Mackeyser wrote:

Wow!!! Had never heard her speak before! This will be the easiest ballot to cast!

I’m good with Bernie until they kick him out, then it’s Jill Stein.

#noregrets

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Ditto

w
v
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“…While working people struggle, over 90% of income gains have gone to the top 1%, corporate profits have tripled, and the richest 0.1% now owns more than the lower 90% of us combined. A mere 20 billionaires now own as much as the entire lower half of the US population. Globally, only 80 billionaires own as much as the entire lower half of the world’s population, 3.5 billion people.

This unconscionable state of affairs cannot simply be blamed on greedy Republicans. The President himself has been leading the charge, with bipartisan Congressional help, to slash food and medicine for the vulnerable, cut critical social programs by nearly a trillion dollars in 2011 alone, and repeatedly threaten Medicare and Social Security. Meanwhile, Democrats oversaw a $16 trillion bailout for big banks and $5 trillion in tax favors for the wealthy. They made the Bush tax cuts for the rich permanent just as they were about to expire, and locked in low capital gains and inheritance taxes.
Source: Green Party response to 2016 State of the Union speech , Jan 12, 2016

Just somethin i read.
w
v
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http://www.salon.com/2016/04/24/bernies_greatest_legacy_suddenly_its_ok_to_question_capitalism/

Bernie’s greatest legacy: Suddenly, it’s OK to question capitalism!

Sanders will never be president, but he unveiled an explosive political truth: Capitalism has eaten democracy
Andrew O’Hehir

Bernie Sanders is not going to be president. But in defeat he has accomplished something extraordinary, probably something more important than anything he could have achieved in four or eight frustrating years in the White House. For the first time since the end of the Cold War — and perhaps since the beginning of the Cold War — large numbers of Americans have begun to ask questions about capitalism. Questions about whether it works, and how, and for whose benefit. Questions about whether capitalism is really the indispensable companion of democracy, as we have confidently been told for the last century or so, and about how those two things interact in the real world.

Bernie Sanders did not invent those questions or cause them to emerge, to be sure. They have emerged from a whole range of objective conditions and subjective perceptions, including the dramatic worsening of economic inequality, the near-total paralysis of our political system and the awakening of an entire generation of young Americans, supposedly from the non-poor classes, who have graduated from college tens of thousands of dollars in debt. But Sanders has served as an important channel or catalyst for such questions and the shift in consciousness they represent. He or his advisers appeared to see or sense a rising current of discontent that took nearly everyone else by surprise.

After several generations in which a capitalist economy dominated by the neoliberal policy prescriptions of tax cuts, deregulation, privatization and fiscal austerity has been understood as the natural order of things — and as the oxygen necessary to nourish democracy around the world — the Western world’s entire leadership caste has been startled to encounter a resurgence of systematic nonbelief. To the bankers and politicians, it feels almost as if a crusty old Vermonter had come close to stealing a major-party presidential nomination on a platform of Flat-Earthism, or by professing that the moon landing was a fake. (Those politics, to be fair, are largely confined to the other party.)

For many decades, all lingering remnants of nonbelief in the goodness and naturalness and blessedness of capitalism have been endlessly derided and driven to the margins of political discourse, which now looks like an admission of weakness or the work of a bad conscience. In the United States, “socialism” became a bad word, apparently poisoned forever by the disastrous failures of Eastern-bloc Communism. (While the situation has always been different in Europe, most of the so-called socialist parties have drifted steadily rightward and embraced market ideology.) Pockets of socialist or Marxist thought could be found in the groves of academe, layered in dust, but in the realm of politics those terms belonged only to zealots and weirdos. Cornel West’s pre-Bernie quest for an alternative radical politics, for instance, led him into the arms of Bob Avakian and the Revolutionary Communist Party, a tiny Maoist sect that has haunted the far left since the mid-’70s.

In its eagerness to avoid all such associations, the Democratic Party has spent the last few decades prostrating itself before the temple of Big Money — a process greatly accelerated under the husband of its current frontrunner — and renouncing any semblance of class-based politics or egalitarian economics. You can almost understand why West found Avakian’s revolutionary fantasies refreshing, or at least honest. (The six-hour videos are tough to take.) What the Sanders insurgency has exposed, even more clearly than usual, is that the Democratic Party does not represent the material interests of most of the people who vote for it. (This is of course even more true of the Republican Party.) Those who insist, in tones resonant of “get off my lawn,” that it’s time for Sanders voters to grow up and support Hillary Clinton in the name of party unity are missing the point of the 2016 campaign, perhaps deliberately.

