Re: [blind-democracy] Re: Could President Sanders defeat a Republican congress

It's a long, slow process, Chuck. How long did it take us to arrive
at this juncture? When the Colonists overthrew the greedy Brits, they
began planning a government of their own. They decided to establish a
Republic. (a state in which supreme power is held by the people and
their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated
president rather than a monarch.)
But since they did not include All People in this government, it
actually was an Oligarchy from the very beginning.
Because this Landed Gentry was more united in purpose, and fewer in
number, and held the Land and the Money Houses, and controlled the
Army, and set the basic Education to be provided to the Common People,
and since they also owned the news papers and printing houses, which
were the only Mass Media of the day, other than Word of Mouth, and
they even established and controlled the Postal System, and they owned
the transportation system which included the new Rail System, even
setting the rates for shipping product and produce, in a word, they
were in total control. And so the Dance began. Those who were not
part of the Republic, but were nonetheless represented by it, began to
feel as oppressed as had the nation's Forefathers. American history
is full of small uprisings and resistance against the Oligarchy,
including a major Civil War. Of course this Civil War, had it
succeeded would have ended in a new Southern Oligarchy.
Whether by design or by accident, the Republic's Ruling Class settled
upon a "divide and conquer" method of control.
Turning one faction against others, spreading lies and misrepresenting
just what sort of
government ruled this Land,the Owners of the United States of America
steered the Ship of State as they saw fit. As it profited them. And
all of us served at their pleasure. Confusion reigned, and reigns
today. This Oligarchy which is now the American Corporate Empire, has
close to total control of our lives. We are supporting their very
existence, their lavish life style. We give our money, our children's
lives and our future security to enable them to continue prospering,
and hiding their ill gotten gains in secure off-shore accounts. And
all the while we sing, "America the Beautiful", and "God Bless
America". We do it because we've been trained to do it. We turn on
one another because we've been trained to mistrust those identified
as, "Different". We blame one another and we blame "The Government"
for being incompetent.
Undoing generations of deception will not come over night, if at all.
But what other choice do we have? Sure, we could sell out and kiss
the asses of our Lords, taking comfort in the dribble of coins and
favors bestowed upon us. And for some, that will do. But for those
of us who dream of a Mother Earth where all Life prospers, for those
of us who think in terms of All People being important and deserving
respect, for those of us wishing to live With our Planet, within our
Planet's resources, we have only one direction, one road to travel.
Teaching those about us, to think for themselves. Teach ourselves to
trust one another, to believe that the "Common Man" has the ability to
be a partner in a World Peace.
And to the doubters who buy the Empire's propaganda, saying that it
can't be done, I say, "Open your eyes and your minds. Look Around
You!" The changes are happening all around us.

Carl Jarvis



On 4/5/16, Charles Krugman <dmarc-noreply@freelists.org> wrote:
> the only problem with your proposed Constitutional convention by the working
>
> class Americans is that you don't have unity within that class. There are
> those who are the Trump followers and the tea partiers that would disagree
> with the type of recommendations that you are proposing. How are those
> misguided people going to be convinced that trickle down evonomics nor less
>
> government services will not benefit them or their families?
> Chuck
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carl Jarvis
> Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2016 8:36 AM
> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
> Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Could President Sanders defeat a Republican
> congress
>
> Chuck and All,
> Articles like this one tickle my funny bone. First, the writer sets
> up his points so the answers reflect his position. Second, he takes
> Sander's words and reads his interpretation into them.
> But that's the way many "Journalists" now report the "news". And
> granted, objectivity is hard to come by. Each of us puts our own spin
> on the spin put on the story. I am, for lack of a better term, a
> Radical Reformed democrat(with a small d), with conservative fiscal
> leanings. But I answer as easily to labels such as, "Loose Cannon".
> But that's beside the point. My point is that all of this
> conversation regarding what Bernie means, or what Hillary says, or
> where Ted is coming from, or if the real Donald will please stand up,
> does not address the central problem. The Corporate Capitalist System
> is not serving the majority of Americans. The Corporate Capitalist
> System is doing one Hell of a fine job defending the Oligarchy that is
> the American Corporate Empire.
