2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumThe Hillaryites are demonstrating how out of touch they are with the working class.
But we don't expect them to lead and organize any political movement of significance.
They really believe that major progressive social changes come via elections.
That idea demonstrates a real ignorance of American and world history.
What do these dilettantes really know and understand about the history of radical mass movements and the two American revolutions?
And some counterfeit progressives pretending to be liberal minded admire the oligarchy and its main political leaders like the Clintons and others. They someday hope to enjoy the lifestyles and join the social circles of that class.
Now that's real politics!

JackInGreen
(2,975 posts)They bought in.
Still cost a soul though.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Democrats belong to one of them, or did for several decades and are now retired, most often with children and grandchildren working and earning incomes at different levels.
zappaman
(20,621 posts)Drink!
Electric Monk
(13,869 posts)The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.
― Frank Zappa
I suspect if he saw your posts here he'd ask you to stop using his name, but that's just my suspicion...
brentspeak
(18,290 posts)Frank would likely write a very satirical song lampooning "Zappaman".
zappaman
(20,621 posts)



FDR_Liberal
(41 posts)That your actually right, frank zappa probably wouldnt care what someone using his name posted. Hed just laugh at the fact that someone that likes him so much to the point of using his name, doesnt actually know anything about what he stood for.
Its like the equivalent of someone listening to a great lyricist and saying, oh i love the beat of the song...sure maybe the beat is good but the actual heart and meat of the art, your completely missing
zappaman
(20,621 posts)Tell us more what the dead say!
Electric Monk
(13,869 posts)"The biggest threat to America today is not communism, it's moving America towards a fascist theocracy, and everything that's happened during the Reagan administration is moving us right down that pipe." - Frank Zappa
Progressives cant trust Hillary Clinton: Whats behind her bizarre alliance with the Christian right?
closeupready
(29,503 posts)closeupready
(29,503 posts)on this panel. Can I K&R this?
closeupready
(29,503 posts)The bullshit here. I used to be a Crossfire addict in the mid-80's. I do miss the hyperbole of the exchanges you'd get on these shows.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)


QC
(26,371 posts)Clearly she never got the point of any of it.
Raster
(21,002 posts)QC
(26,371 posts)redstateblues
(10,565 posts)QC
(26,371 posts)It's not just the Hillary crowd.
redstateblues
(10,565 posts)QC
(26,371 posts)are now Hillary talking points.
Hmmm. I wonder how that happened.
You taught us well.....We have been reading it here for a year.
QC
(26,371 posts)redstateblues
(10,565 posts)TheFarseer
(9,582 posts)He never mentioned Bengazi, Vince Foster, Monica, Whitewater, said we don't care about your damn emails. Get the money out of politics is hardly a RW talking point. Accuse your opponent of doing what you are doing is 1st page of Karl Rove playbook.
global1
(26,094 posts)and next to them cite where Hillary said the same thing.
niyad
(123,261 posts)Petrushka
(3,709 posts). . . IMO, a good indication of how much the Clintons respect workers and workers' rights.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/02/bill-hillary-clinton-labor-union-yale-law/
imagine2015
(2,054 posts)bvar22
(39,909 posts)...most of her supporters have to Work for a Living.
Very few posting at DU are 1%ers.
Back in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, I used to ridicule without mercy working class people (and Union members) who voted Republican because they were voting against their own financial interests.
Now the Democratic Party is asking me to vote against MINE.
My mother used to warn me not to ridicule and taunt people because that was the best way to ensure that I would one day stand in their shoes. Now I know what she meant.
QC
(26,371 posts)but he knew that the rich man was not his friend.
This was a man who dearly loved the United Mine Workers and the Democratic Party for making it possible for him to have a decent life as a working man.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)My father was an FDR Democrat, and had FDRs portrait hanging above the TV.
He frequently told me we owed EVERYTHING to that man while pointing to FDR.
He also threatened me that if he EVER found me supporting or voting for a Republican, he would make me wish I had never been born......
UNLESS, I had a $MILLION (1955) Dollars in the bank.
Then he would understand, and would only disown me.
He was serious too.
swhisper1
(851 posts)Lord Magus
(1,999 posts)You know what system of government we have, right? You know how our presidents and congressmen/women are selected, right?
Winning elections is a necessary precondition for achieving major progressive change.
imagine2015
(2,054 posts)The most glaring example is the undemocratic election procedure for President. It's not based upon the popular vote and even when a candidate clearly has a majority of both popular votes and electoral votes the candidate is declared by a federal court to be the loser!
We have a two party system in which both major parties are really controlled by rich people and big business. You do know who is funding the Democratic and Republican party convention shows. This has been fully documented by credible progressives.
When a family is paid over 150 million dollars for giving some speeches what do you think they have done to deserve such payoffs from corporations and Wall Street? Nothing at all? That's pretty naïve.
I wonder if you think the federal government is undemocratic when the Republicans control Congress and the White House and very, very democratic when the Democratic Party controls Congress and the White House.
I hope you don't honestly believe that.
