May 26, 2016

Clinton CANNOT clinch the nomination before the convention. Feel "the math"!

I stumbled across this astonishing MSNBC political analyst's examination of Clinton's numbers, as to the pledged delegates she needs in the remaining primary states to clinch the nomination before the convention. I first saw it linked by amborin, here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512046916

The MSNBC vid is here**:

https://www.facebook.com/susan.sanders.35325/videos/636912853123585/

The political analyst, Steve Kornacki, is generous in his guestimates of what Clinton could win in the coming weeks, for instance, he gives her 50% of the vote in "Bernie states" not counting California.

He establishes, beyond any doubt, that she CANNOT make it. It is mathematically impossible.

The ONLY way she could win the nomination before the convention is, a) if Bernie Sanders drops out (which he isn't going to do), or b) if the non-stop lying about Clinton's numbers by her campaign and her supporters, and most of the Corrupt Media, sufficiently suppresses Sanders' votes in the remaining states--which is not likely to happen (sufficiently) because Sanders voters are ISSUE voters and are passionate about the issues. They want their issues HEARD!

The most stunning stat that this political analyst produces is that, given his analysis of what Clinton could conceivably win apart from California in the coming weeks, when it does come to California, she must win 90% to 95% of the vote! And that is, literally, impossible--and probably wouldn't happen even if Sanders dropped out.

About Sanders dropping out: I'm sure he's fully aware of this situation. He. Will. NOT. Drop. Out. In fact, he can still win it!

Feel "the math"!

Feel the Berne!

Stop the lies!

https://www.facebook.com/susan.sanders.35325/videos/636912853123585/

From:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512046916

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(Note: Amborin says that MSNBC has taken this vid down from its site. It was captured on Facebook before it was taken down.)

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I AM ADDING SENZ'S COMMENT TO THIS OP BECAUSE SENZ LAYS OUT "THE MATH" SO CLEARLY, AS KORNACKI (MSNBC) DOES IN HIS BROADCAST ANALYSIS...

senz (10,648 posts)
83. Here are my notes from Steve Kornacki's video explanation

It's really not that difficult.

Bernie says, correctly, that Hillary cannot reach the required number of pledged delegates before the convention and therefore would need super delegates to win. If he does well, he could end up with more pledged delegates than Hillary. Either way, Hillary cannot get enough pledged delegates to win without super delegates.

Here are the numbers:

Hillary has 1771 pledged delegates. Bernie has 1487 pledged delegates (284 fewer than Hill).

Hillary needs 612 more pledged delegates to get to 2383.

There are only 781 pledged delegates left in the remaining nine primaries:

Virgin Islands, PR, CA Mont NJ, NM, ND SD, DC

Even if Hill does well in several states, she is extremely unlikely to reach 2383.

Therefore she will need super delegates to get over the top, and there is a possibility Bernie will have done well enough (as well as polling far better against Trump) that super delegates may choose him.

May 22, 2016

I'm very impressed by the young woman who speaks in Link #1.

I tried to catch her name but couldn't. Dark hair swirled up into a little ponytail. She makes very telling points, for instance, that the thing that the Establishment most underestimates about Bernie activists is "our patience"! I think by "our" she was speaking of the young Bernie supporters like herself. What an extraordinary thing to say! And what a hopeful thing, from the point of view of this 71 year old Democrat. This is no flash movement. It is here to stay. And its purposes go way beyond this election year!

Actually, I'm blown away by the young peoples' fervent participation, and extraordinarily hard work--canvassing, phoning, organizing, putting these amazing rallies together--in the Bernie Sanders campaign. I have not seen anything like it in 50 years! And I think it reaches back even further, to the 1930s and the New Dealers--the deepest wave of fundamental change that ever surged up among our people to sweep away the old order, in that case, "organized money," as FDR called it, whose "hatred" he "welcomed."

One further thought: The hopes and dreams of the anti-war movement and the civil rights movement of the 1960s were largely crushed by Reaganism, and Democratic Party complicity with Reaganism. The initial crushing occurred with the assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. The "military-industrial complex" only got bigger and more dangerous. And, while some African Americans got rich and got accepted, most were left behind. And Reagan then empowered the wealthy to become the uber-wealthy and they, in turn, took over the Democratic Party via the Clinton's. Soon the protections against bank failure put in place by the New Deal were gone, masses of poor people were imprisoned, using the corrupt, failed, murderous U.S. "war on drugs," and the military machine geared up for slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent people with "shock and awe" bombing, with one clusterfuck after another in the Middle East, with far worse consequences than the slaughter in Vietnam.

MY generation failed to solve the fundamental problems of our society and our country. Many of us understood what the problems were and are, but were overwhelmed by the forces against us.

THIS generation--now, at the other end of that long crushing and failure--seems more organized and more determined to rip the masks off our failed leadership and get at the heart of things: economic injustice on a massive scale, and the wars of the rich to control the resources of the world.

I am so heartened by them! I see so many new leaders arising, young people who can't be fooled and won't be stopped. Credit the internet. Credit the corruption and cluelessness of our leadership. Credit the ominous catastrophe of global warming. Credit the historic inevitability of rebellion in these circumstances--although, with global warming, these circumstances are unprecedented. Whatever you credit it to is probably inadequate to describe what is happening among the young. Their hearts and souls are on fire...and yet, and yet, they speak of patience! These extraordinarily wise youngsters!

May 20, 2016

Thoughts of an old California Democratic woman on Sanders vs. Clinton

I've been asked to post several of my comments in threads as OPs. Here they are, re-tooled as one long OP, with identifications at the end of each one, if you want to read the original threads. I've edited to make them more readable and understandable outside of the discussions they were part of.

-----------------------------

It's hard to figure Barbara Boxer's action in Nevada as anything but deliberate provocation.

Of course the Clintonites should have let it go! Only a couple of delegates were at issue. But they didn't. And guess where it went next? All over the Corrupt Media for the edification of the voters voting in KY and OR on May 17!

It was a Rovian-Brockian dirty trick, much like the one that John Lewis is implicated in (--the false caption of the Bernie Sanders civil rights photo, peddled to Time magazine, which had to print a retraction; meanwhile, Lewis is saying he never met Bernie in the civil rights movement; Bernie's activism is in fact very well-documented, as it turns out--and all this happening in the midst of the southern state primaries!). Same type of "swift-boating" operation, this time with Barbara Boxer as the establishment "name" to legitimize the crap that is going down.