> And while Hillary, Ted and Donald are ignoring the central problem, at
> least Bernie understands that the only way to reach change is through
> a revolution. Perhaps Bernie is using the wrong term for what appears
> more to be a People's take over of the government, without changing
> the existing system. That's not really a revolution as much as it is
> a political change of guard.
> To me, a revolution is the overthrow of the existing Establishment.
> We normally think of such an uprising as being violent, but it can be
> a non violent overthrow. Our own Republic has been turned into an
> Oligarchy with only nominal violence. The Republican majority has
> been a moving force, blocking any of the weak efforts by the Obama
> forces to make social changes on behalf of the Working Class.
> The United States is now controlled by the Corporate American Empire.
> The profiteers, the Industrial/Military Corporations are the major
> beneficiaries of this new System.
> Despite who wins, all of the candidates being allowed to be
> considered, will be controlled to a greater or lessor degree by the
> Oligarchy. They are part of it.
> While I plan to vote for Bernie, it is as if I were at a wrestling
> match and someone asked me, "Who do you think will win? The Mad Hatter
> or the March Hare?" And I say, "I bet on the Mad Hatter". I have no
> stake in that match. I am simply a spectator being entertained by two
> half naked behemoths. I will walk away to resume my normal life no
> matter who wins.
> Perhaps in this up coming political wrestling match, I will not have
> quite such a "normal" life under Ted or...God forbid, Donald, but
> Hillary has already promised me that under her "leadership" we will go
> slow. Which in my mind translates, "We will hold the line...unless we
> are told to tighten control just a bit".
> What Working Class Americans need to do is to pull together a special
> Constitutional Convention, and begin exploring just what sort of all
> inclusive government they could produce. Presently we have no idea of
> what to do if this current, out of control government failed. And it
> will fail simply by draining all of its national resources away.
> Naturally such a Constitutional Convention would be declared as
> Treason, by the existing gang. But such a movement would need to
> declare that we no longer will play by their rules. We will continue
> to go to work, pay our taxes and abide by the social laws. But we
> will exercise our Right as Citizens to gather and determine how a
> government might better serve All its People. After that it won't
> matter if Hillary, Bernie, Ted or even Donald are tucked away in the
> oval office. We'll have our hands full.
>
> Carl Jarvis
>
>
>
> On 3/31/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>> Chuck,
>>
>> But the Democratic Party has changed radically in the past 30 years.
>> Given
>> your political orientation, I wonder if you would have supported FDR and
>> his
>> New Deal because actually, that is what Ssanders is talking about, old
>> fashioned FDR New deal politics. He's using the word, "revolution", to
>> indicate that in order to get the party and the country back on track,
>> very
>> large numbers of people must be involved. The current Democratic Party is
>> very much like the Republican Party used to be. Perhaps back 30 or 40
>> years
>> ago, you would have been comfortable in the Republican Party.
>>
>> Miriam
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> From: blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org
>> [mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org] On Behalf Of Charles
>> Krugman
>> (Redacted sender "ckrugman" for DMARC)
>> Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2016 7:44 AM
>> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
>> Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Could President Sanders defeat a
>> Republican
>> congress
>>
>>
>> this article does a better job than I could of putting my thoughts in to
>> perspective as to why I haven't jumped on the Sanders bandwagon and why
>> I'm
>> having trouble buying in to his campaign. To start I must that I am a
>> proud
>> liberal Democrat (note the differentiation from progressive). My goal is
>> not
>> a political revolution but is to elect Democrats and further the
>> Democratic
>> Party locally and nationally by making sure that Republicans are voted
>> out
>> of office. While the Obama Administration could have done some things
>> better
>> I am not ashamed of its performance. I have said in earlier posts that I
>> believe the problem has been the Tea Party in Congress and in state and
>> local government. I believe that at the time the banks and auto industry
>> needed to be bailed out to protect America as a whole and the economy.
