[blind-democracy] My problem with Hillary

The author writes: "As Bernie Sanders has noted, it is not her
experience which is weak, it is her
judgment."
Frankly, I disagree with Sanders. Clinton's judgement is exactly in
line with her "Handlers", those who are paying her way.
We make decisions based upon our experiences and the level of our
intelligence. Clinton is definitely an intelligent person, drawing
her conclusions from her Life Experiences, and basing her Judgement
upon them. My own action and my own judgement
is grounded in many experiences and influences. Not in the least is
my father, my mother and the sort of friends they kept. Hillary
Clinton is not so removed from such influences, either. What's that
old saying? You're known by the company you keep?
Still, there is much to learn in this article.

Carl Jarvis

My problem with Hillary

> The New York primary comes next Tuesday and I realize it is past time for
> me
> to toss in my two cents worth. I will, later, tackle the issue of Bernie
> Sanders' campaign. I realize that while the American Left is shattered, and
> there are no definitive spokespeople, as someone who was twice the chair of
> the Socialist Party, and twice it's Presidential candidate, I should take
> up
> the question of the Sanders' campaign, and will do so, but not tonight.
>
> Tonight I want to outline my serious problems with Hillary Clinton, and
> explain why, in the event she wins the Democratic Party's nomination, I
> will
> vote for Jill Stein of the Greens rather than Hillary Clinton. That is not
> an easy decision, since I think it imperative that the Republicans not take
> the White House. (And I know that in New York State it is not a reckless
> position, since New York is one of the states which is virtually certain to
> vote Democratic, as Texas is virtually certain to vote Republican, so that
> "maverick votes" don't really risk things).
>
> I do not hold Hillary's support for Goldwater and the Republicans. when she
> was very young. against her. After all, at her age I was in the Prohibition
> Party! It is what happened to Clinton and where she has gone in her later
> years that needs to be examined
>
> Part of me feels genuinely sorry for Hillary. Put it down to my puritanical
> streak (something which, as an aging homosexual, I don't really have a
> right
> to!) but I felt that was it in poor taste for Bill Clinton to have his cock
> sucked in the Oval Office by an intern (somehow a mistress would be easier
> to take - Bill's actions were simply gross). I believe this event must have
> been utterly shattering for Hillary and for Chelsea. The humiliation was
> surely much worse than the earlier reports of his sexual liaisons with
> women
> in his home state. It was not to Hillary's credit that she tended to shift
> the blame to the women - a most dubious kind of feminism.
>
> But let's leave her personal humiliations aside, though I think they left
> her hardened. It has been her political record which leaves me unable to
> cast a vote for her. She moves in a crowd of wealth and celebrity, which
> not
> only has included Donald Trump, but vastly worse, includes, to this day,
> Henry Kissinger. So much time has passed since the end of the Vietnam War -
> 41 years - that new generations do not realize that thousands of young
> Americans died in Vietnam, and tens of thousands of Vietnamese and
> Cambodians, because of the foreign policy pursued by Richard Nixon, whose
> closest adviser was Henry Kissinger. If the term "war criminal" has
> meaning,
> it must be applied to Kissinger. (Nor was the Indochina War his only crime
> -
> he played a key role in the overthrow of the elected government of Salvador
> Allende, In Chile. An overthrow which saw the bloody suppression of
> Allende's supporters).
>
> After the end of World War II the allies, at the Nuremberg Tribunal,
> sentenced a number of Nazi leaders to death by hanging. If we look back at
> Vietnam, and realize that an estimated three million Vietnamese died in
> that
> war, where, on that scale, would we place the possible punishment of
> Kissinger?
>
> Hillary Clinton is fundamentally a war candidate. When Bush launched the
> Iraq War (now, also, so distant in time we forget how sharp was the debate
> before the dreadful "shock and awe" which opened that war, and destroyed a
> nation) it was not only simply Bernie Sanders who spoke against it - so did
> Barack Obama. So did the Pope. Literally millions of people marched for
> peace in the streets of London, Paris, Tokyo. The UN inspectors on the
> scene
> had reported at that time that they had found no evidence of weapons of
> mass
> destruction.
>
> The opposition to that war did not spring from any affection for Saddam. I
> had been in Iraq just before the war began, on a delegation from the
> Fellowship of Reconciliation, and felt the pressure of the Saddam
> dictatorship, with huge posters of him all over the city. No, it was not an
> opposition built on affection for Saddam Hussein, but on a belief the war
> would not solve the problems.
>
> We - those of us in total opposition to Bush - were right. Hillary Clinton
> was wrong, along with Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush. Now she admits her vote
> was
> "a mistake" but there is no sense of guilt in her voice. No awareness that
> thousands upon thousands of young Americans - and tens upon tens of
> thousands of Iraqis died in that war. She counts on voters too young to
> remember how widespread was the opposition to that war. How is it possible
> for her to forget the images of torture from Abu Ghraib?
>
> When there was unrest in Libya, she supported - proudly, eager to take
> credit for it - the US policy of helping overthrow Gadaffi. As Bernie
