A rant from a loyal Democrat.
When I think of my own purchasing power and how it has dramatically declined since the 1990s, it makes me sick. I blame the 'free trade' policies which were never about moving goods and services over international boundaries - we could already do that just fine. Nope. These 'free trade' agreements are about moving capital over international boundaries. The idea that a factory can move its jobs from Flint, MI to someplace like Indonesia, get tax breaks and even be able to 'offshore' the profits so they DON'T EVEN PAY US INCOME TAX is wrong. But hey, look at GE and numerous others who have said 'goodbye' to paying US income tax.
Basically, the working class has gotten fucked since 1948 when Taft-Hartley passed and it was no longer legal for unions to strike in sympathy with one another. Because, I'll tell you, this 'primacy of shareholder' theory where the CEO of a publicly held company is ONLY expected to increase value for shareholders (at the expense of the workers, the consumers, the community and the world environment, including the climate) is FUCKED. Without workers there can be NO profit, so if we all put our hands in our pockets for a few weeks and resisted the massive pressures put on us individually and as a group by corporate enforcers, we'd get some action. But, gosh, that's now illegal...
So now, I get to go to the store and pay and pay and pay. More and more and more. For less and less and less. I've got shitty, rationed healthcare with financially crippling copays. I have no real economic security because my employer can fuck with me at will - gee, I live in a 'Right to Work' state! Talk about an anti-worker concept.
And the people in my state just overturned an amendment that would keep our private prisons from profiting from the slave labor of prisoners.
The ice caps are melting at a truly scary rate and in ten years this world may not be recognizable, but we STILL pander to shitheads who think the world is 6000 years old and climate change doesn't exist.
So...I think you get it...I'M FUCKING MAD.
The neoliberal economic philosophy of 'privatize, deregulate and gut New Deal programs' purposely rapes our treasury and prevents OUR tax dollars that WE pay into OUR government that is supposedly OF, BY and FOR us, the people from being used for anything that actually makes our lives better. Instead we fund war, 'defense,' massive domestic spying and other useless shit that we don't need.
And, instead of getting rid of the Federal Reserve Act of 1912 and coining our own money like it says in Article II of our Constitution, we foolishly pay back money we should 'owe' ourselves to bankers with interest.
So, because of this SHIT we live in a world of artificially created scarcity, with the mistaken idea drummed into us for years and years that we have to be rugged individuals and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and helping others has become a radical political position...gasp...socialism!
Yeah, I'm plenty mad. But I'm educated. I have a graduate degree. I keep abreast of issues. I watch our corporate owned media and the right-wing corporate propaganda noise machine keeping our people ignorant.
And I want to PUKE.
I voted for Clinton, but it should be REAL EASY for any Democrat in any kind of responsible party position to see how someone as angry as I am could see Clinton as the quintessential establishment candidate and instead vote for Trump, because hey, the establishment has been fucking me since 1980 unrelentingly and now I can vote in an OUTSIDER who will make change.
See?
This is the DANGER of grossly misreading the mood of the people. I'm sorry to offend some of you but we ran a weak establishment candidate in an election where the working class is in near revolt against the very establishment she represented. How can we be surprised we LOST?
Oh, and we've REALLY LOST. Under a Trump administration, we're fucked. So now...I'm MAD at the Democratic party, too. And I have this friendly advice for any powerful Dem apparatchiks reading this rant - GET THE HEAD OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OUT OF ITS PROVERBIAL RECTUM AND START LISTENING. I can well remember how patronizing the Democratic establishment was as it crushed Bernie, who maybe could have won. "Oh, well, none of these things are practical..."
But, LISTEN UP. I don't want practical...I want CHANGE.
LISTEN.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Hillary lost. Gee, what a difficult question! 
I've even gotten banned from a group!! That's a first! That's how mad I am!
1000% to everything you've said above.