No, I don't believe it was innocent on Boxer's part. Nor was John Lewis innocent. It is pathetic to see former heroes stoop to such depths. And I don't know where they fit into the web of Clinton money that has gotten sucked into the Clinton Foundation from sources like the woman-hating Saudis, and then spewed out over the land to net endorsers and super-delegates and surrogates and shills and Clintonbots on the internet, but it would not surprise me in the least if money was the heart of the matter.

We'd have to be super-sleuths numbering in the thousands, to track down every thread of the Clinton money web. It reaches into Haiti, into Honduras, into Russia, throughout the Middle East, and in many other places, as well as throughout this country. So we just have to pick up trends, you know, to figure out who we can trust. Trend no. 1, with the Clintons, is seeking money, laundering money and distributing money for the purposes of gaining more power. Boxer and Lewis are now suspects in the Clinton money game. We already know that Dolores Huerta is bought and paid for ($100,000 from the Clinton Foundation), to pay for her phony shit-fit at the NV caucus, where she LIED that Sanders' supporters shouted her down with "English only!" (It's on vid. She LIED.) She's also been peddling Clinton bullshit in media interviews. Bought. And. Paid. For.

Who else?

And I don't care who they are--nor how much I may have admired them in the past. If they do shit like this, they are heroes no more.

---
Based on my comment in
silvershadow's OP
"Barbara Boxer's actions both during the Nevada convention"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511998857
Comment #15
Wed May 18, 2016, 07:10 PM

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Some people don't seem to realize what's happened to the Democratic Party...

...over the last couple of decades (and with roots back to the Reagan junta). We've been bleeding working class Democrats, leftists of all kinds, environmentalists, professionals, Vietnam vets and others to the "independent" non-party, which now comprises over 40% of the electorate.

Democratic Party "closed" primaries measure only what remains, not the full demographic of progressives. Clinton has an even narrower constituency, the half of the reduced party that buys into her worthless, lying bullshit, unthinkingly, in my opinion.

The other half of the current Democratic base are either young and new voters drawn in by Sanders, some returning leftists and others drawn in by Sanders, and old Democrats like me, who remain Democrats only out of loyalty to ideals that this corporatized party has long since abandoned, or out of nostalgia or family feeling. I'm an o-o-o-o-old Democrat who feels loyalty and nostalgia. I remember my mother making all her kids get down on our knees, on election night 1954, to pray the Rosary for Adlai Stevenson to defeat Dwight Eisenhower!

That's the kind of Democrat that the Clintonites have spat upon with virtually every word and action, along with their spitting upon the young.

Our party is NOT "just fine." It is losing Democrats like me, "born" Democrats, people whose parents and grandparents were New Dealers, people who canvassed for JFK, people who joined the civil rights movement though they were white and relatively privileged, people who did things because they were RIGHT and ETHICAL and MORAL, not because of self-interest and greed, but because they belonged to a "big tent" party and, by God, they were going to expand that "tent"!

I don't think Clinton has any clue what the Democratic Party is about. She doesn't want people like me in it, and many of her supporters seem to have the same attitude (unless they are bots, which we've seen some of here, and for those I feel the same compassion I would feel for any workers who have to do things they know are wrong, in order to keep body and soul together).

Clinton has contempt, also, for the young. She is rigid that way. Dissent annoys her. She wants to stamp it out. She likes controlled venues with small audiences of vetted people. And when she happens to meet a hard question or opposition, you can see her eyes harden with hatred. She is no kind of Democrat, who relishes discussion and new ideas and grants people leave to oppose her, as anyone who believes in democracy ought to. She reminds me of Nixon. She has a lot of his flaws.

She is no leader for the Democratic Party I was born into. Money and ambition are okay, especially for women who have been denied money and access to power, but they are not everything, or even a tenth of everything, or anything at all, if you don't have a base of ethical principles and generosity.

Clinton does not qualify. She has nothing inside of her but desire for money and power. That is not a leader. That is a cypher, whom our financial overlords and war profiteers will use for their own purposes. I've known a lot of strong, ambitious and even well-heeled women in my lifetime, many of whom were or are real leaders due to their ethics and their generosity. They went far, and I'm very proud of them, but they never regarded power as an end itself. Those are the kinds of women who would make great presidents. Clinton is not one of them. She is already a disgrace to feminism, with her actions in Honduras, Libya, Syria and Iraq, and hers and Bill's policies that have greatly increased poverty here. She's hanging out with Henry Kissinger these days. Jeez.

That's not my Democratic Party. And that is not "just fine." It's awful.

---
Based on my comment in
Cali's OP
"No, I don't think Hillary and the dem establishment can put the party back together" againhttp://www.democraticunderground.com/12511999445
Comment #35
Wed May 18, 2016, 08:33 PM

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I respect the long history of an old Democrat. I think it's time to throw Big Money back into...

...the Republican Party where it belongs. But that is not my only objection to Hillary Clinton--the half a billion dollars she took from the financial industry for "speeches."

You say Clinton's "policies are aligned with my beliefs." I would ask, do you really know what Clinton's policies are? She whirls around like one of the old toy tops we used to play with. And just when you think you have her pinned down, she jumps out of the jumping jack box with a surprise, like she did with the Colombia/U.S. "free trade" agreement, and will do with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)--both really, really bad trade agreements that will decimate this country while not doing any good for the poor in the other countries. These agreements are "free trade for the rich."

Or like she did with Honduras and Libya, after apologizing for her vote for Bush's Iraq War. She's done this on "free trade for the rich" agreements, on abortion rights, on gay rights, on the minimum wage, on single payer health care, on almost any issue you can name. For it, then against; against it, then for it, depending on how the wind is blowing, and probably on donations to the Clinton Foundation.

And some of these matters are heartbreakers and tragedies--Honduras, for instance, where Clinton, as Secretary of State, supported a fascist coup that destroyed Honduran democracy (she admits it in one of her emails), and where the women leading the pro-democracy and environmental movements there are being systematically raped and murdered by fascist death squads.