> Sanders has noted, it is not her experience which is weak, it is her
> judgment. The horrors of the Iraq War did not leave her hesitant about
> Libya, nor did the disaster of Libya lead her to support negotiating the
> Syrian crisis - it was the prolonged, patient work of John Kerry which has
> given us, at least for the moment, a break in the fighting. Perhaps because
> Kerry had actually seen a war from the front line, not from the comfort of
> an office in Washington DC.
>
> Of the candidates for President, Trump is so fascinating he merits an
> article of his own. Ted Cruz is a man looking squarely toward the past and
> would lead us there. Hillary is the candidate of the establishment, who
> seeks to manage what is, rather than to imagine what might be. Only Bernie
> Sanders points us to the future. And while Bernie is not without error, he
> can be trusted, even by his opponents, while Hillary is trusted by no one.
>
> Bernie has always been for gay rights - Hillary waited until the coast was
> clear before taking a position, Along with her husband, she was happy with
> "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", and with opposing gay marriage.
>
> I know - I've been in politics a long time - that the Establishment will
> support Hillary. She poses no threat. The trade union leadership (and not
> even all of them) supports Hillary, but the rank and file supports Bernie.
> Hillary's boast is that she can get things done, and Bernie can't. I put it
> to you that this is a very risky proposition. For whatever reason, the GOP
> hates Hillary, with a much greater venom than it hates Obama. The idea that
> once elected she can settle down and negotiate with the GOP is an illusion.
> I put it to you that, if Bernie Sanders is elected, that will have
> reflected
> such a true shift in the body politic that the GOP will realize it has to
> go
> along at least part of the way.
>
> Hillary will provide decent nominees for the Supreme Court, she will
> support
> Social Security and health care, but she will not take on the
> pharmaceutical
> industry which makes health care so expensive. She will not expand the
> health care program to cover the millions not covered now. On most domestic
> issues she will be OK - no more, but no less. And that is not good enough.
> When Bernie suggests medical care for all, tuition free public colleges,
> (not a new idea, when I went to UCLA in the 1950's there was no tuition),
> Hillary explains we can't afford it. We live in a nation where there is
> enormous wealth in the hands of a tiny minority - and Hillary will not take
> a single step toward the taxation policies that would begin the
> redistribution of that vast wealth.
>
> She has not - thus far not even tried - to explain why the US cannot afford
> the things which in Denmark, or Holland, or Sweden, or Finland, are taken
> for granted. When Bernie says we need a political revolution he is on
> target
> - and that is what Hillary will do her best to avoid.
>
>
> However on foreign policy she will opt for guns. Look at her record in the
> tiny country of Honduras, imagine her possible actions in Ukraine. And if
> you followed her speech to AIPAC, where she covered every possible base,
> including a pledge for an early meeting with Netanyahu, you can see that
> she is in touch with the past, not the future. AIPAC represents that wing
> of
> the Jewish community which has substituted total support for Israeli
> policies for the much deeper and more important part of the Jewish
> community
> which remembers the Judaic tradition as one of justice, not oppression.
> There are a great many young Jews, not "self-hating", and not indifferent
> to
> the problems of Israel, who seek a new relationship with Israel and the
> Palestinians. Hillary not only doesn't speak for them, she doesn't even
> know
> they exist. Besides, the AIPAC folks include billionaires who will fund her
> campaign - the young Jewish folks don't have that kind of money, just
> integrityl
>
> The world is changing, but Hillary has not changed. It would be wonderful
> to
> have a woman as President, but not this woman. Not a woman who accepts
> hundreds of thousands of dollars from Wall Street for her speeches - but
> will not release those speeches to the public.
>
> The machinery of Establishment will break its back to get Hillary the
> nomination. The Chair of the DNC made sure, when the first debates were
> scheduled, that they would be few, and mainly at times when people would be
> following a sports event. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is a good example of the
> establishment which Hillary represents. The establishment fears the kind
> of
> change Bernie Sanders is urging - and which is possible. The
> military-industrial complex fears the cuts in their budgets.
>
> When I see Hillary on TV, I remember the war dead. I remember her friend,
> Henry Kissinger. I remember the speeches made to Wall Street but kept
> secret
> from us. I cannot in conscience vote for her if she wins the nomination. I
> do not urge others to follow my lead. It is a personal one, that the
> dynasties of Bush and Clinton need to end. Those who represent them need to
> mourn the past. The rest of us need to build the future.
>
> (Edgeleft is an occasional essay by David McReynolds, who worked for War
> Resisters League for nearly forty years, was chair of War Resisters
> International, and active in socialist politics all his life. He is retired
> and lives on the Lower East Side with his talkative cat. He can be reached
> at: davidmcreynolds7@gmail.com)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Re: [blind-democracy] Re: Stupid Is As Stupid Does ...

