Interactive graphic of Hillary Clinton's connections to the Forbes top 400

And I believe it is wholly deliberate.

We misunderstand politics and our politicians in 2014 when we assume their goal is always to win. That was the old system, democracy.

In oligarchy, the goal is using the two parties you own in whichever way best furthers the corporate agenda of the oligarchy.

This is not a problem of bad strategy in a functioning democratic contest. This is oligarchy pretending to be democracy. Corporate Democrats did everything possible to depress turnout in the midterms, from their utter lack of a positive agenda, to the outright campaign to demoralize and insult the base online, to the "Accept Doom" DCCC email campaign:

+100000 You see clearly.

The bipartisan oligarchy thinks we are stupid,

and they continue to count on it, by making this into yet one more sham Red vs. Blue "battle" to distract us from the fact that both corporate parties wanted this thieving corporate system.

No WAY corporatists on either side will allow the mandate to be repealed; it is already skyrocketing insurance company profits beyond their wildest dreams. The insurance companies wrote the thing, and it was *designed* to entrench an exploitative, profit-sucking system of middlemen that keeps costs spiraling at the expense of human beings who need care. Look instead for more "loopholes" like the one the Obama administration *already* carved out in order to help the companies shift even more costs to patients.

If most people understood how it is rigged, and how much is being stolen, they would be outraged. The mandate was a corporate wet dream - it ensures that obscene levels of money that should be going to health care instead are given as a cut to these thieving health insurance middlemen. It ensures continued spiraling costs. And it ensures a continued motive to deny care for profit.

It seems to be the new industry:

Democrats by definition need a democracy to function in.

We're not a democracy anymore. We're an oligarchy.

US Is an Oligarchy Not a Democracy, says Scientific Study
http://www.businessinsider.com/major-study-finds-that-the-us-is-an-oligarchy-2014-4
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024819356

Mass spying on Americans? Both parties support it.
Handing the internet to corporations? Both parties support it.
Austerity for the masses? Both parties support it.
Cutting social safety nets? Both parties support it.
Corporatists in the cabinet? Both parties support it.
Tolling our interstate highways? Both parties support it.
Corporate education policy? Both parties support it.
Bank bailouts? Both parties support it.
Ignoring the trillions stashed overseas? Both parties support it.
Trans-Pacific Job/Wage Killing Secret Agreement? Both parties support it.
TISA corporate overlord agreement? Both parties support it.
Drilling and fracking? Both parties support it.
Wars on medical marijuana instead of corrupt banks? Both parties support it.
Deregulation of the food industry? Both parties support it.
GMO's? Both parties support it.
Privatization of the TVA? Both parties support it.
Immunity for telecoms? Both parties support it.
"Looking forward" and letting war criminals off the hook? Both parties support it.
Deciding torturers are patriots? Both parties support it.
Militarized police and assaults on protesters? Both parties support it.
Indefinite detention? Both parties support it.
Drone wars and kill lists? Both parties support it.
Targeting of journalists and whistleblowers? Both parties support it.
Private prisons replacing public prisons? Both parties support it.
Unions? Both parties view them with contempt.
Trillion dollar increase in nuclear weapons? Both parties support it.
New war in Iraq. Both parties support it.
New war in Syria. Both parties support it.
Carpet bombing of captive population in Gaza. Both parties support it.

More Third Way talking points conveniently omitting Third Way corporate complicity.

Corporate Democrats pretend to share liberal outrage at corporate policies enacted by Republicans, but conveniently omit their complicity and parallel betrayals. We have united oligarchy now, not gridlocked democracy. You wrote with indignation:

Are you okay with GOP congress voting to repeal the ACA, enact the Ryan budget, separate food assistance from the farm bill, abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, privatize Social Security, open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage, move U.S. immigration policy further toward harsh and cruel treatment of immigrant families, etc. etc.?

But let's be honest about the corporate Dems' actual record:

1. Are you okay with GOP congress voting to repeal the ACA,

Oh, please. No way the ACA gets repealed. It is a corporate plan written by the insurance companies, and the mandate (which was the salivated-after goal in the first place) is already reaping the bloodsucking middlemen profits beyond their wildest dreams. No WAY the corporatists allow it to be overturned. Look instead for more "loopholes" like the one The Obama administration *already* carved out in order to help the companies shift even more costs to patients.

