April 13, 2016

Outside the box a little, but Kshama Sawant is excellent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kshama_Sawant





Otherwise, I've been very impressed with how well Gabbard presents to an audience, but don't know enough about her. edit to add I llove how she speaks out against U.S. military interventionalism.

Grijalva is another interesting choice. He takes corporate money, doesn't he? I see that as a problem. But maybe he is a good choice.

Ellison, I think he would be a liability as a Muslim. I would have no problem with it, but many would.

Warren would be a great addition to the ticket, but I think she would prefer to be a Senator than a VP.

O'Malley always vibed like a phony to me, but he could be ok. I know others here like him.

If I were Bernie I would stay far away from anyone the establishment would prefer as POTUS, assassination risk.

April 13, 2016

Climate change is a HUGE reason to support Bernie rather than Hillary

We’re out of time on climate change. And Hillary Clinton helped get us here
Naomi Klein

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/07/out-of-time-climate-change-hillary-clinton

Re Bernie or Bust, I don't know. I'm in a safely blue state so I feel I can vote my conscience without fear of the Republican winning, and Hillary is far too much of a right-wing global corporatist for me to vote for her (I'm talking about the general election here if Hillary gets the nomination, IMO there is no legitimate reason not to vote for Bernie in the primary). Others can make their own decisions based on their own situations.

I think it will be tragic if this opportunity to elect Bernie Sanders is missed, it will be one of those turning points in history where we could have turned things around but didn't. And the consequences, given the realitites of climate change and the connections to the fossil fuel industries Bernie's opponents have, willl be disastrous.

April 7, 2016

Please don't blame boomers for her

I'm one of the younger boomers. I and my boomer friends have been fighting corporate triangulation, wars, and environmental devastation all our lives, to the detriment of our careers since we were non-believers in a corrupt system. All our lives we have been in vain trying to stoke the fires of a left-wing awakening, only to be repeatedly thwarted by vast institutional power supporting the status quo.

We're working hand in hand with the amazing younger generation who seems to be less influenced by corporate propaganda and more radicalized by the coming climate disasters. The youth today are really impressive, one of them is my son. And an incredible leader in Bernie Sanders has emerged to carry the banner late in his life. I value movement and bottom-up politics, but the role of a leader to rally around is often overlooked. By the way, some of the boomer leaders were assassinated.

There's plenty of blame on the boomer side too, it's a huge mixed bag as is any generation.

I agree with many of your points in the OP, but the middle finger you speak of knows no age, and no nation, it is more the synthetic digit of a humanoid manifestation of a ravenous and greedy power structure, and it must be defeated with all of us working together.

April 2, 2016

That stragetgy, though, just gets us forever played

We have a wonderful, viable candidate who has not played the corporate donor game, and who will represent US once elected.

The problem is not my lack of education nor bias, as you so rudely suggest.

The problem is that what you call a fat mental brush re the party is the most appropriate tool, since it is not a few but most whose agendas are beholden to corporate money, citizens be damned. Compounding this problem is that they have aggregated their considerable resources to fight the very person who governs without being owned, and that so many Democratic voters are still supporting more of the same corporate agenda.

We live in a time where addiction to militarism, unsustainable consolidation of wealth, and extreme climate change require new leadership that will drive policy from an entirely different perspective, or we will not survive. I am educated enough to know the reality of that.

March 30, 2016

Great

I'm very aware of Sawant and am a big fan. I would suggest her for a possible Bernie VP but I don't know if she's ready for such a national role.

I saw a post of yours elsewhere that openly advocated for the Green Party, to the end of the Democratic Party. I get where you're coming from, but a post like that will get you banned from here and can be pretty easily avoided, assuming you value membership here.

Many of us are thinking about the long-term viability of the Democratic Party as a vehicle to serve the people. It is much worse than even I realized, as this election season has revealed. The mask is off and it ain't pretty.

I'm not all that radical, really, but the corporatist takeover of this party, and its use of superdelegates in the primary, are not giving me much hope for anything other than climate disaster, endless wars, and substandard living conditions for all but the extremely wealthy.

There is a Group here on DU called Populist Reform of the Democratic Party, you might want to check it out.