Richard and All,
My concern was that this was very selective, very narrow, very
specific examples of the never ending killing that seems to preoccupy
Mankind. One only need to glance at the evening news to learn that
war, killing, murder, violence and retaliation are the major items of
interest.
We serve no positive purpose by identifying our killers as all Muslim
Males. A similar list could be drawn up identifying young male Free
Irish. We might show that the colonists had no other choice but to
wipe out the pesky Red Savages, by naming a list of Indian Males who
went about killing our White Fathers...and Mothers.
Such lists are of no historical value. The basic thrust is to drive
wedges, to turn one group of people against another. We do not need
to tell our children that it was Muslims who were the violent
aggressors. Murder is rampant across the Planet, and growing faster
than a speeding bullet.
Out of historical curiosity, can you name an equal number of Muslim
men who stood for peace?
What about a list of Christian Men? One of peace defending Mexicans?
What about a list of brave peace loving Women? And could we find an
equal number of corporate CEO's who are promoting peace?
Good luck with that last one!

Carl Jarvis





On 4/5/16, Richard Driscoll <llocsirdsr@att.net> wrote:
> Carl and All:
> This type of historical information is indicative, in this case in my
> opinion, that there had been a goodly bit of armed confrontation between
> the so called Western World and the so called Eastern World and it would
> appear that it is continuing on in this day and age. It does not mean
> that one group is better than or worse than the other. It might indicate
> that the wars fought did not settle anything on a permanent bases and it
> my perhaps indicate the western world and the eastern world did not
> learn anything from the armed conflicts noted.
> Richard
>
> On 4/5/2016 12:06 PM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
>> This is the sort of "thinking" that assures us that there will always
>> be murder and torture. I mean, how could we, the Righteous
>> descendants of good, loving, Christian Europeans ever sit down with
>> those murderous, mindless Muslims? Despite having no blood on our God
>> Fearing hands, they come around taking what we've earned, fair and
>> square, slitting our throats in the deal,
>> Well, all of us who buy this crap are just as mean spirited and
>> underhanded and murderous as are those many Male Muslim Men.
>> I used to say that we were indeed a ship of fools. Now I have altered
>> that to say, a ship of murderous fools.
>>
>> Shame on anyone who passes this biased drivel along.
>>
>> Carl Jarvis
>>
>>
>> On 4/5/16, Richard Driscoll <llocsirdsr@att.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Some historical information I found it to be very interesting and
>>> informative.
>>>
>>> **Ask any person, not your child between the ages of 18
>>> and 25, if they ever heard of the Nuremburg Trials. 1
>>> in
>>> 13 might say they have, but will not be able to tell
>>> you
>>> "what" was on trial (not who). Those same people will
>>> not be able to tell you the name of the Vice President.
>>> 84% of those who receive this will not read it
>>> completely, or at all. 10% will but will also chose not
>>> to forward it. The remaining 6% will forward it.****
>>>
>>> **The war started in the 7th century and lasted through
>>> the 17th century. I would contend it never stopped but
>>> historically the facts below are correct.**
>>>
>>> **This is why I choke when I hear someone say we will
>>> defeat or contain these Islamic terrorists in a few
>>> years or even 30 years as recently stated by Leon
>>> Panetta.**
>>>
>>> **If the latest batch of murders, beheadings, and
>>> killing of innocent Christians has shocked you, maybe
>>> you should read this compilation of historical facts
>>> about the hatred of Muslims.**
>>>
>>> **WE, THE STUPID****
>>>
>>> **This is factually (and historically) correct - and
>>> verifiable:**
>>>
>>> **In 732 A.D. The Muslim Army, which was moving on
>>> Paris, was defeated and turned back at Tours, France,
>>> by
>>> Charles Martell.**
>>>
>>> **In 1571 A.D. The Muslim Army/Navy was defeated by the
>>> Italians and Austrians as they tried to cross the
>>> Mediterranean to attack southern Europe in the Battle
>>> of
>>> Lepanto.**
>>>
>>> **In 1683 A.D. The Turkish Muslim Army, attacking