One of these women was murdered in her bed just this March. Her name was Berta Caceras, an indigenous woman activist on the environment, winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize, and an anti-coup activist, who named Hillary Clinton as the one responsible for the fascist coup in her country before she was murdered. Clinton's strong support for the fascist government, including funding them with our tax dollars, has encouraged and enabled them to commit these atrocities.

Clinton is all apologies over Iraq, then she turns around and does this to Honduras, and then, in an even worse way, to Libya, where we can be sure that thousands of women are being brutalized, raped and murdered in the chaos there, and with the rise of the IS jihadists in the vacuum of power that Clinton helped to create.

Like a spinning top, she wants credit for apologizing for Bush-Cheney's "shock and awe" bombing of tens of thousands of innocent people in Iraq--as if her apologies could erase that horror--but she keeps doing it, inflicting chaos on other lands.

Honduras and Libya are among my main objections to Hillary Clinton. She engineered these disasters. The latter is called "Hillary's War" in Washington DC. But nobody much mentions Honduras. No oil, I guess.

That's why I ask, do you really know what her policies are? I admit it's hard to know, with all her happy talk. But I've gone to some trouble to find out, and it's not good. She now has Henry Kissinger as a friend and advisor (Henry Kissinger!) and Robert Kagan, designer of Cheney-Rumsfeld's blueprint for world domination ("The Project For A New American Century"--the infamous bible of the Neo-Cons).

It may be that you formed your opinion of Clinton early on, before there was much known about her activities as Secretary of State, or about the Clinton Foundation. And I suspect that, whatever you thought Hillary Clinton was, when you first formed an opinion about her, she has changed and changed in a very bad direction. She is a Neo-Con now, a war advocate. And she is basically a Republican now, funded by Big Money and beholden to Big Money.

I presume that you have a good heart and an open mind since you are a "born" Democrat. That's almost my definition of a Democrat, born or otherwise. So I just ask that you do some research, and ask yourself if you really know what Clinton's policies are, and whether or not you really agree with them.

Based on my comment in
Cali's OP
"No, I don't think Hillary and the dem establishment can put the party back together" again
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511999445
Comment #87
Thu May 19, 2016, 11:24 PM


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The desperation of the Clinton campaign is obvious. Its cause? I'm not sure.

It could be a number of things. FBI interviews and whatever the hell is going on in the backrooms of Washington DC about it (CIA/NSA pissed off? Obama ambivalent?), and Sanders big win (by a 12 pt margin) in Oregon ('Didn't we say that guy was toast?'). And maybe some other things as well. Wall Street getting nervous about their big investment? Neo-Cons disappointed? (They were assured a ride back into the White House.)

The latter forces gotta be worried about Trump. He may be a billionaire but he is unpredictable, and the one thing Wall Street and banksters hate is an unpredictable and uncontrollable president. As for the Neo-Cons and their plans, Trump may well be an old-fashioned Republican "isolationist" who wants to seal the borders, stay out of trouble in foreign lands and BE the business of "the business of America is business." Too late for that, but Trump is not Bush-Cheney (nor Hillary Clinton) as to Mideast wars, and he may cast a cold eye on "free trade," especially regarding jobs here--the most interesting grievance of many Trump supporters, and probably the most fundamental. Economic hardship has hit us all, including many Trump supporters. They see building "a wall" as the answer. We Sanders supporters see creating a new New Deal as the answer, and that's a much, much better answer. Walls are made to be broken down. But New Deal policies are made to spread the wealth, not to mention spreading good will around the world--the inspiration of rising expectations, the inspiration that democracy can really work for all.

And Clinton does not offer any believable hope in a new New Deal. Only Sanders offers that.

And that is probably why she barely wins and even loses in polls against Trump--while Sanders demolishes Trump. That has got to be aggravating to Camp Hillary, and a cause of desperation. She can't close the nomination deal; and it's a big question whether or not she can beat Trump, and this has to be very worrying to her donors.

It may even be the reason for Clinton's haggard looks and long absences, while Sanders, who is older, is still bouncing around from rally to rally, here, there and everywhere, like he was 25 years old, and only on occasion looks a bit beat. He doesn't look haggard, though. Haggard is different from mere tiredness after three campaign rallies in three states. Clinton looks deeply long term tired, and stiff and awkward, not flexible and resilient. Her face looks like she is constantly calculating her bank balance. Pinched, worried.

What is at the bottom of this desperation, which is so on display here at DU today, so obvious in the Corrupt Media the last couple of days, so painfully obvious in the collusive behavior of people I've previously admired, like Barbara Boxer, John Lewis and Dolores Huerta, and so visible in the malaise in Hillary's face and posture, when she shows herself?

I'm not at all convinced that the FBI will be able to do the right thing, if what they've concluded is that Hillary is indictable. I take as my lessons, 1) Patrick Fitzgerald, who said, of Dick Cheney, that "there is a cloud hanging over the vice president's office," and that THAT is a "political matter," not the venue of the Department of Justice (the issue being Cheney's outing of CIA spies); and 2) Barack Obama, who said, of the massive crimes and massive thievery of the Bush junta, "we must look forward not backward."

In short, justice is only for the little people, not for the rich and the powerful. IF the FBI thinks Clinton should be indicted, it's then up to AG Loretta Lynch, a Clinton supporter and long time ally, to start the legal proceedings and to prosecute. That may be why the FBI's report has been so long coming. Lynch may already be holding it up. (And she wouldn't be, if it exonerated Clinton.) And this may also be why President Obama called a reporter into the White House, a couple of weeks ago, for a personal one-on-one, and to every question about the FBI investigation of Clinton, Obama said, with great emphasis, "There has been NO political influence on the FBI investigation. Full stop!" Then he said it again, those exact same words, and again. NO influence. Full stop. Uh-huh.

Of course, the pressure of all this may be getting to Clinton, even if she isn't going to be indicted. That's a helluva cloud to have hanging over her campaign!

More than this, though--and especially if the CIA and NSA are in a tizzy about Clinton's national security breaches--is Clinton's fitness as President, if our chief law enforcement agency and our visible and not so visible intelligent establishment don't trust her, and would (or should) question even giving her a security clearance. She was, at minimum, cavalier with national security. And her relationship with Sydney Blumenthal, and the emails that were passing back and forth on her private server, and on his server (which we know got hacked), may well have broken national security laws and her own signed agreement with the government. How can she be President?