I think you will agree that some people have the simplistic notion that this nation can change from a democracy to a undemocratic regime and back again but merely casting a vote for President and Congress ala Clinton, Bush, Obama.
msongs
(71,108 posts)jamese777
(546 posts)For this post on the same day that Hillary Clinton selected someone from the Labor Movement to run the Democratic National Committee.
Debby Wasserman Schultz will stay on as a figurehead but day to day operations and power is now in the hands of Brandon Davis, national political director for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) who became the general election chief of staff for the Democratic Party. His selection formalizes the coordination of the Clinton campaign and the DNC, in stark contrast to Donald Trump who is currently at odds with his party and threatenng to " go it alone."
What is there besides general elections in presidential years that 135 million Americans all participate in?
From the American Conservative Union's ratings of members of Congress in 2014:
"Another interesting fact in our analysis is the stark reminder that Sec. Hillary Clinton is no moderate. While many in the media portray her as more centrist than self-described Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) or fringe activist Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Clintons lifetime rating of 8.13% (a perfect conservative voting record is 100) is within two percentage points from those extremists. And shockingly, all three of these presidential hopefuls are even more liberal than President Barack Obamas Lifetime Rating of 10% from when he served in the U.S. Senate. If America wants a third Obama term, three candidates will not disappoint."
seabeckind
(1,957 posts)She also said she wanted to reverse the carried interest tax break.
The day after she met with Bernie.
Debbie was always headed under the bus. Way too much bad stuff about her -- the biggest one being incompetence. But Debbie was vital to use the DNC support to bring in those early southern states.
Her problem now is that her supporters are so anti-Bernie that they will have strokes if she says he's right on anything. So she'll just kinda edge that way in hopes of garnering his supporters without alienating hers.
I think you'll start to see more of these things. Or some of us will.
NanceGreggs
(27,835 posts)... continue to demonstrate how out of touch they are with reality.
sheshe2
(91,396 posts)zappaman
(20,621 posts)
zappaman
(20,621 posts)

brooklynite
(96,882 posts)YouDig
(2,280 posts)jamese777
(546 posts)they're Berned Out and not thinking straight.
imagine2015
(2,054 posts)And you didn't have a problem with that?
So don't preach to me about elections.
The Presidential election set-up in the United States isn't very democratic. It isn't based on who gets the most votes.
We need a popular vote system.
And millions of people are losing their right to vote because of voter suppression laws.
And computers are being hacked into without leaving a paper trail that can be checked.
We don't really know if our votes are being counted in primaries or general elections, do we?
And you have unlimited faith and confidence in the current election set-up.
redstateblues
(10,565 posts)If the thousands of Nader votersin FL hadn't bought into Nader's lie: "not a dime's worth of difference" We would have never had Bush Cheney. Thanks guys!
seabeckind
(1,957 posts)But I guess the Perot arguments were still pretty fresh in people's memory.
You know, the old sucking sound?
Which really happened.
Then there was the obvious pandering choice of good ole Joe. What person in their right mind could not be enthused about him? Especially knowing he's just a heartbeat away.
You also ignore all the other states that Gore lost.
Talk about denialism. Sure didn't learn anything from the whuppin... it's all the fault of the guys who didn't show up to help you.
Getting back to the subject of the OP. Maybe if the democratic establishment hadn't made it so obvious they were abandoning the working class (sucking sound?)
Nader wouldn't have had as much to talk about.
redstateblues
(10,565 posts)What a bad feeling it must be to have voted for that narcissist
seabeckind
(1,957 posts)I never apologized for a Nader voter.
I said I understood why they would do so.
A fact that our "leadership" in 2000 failed to realize because they just assumed that the people who were hurt by the continuation of the reagan economic policy and cost them their livelihood,
would just roll over and take it.
The exact same lack of realization that cost us the congress in 2010 and 2014. And that has caused us to lose credibility in so many states.
What is it when someone doesn't learn from mistakes? Is it worse when they go into denial about the mistake?
Just what do you think a post-mortem is for? Have drinks and cry in the beer and blame the voter?
noiretextatique
(27,275 posts)But you folks never seem to have a problem with them, or all the Republicans who conspired to steal the election, including the ones on SCOTUS.
seabeckind
(1,957 posts)And Nader.
Outsourcing and union busting had nothing to do with it. It was just plain laziness on the part of those voters in Florida.
Ohio didn't have anything to do with it.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)It was ALL Nader's fault!!!!
This mild mannered Consumer Activist managed to knock the wheels off of the entire Democratic Party!!!
He was a SUPERMAN.
There was nothing we could doooo.
MyNameGoesHere
(7,638 posts)SDANation
(431 posts)"The system was rigged, for sure, but in his favor. The first two states? Two of the most unrepresentative states in the union, states that glossed over his failures in reaching communities of color. Its a calendar that benefits white candidates and silences the issues that matter to the communities that drive the modern Democratic Party.
And how about them caucuses? Sanders won nine of 11, getting a significant percentage of his delegate haul from these undemocratic, exclusionary contests. In fact, those nine states are exactly half of his victory total. Take caucuses out, and Sanders is barely in the frame.
