Bernie Sanders
Related: About this forumExactly how self-defeating have we become?
Last edited Thu Jun 9, 2016, 10:25 AM - Edit history (2)
During a Democratic Presidential primary, we will endlessly debate policies, personalities, etc. as though our very lives and those of our families depend on it--and they well may.
However, as soon as it at least starts looks like we may have a Democratic Presidential nominee, we pivot to "But don't expect anything much good to come after Inauguration Day because Congress."
We'll even accept and defend a Democratic President's nominating a Republican to the Supreme Court. Apparently, we draw the line only at a Republican President nominating a Republican to the Supreme Court.
But...why can we expect nothing much from Congress? Because Congress is not responsive to the will of voters, at least not sufficiently. Why isn't Congress sufficiently responsive to the will of the voters? Most humans seem to enjoy feathering their own nests and those of their relatives, friends and lovers; and politicians seem to love being elected and re-elected. Being elected and re-elected seems to require campaign donations from big business and the very wealthy as much or more than it requires representing more ordinary constituents. A feathered nest during post-public career often involves a lobbying job, sometimes disguised as a law firm job. So, legislators are loathe to annoy their potential future employers, aka big business and various business interest groups.
So, what do the majority of Americans do? We do not insist upon laws that will at least seek to cut into this undesirable pattern. We reject the candidate who talks AND WALKS accepting donations only from ordinary individuals. We condemn primary challenges and defend to the death every law, policy and practice that helps keep incumbents entrenched, thereby insulating them as much as we possibly can from a need to be responsive to voters. We even accept rigged voting machines and other shenanigans, especially if our candidate wins. If shenanigans cause our candidate to lose, we may grouse, but, in the end, we do nothing--at least nothing that requires us to leave our computers. Perhaps, we may send yet another oh, so very effective email or "sign" yet another one of those oh, so very effective internet petitions.
My conclusion: With everything in us, we want absolutely nothing to improve--unless, of course, our fearless leaders tell us something must improve--which they seem to do most when the opposite party is in the majority. When they stop rabble-rousing about that topic, so do we. Oh, and though we call them the "public airwaves," we allow them to be in private, plutocrat hands that only help perpetuate all of the foregoing.
For anyone who assumes this post is about 2016 or Senator Sanders and only about 2016 and Senator Sanders, you are mistaken: Not only do I intend to be alive in 2018 and well beyond, but I assume and hope that our children and other descendants will be alive much longer, environment willing, and the oceans don't rise (too much more).
SmittynMo
(3,544 posts)I think I love you
merrily
(45,251 posts)Duval
(4,280 posts)And I love Merrily, too.
Fairgo
(1,571 posts)The depth of our ignorance depends on how hard you look.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Fairgo
(1,571 posts)it gets in the bones and wearies the soul.
merrily
(45,251 posts)So on target, as always, merrily.
retrowire
(10,345 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)Festivito
(13,452 posts)Soundlessness, speechlessness is the background of the word: stupid.
What can we do that does not then teach us to be helpless?
Protesters are treated as unclean pariahs.
Talkers are nutty, out-of-it, weird uncle types.
Job loss terrorizes us so we cannot freely associate.
We're like a nation on Xanax. Our election is stolen: we sit and watch and say wow to our spouse if someone is in the chair next to us because we don't dare speak out of a small safety zone.
Cat calls saying "Wake up America" hit our ears and we don't even open our eyes.
You're right, it looks stupid.
We don't say anything.
We don't do anything.
We even stop ourselves from thinking anything.
We've learned our helplessness well.
We look stupid.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Depressing, but poetic.
I hate the whole concept of learned helplessness, though, so that may skew my perception.
They catapult the propaganda, but we don't have to believe it.
Festivito
(13,452 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)Not sure what you are saying.
Festivito
(13,452 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)For another, if I did understand it, I figure I probably would not know how to avoid it or fix it.
Who loves thinking that we're a nation in mass paralysis?
I accept the field of psychology that says it exists, though.
Festivito
(13,452 posts)Or, what they are, because we're too close to the situation. We're in it!
I'm just trying to refine the problem into something we might be able to fix.
Unless, you already know how to fix stupid. 'cause I don't.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Assuming it is learned helplessness on a national scale, do you know how to fix that?
Festivito
(13,452 posts)The great depression pushed us into FDR. ...
I hate that method. Let it get so bad that even the sleepiest of Americans awaken.
merrily
(45,251 posts)I realized I did not really mean stupid, because native intelligence is not something people can choose. I feel bad I used in the title and it's not what I meant anyway.
I think people who are working and raising families and worrying about losing jobs just don't have time or energy to pay attention as political posters do. And I am not even sure paying attention is the issue. We're not feeling great, we don't know why and we don't know what to do about it.