>>> Eastern Europe, was finally defeated in the Battle of
>>> Vienna by German and Polish Christian Armies.****
>>>
>>> **This has been going on for 1,400 years and half of
>>> the
>>> politicians don't even know it.**
>>>
>>> **If these battles had not been won, we might be
>>> speaking Arabic and Christianity could be non-existent;
>>> Judaism certainly would not exist.**
>>>
>>> **Reflecting: A lot of Americans have become so
>>> insulated from reality that they imagine that America
>>> can suffer defeat without any inconvenience to
>>> themselves. Pause a moment and reflect back.****
>>>
>>> **These events are actual events from history. They
>>> really happened!**
>>>
>>> **Do you remember?**
>>>
>>> **47 years since 1968 and this just keeps going on and
>>> on.**
>>>
>>> **1. In 1968, Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by a
>>> Muslim male.****
>>>
>>> **2. In 1972, at the Munich Olympics, Israeli athletes
>>> were kidnapped and massacred by Muslim males.**
>>>
>>> **3. In 1972, a Pan Am 747 was hijacked and eventually
>>> diverted to Cairo where a fuse was lit on final
>>> approach. Shortly after landing it was blown up by
>>> Muslim males.**
>>>
>>> **4. In 1973, a Pan Am 707 was destroyed in Rome, with
>>> 33 people killed, when it was attacked with grenades by
>>> Muslim males.**
>>>
>>> **5. In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by
>>> Muslim males.**
>>>
>>> **6. During the 1980's a number of Americans were
>>> kidnapped in Lebanon by Muslim males.**
>>>
>>> **7. In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was
>>> blown
>>> up by Muslim males.**
>>>
>>> **8. In 1985, the cruise ship Achille Lauro was
>>> hijacked
>>> and a 70-year old American passenger was murdered and
>>> thrown overboard in his wheelchair by Muslim males.**
>>>
>>> **9. In 1985, TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens,
>>> and
>>> a US Navy diver trying to rescue passengers was
>>> murdered
>>> by Muslim males.**
>>>
>>> **10. In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by Muslim
>>> males.**
>>>
>>> **11. In 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed the
>>> first time by Muslim males.**
>>>
>>> **12. In 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
>>> were bombed by Muslim males.**
>>>
>>> **13. On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked; two
>>> were
>>> used as missiles to take down the World Trade Centers
>>> and of the remaining two, one crashed into the US
>>> Pentagon and the other was diverted and crashed by the
>>> passengers. Thousands of people were killed by Muslim
>>> males.****
>>>
>>> **14. In 2002, the United States fought a war in
>>> Afghanistan against Muslim males.**
>>>
>>> **15. In 2002, reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and
>>> beheaded by - you guessed it - a Muslim male. (Plus two
>>> other American journalists who were just recently
>>> beheaded).**
>>>
>>> **16. In 2013, the Boston Marathon Bombing resulted in
>>> 4
>>> Innocent people, (including a child) being killed and
>>> 264 people injured by Muslim males.**
>>>
>>> **No Obama, I really don't see a pattern here to
>>> justify
>>> profiling, do you? So, to ensure we Americans never
>>> offend anyone, particularly fanatics intent on killing
>>> us, airport security screeners will no longer be
>>> allowed
>>> to profile certain people.****
>>>
>>> **So, ask yourself "Just how stupid are we???"****
>>>
>>> **Absolutely No Profiling! They must conduct random
>>> searches of 80-year-old women, little kids, airline
>>> pilots with proper identification, secret agents who
>>> are
>>> members of the Obama's security detail, 85-year-old
>>> Congressmen with metal hips, and Medal of Honor winner
>>> and former Governor Joe Foss, BUT...leave Muslim Males
>>> alone lest we be guilty of profiling.****
>>>
>>> **Ask yourself, "Just how stupid are we?" Have the
>>> American people completely lost their minds or just
>>> their Power of Reason???**
>>>
>>> **As the writer of the award winning story "Forrest
>>> Gump" so aptly put it, "Stupid Is As Stupid Does."**
>>>
>>> ****
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ---
>>> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
>>> https://www.avast.com/antivirus
>>>
>>
>
>
> ---
> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
> https://www.avast.com/antivirus
>
>
>

