs (which used to be illegal) and speculation along with eating their young.

Exactly! They are not producing more wealth (growing), they are just pushing the money around that is out there. That cannot be defined as capitalism.

In addition, we should recognize that the big push for privatization means capitalism, as we know it, is dying - they are now exploiting the public treasure as quickly as they can. This does not provide growth.

The signs are there. Google "capitalism death throes" and you'll be astonished by the number that comes up. Reading a few of those articles will explain what I am trying to say much more eloquently and substantially.

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era of capitalism can accurately be termed "global monopoly finance" capitalism. As you point out, the increasing costs of exploitation of people and resources, even with the global labor arbitrage, has led to financialization of the system where currency manipulation; stripping of assets after M&A activity; and raiding the commons - public schools; water supplies; even parts of interstate highways - returns more profit to those in control than producing tangible assets. This regime's default state is stagnation so churning money and other unproductive activities brings in more profit.

It's monopoly because in many international scale industries corporations administer prices rather than let competition set prices.

The sub-prime mortgage fiasco is an example of exploiting the citizens by bundling near worthless paper and having one of the three rating companies certify these new financial instruments as investment grade on a par with t-bills. The financiers made money selling these instruments and then again by betting against them. Nothing was produced and people lost their life savings and were plunged into misery and penury. The 1% did OK for themselves though.

One should not confuse global capital with main Street enterprises because these small businesses have little more control over the system then a person who staffs a Starbucks.

The imperitive of capitalism is "grow or die" as you point out. With climate change, it is now "grow and die" for all of us.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

sojourns's picture

When you say

"To grow infinitely means there must be infinite and increasing resources (supply) as well as infinite and increasing population (demand)."

I don't know if that is from your personal observations or you're reiterating some part of a textbook definition. The modern notion of growth or its necessity as a measure of capitalistic success should be retired. I do not believe that "growth" in the modern sense is axiomatic. We are bombarded daily using "growth" as a measure of capitalistic success. And the general public has no meaningful way to interpret these numbers. It's feel good bait for the MSM masses.

There is no practical need for infinite growth. I sure hope you don't think that I'm promoting the idea of the continued unbridled ravishing of the earth's natural resources. I do not.

As you have quoted me in supporting your argument, I do not think that you disagree with me as much as you think. I know what I said and with that, it was my intention to point out that there is no single format for capitalism. It can and needs to be regulated. Crony capitalism isn't new but before Reagan's massive deregulation followed by Clinton's repeal of Glass/Stegal, it wasn't nearly as bad as it is now. Measures should have been taken to further scrutinize capitalistic activities, but in the '80's no-one thought that way save for old hippies along with the too few and too far between politicians such as Bernie Sanders.

WE are in the midst of an interregnum like never before. Capitalism isn't going away anytime soon but it most certainly can be tamed if only the political will existed. Now, riddle me this? What do you suppose would or could replace capitalism that would serve as an economic engine to support the needs (not wants) of the world? I'm all ears.

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

be reasonable you bunch of deplorables!

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Beware the bullshit factories.

jobu's picture

Full steam ahead with the same old shit!

The cynic in me has much to be cynical about looking back over the last 25+ years of DLC/Third Way dominion over our once beloved Democratic Party.

It is not difficult to subscribe to the notion that Centrist Dems in leadership are purposefully setting themselves up to be the Washington Generals of electoral politics. Putting yourself in any Brand Named Democrats' shoes, why wouldn't they? Nice work, if you can get it. The Clintons and their acolytes have profited tremendously from their faux opposition to the Republican Party. This includes the media darlings of the left who dare not get off the gravy train.

Nothing short of a complete ground up reclamation of the Democratic Party will do at this point. Of course, Russian hysteria is a calculated ploy to prevent that from gaining any momentum among the masses.

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This is where the Democratic Party took its wrong turn, trying to be the Party of technocratic professionalism and Wall Street. All working people, not just white working people, were abandoned by DLC/3rd Way/New Democrats. Unions don't have as much money as Wall Street, Tech Moguls, F.I.RE, Pharmaceutical and Energy companies, so the craven Democrats fashioned a politics of grievance and personal responsibility ( a mirror image of 1960's Rockefeller Republicanism)"socially liberal," and "fiscally conservative," and stepped right into the abyss of "culture war," politics that vies for the same dollars and power center's influence as Republicans. Voila' Trump... If it wasn't so cruel it would be laughable...