This question may be causing some of the haggardness in her face. Will they accept her into the inner sanctum or not? What do they want from her in exchange for accepting her as President? We most likely will never know what-all is occurring behind closed doors, but if it is all as dire as I and many others suspect, desperation in Clinton's demeanor and actions, desperation by her campaign and its adjunct, the DNC, and desperation by the Corrupt Media, which has so counted on Trump-Clinton kabuki theater, may be what we're seeing. The old edifice of Clintonism is hanging over a cliff, and ropes and pulleys are being used to try to pull it back onto its foundation: Clinton, the Inevitable.

And Sanders just keeps on keeping on. Ties one primary, wins another by 12 pts. This late in the game. Not decisive as to "the math"--yet. But oh what a show! Franklin and Eleanor must be smiling down on us from Heaven! As our benighted heroes fall off the cliff, one by one, out the windows of Clinton House, new heroes arise. And we even find ourselves to be heroes, once again. How amazing is that, in this benighted democracy?

Based on my comment in
Skwmom's OP
"The Desperation to get Bernie out of the race makes me wonder if something is expected"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511997455
Comment #55
Wed May 18, 2016, 05:09 PM

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I think we have to become a little savvier about how things are decided among the Oligarchs.

For instance, Donald Trump was nothing, politically--a clown, a joke--but the Corrupt Media gave him billions of dollars worth of free political ads from the moment he announced, with 24/7 coverage of his every sneeze for months and months. They CREATED Donald Trump, the candidate.

They meanwhile, of course, tried to bury Bernie Sanders in a black hole of no-coverage for the first six months of his campaign, and have treated him as a footnote to the 'news' that Clinton is 'winning,' even when he has blowout victories. Whatever the victory--no matter how big or surprising--'Sanders, of course, can't win.' And, for his 12 pt. victory in Oregon, they put on the "violent" Bernie show. You want this guy to beat up your grandmother?

It makes sense that the Corrupt Media DON'T WANT SANDERS' IDEAS ON TV, and of course are horrified at the idea that he could be elected. I mean, the Corrupt Media is bad. They're really very, very, very bad. They are a Stalinist-like propaganda machine for the rich. That's why they treat Sanders as they do.

But why would they create Trump?

He would not be an orderly, obedient, predictable servant to other rich people, like Hillary has promised to be. They've paid Hillary well to fill that role. But Trump? He could really fuck things up. He could crash the Stock Market by some dumb thing that he said. He might even investigate them if they annoy him. He might stumble over the "red button" as he falls into bed, drunk from an orgy in the Lincoln Bedroom. It's no end of funny, what he might do. But is that who they really want in charge of their investments?

So, why Trump?

Oh, yeah, he's starting to smell power now and he likes it. But I don't think he took it seriously at first. Now he does, or partly does. They've created a monster.

Why?

Well, if they really want Clinton as prez, to keep their billions out of the hands of the IRS, and other services (all under a "liberal" facade), they can't just declare her president. She has to run against somebody. What better foil, to make her look all "liberal" than a big baffoon who derides women and minorities and wants to build a wall around the country. That wall is a good spoof issue. Hillary can then defend "free trade for the rich." No wall.

I read somewhere that Bill encouraged Trump to run. (Was it Trump who said it? Har.) If so, this could be why. Hillary needed a foil. Someone not interested in the presidency, someone totally non-serious about public policy. Someone who would shoot his mouth off. Someone who is even more despised and distrusted than she is by the American people.

Writing this comment has got me giggling. It's so funny it may be true. They manufactured Trump to run against Hillary and lose!

But now he wants to win. Maybe. Does this partyman really want the responsibility of being president? What does the Pentagon think of this prospect? The CIA? The FBI? The NSA? Bank of America? Canada? The Saudis? Israel? Putin? (Oh, Putin might recognize a kindred spirit--they could have snarling matches.) But, really, the serious war profiteers, et al, don't want a farce, do they? They don't want to look like idiots when they bomb and invade and do their thing. They don't want the world laughing at them! Do they?

So, the Oligarchs were not serious. Trump was just a stepping stone for Queen Hillary.

Then came Bernie Sanders.

---
Based on my comment (#9) in
Jilian's OP
Interesting conversation I had yesterday at a meeting.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1280198654
Comment #9
Thu May 19, 2016, 12:46 AM

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"Sanders is playing with fire"? No, he IS fire!

FEEL THE BERNE!

His fire is igniting the hearts of millions of people, whose hearts had been dead, dead, dead, killed by demoralization, disempowerment and disenfranchisement. Killed by the Corrupt Media. Killed by the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines which gave us an 8%-approval-rating Congress and really, really, really bad governors in many states. Killed by endless war. Killed by increasing poverty. Killed by the death of the American Dream, that your children will do better than you did. Killed by all the homeless misery they see all around them. Killed by the insurance companies. Killed by Big Pharma. Killed by Big Oil. Killed by "free trade for the rich." Killed by Reagan. Killed by Clinton. Killed by Bush. Maybe a heartbeat or two under Obama. Then, slam-bang, killed by the prospect of a Clinton vs. Trump kabuki show that will reduce voter participation to an even more disgraceful level than in 2012.

The dead heart of America has been touched by fire! One million people have been newly registering to vote in California!** The Sanders campaign has won amazing victories all over the country, as recently as this week in Oregon by a 12 pt. margin. With all the handicaps placed on this campaign from the outside (hostile media, hostile Democratic Party moguls, lies and dirty tricks, voter purges, David Brock)--and internal handicaps like no superpac and no corporate/billionaire money--the campaign should have withered on the vine, as a noble fringe effort to reform the unreformable.

But it didn't die. The flame grew and grew and grew until it is now a blaze in many hearts throughout the land, and an inspiration to people around the world, that U.S. democracy is still alive.

The cold panic and hysteria of those with money-soiled hands and souls couldn't be more evident than in the last few days with the "swift-boating" of Sanders as "violent" by the Corrupt Media, at the instigation of the corrupt Clinton campaign, and by cold-fingered knifings like this article, which trot out every nasty little thing that the author (or his mentor) could think of, to ridicule the best thing that has happened in our country in about 50 years: The Bern.



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**(It was 850,000 new registered voters in California as of March. It will likely reach one million by the May 23 deadline. Most of these are Democrats. Most are young voters.)