Now, theres nothing wrong with winning caucuses as long as they exist! In fact, Barack Obama owes his presidency to them. But designing a system that prevents people from participating and eliminates the secret ballot is exactly what rigging the system looks like, and it wasnt Clinton that benefited from that."
http://m.dailykos.com/story/2016/5/23/1529938/-11-reasons-why-Bernie-Sanders-lost-this-thing-fair-and-square
Raster
(21,002 posts)...and now you've awaken to enlighten us...
SDANation
(431 posts)And nothing but deflection....... See I added extra ellipses.
Hydra
(14,459 posts)It's because people at the bottom took a stand and demanded a result. Same Sex marriage was no different- the now Team Hill flooded this place with posts about how it was impossible to accomplish, the LBGT community didn't deserve it, and they needed to vote for more Dems and shut up.
The people at the top are happy with how things are, and they send their minions out to tell us we can't do better, cuz that might inconvenience some people.
My heart bleeds for said comfortable people.
Well said......WINNER!
MisterP
(23,730 posts)well, except to campaign on it
Trust Buster
(7,299 posts)could possibly deliver. We demonstrated that we understand the cold, hard political reality. Sanders, on the other hand, will see the college student segment of his great revolution fade away because that's what happens when expectations don't come close to meeting reality.
Sheepshank
(12,504 posts)...and that we are not, none of us, are middle class?
The most stupid OP heading of the day
quickesst
(6,309 posts)Hung sheetrock for almost 25 years, now working part time to supplement my social security retirement, and I'm with her. That OP heading was an insult to working class people everywhere, and reeks of holier-than-thou elitism...... besides being stupid.
Hillaryites, dilettantes, counterfeit progressives, admire the oligarchy. When you have to resort to smear words like this your argument is lost before you type the last period.
sheshe2
(91,396 posts)Where were you.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1107167879
glennward
(989 posts)Worked all my life, retired, never asked for free tuition, paid for my health insurance, paid my taxes, voted in every election, raised a family, paid for them to go to school, taught them to vote, taught them to think, and taught them to spend most of their free time helping others less fortunate than themselves. Never earned over $90,000 in any year. Median income without overtime for the last five years before retirement $68,000.
zappaman
(20,621 posts)
RBInMaine
(13,570 posts)RBInMaine
(13,570 posts)pnwmom
(109,825 posts)Last edited Fri Jun 17, 2016, 03:18 AM - Edit history (1)
On the local, state, and Federal. He's spent his whole adult life acting on that belief.
Electric Monk
(13,869 posts)demosincebirth
(12,774 posts)stonecutter357
(12,830 posts)seabeckind
(1,957 posts)Bad stuff is happening and desperation in that there's no way to stop the bad stuff. When it hits a tipping point, change happens.
When FDR signed a bill making the 1% pay for putting people back to work doing public projects, it was a bill passed by a republican congress.
From a different thread:
Moving the labor part of it to Mexico.
Another one announced the closing a couple months ago. Moving the labor part to Mexico.
Both factories are very profitable but I guess not profitable enough for the investors.
Tell me what we should do about it.
We have lots of time. Over 60,000 factories have closed since 2000. Hel, even walmart is cutting jobs.
Maybe you can tell me how we stop this incrementally, don't go too fast, you're rocking the boat.
Need to be a team player.
Refusing to see this as a problem and making fixing it a priority is being out of touch with the plight of the workers.
randome
(34,845 posts)Some changes at the margins, won at the cost of great energy, now squandered.
imagine2015
(2,054 posts)And I assume you're a self-described liberal or progressive.
randome
(34,845 posts)I say tax the hell out of me if it will help others.
Clinton is not the demon you imagine her to be. And Sanders is not the savior he imagines himself to be. Elizabeth Warren has accomplished more than Sanders in his 25 years in the Senate.
TheKentuckian
(26,314 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)Still, I think Elizabeth Warren would make a better revolutionary. She, at least, knows how to work as part of a team.
Starry Messenger
(32,376 posts)beachbum bob
(10,437 posts)radical change doesn't work....
Sheepshank
(12,504 posts)...see how that works?
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)tonyt53
(5,737 posts)Fact is, the better educated whites voted mostly for Hillary. Most union people voted for Hillary, and that is why some of her biggest campaign contributions have come from unions, and primarily the building trades unions before the AFL-CIO endorsement. What do we know about radical mass movements? Many of use were around in the 60's. When you repeat "oligarchy" over and over, it turns in to "proletariat" - the war cry of the Russian Revolution. We all know how that turned out for the proletariat. I'm quite happy with where I am in life. I started dirt poor and am quite comfortable. Being from the working class, I do understand a bit about it. Bernie has had years to lead things. Until two years ago, I never heard of him. Had you? I seriously doubt it. So, what gives you a better understanding of being working class than others?
Squinch
(55,376 posts)
Cane4Dems
(308 posts)but what would I expect- most of you are unhinged in some alternate universe where you guys are the purest people in the world.
I love how Sanders has made fools out of you guys- he is laughing his way to the bank with his wife. Probably getting ready to go wreck another college as we speak.