I have to do some stuff. If you have anything more thoughts, please post them with the understanding I may not be able to reply right away. Thank you.
Festivito
(13,452 posts)...as the cartoon put it.
Right! The current economics of purer and more pure capitalism leaves us helpless, the more pure the more helpless. And, the business owners are so scared that they hoard rather than to increase wages. And, the resulting lack of money in the economy makes for less spending by many which makes it harder for more varied work to be created and also for workers to fight for more wages -- as we all spiral down the rabbit hole with the rich guys comforted only that they might be the last ones to drown. So, they hoard more to keep themselves safe for an extra minute of maybe being above water level at the end.
Depressing. True.
Ah. What to do.
merrily
(45,251 posts)I think I'll let you tell me what to do, if you know.
Fairgo
(1,571 posts)And therein lies the hope.
I lean to social psychology. Lewin's original work (before we had terms like "empowerment" and "resilience" was all about how oppressed groups can organise, care & support each other, and in the collective push back against the oppressors and claim a better community life. A theory of social change. What you are reaching for in your sense of "self-defeating" is anomie...isolation...not so much learned helplessness as habituated disempowerment. Read "Bowling Alone" to get a sense of how we have, as a wester culture, moved into a suburban desert of isolation. It is the self fulfilling destiny of the capitalist self-organising system...chasing soma and profit, building sentient golem corporations that feed us empty calories and urge us to sit in rows, staring at glowing screens. However numb we become, welded in our despair, the tonic is always within reach...other people in honest discourse in real time, in real flesh, in a shared pursuit of a real goal. You won't find it in DU, this is the proxy for real life, a virtual island of lotus eaters. Real life is outside, in the dirt, in your community. That's where an honest thought has a chance to grow into something that can change the world. Bernie was the latest reminder of just how powerful community can be. He won by losing. If you understand how that is true, you have the answer to the question behind your words.
merrily
(45,251 posts)If shenanigans cause our candidate to lose, we may grouse, but, in the end, we do nothing--at least nothing that requires us to leave our computers. Perhaps, we may send yet another oh, so very effective email or "sign" yet another one of those oh, so very effective internet petitions.
So, yes, I understand it.
Fairgo
(1,571 posts)Cheers!
Bernin4U
(812 posts)We've been trained on "no we can't" for years. Finally someone comes along, who's anything but a stranger to the system, and tells us it doesn't have to be this way, if we simply stand up for ourselves, and stand together. But the cynical, apologist, chicken wing of course will have none of it.
So to me, it seems the idea that actual representative democracy as something that can't be achieved, has become more a feature than a bug. "Crazy Bernie" is Exhibit A.
merrily
(45,251 posts)We know what the motivations are on the other side and we know what Bernie's motivations are. And he is not done. We should not be done, either.
Bernin4U
(812 posts)When lowered expectations is already the (leading) candidate's entire platform.
merrily
(45,251 posts)people, but the vocal among us. Commentators and surrogates on TV, posters.
Remember, the OP is not only about 2016. We did the same thing with Obama and we'll probably do the same thing with the next one.
Bernin4U
(812 posts)But then as we know, his "I've got this," quickly turned into our wondering exactly what "this" is. Is he really playing a cunning chess game, thinking 5 moves ahead? Or is the cunning part instead in his ability to make us believe what we want, when his true intentions were never close to that?
Either way, the results have led us to, "vote for me, because you know I'm the best, but whatever bad happens, it won't be my fault." Which is why I ask "what pivot," because we've been so well trained to be cynical and jaded and you're-lucky-to-have-anything.
But then came the Millennials. For whatever reason, they just don't seem to buy into the whole notion of "dog eat dog". Can they hang onto it long enough, until the cynical, cowardly (majority of?) boomers are gone?
merrily
(45,251 posts)re-dividing 1% of the pie* every time someone else comes to the table.
I don't know if they bought it before Bernie, but they don't buy it now. Neither do the millions who voted for Bernie.
*My percentages may be off. I went for concept not 100% accuracy.
Triana
(22,666 posts)Martin Eden
(12,864 posts)It's a given that without changing Congress, very little real progress can be achieved. We have to be tireless in our effort to get rid of Reps who don't represent the interests of the 99%.
Unfortunately, I don't have much confidence that the Democratic nominee for POTUS shares our progressive goals.
merrily
(45,251 posts)My point is, they served under many Presidents. As the thread starter points out, incumbents tend to get re-elected. It's very much worth getting the right people in.
Dark n Stormy Knight
(9,760 posts)the voting apparatus with secret "proprietary" software, for instance.
noiretextatique
(27,275 posts)Diminished expectations of government has been SOLD as the norm for so long, too many have accepted it as normal. The enthusiasm for a lackluster centrist in la teflon pantsuit is astounding.
merrily
(45,251 posts)what is possible. Let's hope they neither forget nor see it as an aberration.