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.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>

Fwd: The Fox and the Hen House

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Carl Jarvis <carjar82@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2016 08:15:43 -0700
Subject: The Fox and the Hen House
To: blind-democracy@freelists.org

So we're going to ask the government to whip up some legislation
ending these subversive practices? Is this sort of like inviting the
Fox into the Hen House for dinner?
Where are our addled brains? Who do we suppose put in all of the
fancy language and clever loop holes for the Really Rich to duck
through? And now we want That same government to change things? Tell
me, do we still believe in Tinker Bell and the Little People? Hey!
There's a White Rabbit wearing a top hat and looking at his pocket
watch, heading on his way to Wonderland.

Carl Jarvis


On 4/4/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> The Panama Papers: 'Biggest Leak in History' Exposes Global Web of
> Corruption
> http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_panama_papers_biggest_leak_in_histor
> y_exposes_20160403/
>
> Posted on Apr 3, 2016
> By Deirdre Fulton / Common Dreams
>
> Edward Snowden / Twitter
> An anonymous source, an enormous cache of leaked documents, and a year-long
> investigative effort by around 400 journalists from more than 100 media
> organizations in over 80 countries have yielded the Panama Papers, an
> unprecedented look at how the world's rich and powerful, from political
> leaders to celebrities to criminals, use tax havens to hide their wealth.
> The investigation went live on Sunday afternoon.
> German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote:
> Over a year ago, an anonymous source contacted the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ)
> and submitted encrypted internal documents from Mossack Fonseca, a
> Panamanian law firm that sells anonymous offshore companies around the
> world. These shell firms enable their owners to cover up their business
> dealings, no matter how shady.
> In the months that followed, the number of documents continued to grow far
> beyond the original leak. Ultimately, SZ acquired about 2.6 terabytes of
> data, making the leak the biggest that journalists had ever worked with.
> The
> source wanted neither financial compensation nor anything else in return,
> apart from a few security measures.
> The data provides rare insights into a world that can only exist in the
> shadows. It proves how a global industry led by major banks, legal firms,
> and asset management companies secretly manages the estates of the world's
> rich and famous: from politicians, Fifa officials, fraudsters and drug
> smugglers, to celebrities and professional athletes.
> "These findings show how deeply ingrained harmful practices and criminality
> are in the offshore world," said Gabriel Zucman, an economist at the
> University of California, Berkeley and author of The Hidden Wealth of
> Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens. Zucman, who was briefed on the media
> partners' investigation, said the release of the leaked documents should
> prompt governments to seek "concrete sanctions" against jurisdictions and
> institutions that peddle offshore secrecy.
> Fusion dubbed it "the WikiLeaks of the mega-rich."
> In a statement on Sunday, international anti-corruption organization Global
> Witness said the exposé had "once again shown the insidious role that tax
> havens, corporate secrecy and shell companies play in aiding widespread
> crime, corruption, and violence. These threaten the safety, security and
> well-being of people around the world."
> The group pointed out that "despite stereotypes portraying the problem of
> tax havens and shell companies as an 'offshore' problem, this is a big and
> homegrown issue in the U.S. as well." To that end, Global Witness will join
> faith leaders, small business owners, voices from law enforcement, and
> other
> community activists from over 25 states in Washington, D.C. from April
> 11-13
> to call on Congress to pass legislation that would end anonymous companies.
> The hashtag #PanamaPapers was trending on Twitter:
> http://www.truthdig.com/ http://www.truthdig.com/
> The Panama Papers: 'Biggest Leak in History' Exposes Global Web of
> Corruption
> http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_panama_papers_biggest_leak_in_histor
> y_exposes_20160403/
> Posted on Apr 3, 2016
> By Deirdre Fulton / Common Dreams
>
> Edward Snowden / Twitter
> An anonymous source, an enormous cache of leaked documents, and a year-long
