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2016 Postmortem
Showing Original Post only (View all)I have examined where my loyalties lie, you judge, I'll explain my position. [View all]
Last edited Thu Mar 10, 2016, 08:47 AM - Edit history (1)
From my perspective, the party I joined thirty nine years ago was a party I believed in and so gave my loyalty, It was the party of The New Deal, The Great Society and at the time I joined also the party of civil liberty, equal rights and a war against poverty. I see a party in 2016 that is not that party. The question of my loyalty now becomes murky. I think my loyalty now only belongs to my class and because Bernie Sanders shares this loyalty to my class, I must support him every way possible.So many in the party leadership and the party overall are comfortable and this place of comfort has made them cold to the reality that is daily life for a great many people.
They make many assumptions from ivory towers of middle class or wealth with little awareness it would seem of those that are lower middle class (quickly falling into poverty even tho they work harder with multiple McJobs than they did before lower middle class meant poverty).
As to the poor - they seem completely oblivious to them and convince themselves that welfare reform didn't harm anybody, I know Hill and Bill believe this, but it did and does to this day I assure you, it was not a pragmatic solution to a "welfare queen" problem handled well because a Democrat helped to all but destroy it. It will not be a brave pragmatic solution to "earned benefit queens" they will likely label SS beneficiaries, as they collude yet again with republicans to begin to shred these last vestiges of the new deal and great society.
They cause the poor to become poorer still while so many in the party applaud the politicians responsible. Their applause and support are what make them just as responsible as their political idols.
They think this is a game, or a sport with my team and their team, not realizing or caring that the ball that is tossed around in this sport is a child that only gets to eat at school and will soon lose that food, or the ball is an elderly widow or widower that can only afford to take their medicine every other day or maybe will freeze to death in a small flat during a winter they could not pay their gas bill (this happens ALREADY where I live).
There are many other balls tossed around for their sport and amusement, too many to list them all here, some are dead or dying, some are living under a tarp in a vacant lot hoping the cops don't roust them or the suburban teenagers don't decide to slum it and amuse themselves by assaulting them while laughing and taunting the "bum" for cell phone footage. Some of these comfortable people give advice to "the poor that in fact do OK" as a famous DLC Democrat once said. One of the Conservative DU posters once even suggested dumpster diving as a viable and reasonable option.
Too many of them applaud policies and politicians that make all these problems worse, they need to get it through their heads, many are dying and more will die of poverty, this is no game and the poor aren't doing OK, they are doing worse all the time with less help available all the time.
It is not serious, pragmatic, or brave to cause more people to suffer and die in poverty because it is referred to flippantly as "eating peas" or "being adult". It is not pragmatic even when the ones shipping away the jobs or destroying welfare "feel your pain". It never was bravery, but cowardice. It is not balanced when an increasing number of people fall into poverty and die while others become wealthier at an exponential rate.
The punditry, politicians, and comfortable may think it is a fun sport full of serious brave adults that make hard decisions.
Cowards all really, making easy decisions, easy because their decisions don't harm them, but rather the poor they barely acknowledge exist for the profit of the wealthy.
Sometimes they even have the gall to pat themselves on the back and reassure each other "the poor in fact do OK".
I feel very sincerely about these class and poverty issues, I give my loyalty completely to the forgotten, struggling and increasingly poor working classes that birthed me. You decide if that makes me disloyal to a party that has all but forgotten us save for donations and Pyrrhic election victories, because I will fight tooth and nail against any one of them or any elected Democrat that is harmful to my class, in other words harmful to most of America.
For these reasons and others, my loyalties now lie only with Bernie Sanders, politicians that share his views, and the revolution that is necessary if we are to fight and win against overwhelming odds, a fight I take on for my class, the very survival of countless people, and for a better future to leave behind for our younger generations.
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I have examined where my loyalties lie, you judge, I'll explain my position. [View all]
Dragonfli
Mar 2016
OP
It is funny, but the funniest part is that I believe he calls himself a Democratic Socialist
Dragonfli
Mar 2016
#97
I've been up all night, lots to think about so I need to crash for a few hours
Dragonfli
Mar 2016
#5
That they threw the mentally ill out on the street during Reagan's terms and they are
Dustlawyer
Mar 2016
#31
And how much does it cost us taxpayers vs a proper nursing home and treatment?
Dustlawyer
Mar 2016
#40
Excellent Post on a topic that needs more light shed on it, I agree with monicaangel make It an OP!
Dragonfli
Mar 2016
#90
You do not think, or you do not LIKE to think, that Obama would hurt the little people?
Coincidence
Mar 2016
#42
Sanders has only push Clinton's rhetoric to the left. It's impossible to push her
rhett o rick
Mar 2016
#99
2 things, a focus group can push Hilary's rhetoric to the left, but she remains a Goldwater girl
Dragonfli
Mar 2016
#103
He is talking about political revolution, the alternatives have historically led to much worse
Dragonfli
Mar 2016
#104
Wow! that must be the equal of at least 2 "by a whole bunch" kicks, I feel greatly honored. /nt
Dragonfli
Mar 2016
#65
K&R...societies always, or nearly always, develop a ruling class, regardless of the political
islandmkl
Mar 2016
#28
Yes, they do, I hope our political revolution succeeds, History shows what happens when
Dragonfli
Mar 2016
#50
I'm new around here so I don't fully understand the jury system, but wow wtf!?
Coincidence
Mar 2016
#69
I didn't know DWS hangs out here at DU just to flick boogers at the liberal party infiltrators.
Coincidence
Mar 2016
#68
Clinton is alienating droves of life long democrats with her dirty tricks campagin
Cheese Sandwich
Mar 2016
#54
My belief is they were never with us in the first place, I see them as Republican infiltrators
Dragonfli
Mar 2016
#94
People suffering and dying from lack of healthcare, even in the wake of the ACA, are not political
Dont call me Shirley
Mar 2016
#85
In the end, we NEED to come together to win the Revolution and with it Bernie's Vision
Dragonfli
Mar 2016
#91
That peace can only be won by kicking out the military industrial political neocon machine
Dragonfli
Mar 2016
#96
Your loyalty lies with people, not profits, nothing radical about that :) nt
slipslidingaway
Mar 2016
#101