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the "middle class professional".

Johnson got MIRED in the war on poverty. The working and middle class paid for it, and the Reagan Democrat was born. The GOP got mired in austerity, tax cuts for corporations and the rich, and the working and middle class paid for it. The Dems expanded the definition of working class to include income up to 250K, a good way to grow the tent, but it was just another lie, and they used it as camouflage for their real agenda - serving Wall Street and the .001%

The top 01% has as much money as the bottom 90%. "You might be surprised to learn that the top 20 percent of income earners bring in a household income of just over $100,000. The top 10 percent of earners have a household income of more than $148,687. To be considered in the top 1 percent, household income is at least $521,411."

I do not maintain that 250K is poor, but it is hardly rich. It is a fair middle class income for two college educated and working professionals in a household with a family and old age to pay for.

As I said, increasing the size of the tent to include white collar and not just blue collar was a good idea. Problem was they never intended to actually do anything for either.

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

Hit a nerve? The "Reagan Democrat" was born way before the DLC. Lyndon Johnson was not a part of the turn of the Democratic Party from Unions and the "working class," to the suburban "middle class," of what were formerly "Country Club Republicans." The Democratic Party has been courting the former "liberal Republican," and the wealthy since the founding of the DLC and the turn, under the direction of Robert Strauss from "working class," politics to "middle class," politics is well documented.

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I never said Johnson made the turn. I said he was mired in poverty programs, which the middle class resented paying for after awhile. There's a saying about the taxes the middle-class pay. " Democrats give it away, and the Republicans steal it." Why do you think welfare queen was so easy to sell?

It was Bill Clinton that made the turn. Problem is he spun way too far and abandoned the poor and blue collar instead of including them and extending the party's reach.

Hit what nerve? damn right I have money, and I'm not apologizing for it. Am I Bill Gates? Hell no, but I'm damn proud of what I've accomplished and the good fortune I've had. You apparently have no clue what constitutes a fair and middle class compensation. $15/hr is the proposed minimum wage, not a career goal.

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

doesn't make you a historian. Lyndon Johnson wasn't mired in poverty programs. He was mired in the Vietnam War. He couldn't pay for both. The result was a stagnation in progress the middle class came to expect. The Republicans did a fine job of blaming it on welfare queens driving Cadillacs.

The further we moved into trickle down the worse things got for those on the down side. That led the Republicans to double down on blaming government give-aways. If you'd bother to check the actual expenditures you'd find out the amount was trivial even before Clinton ended "welfare as we know it."

There has long been a professional class that is liberal on all the social issues that don't cost them anything. Same sex marriage actually makes money. Safe spaces at worst cost nothing and at best provide another barrier to the unification of minorities and working class whites who have everything in common on economic issues.

The problem for neo-liberal Democrats is the working class has grown tired of accepting cost free pats on the back for their votes from people who are picking their pockets. You apparently have no clue as top what $15 an hour would mean to someone making $10.

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You keep telling me exactly what I'm saying and then arguing with me

Who waged the war on poverty? Apparently, you are no historian either.

The War on Poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national poverty rate of around nineteen percent. The speech led the United States Congress to pass the Economic Opportunity Act, which established the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to administer the local application of federal funds targeted against poverty.
As a part of the Great Society, Johnson believed in expanding the federal government's roles in education and health care as poverty reduction strategies.[1] These policies can also be seen as a continuation of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, which ran from 1933 to 1935, and the Four Freedoms of 1941. Johnson stated "Our aim is not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it".[2]
The legacy of the War on Poverty policy initiative remains in the continued existence of such federal programs as Head Start, Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), TRiO, and Job Corps.
The popularity of a war on poverty waned after the 1960s.[citation needed] Deregulation, growing criticism of the welfare state, and an ideological shift to reducing federal aid to impoverished people in the 1980s and 1990s culminated in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, which President Bill Clinton claimed, "ended welfare as we know it."