> investigative effort by around 400 journalists from more than 100 media
> organizations in over 80 countries have yielded the Panama Papers, an
> unprecedented look at how the world's rich and powerful, from political
> leaders to celebrities to criminals, use tax havens to hide their wealth.
> The investigation went live on Sunday afternoon.
> German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote:
> Over a year ago, an anonymous source contacted the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ)
> and submitted encrypted internal documents from Mossack Fonseca, a
> Panamanian law firm that sells anonymous offshore companies around the
> world. These shell firms enable their owners to cover up their business
> dealings, no matter how shady.
> In the months that followed, the number of documents continued to grow far
> beyond the original leak. Ultimately, SZ acquired about 2.6 terabytes of
> data, making the leak the biggest that journalists had ever worked with.
> The
> source wanted neither financial compensation nor anything else in return,
> apart from a few security measures.
> The data provides rare insights into a world that can only exist in the
> shadows. It proves how a global industry led by major banks, legal firms,
> and asset management companies secretly manages the estates of the world's
> rich and famous: from politicians, Fifa officials, fraudsters and drug
> smugglers, to celebrities and professional athletes.
> "These findings show how deeply ingrained harmful practices and criminality
> are in the offshore world," said Gabriel Zucman, an economist at the
> University of California, Berkeley and author of The Hidden Wealth of
> Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens. Zucman, who was briefed on the media
> partners' investigation, said the release of the leaked documents should
> prompt governments to seek "concrete sanctions" against jurisdictions and
> institutions that peddle offshore secrecy.
> Fusion dubbed it "the WikiLeaks of the mega-rich."
> In a statement on Sunday, international anti-corruption organization Global
> Witness said the exposé had "once again shown the insidious role that tax
> havens, corporate secrecy and shell companies play in aiding widespread
> crime, corruption, and violence. These threaten the safety, security and
> well-being of people around the world."
> The group pointed out that "despite stereotypes portraying the problem of
> tax havens and shell companies as an 'offshore' problem, this is a big and
> homegrown issue in the U.S. as well." To that end, Global Witness will join
> faith leaders, small business owners, voices from law enforcement, and
> other
> community activists from over 25 states in Washington, D.C. from April
> 11-13
> to call on Congress to pass legislation that would end anonymous companies.
> The hashtag #PanamaPapers was trending on Twitter:
>
>
>

Re: [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.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Re: [blind-democracy] Re: The Cult of the Reagans

So here's a good example of the shaping of history for the purpose of
serving the current Ruling Class. The question is not whether you
loved the glitter and gilding that was Ronnie and Nancy, or whether
you bought hook line and sinker the Reagan approach to government, or
whether you believe that Ronald Reagan was a major player in moving
our American democracy toward that of an Oligarchy.
(Oligarchy: a form of government in which all power is vested in a few
persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.)
The question is whether or not we can trust our historians to
accurately present events in an open forum and in a way that the
students of history are able to come to their own conclusions, rather
than those of the writer.
I grew up in a world that still worshiped Kings and Royalty, and
Captains of Industry, and Generals and the Great Wars of history. The
backbone of America, the Working Class was barely mentioned in the
books I learned my history from. Some mention of the brave explorers
and pioneers, but little was mentioned regarding the events that drove
these people out into the Wilderness.
Howard Zinn does as fine a job as I've read, in putting together his
report of American history in, A People's History of the United
States.
But even so, Zinn's work should be read with an open mind, exploring
rather than taking as Gospel.
So called historians who simply pander to the current Ruling Class, do
serious students a major disservice by attempting to precondition the
student's thinking.