---
Based on my comment in
Albertoo's OP
Washington Post: Sanders Is Playing With Fire
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512011717
Comment #47
Fri May 20, 2016, 12:09 AM

May 12, 2016

Excellent commentary! And excellent clip of Jon Stewart!

With Clinton, there is no there there.

It was Gertrude Stein who said that--"there is no there there"--when she was on a return visit to the Bay Area, and was looking for her childhood home in Oakland, CA, a home with lots of acreage, lawns and gardens, surrounded by orchards and farms. It was now covered over with new homes. The "there" of her childhood home was gone.

Clinton is not rooted to any place. She is not OF any place or its people or its critters. She is a transglobal jet setter who now hangs with people like Bush, Kissinger and Trump. She is, like them, now, a multi-billionaire. The 1% has made her and she is a member of their global non-country with loyalty to no one but this sky-born royalty that touches down on earth for business, luxury recreation and sketching out their plans, such as "The Project For a New American Century."

No there there. There is nothing to be discovered there of high ideals, of democratic principles, of good government, though quite a bit of substance can be found there, of greed and mass murder. But evil empties the soul, in the end.

I believed for awhile, through Bill Clinton's administration anyway, that as a citizen of a country doing evil in the world, it was perhaps best to have clever, wily, corrupt people running things, so long as they had some loyalty, some minimal feeling of obligation, to the rest of us, and provided some sops to us, like little incremental raises to the minimum wage. 25 cents an hour can mean a lot to the very poor. Simple, honest people couldn't handle the "Beltway" snake pit. It took the corrupt to handle the corrupt. It's also called "the lesser of two evils." But I mean a bit more than this. I mean the "lesser evil" needs to be smart and a real maneuverer and wheel-dealer and con man. Clinton was all of those things, so I voted for him (not having any choice), thinking of that 25 cents an hour more for the poorest of the poor.

I considered this thought about Hillary Clinton. While Bernie Sanders is far from simple, as an intellect, he does like simple living and is as honest as the clear blue sky. Could he snake his way through the vipers' nest of Washington DC, to get anything done? Could he survive it, let alone reform it? Hillary Clinton has these wily, conniving qualities I'm talking about. I could even maybe (maybe!) forgive her kissing Kissinger and begging from Bush donors, or at least put my scruples aside, if I thought she could become a good ruler--a sort of Queen Elizabeth I to Bill's 25 cents an hour presidency.

But I don't think she can. I think she has the soul of a corrupt and power-hungry courtier, not of a true monarch who actually loves her people. I think the connection--the 25 cents an hour connection--has been broken. No more sops to the poor. Greed for power and money have consumed her and her associates in the sky-born kingdom. They are going to inflict their final blows to our democracy, using her as their tool. We are going to see Social Security privatized and what little social safety net we have ripped from us. Our very sovereignty as a people will be shredded by TPP.

Her soul is empty--no there there. She is only interested in her own power in that uber circle. I may be wrong. She may be wily enough to disguise her own soul. Maybe she has some home that it would break her heart not to be able to find again. But my strong sense is that there isn't.

As for Bernie, I've grown strongly to believe that he is wiliest old guy who ever sat on a House subcommittee, and has somehow kept himself rooted to a place, Vermont, and to his ideals. He is best the leader we have ever been given a chance to vote for. And he will survive it, and he will reform it, with--as he requires--our help.

May 10, 2016

That last shot of Mother Earth...

Ah, me, can we do it, lovers of Earth, lovers of humanity? Can we put an Earth-loving humanitarian in the White House to lead our country and the world to, at least, a viable future--and a great one if we solve the daunting problems that we have created for ourselves?

Looking at that shot of Mother Earth, I was reminded of my ant analogy for the human race. We are, in the Great Cosmos, like the tiniest of ants, crawling around and living in an extremely small space with almost complete ignorance of what lay over the nearby hill, let alone what lay far beyond it. As sentient ants, we couldn't see very far at all for ten thousand years, and, though we can now see much better to the far reaches of the Universe, we can't go very far at all, and we still know next to nothing about the vast context of the Universe in which we evolved, in which we became conscious on this little spec of Mother Earth--the greater, much greater, CONTEXT in which we have become active agents of change, here, within our little blue bubble.

An ant, as far as we know, has no consciousness of its context as the tiniest of bits of life on a very big bubble. We do, somehow, have that consciousness--have evolved that consciousness--which tries to wrap its brain around everything that is.

There is so-o-o-o-o-o-o-o much we don't know. Yet we have minds that stretch out to the farthest horizons of time and space, and into the deepest mysteries of subatomic particles and DNA and RNA. And who is to say that evolution is over? Who is to say that what we yearn to be will never happen?

Bernie Sanders, to me, is like one of those startling leaps of evolution, as when some sea creature somewhere first touched fin to sand and gained enough leverage to move inland, or when our most ancient forebears learned not to get burnt by fire and how to carry fire in a basket, and how to weave a basket that could contain fire. As we just start feeling our way into outer space, with our probes and our telescopes--and prior to that with the creative minds of our science fiction writers--we are also just beginning to feel the potential of what we yearn to be: Powerful, intelligent, adventurous, gentle, cooperative people, who feel happiness in the happiness of others.

Life has too often been a battle and a war for humans--or at least that is what many historians tell us. We want peace. We want to be creative. We want to be generous. We sometimes want to feel secure, and at other times are prompted to risk everything for a great or noble goal. But most of all, I think, we want others around us to be happy and whole and their great potential as human beings fulfilled.

I think this is a new development in our evolution. Some of us no longer think only of our own well-being and those close to us, and are no longer limited to our tribe, our community or our nation, in what we care about, but we think of the well-being and happiness of all human beings, and all critters, and of our planet as a whole, as a living entity.

At the same time, the political byways of our evolution have taken us down very dangerous paths, indeed--the path to destruction of the entire human race and all of Earth's critters, one way or another, by nukes or by pollution and climate catastrophe. Our intelligence and our craftiness have led us here. And we need a greater wisdom to lead us back out of this dead end. It is THE challenge of our evolution, now, to take charge of our evolution and find a better path to our true desire of happiness for all. We are following an immensely destructive byway of greed, egotism, massive pollution and mass murder. Can we transcend ourselves? Ants, so far we we know, can't ask that question. We can. Does this not imply that there is an answer in our favor and that the answer is possible and doable?