Note that all of the programs Johnson supported were means tested To qualify for the benefits he was asking everyone to pay for, on those in poverty would qualify. "low income". They were not "free college for all". They were free programs for people in poverty. People were tired of paying for their own lives and helping the poor. More and more of the "successful" middle class began to believe they had more in common with the Republicans than the Democrats. Reagan Democrats, called the Silent Majority by Nixon, came out in full force against Carter.

Done. Have a good holiday.

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

I know Johnson launched the War on Poverty. It was very modest. It was dwarfed by the War in Vietnam. Spending on the Vietnam War caused a number of economic problems for the American people in part because Johnson was determined not to raise taxes. The Republicans worked hard to associate these problems with the War on Poverty. They lied, but it worked. Part of why it worked was the left was furious with LBJ over the war and not inclined to defend him for anything.

Without the Vietnam War we could have had the War on Poverty without the animosity. The actual amount people were paying for the War on Poverty was a fraction of what they thought they were paying.

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solublefish's picture

The Department of Defense (DOD) reports that the United States spent about $168 billion (worth around $950 billion in 2011 dollars) in the entire war including $111 billion on military operations (1965 – 1972) and $28.5 billion on economic and military aid to Saigon regime (1953 – 1975).

If we just look at miilitary operations alone, that comes to nearly $16B/year from 1965-1972. By contrast, Sargent Shriver's budget for the first year of the OEO (Office of Economic Opportunity) was less than $1B.

As MLK once quipped, the War on Poverty was little more than a skirmish:

“A few years ago there was a shining moment in the struggle I and other have been waging in America. There a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the build-up in Vietnam, and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew America would never invest the necessary funds or energies …so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demoniacal suction tube.” [Trumpet of Conscience, 1967]

Few Americans were aware of the costs of the war, though, as these things were then even less touted by the media than they are now. But because of the demagogic political agitation of the Right in the US, the attention of many Americans was drawn to the costs of "welfare", which of course were painted in blackface. Rhetoric like Reagan's "welfare queen" story was a consistent trope of the Right from 1964 on, and convinced many Americans that they were being hurt by "liberal" programs which took their hard-earned money and gave it away to undeserving people who didn't want to work for a living.

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It was LBJJ that waged the war on poverty, not Carter and certainly not Clinton

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

complex has grown so large, and become so powerful, there's very little that can stand in its way. Instead of serving to protect the nation, it has come to dominate the nation. Its intention now is to dominate the rest of the world as well. All attempts to curtail its expenditures and ambitions have failed. Both US political parties have become fully dependent on it.

A large part of the reason for this is that the American people approve of it. At least a great many of them do anyway. A very significant proportion of the US electorate glories in the prowess, bravery, and capability of America's military forces. They take great pride in the technological superiority of our expensive weaponry, and would sacrifice none of it, even if they could. They quite like the self-image of being Top Dogs, and privately endorse a pseudo-identity of being "The Cops of the World". They believe America's various wars and "police actions" to be virtuous and necessary. They often believe it with an almost religious zeal. They look at Vladimir Putin and think "Aha! Finally a worthy adversary!"

Our current crop of Neoliberal politicians are fully on board with the MIC agenda of empire-expansion. Whatever objections they may occasionally voice are strictly provisional and decidedly weak in the knee. They do not even pretend to challenge the unbridled political power of the MIC.

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native

Bisbonian's picture

This is one Huuuuge reason Trump just got elected.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

Let me know when the democratic faction (not a party) is ready to stand up for the constitution and for the earth.

We face a clear and present danger and yet games are being continued to rehash the election and to maintain budgets of agencies and to allow the corporate coup d’etat to continue

I posted the above sentences on TOP/DK/OS or whatever you call it.

I may have posted this before, or others might have posted it, but it is Tucker Carlson's take down of the ranking dem member of the House Intel committee

Tucker Carlson SHREDS Adam Schiff On Russian Election Hack

This is from on one of the members of The Young Turks

And Obama and Hillary say that Edward Snowden should come back and face the music when they know it is a lie because of espionage act. And a former inspector general wrote a book about the ongoing cover up and ass kissing in the CIA and military

review of book by James Risen in the NY Times

Review: ‘Debriefing the President’ Tears Into the C.I.A

And then there is the House intel report on Snowden which is a lie right out of the box

House Report, Evidence Redacted, Ties Snowden to Russian Agencies

Will the dems change their ways? Will the Wolf Pack from Young Turks make them change? Will Our Revolution change the party? Or will a new party arise from the ashes?