Carl Jarvis
On 3/24/16, Charles Krugman <dmarc-noreply@freelists.org> wrote:
> definitely an accurate portrayal of Reagan as well as Nancy. I wonder if
> Donald Trump studied Reagan at all as they're not much different.
> Chuck
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Miriam Vieni
> Sent: Sunday, March 20, 2016 6:45 PM
> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
> Subject: [blind-democracy] The Cult of the Reagans
>
> Obama has cited Reagan's greatness. Hillary praised Nancy the other day,
> apparently telling an untruth which she had to walk back.
> Miriam
>
> Excerpt: "The press flattered him endlessly and vastly exaggerated his
> popularity and his achievements, starting with the nonsense that he 'ended
> the Cold War'. He did nothing of the sort, the Soviet Union's sclerotic
> economy having doomed it long before Reagan became president."
>
> Ronald and Nancy Reagan. (photo: unknown)
>
>
> The Cult of the Reagans
> By Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn, CounterPunch
> 20 March 16
>
> The queen of head is dead. At 94, the life of Nancy Reagan, the pin-up girl
> for the genocidal War on Drugs, finally blinked out. Rat Pack actor Peter
> Lawford, who frequently appeared on Ronald Reagan's General Electric
> Theatre, wrote in his memoir that Nancy gave the best blowjobs in
> Hollywood.
> It's one of the most benign things you could say about the woman who saw
> herself as a kind of Catherine the Great for the American Imperium.
>
> Already the airwaves are throbbing with misty tributes to the Reagan years,
> an age than never really was. Here then is a corrective to the manufactured
> history of Ron and Nancy and their court that Alexander Cockburn and I
> wrote
> on the centenary of Reagan's birth. –JSC
> he script of the recurring homages to the Reagans remains unchanging: with
> the Gipper's straightforward, sunny disposition and aw-shucks can-do style
> the manly Reagan gave America back its confidence. In less flattering
> terms,
> Reagan and his PR crew catered expertly to the demands of the American
> national fantasy: that homely common sense could return America to the
> vigor
> of its youth and the economy of the 1950s.
> When Reagan took over the Oval Office at the age of 66 whatever powers of
> concentration he might have once had were failing. The Joint Chiefs of
> Staff
> mounted their traditional show-and-tell briefings for him, replete with
> simple charts and a senior general explicating them in simple terms. Reagan
> found these briefings much too complicated and dozed off.
> The Joint Chiefs then set up a secret unit, staffed by cartoonists. The
> balance of forces were set forth in easily accessible caricature, with
> Soviet missiles the size of upended Zeppelins, pulsing on their
> launch-pads,
> with the miniscule US ICBMs shriveled in their bunkers. Little cartoon
> bubbles would contain the points the joint chiefs wanted to hammer into
> Reagan's brain, most of them to the effect that "we need more money". The
> president really enjoyed the shows and sometimes even asked for repeats.
> Reagan had abolished any tiresome division of the world into fact or
> fiction
> in the early 1940s when his studio's PR department turned him into a war
> hero, courtesy of his labors in "Fort Wacky" in Culver City, where they
> made
> training films. The fanzines disclosed the loneliness of R.R.'s first wife,
> Jane Wyman, her absent man (a few miles away in Fort Wacky, home by
> suppertime) and her knowledge of R.R.'s hatred of the foe.
> "She'd seen Ronnie's sick face," Modern Screen reported in 1942, "bent over
> a picture of the small, swollen bodies of children starved to death in
> Poland. 'This,' said the war-hating Reagan between set lips, 'would make it
> a pleasure to kill.'" A photographer for Modern Screen recalled later that,
> unlike some stars who were reluctant to offer themselves to his lens in
> "hero's" garb, Reagan insisted on being photographed on his front step in
> full uniform, kissing his wife goodbye.
> Years later Reagan boasted (that is: lied) about liberating the Nazi death
> camps, even as he was forced to defend his deranged decision to bestow
> presidential honors on the dead at the cemetery in Bitburg, Germany, final
> resting place for the blood-drenched butchers of the Waffen SS. Reagan
> possessed a special talent for the suspension of disbelief when it came to
> the facts of his own life. Perhaps, if the earth in Simi Valley ever