That Clinton is preferable to Donald Trump or Ted Cruz in the near term, for most Sanders supporters, is not in question. But the assertion that we need to get over all this nonsense about “free stuff” and get back to real politics is itself a tactic of warfare, in an overarching conflict that will long outlive this particular nomination battle. The division between Clinton and Sanders is more than symbolic or semiotic, as the 2008 division between Clinton and Barack Obama largely was. Hillary Clinton stands with and for capitalism, forcefully and forthrightly. Sanders’ position is more paradoxical, perhaps of necessity, but let’s put it this way: He stands outside capitalism and to some degree against capitalism, far more so than any American presidential candidate of living memory.

The Sanders campaign was an attempt to seize power in the Democratic Party, largely from outside, and renounce its allegiance to capitalism and its subservience to the entire package of economic, ideological and military imperialism sometimes called the “Washington consensus.” The true danger that campaign presented to the American political establishment lay not so much in Bernie Sanders himself — an unlikely candidate, and a less likely nominee — as in the
heretical ideas it embodied, which may now prove difficult to contain.

I never thought that Sanders had any realistic shot at beating Clinton. (He got closer than I ever expected.) Furthermore, I was never convinced that was a viable solution to any of our problems. Sanders calls himself a socialist, at least sometimes, and within his coy or imprecise rhetoric about “political revolution” you can discern an awareness that revolutions don’t start from the top, and that their goals cannot be achieved by electing a new figurehead. I voted for Sanders in the New York primary, for all the good that did anyone, but Hillary Clinton’s supporters have had a viable case all along that given the system we have, she makes a more plausible chief executive for the corroded American republic.
The problem, of course, is precisely that: The system we have doesn’t work. Maybe it used to work a whole lot better than it does now, and maybe it just looked that way — that’s a tendentious historical debate that speaks to important underlying questions, but we’d better set it aside for now. But almost no one, across the ideological spectrum, will try to convince you that the interlocking systems of American politics and the American economy are functioning smoothly for the benefit of all. Reckoning with that political and material reality has required impressive rhetorical agility from Clinton, who more than any other current or former 2016 candidate stands at the intersection of those systems and represents their promise of stability and order. But then, no one has ever accused her of an unwillingness to change her mind, or an inability to mold her language to the moment.

Last week I took a first stab…… see link

Zooey wrote:

bnw wrote:

wv wrote:

I’ll tell ya though, people always want to talk about
the ‘middle-class’ and helping the middle-class. Politicians
just love talking about the MC. But I’d prefer it
if they’d talk more about the flat-out-Poor.

The emphasis on the MC kinda suggests the poor
dont ‘deserve’ help but the glorious middle-class does.

Middle class is the engine of job creation. It is also the largest group of consumers of means. It is also a reasonable quality of life which is why it is aspired to by the middle class and the poor. It is also a starting point with a certain level of inherent advantage in which to attain greater economic success. The concept of upward mobility is appealing to most people.

I am inclined to agree with bnw, here. And I think it is because I see the fortunes of the middle class and the poor more-or-less hitched together. You find huge disparity gaps between the rich and poor every so often. In those cases, the middle class has also been weakened like the poor. You don’t find big gaps between the middle class and poor, with the middle class’ prosperity tied to the wealthy and only the poor left behind. Unions were a great binder, but even in their absence, the two classes have more in common than they do apart in terms of the trajectories of their circumstances. I think, anyway. I think you will find that the arcs of their experience are pretty similar whereas the line denoting the wealthy will operate independently. Helping the middle class helps the poor. Helping the poor helps the middle class.

——————
Well, I dont know that i agree that “helping the middle class helps the poor”.

I’d liken the situation to…oh…a triage (sp?) situation. The poor
are laying outside the Emergency Room, in the street, with gaping wounds and head trauma. The middle-class have the flu.

The middle-class are worried they wont be able to send buffy to that nice college they like. The poor are on crystal meth, living in squalor, and wondering if they will be evicted tomorrow.

And the politicians are talking about the middle-class problems.

I’m tellin ya, i work with the poor every week, and it is
a big ugly emergency. Never seen anything like it. Its much worse
than ten years ago. At least thats how it is in WV.

I think the politicians talk about the mid-class cause
thats where the votes are. Not because of any lofty or ideological reasons.

w
v

Eternal Ramnation wrote:

eat the rich youtube…

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Nice vid.

I’ll tell ya though, people always want to talk about
the ‘middle-class’ and helping the middle-class. Politicians
just love talking about the MC. But I’d prefer it
if they’d talk more about the flat-out-Poor.

The emphasis on the MC kinda suggests the poor
dont ‘deserve’ help but the glorious middle-class does.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 12 months ago by wv.

bnw wrote:

“When the rich wage war it’s the poor who die.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Le Diable Et Le Bon Dieu

Amen.

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I thought you would agree with that one 🙂

I am totally in favor of helping small-independent-businesses, btw, bnw.