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another job.

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hence Obama gives them cover.

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I'm sure they showed him the film shot from the Grassy Knoll.

He won't cause the CIA any trouble.

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Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.

Can you imagine anything more fucked up than this?

From The Atlantic, Aug 31, 2016

The Inverted Politics of American Exceptionalism: Hillary Clinton champions a concept the Republican Party has embraced and Donald Trump has disavowed.

I have mentioned what follows many times so you might have seen it. Sorry, here it goes again

Jeremy Scahill was in Columbus OH to kick off the movie Dirty Wars based on his book of that title.

I asked the last question. This was a few months after Edward Snowden was public.

I asked: In light of the Edward Snowden revelations, do you think that American Exceptionalism will lessen? (go down?, something like that)

His answer was

NO. American exceptionalism is so deeply buried in the culture that I have no idea what is going to change it.

***
Well, the Torture Report was a chance to challenge exceptionalism, but it is buried along with the other National Security secrets.

Today on TomDispatch

President Big Brother: 1984 is 32 Years Late

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An attempt will be made by the Sanders-lite faction to take over the party, but the forces of Money and reaction will likely prove too strong for it to succeed. I expect more losses for the Dems and more outrages from the Republicans, who will have their own schisms as the inherent contradictions in their own coalition surface with their wielding power.

Avoiding Party politics altogether in favor of issues-based movements seems the best course for now. Voting rights, minimum wage rises, climate change activism, and workers rights will likely become powerful causes in the Trump years, and could form nuclei for the next phase of leftish politics to form around. These movements must avoid being co-opted by the corrupt Democratic Party. Let the party reform itself to meet the demands of the activists, rather than vice versa. If it doesn't, we can advise its followers to follow the suggestion I left them with in my last essay.

Have the decency to clear the rotting carcass of your party off the road, so something better can get around it.

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Please help support caucus99percent!

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The take away from this article is: No Issues, No Politics

We are on the edge of loosing political speech.

This article uses linguistics and semiotics and was first published in in French in 2002

Abstract

Political enunciation remains an enigma as long as it is considered from the
standpoint of information transfer. It remains as unintelligible as religious talk. The
paper explores the specificty of this regime and especially the strange link it has
with the canonical definition of enunciation in linguistics and semiotics. The
‘political circle’ is reconstituted and thus also the reasons why a ‘transparent’ or ‘rational’political speech act destroys the very conditions of group formation.

The idea can be formulated simply: by attempting to explain politics in terms
of something else, we might have lost its specificity and have consequently
forgotten to maintain its own dynamics, letting it fall into disuse. To retrieve
the invaluable effectiveness of political talk, we need to start with the idea that,
as Margaret Thatcher so forcefully put it, ‘society doesn’t exist’. If it does not
exist, we have to make it exist, but in order to do so we need the means to do so.
Politics is one of those means

Strengths and Weaknesses of Political Talk

Political expression is always disappointing; that is where we must start. In
terms of the transfer of exact undistorted information on the social or natural
world, we could say that it always seems to be totally inadequate: truisms,
cliche´s, handshakes, half-truths, half-lies, windy words, repetitions mostly, ad
nauseam. That is the ordinary, banal, daily, limp, tautological character of this
form of discourse that shocks the brilliant, the upright, the fast, the organized,
the lively, the informed, the great, the decided. When one says that someone or
something is ‘political’, one signals above all this fundamental disappointment,
as if it were no longer possible to move forwards in a straight line, reasonably,
quickly, efficiently, but necessary to ‘take into account’, ‘a whole lot of’ ‘extrarational
factors’ of which one fails to clearly understand all the ins and outs but
which form an obscure, soft, heavy, round mass that sticks to those with the
best intentions and, judging by what they say, seems to slow them down. The
expression ‘that’s political’ means first and foremost ‘it doesn’t move straight’,
‘it doesn’t move fast’; it always implies that ‘if only we didn’t have this load,
we’d achieve our goal more directly’.