>> Yes
>> the bail out might not have gone far enough for the average consumer but
>> the
>> consequences of not having it might have been much worse. I want a
>> candidate
>> to show partisanship which is why I supported O'Malley until he dropped
>> out
>> of the race. Perhaps I'm promoting the status quo but I just can't get
>> excited about the issues that the Sanders campaign presents and the
>> solutions that it offers.
>> Chuck
>>
>> From: Frank Ventura <mailto:frank.ventura@littlebreezes.com>
>> Sent: Saturday, March 26, 2016 1:12 PM
>> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
>> Subject: [blind-democracy] Could President Sanders defeat a Republican
>> congress
>>
>>
>> From:
>>
>> https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/01/25/could-president-sanders-defea
>> t-republican-congress/SflnJZh7gwLqHtNEaNOF0N/story.html
>>
>> Could President Sanders defeat a Republican Congress? - The Boston Globe
>> Page 2 of 6
>>
>> Cohen writes:
>>
>> Surely, because he serves in the Senate, Sanders knows that a public
>> option
>> in Obamacare didn't fail because Obama didn't advocate for it; it failed
>> because Democrats in Congress refused to go along with it.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Bernie Sanders listened to a question at a town hall apoearance in Iowa
>> Falls, Iowa, on Monday.
>>
>>
>>
>> Mark Kauzlarich/REUTERS
>>
>>
>>
>> Bernie Sanders listened to a question at a town hall apoearance in Iowa
>> Falls, Iowa, on Monday.
>>
>>
>>
>> By Michael A. Cohen January 26, 2016
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Bernie Sanders on the campaign trail is quite good. His rap on income
>> inequality and the distorting effects of big money in American politics
>> is
>> persuasive and effective. But as I listened to him speak in Nashua last
>> week, I couldn't help notice there was something missing from his stump
>> speech: Republicans.
>>
>>
>>
>> It's a bit of an odd omission, seeing as Sanders is running for the
>> Democratic nomination for president. But it also speaks to one of the
>> fundamental problems with Sanders' campaign and his theory of political
>> change.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Now to be sure, it's not as if Sanders fails to criticize Republicans (he
>> does); it's that his focus lies elsewhere.
>>
>>
>>
>> He says, "What we've got to do is create a political revolution which
>> revitalizes American democracy; which brings millions of young people and
>> working people into the political process." In a recent speech on Wall
>> Street, he listed the iniquities of the One Percent, but never mentioned
>> the
>> GOP.
>>
>>
>>
>> This language is at pace with a campaign message that views money, not
>> Republicans, as the true impediment to transformative political change.
>> But
>> just a cursory review of the past seven years of American politics
>> suggests
>> that Sanders is wrong.
>>
>> First and foremost, to say that nothing real will happen until we have a
>> political revolution is refuted by history. Since President Obama took
>> office, Congress passed a health care law that expanded access to 20
>> million
>> people, reformed the student loan program, made massive investments in
>> clean
>> energy and infrastructure, and strengthened financial regulation. What
>> allowed this to happen wasn't a political revolution. It also wasn't even
>> the election of a Democratic president. The simple fact is that much of
>> this
>> happened because Democrats, for a brief period, had a filibuster-proof
>> majority in the Senate and control of the House.
>>
>>
>>
>> Democrats have enjoyed far less success now that Republicans control
>> Congress. GOP opposition on Capitol Hill is not simply a result of
>> campaign
>> donations from Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers, and Wall Street -
>> three
>> of Sanders' key bogeymen. It wasn't these folks that had the most to lose
>> from health care reform; and indeed many on Wall Street and in the
>> business
>> community disagreed with Republican opposition to immigration and watched
>> in
>> horror as Republicans in Congress played chicken with the debt limit. The
>> driver for these efforts is politics and the ideological preferences of
>> Republican politicians and voters.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> But the second problem here is that Sanders, though running as a
>> Democrat,
>> is diminishing, even disrespecting, the accomplishments of Democrats.