May 8, 2016

"mire the proceedings in debate and votes"? Oh horrors...

...that the Democratic Convention should be democratic!?

Oh please, spare us the mire!

Ah, it's USA Today. They would think that debates and voting are a mire.

I think debates and voting at the Democratic Convention would instead be miracle.

I remember when political conventions, especially the Democratic one, were fascinating--speeches from people all over the country, drama in the committee rooms where big fights over platform issues occurred, raucous nomination fights, inspiring and substantive speeches--all of--ALL OF IT--broadcast on TV. The 1960 convention was marvelous. I was a JFK supporter and my boyfriend, a year older and much more politically sophisticated (he came from a political family) was for Adlai Stevenson (who, I now realize, was, by far, the better leftist of the two).

There were quite a few politicians contending for the Democratic nomination--including LBJ, Hubert Humphrey, Stuart Symington, as well as JFK and Adlai. Eleanor Roosevelt was still alive then, was at the convention and gave the nomination speech for Adlai, who was actually carried by the delegates to the podium when he arrived, like he was a sports hero. He was very popular--but ultimately the convention didn't nominate him, likely because he'd lost twice to Dwight Eisenhower, the even more adulated war hero. That's what Eleanor Roosevelt says. Here's her memo on the 1960 convention:
https://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/mep/displaydoc.cfm?docid=jfk40

She has some interesting things to say about the level of democracy at Democratic Conventions, and as to nominating a presidential candidate, that are still relevant today. She discusses rule by party bosses--a corrupt system of patronage--rather than by the voters, and suggests reforming the nomination process. This jumped out at me:

One curious feature about political reform is that so many people feel it is "disloyal" to attempt to rectify the abuses in one's own party. And yet it is obvious that political morality is dependent upon the awakened conscience and private morality of the voters. Such "disloyalty" is simply an evidence of loyalty to principle. --Eleanor Roosevelt

I do think she underestimated JFK who, in the end, transformed himself into a believer in world peace, and likely died for that cause.**

The convention was in Los Angeles, near where I lived. My boyfriend's parents were delegates so we got to hang around. I have a snap color photo of JFK in his limousine smiling as he passed right in front of me, five or six feet away, as we stood around outside the L.A. Coliseum where he'd given his acceptance speech.

I did, though, watch most of it on TV. The platform fight over civil rights. All the speeches. Adlai being carried to the podium on the delegates' shoulders. The machinations that resulted in LBJ becoming JFK's VP. It was all so interesting, so alive, so important. TV commentators were serious, knowledgeable people who provided serious, knowledgeable insights to the public, even while they maintained strict rules of neutrality.

We can't expect that in the 21st century. The media have become partisan, bobble-headed idiots, and their bosses don't want anything that smells of democracy on their TV screens. They have NO obligation these days to provide Public Service (as they did before Reagan killed the Fairness Doctrine laws), and they don't provide it. They pick and choose what it serves their profits to show us.

Even so, I do hope we have lots of "mire" at the Democratic Convention this year. Lots of debates on the issues, dissent, advocacy, votes from platform committee onto the floor, our representatives defending their positions and their candidate choices and of course I hope that the party bosses, who now run everything, change their minds about supporting Hillary Clinton, the worst candidate for the Democratic nomination that I've ever seen, and nominate the best candidate I've ever seen, Bernie Sanders.

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**(Recommended: "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters," by James Douglass.)

May 7, 2016

Caucuses do vote counting IN PUBLIC...

...on handwritten paper or by voice vote! In every other voting process--the primaries, the general elections--the votes are counted by electronic machines which contain 'TRADE SECRET' programming code, owned and controlled by a handful of PRIVATE corporations, at least one of which (ES&S which bought out Diebold) has far rightwing connections that would make your hair stand on end!

Even in states like Oregon, which have paper ballots and do all-mail-in voting, they scan those ballots on 'TRADE SECRET code scanners which feed the now substanceless vote (mere electrons) to 'TRADE SECRET' code tabulators.

The vote counting process is NO LONGER conducted IN THE PUBLIC VENUE--except in caucuses.

Is THAT why Sanders does so incredibly well in caucuses, compared to primaries?

Maddow parrots the "talking point" of many Clinton supporters that caucuses are undemocratic. I think there is more behind this "talking point" than mere dislike of caucuses because Sanders has won so many of them by such big margins.

There are other factors in caucuses--for instance, enthusiasm and willingness to sacrifice your time. Sanders supporters believe in their candidate enough to show up (some Clinton supporters have not even done that) and to spend time talking about Sanders, persuading people and engaging the process in every way.

Sanders himself mentions the democratic value of meeting and discussing. I've read a number of accounts of caucus participants who are very proud of that democratic value. It is traditional for people in those states to meet and discuss and vote in smallish neighborhood groups. They love it! It is real, down-home, town hall democracy! Participatory democracy!

But to me, as a long-time, staunch opponent of the corporate PRIVATIZATION of our vote counting process, what I most value in caucuses is the transparency of the vote counting--that it occurs in the PUBLIC VENUE, where anybody can tell immediately if the count is wrong.

The worst thing about the 'TRADE SECRET' code privatization is that half the states in this country--including most of the South--do NO AUDIT WHATSOEVER (comparison of paper ballots to electronic results) because they have no paper ballot, and the other half do a miserably inadequate audit (not a big enough sample to detect fraud). And all states make getting a recount really difficult.

These evil machines were spread like a plague across this country during the 2002 to 2004 period. I believe that they were first used in a major way in 2004, to re-s/elect Bush and Cheney and their war.

I also think that this 'TRADE SECRET' code--code that the public is forbidden by law to review--can be used in various ways, both blunt ways and sophisticated ways; that this is why exit polls so often fail in this country (while in other countries exit polls are the "gold standard" for determining the integrity of an election); that the 'TRADE SECRET' code can be defeated by overwhelming turnout (or at least make fraudsters hesitate); and that there are varying degrees of protection, depending on the intelligence, honesty and computer savvy of secretaries of state and other election officials.