Why are the curved, the cumbersome and the slow so much part of this form
of talk? Since it is always evaluated by other forms which do not understand it.
It is impossible to use the word ‘political’ without immediately having to justify
oneself, as if it had to appear before a tribunal to receive permission to be used.

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I can see their need in a pre-internet time, but what functions do they actually do that can't be done by a self-organized group of people using social media? Maybe political parties are like health insurance corporations: parasitic middlemen.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

Bisbonian's picture

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

Unabashed Liberal's picture

that Bernie's brand of populism isn't the way to go. (See excerpt below.)

As Democrats ponder their future, Joe Biden makes a plea for a focus on the middle class

“What are the arguments we’re hearing? ‘Well, we’ve got to be more progressive.’ I’m not saying we should be less progressive,” he said, adding that he would “stack my progressive credentials against anyone” in the party.

“We should be proud of where the hell we are, and not yield an inch. But,” he added, “in the meantime, you can’t eat equality. You know?”

He also distinguishes what he describes as the middle-class agenda that President Obama has put forth from the more populist, anti-Wall Street message that helped power Bernie Sanders’ rise in the Democratic primary.

“I like Bernie,” Biden said, adding he agrees with the Vermont senator on many issues. “But I don’t think 500 billionaires caused all our problems.”

My 'guess' is that Biden is suggesting that corporatist Dems (mimic Trump) by subtlely fostering resentment against low income folks, all the while continuing to 'message' that they are fighting for them--to raise the minimum wage, expand Medicaid, etc.--taking a page out of the Republican Party (Reganesque) playbook.

Which reminds me, according to exit polling, DT's supporters were, on average, the highest income after Kasich's and Rubio's (supporters). And, their average incomes surpassed those of FSC's and Bernie's supporters. I'll post the tables at EB, when I've got time to make a screenshot of them. This, of course, is at odds with mainstream reporting, yet the source is 'progressive.'

At one time, I had thousands of bookmarks on the topic of the DLC. Today, huge numbers of them get an error code--since WJC's Foundation purchased the DLC archives after its formal demise in February of 2011. I guess the Clinton Camp decided to destroy any evidence that could hurt FSC in 2016.

Wink

Anyhoo, almost all of the DLC policy prescriptions were aimed at transferring wealth upward. IOW, their policies didn't so much help the middle-middle class--college grads with only a state university baccalaureate degree (and HS grads with decent paying union jobs), but the professional class as it is (usually) formally defined. (i.e., holding a terminal degree, and in a few instances, a master's)

Unfortunately, I think we're in for quite a few rough years. Every article that I've read, has suggested that the Dems need to go further to the right. Or, just get better at 'messaging.'

So, I agree--movements and/or third parties may be the way to go.

[Edited typo: 'it' to 'its']

Mollie


“I believe in the redemptive powers of a dog’s love. It is in recognition of each dog’s potential to lift the human spirit and therefore– to change society for the better, that I fight to make sure every street dog has its day.”
--Stasha Wong, Secretary, Save Our Street Dogs (SOSD)

The SOSD Fantastic Four

Available For Adoption, Save Our Street Dogs, SOSD

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

That's how he was known over at DK when I first joined. He was heading the Senate Banking Committee, and was a reliable tool of the big banks, who all had their Delaware credit card headquarters, of course.

I'd say Joe Biden's progressive credentials aren't as shiny as he'd like to think they are. Unless he's using the word "progressive" in the content-free manner most establishment Dems employ it today.

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Please help support caucus99percent!

I go there looking to see if they have moved beyond being an outpost for the DNC

I noticed that there were 3 diaries on the REC list by Walter Einenkel. I have spend almost no time there since Kos told the Bernie supporters to go to hell.

Well, Walter is on the staff and another diary on the REC list is by Barbara Morell, that makes 4. and a close to being a staff member Egberto Willies. The latter is OK and tries to inject some sense into DK

The point is that the main page has taken over the REC list which further shows the inbreeding and ongoing failure of TOP/DK/eat shit

Naked Capitalism has 10x more important info than DK

Was it always this bad? It has been like this in some ways for years, especially since Obama was elected.

But it is following the dem faction into isolation

No need to go there. Other outlets better. Don't give them page views

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gendjinn's picture

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There has been radical changes in country and The New Climate Regime is now the most important political actor.