I'm still, for now at least, working to win control of it from the corporations. I would like to see the Progressive Caucus formalize into an entity that forbids SuperPAC or any corporate campaign contributions, and provides members with a crowd-sourced campaign funding mechanism so long as they meet certain progressive values. I think that would go a long way towards getting control back.

If the party is too resistant to reform, as it seems to be so far, an alternative solution will need to be found, probably something new rather than the U.S. Green Party, IMO. That is a very steep hill to climb, but so is reclaiming the Democratic Party. This is now being very actively talked about in various places, here's one such article:

Time to Transform Bernies’s Campaign Into a Permanent Organization
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/time-to-transform-bernies_b_9547060.html

Such discussion is probably outside of the scope of DU, although it might be more acceptable in the Populist Reform Group here.

Regards.

March 30, 2016

I'll take a shot at explaining

The name of the site was chosen when W was "selected" in 2000, Skinner et al thought the Democratic Party would sort of unite under an underground moniker while the neocon fires ravaged the world, regrouping to retake power. My opinion is the Underground term is horribly misleading, it is more accurately DLC Support. Skinner was even the website designer for the old DLC and PPI websites.

Basically, this site is a party operation. It isn't quite official, as far as I know. I do know (or think I know) that Skinner's wife is or was on the payroll of the Clinton campaign. I think there are other formal connections to the party but I don't know precisely what they are. All of this should be openly disclosed by the admins but I don't think it is.

So basically, and sadly, IMHO, this site is not about moving things to the left, it's setup to do exactly what this thread is attempting to do, support and coerce support for Democratic politicians, regardless of policy or where they fall on the political spectrum. It's about supporting a label, a team, little more, fighting Republicans regardless of how much inner Republican any Democratic candidate may be hiding.

People like you (and me, so far at leasst) are allowed to post here so long as we follow the terms of service. If you're willing to bite your tongue once in awhile when you feel like giving them hell, it's not that hard to keep an active account in good standing here. We can do some good here, learn some things, teach some things, and it's sometimes worthwhile to dialogue with people who differ from your perspective.

Hartmann is an odd duck. I love him, but he tries to keep a foot in mainstream Democratic society, while his heart is on the left side of that. It makes for some contradictory situations if you ask me. Regardless, we're lucky to have him.

I was a member of the Green Party for a long time after I got tired of seeing Democrats who said what I wanted to hear and did what the big money people wanted behind my back. That was from the mid 80's until I reregistered Democrat to vote for Obama in the '08 primary. I was instantly re-disgusted with what the party actually does.

That said, the U.S. version of the Green Party is one of the more disfunctional organizations I've ever run across. Impossibly bad at organizing, and it tends to be filled with people pulling for their niche affinity groups rather than working towards a common goal. Their platform is and always has been amazing, it's a shame they never got it together but I see them as pretty hopeless. YMMV.

So personally I made the choice to fight to win back the Democratic Party for the people rather than for the corporations. There are many similar people here, though plenty of us have been banned from DU.

There are other places on the web where people like you are more welcome, like Reddit or JackpineRadicals (a new site setup by banned and/or disaffected DU members, some of our best posters). You would do well to hang out in those places a lot.

But I hope you'll stick around here if you can stand it, there is a battle going on and the populist side of the party needs to represent, with courage and wisdom. Engaging here is a way to do that. Best to you whatever you choose. I can tell your heart is in the right place.

March 30, 2016

The world burners are the donors who fund both parties

This is literally true. More and more, people are figuring this out.

Our party needs to stop being the smiley face of oiligarchy, and get behind people who run on public money who will no longer use the U.S. as the military arm of the global capitalists who prefer massive profits over a sustainable inhabitable and peaceful planet.

We actually have a viable candidate who is running on this exact premise, who walks the walk and has done so his whole life.

All the rest is just bullying by the establishment to get us to accept more of the same destructive policies.

March 27, 2016

I'm in a very pro-Bernie CA district with a HRC superdelegate

My corporacrat Rep. Jared Huffman has stated he will vote for Hillary. This is probably one of the most progressive and pro-Bernie districts in the nation (CA 2nd district, along the coast from Marin to Humboldt), and the well-funded more corporate Huffman defeated uber-progressive Norman Solomon, I think that was in the 2012 election.