I think CA is in pretty good shape. OR and WA are in pretty good shape. I think NY might actually be in pretty good shape--because the fraudsters had to use voter purges and closed polling locations to fiddle the vote. Alert election officials can take measures to prevent the insertion of malicious code and other evils, but I'm sorry to say that ALL election officials in this country have succumbed to the glitz and to the alleged "efficiency" of these systems.

In Germany, they count paper ballots by hand in each neighborhood, and have NEVER had a slip-up between the exit polls and the count, and they do it all in one day, very efficiently. It's just not instant. But who cares about "instant" results that are NOT verifiable? Who?

May 6, 2016

I've had 2 threads shut down while I was writing a comment in them.

I put considerable effort into replies in both OPs but before I could hit "Post," they were locked. I have no idea why.

When I tried to post in the FIRST THREAD (below), I got a yellow box with this message: "Your post was unsuccessful because the thread you are replying to is hidden." When I tried to post in the SECOND THREAD (below), I got a yellow box with this message: "Your post was unsuccessful because the thread you are replying to is locked." Both threads now seem to have disappeared.

I was able to copy and paste my comments and some details of the threads before they became inaccessible. (It may be my technical incompetence, but I can't get them to re-load.)

Some very important issues were raised by these OPs and in the comments that were made. One of the issues was in Comment #13 to the FIRST THREAD. I answered by offering some definitions of "liberal" and "progressive," terms that often get mixed up and vague. My comment is very pro-Sanders, so, if you are a Clinton supporter, beware. (It's very hard on Clinton.)

---------------------------

FIRST THREAD:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511908818

OP author: Tiggeroshii (4,533 posts)

OP TITLE: Let's be clear: You are no longer a progressive if you are supporting Hillary in the Primaries

Here is comment #13, followed by my reply:

(by) Thinkingabout

13. Let's put it very simply, I am a Democrat, Hillary is a Democrat, whether you want to label Hillary

A progressive or not does not change the fact she is a progressive and one who gets things done. Is she far left, no, nor do I want her to be far left, she is a hard core liberal. I will be voting for a Democrat who is a progressive and hard core liberal, Hillary.


MY REPLY TO THE ABOVE:

Clinton a liberal "who gets things done"? What?


"Liberal" is associated in my mind with "free trade for the rich," so I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like anything a "liberal" gets done. To the extent that it may be associated with human rights, then I would support those liberal human rights policies, depending on his or her actions, but NOT "free trade for the rich," by which I mean free trade that pits one workforce against another in a downward spiral of wages and benefits, that destroys the sovereignty of democratic countries (our ability to regulate labor, health, environmental and other vital public matters) and that tends to encourage activities that are killing Mother Earth.

"Liberal" in the above sense is liberality for corporations and the uber rich, who may go along with some human rights policies, at least here at home, though often not in exploited foreign countries--but who are inflicting much harm on people and the environment, here and abroad.

Clinton publicly and actively supported "free trade for the rich" agreements (notably NAFTA) during her husband's administration. On her own, she opposed the Colombia "free trade for the rich" agreement and several other such agreements during her 2007-08 campaign for president, but completely turned around and supported them as Secretary of State. This is a "liberal" in the worst sense of the word--a liar.

I guess you could say she "got things done" on the "free trade" part of the "liberal" label.

You call Clinton a "progressive" in one sentence and "liberal" in another. These, to me, are distinctive political categories.

"Progressive" essentially means Leftist, and requires New Deal-like policies for working people and the poor, the elderly, the young, and the sick, and is definitely opposed to "free trade for the rich." A progressive believes in FAIR trade, not "free trade." A progressive is also both sincere and active on human rights and would never, for instance, tolerate what Clinton did in Honduras. Clinton actively supported the fascist coup in Honduras in June 2009 which unleashed death squads against the many women in Honduras who are leading the democracy and environmental movements there. One recent victim was Berta Caceres, an indigenous woman who had recently won the Goldman Environmental Prize. Murdered in her bed by a death squad of ex-Honduran soldiers, who likely received training from the U.S. military, which has a large presence in Honduras.

I am a progressive and I don't tolerate Clinton's support of the Honduran fascist coup. Anyone who supports that Clinton action is not a progressive. That may be the main difference between a liberal and a progressive. A liberal holds "free trade" as the prime value and if some people who are in the way of "progress" get eliminated to further a dam project (Caceres) or other projects of big corporations and investors, too bad. Smother it. Hide it. Lie about it. And, most of all, never even consider it in the first place.

Clinton showed herself to be this kind of liberal when she intervened in the Drummond Coal case, a lawsuit brought by families of the victims of Drummond Coal's death squads in Colombia. Drummond Coal, an Alabama corporation, employed murderers to take care of their "labor problem" in Colombia. The families wanted Alvaro Uribe to give a deposition in that case. Uribe was the fascist/mafia boss president of Colombia during the Bush junta. Members of Uribe's family and his political cronies have been jailed for their ties to rightwing death squads. Clinton, as Secretary of State, wrote to the judge in the case telling him not to require Uribe to appear, and implying that it was a matter of "national security." The judge caved to Clinton's pressure.

That's the kind of liberal I mean. Human rights are mere political "talking points", and they are mostly for the well-to-do--for instance, no "glass ceilings" for women who want to be CEOs, but when it comes to poor people, or targeted women like Caceres, their human rights don't matter, and their poverty and hardship, and even their murder, gets swept under the rug.

"Liberal" is also associated, in my mind, with uncontrolled development and resource extraction, and pollution, and thus, with the death of Mother Earth. Progressives are defenders of Mother Earth, and don't tolerate horrors like frakking. Clinton, of course, is a liberal in this respect, but absolutely not a progressive. She takes money from the frakking industry. She supports frakking here, with only the condition that she picks and chooses the locations. She also helped to export frakking to other countries, as Secretary of State.

You say Clinton "gets things done." She sure does. But virtually nothing of what she has ever gotten done is progressive, and much of it is awful. (To cite another example, Libya.)

Please tell me anything progressive that Clinton has "gotten done." Welfare "reform"? Mass incarceration? Support for the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs"? Enthusiastic support of the massively murderous Iraq War? And all of the above--including "free trade for the rich," no matter who it harms? What has she "gotten done" that is progressive?

Clinton supported the "Defense of Marriage Act" and only came very late to the support of gay rights. Bernie Sanders, for instance, opposed DOMA from the beginning. HE is a progressive.