"Why Health Insurance Shareholders Are Loving Obamacare"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025517310

Aetna Health Insurance will double Revenues to $100 billion by 2020 thanks to Obamacare
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014670789

ObamaCare Enriches The Health Insurance Giants and Their Shareholders
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2013/10/01/obamacare-enriches-only-the-health-insurance-giants-and-their-shareholders/

So far in 2013 the value of the S& P health insurance index has gained 43%. Thats more than double the gains made in the broad stock market index, the S & P 500. The shares of CIGNA are up 63%, Wellpoint 47% and United Healthcare 28%.

Obama administration quietly approves new Obamacare loophole benefiting insurance companies.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024970298

2. enact the Ryan budget

We *already* watched the Obama administration and corporate Democrats collude with corporate Republicans during the debt ceiling Kabuki to demand austerity *even more severe than Paul Ryan originally asked for.* That was the POINT of Obama's putting Social Security on the table! ...So they could slash in the way they did and get cover for it by saying, "Well, at least they didn't cut Social Security! Let me repeat: Corporate Democrats sought austerity *greater* than that originally sought by Paul Ryan:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023791304#post14

3. separate food assistance from the farm bill.

Ahem, you sure are trying hard not to notice that Obama just signed *another* round of food stamp cuts *AND* a farm bill based on "pension smoothing."

Feb 2014: President Obama signs $8.7 billion food stamp cut into law | MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/obama-signs-food-stamp-cut

Democrats Accept More Cuts in Food Stamp Program | BillMoyers.com
http://billmoyers.com/2013/05/28/democrats-accept-more-cuts-in-food-stamp-program/

4. open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling,

And Obama sells off the Gulf of Mexico for the same reason, PLUS expands drilling and fracking, PLUS advocates privatizing the Tennessee Valley authority, PLUS is pushing to enact the most serious threats to the environment in recent memory: the TPP and the TISA. Psst: You CANNOT get on your high horse and claim to care about and be protecting the environment while pushing these devastating trade deals that cede our ability to use our own LAWS to protect against environmental abuse by corporations.

5. amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage

Sure took Obama a good while to evolve on gay marriage. And corporatists on both sides of the aisle will continue to cynically use important issues of human rights as wedges to keep the people divided and unable to unite against the bipartisan corporate economic, war, and police state agenda that both corporate parties are using to loot and exploit us.

6. move U.S. immigration policy further toward harsh and cruel treatment of immigrant families

And double that comment on using and abusing immigrants! We have been waiting for SIX years for Obama to take a stand on this issue, and we were just devastated in the *second* midterm elections of his presidency because corporate Dems colluded with Republicans by not pushing these issues and instead sending out "Accept Doom" emails through the DCCC and deliberately insulting the base in online campaigns. Meanwhile, Obama has continued arbitrary quotas *in his own 2015 budget* for private prison beds and is aggressively expanding private prisons that overwhelmingly house immigrants and people of color.


What an ugly charade corporate Democrats' denial of their actual record and agenda is. What a vicious corporate oligarchy pretending to be a democracy. What pathetic Third Way corporate talking points, when the actual relentless advocacy of corporate policy by corporate Democrats, in collusion with corporate Republicans, is so clear and in our faces.

+1 The Third Way and corporate propaganda work very hard to normalize that low expectation.

We have gone from a conception of parties as chosen tools for representation and real positive change to advance our ideals and goals...

to accepting that they are okay if they just don't hurt us...

to accepting that it's okay if they just don't hurt us *as much* as the other guy will.

It's a complete perversion of what democracy is supposed to be, what parties are supposed to be. It is a deliberate, authoritarian rewriting of the messaging. They want us to forget the purpose of political parties in a true democracy...why people form them and choose to be a part of them or not to be a part of them anymore. We are being retrained to see parties as entities apart from ourselves, that we need to appeal to for consideration, and to which we owe loyalty whether they are working on our behalf or not. That's authoritarianism.

No, we don't have gridlocked democracy. We have united oligarchy.

We have united oligarchy.

That's what the Princeton study revealed. We have corporate money flooding both sides of the aisle in Washington and corrupting the direction of both major parties, to the point that citizens have no impact on policy anymore.

This is the correct answer. It's all part of the corporate takeover

of our democracy. It's one more aspect of the corporate authoritarian state - mass surveillance, intimidation of journalists, suppression of protest - being constructed around us.