They are hanging onto the oligarchs for dear life

Trying to ensure spoils to oligarchs and corporations and blaming everyone but themselves for the election of the worst president in history

They are following the path of the unions which placed seat at the table as more important than principles

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Dems received something like 8million more total votes in senate races.
Dems received something like 6million more total votes in house races.
billary received 2.8million more votes then trump.

And this year is the largest ruub landslide every. The rules are nearly as rigged as they can get, honestly I think we are reaching peak ruub. Once we pass the statistical gap that gerrymandering, voter id laws, and other suppression means provide. the collapse of the ruubs will be quick.

Ruub election strategy is almost entirely built around punitive measures now. Everything they do is about driving turnout down in as many places as possible. Its all about making voters feel like their is nothing worth voting for, or that their vote wouldn't count anyway.

This last election the dems in their grand foolishness, tried copying this strategy, Billary had delusions of a permanent centrist majority party by winning moderate ruubs by throwing off the leftist dems, and equally leaving rightist ruubs with no party to go to. The treatment of Bernie voters was most intentional and fragrant, so as to be a signal for the third way type centrists with a right lean to them.

This year is brought to us by the grand failure of the Clintons multi-decade long grand strategy.

What we need todo, is fix the Democrats, because they will win in 2020, we are at the moment where we can change the party. The third way has been near fatality wounded, the grasp of the Clintons is nearly over. The politicians that are their as a career already see this and have already started moving leftwards, such human garage as chuck shumer would not endorse Bernies pick out of the kindness of his heart, he can see the winds changing and has made a calculated move.

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Unabashed Liberal's picture

Leadership, from all that I see and read.

Folks may recall that Schumer not only put Bernie in a leadership position (Warren already was in one, since 2014), but he also appointed Joe Manchin, Mark Warner, Debbie Stabenow, and Amy Klobuchar to serve in new leadership positions.

And, at least three of four of them, are former DLCers and conservadems.

IOW, it was a strategic move, not a true change of ideological direction. (IMO)

Mollie


“I believe in the redemptive powers of a dog’s love. It is in recognition of each dog’s potential to lift the human spirit and therefore– to change society for the better, that I fight to make sure every street dog has its day.”
--Stasha Wong, Secretary, Save Our Street Dogs (SOSD)

The SOSD Fantastic Four

Available For Adoption, Save Our Street Dogs, SOSD

Taro
Taro, SOSD

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

it was a strategic move, not a true change of ideological direction.

Politicians like Shumer don't have an ideology, they will backstab anyone for their own person gain. This makes them predictable, and useful to the extent that you are not the one being backstabed at the moment.

Much of the third way dems are this way, they are married to their electability, not their ideology. For them a lose collection of person gain, legacy, and adoration is what buys their loyalty. Bernie style politics fill 2 of those, at the expense of the first. Corps can provide the first, and within a limited group the third at the expense of the second.

Democrats like Shumer will follow the consensus of the Democrat base to the extent they can't offset with money and incumbency status.

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Lookout's picture

They are owned and controlled lock, stock, and barrel by wall street financial, fossil fuel, insurance, and drug corps (and others). The rethugs are owned by Koch bros inc.

Time to move on. As someone up thread suggested we need to focus on issues:
medicare for all
leave it in the ground
fight for $15
reallocate military spending
and on and on...

Forget the corrupt dems - they are an enemy to the ideas like those above.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Big Al's picture

party. Focusing on issues still relies on trying to force change through this political system. Not going to happen, not the kind of change we need.

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Petaluma builder adds structures to Standing Rock site

... “It was a ready mix – we just added water,” Elliott said during a call from the snowy Standing Rock Sioux reservation last week. “We didn’t have to soak the clay. We didn’t have to add any sand to it. It was just ready to go.”

blessed mother earth

As the schoolhouse and other structures rise from the earth at Sacred Stone, Elliott said the camp could serve as something of a case study in cob, a construction material he champions that nonetheless generally hits a roadblock for larger structures due to modern building codes.

“It’s a really great opportunity here because, being on a reservation, no building codes are required. We can build houses, schools, community centers — build a whole village out — without having to go through the lengthy permitting process,” he said. “It really could be an amazing opportunity to demonstrate some good, energy-efficient, ecologically sound, permaculture principles.”

beautiful!