>> Implicit in Sanders' call for single-payer health care is that Obamacare
>> is
>> simply inadequate to the challenge of ensuring greater access to care and
>> cutting costs. Implicit in Sanders' call for greater financial regulation
>> is
>> that Dodd-Frank is inadequate reform. Implicit in Sanders' call for free
>> higher education is that Democratic efforts to improve the student loan
>> program and ensure free tuition for community college is that these
>> measures
>> are insufficient.
>>
>>
>>
>> Now of course Sanders would likely suggest that one needs a political
>> revolution to ensure the kind of changes that go beyond these
>> half-measures.
>> But if one believes that, why is Sanders running for president?
>>
>>
>>
>> Surely, because he serves in the Senate, Sanders knows that a public
>> option
>> in Obamacare didn't fail because Obama didn't advocate for it; it failed
>> because Democrats in Congress refused to go along with it.
>>
>>
>>
>> If it is Congress - particularly Republicans - that has blocked reform,
>> shouldn't Sanders' focus be on electing more liberal Democrats to
>> Congress?
>>
>>
>>
>> I asked his campaign how much time he's spent over the years helping
>> Democrats get elected to Congress. I didn't get a response. But it bears
>> noting that Sanders isn't even a Democrat, and from my admittedly crude
>> Google searches I couldn't find much evidence that he's actively
>> campaigned
>> on behalf of Democratic House and Senate candidates.
>>
>>
>>
>> That stands in contrast to his opponents, Martin O'Malley and Hillary
>> Clinton. O'Malley criticized Sanders during the last Democratic debate
>> for
>> not campaigning on behalf of Democratic candidates in South Carolina. For
>> her part, Clinton campaigned in 20 states at the tail end of the 2014
>> midterm election. In fact, while Clinton helped to raise $18 million for
>> Democrats in 2015, Sanders didn't raise a dime for the DNC - and she's
>> identified helping down-ballot Democrats and rebuilding local Democratic
>> parties as top priorities.
>>
>>
>>
>> As Sanders, who has been in Washington for decades surely must know,
>> Congress today is a dysfunctional mess, one in which Republicans block
>> pretty much every single reform effort proposed by Democrats. Why would
>> President Sanders be successful in overcoming Republican obstructionism?
>> If
>> he believes the key to creating a political revolution would come through
>> overturning Citizen United or ending the influence of super PACS or
>> moving
>> toward public funding of elections or ending redistricting, how exactly
>> would he accomplish that?
>>
>>
>>
>> The point of course is that he wouldn't, not without a solid majority of
>> Democrats in Congress and even then much of his agenda would be open to
>> negotiation.
>>
>>
>>
>> Now, in fairness, lots of presidential candidates talk about legislation
>> on
>> the campaign trail that has no chance of becoming law. Clinton is just as
>> guilty of this, but she's not the one talking about a political
>> revolution
>> or being indifferent about electing more Democrats to Congress.
>>
>>
>>
>> If anything, political change in America rarely begins with the actions
>> of
>> presidents - it usually ends with them, as political leaders, pushed by
>> activists and social movements, are often the last group to jump on a
>> political bandwagon. This has been true from enacting laws to protect
>> workers and the civil rights movement to more modern fights in support of
>> same-sex marriage.
>>
>>
>>
>> Sanders' focus on the presidency as a spark for massive political change
>> is
>> a particular affliction that affects the Democratic Party, where more
>> emphasis is placed on electing a president than on the hard work of
>> electing
>> Democrats not just to Congress but at the state and local level, too.
>>
>>
>>
>> In a sense, this is what is so troubling about what Sanders is doing.
>> It's
>> not just that he is presenting his supporters with a simplistic
>> understanding of how political change happens, he is merely setting them
>> up
>> for crushing disappointment. If, by some outside chance, Sanders became
>> president, his agenda would be dead on arrival. We'd see four more years
>> of
>> gridlock and four more years of dysfunction. If Sanders really wanted to
>> push his agenda, he would have spent the last few years electing
>> like-minded
>> Democrats to Congress. But I suppose that's less fun than running for
>> president.
>>
>>
>>
>> Michael A. Cohen's column appears regularly in the Globe. Foll0w him on
>> Twitter @speechboy71.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>