There is absolutely no way a representative from this district should be committed to Hillary, it's extremely pro-Bernie here. Huffman would be a great person to lobby for changing his vote, and his job should depend on his vote reflecting the views of his voters.

I sent him an email using the link below urging him to vote how his constituents vote, and I hope others in his district will join me. It's a little weird, the contact form only gives you certain choices for the contact's subject. I chose "voter's rights", not at all an exact match but the closest I could find. I have no idea how the subject choice impacts who sees the email.

http://huffman.house.gov/contact

Thanks for the OP, I think it's an excellent action. Please, all Bernie supporters, do your part.

March 20, 2016

No need to

I was suggesting it is a tool for leverage that Bernie has in the superdelegate situation.

But, since you asked, how would such a 3rd party run impact the campaign? It's not entirely predictable. Trump and Hillary are unusually positioned, issues-wise, compared to the usual Democratic-Republican postions. Trump would hit hard and often at Hillary for dishonesty and indebtedness to corporate donors. Trump is immune to the donor issue, well I'm no expert on his funding, he may have more corporate money behind him than I realize, nowhere near what Hillary takes in though, and he'd make a big deal about it.

Bernie would trump them both on integrity and authenticity. He'd have to overcome the red-baiting from both of them, and a ton of trash the donor class woud throw at him. So far he seems pretty resilient, I believe the authenticity protects him from a lot of it.

Hillary would be the most corporate candidate of the three, hard to say how that spins out in this climate. She has tremendous brand recognition, which is both good and bad for her. There are a lot of people who, given two equal choices, would love to vote for a woman (I am such a person), but most seem to decide primarily on other issues, such as who they think will fight for their interests.

I love the Greens and their platform, always have. I have never found them to be good at large-scale campaigns and mobilization, they tend to splinter off into niche politics. Bernie's a unique candidate, so that could change.

Anyway, I wouldn't assume a green run from Bernie would disproportionately hurt Hillary, he'd take a lot from Trump, there's a lot of no-more-business-as-usual commonality between those camps, even if they differ in their response to that sentiment.

But what I really don't see, is the superdelegates behaving towards Bernie in a way similar to how they switched to Obama. Obama was much more of an acceptable establishment candidate to such people. So, if Bernie closes the elected delegate gap, I think he'll need something over the heads of the party to get any kind of fair treatment.

Do you have any better suggestions as to how he could get the superdelegates to respect the popular vote? There may well be a better way.

March 20, 2016

He's doing very well

against long odds, and without selling out to corporate money, no matter how you spin it.

I don't know to what extent he plans to implement it but I have heard Bernie speak positively about worker-owned businesses, and it's a great idea, the kind of movement that would make a difference, leading to better conditions for labor, less dependence on wall st., and bringing with it the workers' intrinsic interest in caring for their land and their planet, making decisions based on providing good products and sustainable jobs rather than rapidly extracting maximum profits. I'd be surprised to see the auto industry move to this model, but I can see other industries doing so.

The more people learn, the more people like about such ideas. It isn't the mainstream of U.S. political thought, but the mainstream of U.S. political thought has exactly no answers for staggering inequality, and is little more than the propaganda of a capitalist system that, having largely captured its government regulatory system, is bringing obscene profits to a very few people, foreign interventions and blowback terrorism, squeezing petro-profits from our aquifers, and leaving us with a hopelessly uninhabitable planet in the near future.

We're doing quite well in this campaign, thank you, people are responding to the truth. We may not win this primary, but it's the best fight from the left I can remember in some time, and long overdue. It's a wave that, IMHO, will not be stopped by the nomination of Hillary, it's bigger than that, and amplified by the horrors of growing inequality and impending ecological disaster.

We aren't the crazy ones or the nuts, you are, you who ignore the urgency of the situation and the vector we're currently on. It was time for a huge change in world view in 2008, and it's even more urgent now. The old corporate-funded centrist way supports profits, not solutions.