Big Al ear worm giver : Pete Townshend ~ Let's See Action

I have learned it. Known who burned me
Avatar has warmed my feet
Take me with you. Let me see you
Time and life can meet
Rumor has it. Minds are open
Then rumors fill them up with lies
Future passing. Nothing lasting
I try to scream, 'cause nothing dies

Nothing is everything
Everything is nothing is
Please the people, audiences
Break the fences, nothing is

Let's see action. Let's see people
Let's see freedom. In the air
Let's see action. Let's see people
Let's be free. Let's see who cares

thanks

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Direct fundraising for direct action. Let the actions organically develop and then participate in them and give them as much money as the people of the World can give. I'm wondering if that's not actually an inevitable endpoint in an optimistic future. A future in which we all come together in a higher consciousness.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4gLfeY8rpU]

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Beware the bullshit factories.

Mark from Queens's picture

Thanks for sharing it. Any time people figure out ways to circumvent the system I get a jolt of uplift.

The fact that it appears to be that the reservations don't require building codes is the kind of loophole that we'd actually like to see exploited - for once, something in favor of the People, not the Corporations.

There must be more of such opportunities. Problem always seems, however, that we don't ever seem to have enough gutsy lawyers like William Kunstler or Michael Ratner, because they're mostly all employed to keep the status quo of making their firms money from protecting the rich and their property. Who wants to fight for the rights of the common people or be a public defendant when one can make really big money sucked up onto one of those thousands of teams of batteries of lawyers employed by the biggest global conglomerates to fight wars of attrition against smaller entities, and then settle out of court while admitting no guilt for "clients" such as the Economic Terrorists of Wall St? Bastards without consciences. Thanks Holder.

Pete's "Let's See Action" is the perfect tune for it too. One of my earliest music heroes also.

Let's see more action, by more permaculture folks, independent farmers/manufacturers, cooperative structures and community organizers working outside of this suffocating duopoly government which is run by the corporations and banks. Power To The People - Right On!

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

Top 5 causes of homelessness in Sonoma County:

Obstacles to attaining permanent housing among 2016 survey respondents:
• 67 percent couldn’t afford rent
• 52 percent had no job or not enough income
• 24 percent had no money for moving costs
• 24 percent cited no housing availability
• 19 percent cited bad credit

Huh. My parseltongue translator of that says landlords, employers, and banks are responsible, unaccountable it seems.

Carson as Secretary of HUD coming soon, with more people arriving all the time:
The sharp rise in non-Latin American migrants trying to cross into the U.S. from Mexico

... The biggest number in this new wave of international migrants are from Haiti. More than 5,000 Haitians have shown up at California ports of entry without visas and been deemed “inadmissible” since October 2015, a huge increase over the 336 who arrived the previous fiscal year.

The impoverished island nation was devastated by two major disasters in the last six years: an earthquake in 2010 that killed at least 220,000 people and left more than a million homeless, and a hurricane in October that leveled up to 80% of some coastal areas. ...

“We’re at breaking point right now,” Murphy said. “We never imagined it would go on for more than two or three weeks.”

Thousands more migrants are said to be on the way.

Sanctuary, yes. Many buildings needed, temporary, permanent, whatever. Precedent-elect El Diablo knows why this is happening: Trump acknowledges climate change at his golf course

“It's diabolical," said former South Carolina Republican Rep. Bob Inglis, an advocate of conservative solutions to climate change. “Donald Trump is working to ensure his at-risk properties and his company is trying to figure out how to deal with sea level rise. Meanwhile, he’s saying things to audiences that he must know are not true. … You have a soft place in your heart for people who are honestly ignorant, but people who are deceitful, that’s a different thing.”