I can't think of a single progressive thing that she has done. Please enlighten me if I'm being biased. I DO support Bernie Sanders quite avidly, so maybe I'm missing something.

--------------------------------

In the SECOND THREAD, the OP seems to ask this question: Why do some Sanders supporters post items about the FBI investigation of Clinton? I tried to answer that question in my reply to Comment #66, by "North Carolina." North Carolina says: "It would however be a godsend to America's poor and ailing middle class." I'm pretty sure that North Carolina meant: "A Clinton indictment would however be a godsend to America's poor and ailing middle class." That's what I was responding to. And I can't find the comment North Carolina was responding to (with that "however&quot . The thread seems to be gone.

Same caveat to Clinton supporters. Strong criticism of your candidate--beware.

-------------------------------

SECOND THREAD

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511907268

(OP author) trumad (41,287 posts)

(OP title) Pimping for an indictment of Hillary on DU is stunning!

(OP text) This fucking place is being run over by the Hillary indictment crowd.

WTF!

NorthCarolina
66. It would however be a godsend to America's poor and ailing middle class. nt


MY REPLY TO NORTH CAROLINA

And to a lot of other people as well: The women of Honduras who are getting raped and murdered...

...for leading the opposition to the fascist government that Hillary Clinton put in place--literally put in place. Clinton had OUR State Department run the fake election in Honduras (under martial law with leftists getting murdered) when no election monitoring group on earth would touch it and it was condemned throughout Latin America. Honduras is mentioned in her emails. She was determined that the elected president of Honduras, Mel Zelaya, would never be restored to his rightful office.

She PUT THE FASCISTS IN POWER. One of their death squads of ex-soldiers murdered Berta Cáceres, Honduras' most well-known anti-coup activist and environmentalist (winner of The Goldman Environmental Prize), this March. Before she was murdered, Cáceres blamed Clinton for the coup in a Democracy Now interview:

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/3/11/before_her_assassination_berta_caceres_singled

The women activists of Honduras would probably like to see Clinton in jail. The trouble is we have a system that says, "We need to look forward not backward" on the crimes of the rich and powerful. (They teach that at Harvard Law School.) It doesn't matter if it's mass murder, torture, massive theft, massive violations of U.S. and international laws, or "regime change" in democratic countries (Honduras) or in countries that are not democratic but are stable (Libya, Syria, Iraq), with the result of rape, murder, chaos, starvation, displacement and other horrors for millions of innocent people. It doesn't matter WHAT the rich and powerful do, from evading all taxation to war crimes. That precedent has been set.

While I abhor the risks Clinton took with national security, and abhor her "pay to play" deals with the woman-hating Saudis, et al, and the Clinton Foundation, and while I abhor the fact that Goldman Sachs, et al, made her into a multi-millionaire in 2 years time, so they would have a direct agent protecting Wall Street's interests in the White House, I think that Clinton's actions in Honduras and Libya are far, far worse than her secret email server or her corruption.

Thousands of people have suffered and died in Honduras, as the result of Clinton's actions. Honduras is now the most violent country on earth outside of a war zone. And Honduran democracy was destroyed. Millions have suffered and died in Libya, Syria and Iraq, where chaos now reigns, and a vacuum of power was created for the most brutal jihadists to pour into.

Clinton's risks to national security with her private server and her blatant corruption in the office of Secretary of State pale in comparison to these other crimes. Yet there is not a chance in hell that she will be held accountable for the far worse crimes.

And THAT is what I think is on the minds of at least some of the Bernie Sanders supporters who post information here about the FBI investigation. They know--and, really, everybody knows--that there are two systems of justice in this country, one for the rich and powerful and one for everybody else. The rich and powerful who make the decisions to commit enormous war crimes are immune from prosecution. Clinton has one of these as her close friend, mentor and adviser--Henry Kissinger! He is responsible for the deaths of millions in Southeast Asia including tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers. He is responsible for the horrors in Chile in that fascist coup. And he is free and living the good life and offering his advice to his successors. Clinton also has Robert Kagan as a close adviser. He wrote the blueprint for Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld's plan for a military occupation of the Middle East and domination of the world ("The Project for a New American Century"--that infamous Neo-con document). And Clinton herself is now in their company, and, of course, nothing will be done about her crimes or theirs, or those of any other rich and powerful people who inflict mass suffering and death on others.

Bernie supporters want JUSTICE, and there is none to be had.

I think Bernie supporters hope that the FBI might come up with some justice but that's looking less and less likely. I am among those who had hoped that she might at least be held accountable for what are clearly national security violations (sending classified material back and forth with Sydney Blumenthal, whom President Obama had banned from the State Department, and whom she had then employed at the Clinton Foundation). But I also have said that the FBI investigation could be a protective action--protecting her from the RW morons in Congress, for instance, while her candidacy for president of the rich and powerful could proceed smoothly. I still don't know--none of us knows--if justice is even in play at the FBI or the DOJ.

The Clinton supporters want an answer to why some Sanders supporters post info about the FBI investigation at DU, and even, in this post, are calling Sanders supporters "pimps" for doing so.

I can only answer for sure as to my own interest in the FBI investigation, and that interest is mostly my desire for justice for Berta Cáceres and Hillary Clinton's other victims. I know that she will never be held accountable for those actions. Kissinger wasn't. Bush Sr. wasn't. Bush Jr. wasn't. Cheney wasn't. Rumsfeld wasn't. Rice wasn't. I had hoped--and I still hope--that she will be held accountable for the arrogance and greed that led her to set up a secret, private email server, outside of government security measures, to conduct the business of the U.S. government as if it were her own private business. But right now I doubt that even that will happen.

If she makes it to the White House--and that is in very serious doubt, due to her high negatives and inability to draw independent votes (now 40+% of the electorate)--she will be unable to fulfill any of her $12/hr promises to the peons, because the RW morons in Congress are going to present her with Articles of Impeachment the day after her inauguration. Distraction will reign supreme. And any hope for incremental change will be dashed. As with "Benghazi," they won't challenge anything that they themselves do (war, corruption); it will be as stupid and irrelevant as the Benghazi circus, but there is plenty of circus in Clinton's "baggage" to entertain them as long as they want, and even to impeach her with. It will all be meaningless, and we and Mother Earth will lose the next four years to it, at least.