What do you think of the old Marine Colonel Smedley Butler’s speech:

The following is an excerpt from a speech he gave in 1933: Smedley Butler
“War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its “finger men” to point out enemies, its “muscle men” to destroy enemies, its “brain men” to plan war preparations, and a “Big Boss” Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
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bnw wrote:

Given Clinton’s lust to kill the coal industry I’m surprised she received as much of the vote in WV as she did.

————-

Let me ask you a general, political-philosophical question. Maybe Ozone will chime in too. No heat or rancor involved here — just a good-natured question. Now, without quibbling about the algebra, I think we can agree
that in America today, the top one percent owns a gazillion times more
than the bottom 50 percent. And the top one percent has way more power. Political and Economic power. And then there’s the bottom fifteen or twenty percent of Americans who are in a very dark hole. And i dont even wanna try and describe how bad the bottom five percent have it. (Its a wonder to me that, that group hasn’t just started running around on a mad killing spree)

So we have this really bad Inequality. And its got nuthin to do with who works hard. I mean, the poor people who work at Walmart work a lot harder than Donald Trump or George Soros, right?

And this Inequality is growing, in America. The top one percent are getting richer and more powerful by the day. And the bottom ten percent is literally fighting for its life everyday.

Now my question is — does this situation bother you? And if it does, why wouldnt you want to support policies that redistribute some of that wealth? (that of course would mean supporting leftist policies)

w
v

From the article Ag posted:

“…Joiner was the forerunner of the modern “slot ninja.” Standing 5’11” and weighing 188 pounds, Joiner didn’t have the height of his teammates. He was explosively quick, ran precise routes, had great hands and was tough enough to absorb hits from linebackers and safeties in the heart of the NFL’s steroid era….”

So, maybe the number one trait that separates a slot guy
from an outside guy is… ‘toughness’. A slot guy
has to be fierce and tough to absorb so much contact.
Its not really size but toughness. Yes? No?

w
v

Zooey wrote:

I agree with you and Reed on this. Being in favor of civil rights is what defines being liberal these days, and that’s about the extent of it. One is progressive if one is in favor of allowing 0.3% of the population to urinate in their bathroom of choice.

You can’t find any discussion of class anywhere in the mainstream media, and that is certainly the fault of the Democrat party which hasn’t mentioned class in the past three decades.

————–

Thats how i see it.

The ability/critical thinking skills to even conceive of, let alone make, A systemic examination of why there are poor-people in America doesn’t exist in the mainstream-media.

All you ever hear from the media is ‘socialism failed’ riffs, and ‘blame the poor’ riffs, and “gee aint it awful that poor people have bad water,” etc.

No critical examination of corporate-capitalism is even conceived of.
I think its not just ‘not permitted’, i think mostly its ‘they cant even conceive of’ a critique of Amerikan-capitalism.

Which makes the Bernie phenomenon all the more…surreal.

w
v

“… I have to engage feminism because that becomes the vehicle by which I project myself as a female into the heart of the struggle, but the heart of the struggle does not begin with feminism. It begins with an understanding of domination and with a critique of domination in all its forms. I think it is in fact, a danger to think of the starting point as being feminism. …I think we need a much more sophisticated vision of what it means to have a radical political consciousness. That is why I stress so much the need for African Americans to take on a political language of colonialism…. to frame our issues in a larger political context that looks at imperialism and colonialism and our place as Africans in the Diaspora so that class becomes a central factor….” bell hooks
————
“There is a lovely feature of the American psyche which rejects the notion that there are victims. In America, attitude is a magical elixir that cures everything. People are supposed to believe that they create their realities, and are solely responsible for every aspect of their lives. Everything is because of a choice you made somewhere. Somehow, you were supposed to not only be equipped to make the right choice at all times, despite your circumstances, but to know exactly what the outcome of every choice you made would be. This is all very convenient for the people at the top of our economic system with all the money and the power. Keeps the rest of us trying.”
― Carl-John X. Veraja
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“…I see a hunger, especially among Black youth, for more sophisticated answers. Unfortunately, right now, it’s narrow nationalism, narrow forms of Afrocentrism, that are mostly addressing that hunger. Our leading people buy into utopian fantasies of liberation, when in fact our liberation should come from a concrete struggle in the workforce, no fantasies about ancient Africa, and kings and queens. Not that we don’t need to know about ancient Africa to address the biases of Western education.
People forget that the militant struggles of the 1960s were profoundly anti-capitalist. Even Martin Luther King reached a point, before his death, in A Testament of Hope, when he was saying we must be anti-militarist; we must critique capitalism. That has somehow gotten lost in the mix, and I think that this embracing of capitalist ethic of liberal individualism has done more to diffuse Black people’s capacity to struggle for freedom, than any other factor.” bell hooks