Solidarity

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"Both the Prophet Goldwater and the Patriot Goldwater were lucky in their choice of moment in American politics. For in the summer of 1964 Goldwater had arrived center stage in American history at a time when the intellectual vitality had apparently run out of the generations-old liberal orthodoxy. This liberal orthodoxy had dominated American politics, unbroken for the thirty-two years since Franklin D. Roosevelt's first election, through Republican and Democratic administrations alike. All that the liberals had sought had been won - and each victory had generated new problems. Great trade unions had been created by the heroes of the workingmen - and had, with few exceptions, ossified into ponderous labor bureaucracies like the Steelworkers, or festered with the hoodlumism that controlled the Teamsters, largest trade union in the country. Federal financing had given more men ownership of their homes than ever in history in any society - and created the ungovernable sprawl of megalopolis suburbs. Rigid legislation and scientific progress had raised farm income to new peaks - but the number of farms had shrunk from 6,812,000 (in 1935) to 3,703,000 (in 1959) under this protection. All through the North and West, the American Negro of the big city had freed for every civil right, yet he stood at the edge of violence. Americans had given some $100 billion in aid to foreign lands after the war, taxed from their own incomes; but that once-brilliant policy had degenerated into a mechanical orthodoxy which created as many enemies as it did friends, and in some cases made enemies out of old friends.
The creative American liberal thinking of a generation earlier had succeeded - and in success had become dogma. The essential tragedy of the death of John Fitzgerald Kennedy is that he left his work incomplete. No man for orthodoxies, Kennedy had, in his brief power span, begun to examine the very dogmas that had brought him to power. The great political watershed that his administration marks in American history was his invitation to all men and good thinkers to examine the dogmas and see America afresh, as it was. And then he was dead.
And at that point entered Barry Goldwater to challenge the dogmas too. But not with newer ideas, only with the older dogmas of the Old Frontier."
Chapter 7, "The Making of the President - 1964"

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But then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villany
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;

SparkyGump's picture

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The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.

ggersh's picture

that's just another divide to conquer scheme by the oligarchs.

Our government is bought and paid for,

of, by, for the oligarchs, shall not perish from this earth.

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

I remember pundits writing even several years ago that the republican party may never again win the White House. Google this:

"republicans may never win the white house again"

Be amazed at the results at how this idea was believed in earlier this year.

This idea that the gop may never win the White House became conventional wisdom in the media and in the democratic party. This worked hand-in-hand with a belief that the miracle of demographics would relegate the gop to nothing more than a Southern based regional party. And now, the exact opposite is true with the democrats on the verge of becoming a permanent minority party literally pushed back into coastal states. I don't see this much changing for the next decade at least unless there is a major economic depression, and even then the money which rules the party will not allow the re-emergence of a Bernie Sanders.

Right now I take Pelosi's remark that democrats don't want change is more eulogy than anything else.

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Shahryar's picture

this has been the Dem strategy since Obama ran in '08. Obama said some great stuff in his speeches but the door to door foot soldiers were encouraged to "tell your story" and not risk disagreement with the potential voters.

We know that Obama won because he offered solutions (didn't deliver but we all know that). He was the anti-Bush but didn't campaign solely on "Republicans are bad". That is, he won because of the specifics he offered. Yet the people in charge told the volunteers to avoid those specifics and then, when he won, those people in charge convinced themselves that it was their advice that won the election and that it must be a model going forward.

I've mentioned here before that we (in Portland) had a Mayoral candidate, Eileen Brady, who modeled her campaign on that wrong end of Obama's run. She preferred to say nothing. She'd been the favorite but failed to make the run-off. Meanwhile in Kentucky, Alison Lundegan Grimes ran the same sort of race (for the KY senate seat), even refusing to say whether she, a Democrat, had voted for Obama! She lost badly. And Hillary refused to talk to the press, blamed them for not getting her message out, refused to take real stands on the TPP, Standing Rock, pretty much anything. And lost.

So you'd think those in charge of the party would figure this out, but no. They still believe it was all outside forces. They're not in that position because they're smart and savvy. They're there because they're the most cunning, most devious, with the sharpest knives. They rally around themselves, maintaining their megaphone, blaming others and that's the way it's going to be. The Democratic Party is not democratic. It's theirs! They see it as a private enterprise and they're the owners. Why should the "workers" (that'd be people who believe in what the Dem Party could be) have any say-so? Which is ironic, isn't it?

The Dem Party could be taken over but it would need a flood of people fighting against those now running it. Just as we have this "Resistance" against Trump, we need to have constant action against the Dem leadership and get rid of them. Possible? I doubt it but what else do we have to do? Alternatives are start a third party, take over the Greens, or give up on electoral politics (hey, that one sounds good!).

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