> decides
> to disgorge his corpse, the custodians of Bitburg could erect a cenotaph
> for
> Reagan on those chilly grounds.
> The problem for the press was that Reagan didn't really care that he'd been
> caught out with another set of phony statistics or a bogus anecdote. Truth,
> for him, was what he happened to be saying at the time. When the
> Iran/contra
> scandal broke, he held a press conference in which he said to Helen Thomas
> of UPI, "I want to get to the bottom of this and find out all that has
> happened. And so far, I've told you all that I know and, you know, the
> truth
> of the matter is, for quite some time, all that you knew was what I'd told
> you." He went one better than George Washington in that he couldn't tell a
> lie and he couldn't tell the truth, since he couldn't tell the difference
> between the two.
> His mind was a wastebasket of old clippings from Popular Science, SF
> magazines (the origin of "Star Wars", aka the Strategic Defense Initiative)
> lines from movies and homely saws from the Reader's Digest and the Sunday
> supplements.
> Like his wife Nancy, Ronnie had a stout belief in astrology, the stars
> being
> the twinkling penumbra of his incandescent belief in the "free market,"
> with
> whose motions it was blasphemous to tamper. He believed Armageddon was
> right
> around the corner. He also believed tomato ketchup could be classified as a
> school meal, striking back at the nose-candy crowd who, as Stevie Earle
> once
> said, spent the Seventies trying to get cocaine classified as a vegetable.
> Reagan's view of Nature was strictly utilitarian. When Reagan was governor
> of California, David Brower, the great arch-Druid, goaded him into making
> his infamous declaration: "Once you've seen one redwood, you've seen them
> all." That Zen koan-like pronouncement pretty much summed up Reagan's
> philosophy of environmental tokenism. Later, Reagan propounded the thesis
> that trees generated more air pollution than coal-fired power plants. For
> Reagan, the only excuse for Nature was to serve as a backdrop for
> photo-ops,
> just like in his intros for Death Valley Days, the popular western TV
> series
> that served as a catwalk for the rollout of the B-movie actor as a national
> politician.
> To execute his rapine environmental policies, Reagan turned to his Interior
> Secretary James Watt, whose approach to the plunder of the planet seethed
> with an evangelical fervor. He brought with him to Washington a gang of
> libertarian missionaries, mostly veterans of the Adolf Coors-funded
> Mountain
> States Legal Foundation, who referred to themselves as "The Colorado
> Crazies." Their mission: privatize the public estate. Many of them were
> transparent crooks who ended up facing indictment and doing time in federal
> prison for self-dealing and public corruption. They gave away billions in
> public timber, coal, and oil to favored corporations, leaving behind toxic
> scars where there used to be wild forests, trout streams, and deserts.
> These
> thieves were part of the same claque of race-baiting zealots who demonized
> welfare mothers as swindlers of the public treasury.
> Watt, who was himself charged with twenty-five felony counts of lying and
> obstruction of justice, never hid his rapacious agenda behind soft,
> made-for-primetime rhetoric. He never preached about win-win solutions,
> ecological forestry, or sustainable development. From the beginning, James
> Watt's message was clear: grab it all, grab it now. God wills it so.
> Hearing all the cosy talk about the Gipper, young people spared the
> experience of his awful sojourn in office, probably imagine him as a
> kindly,
> avuncular figure. Not so. He was a callous man, with a breezy indifference
> to suffering and the consequences of his decisions. This indifference was
> so
> profound that Dante would surely have consigned him to one of the lowest
> circles of hell, to roast for all eternity in front of a TV set on the
> blink
> and a dinner tray swinging out of reach like the elusive fruits that
> tormented Tantalus.
> It was startling, back in 2004 when he died, to see the lines of people
> sweating under a hot sun waiting to see Reagan's casket. How could any of
> them take the dreadful old faker seriously? The nearest thing to it was the
> hysteria over Princess Di.
> The explosion of the Challenger space shuttle of January 28, 1986, a
> disaster that prompted one of the peak kitsch moments in a presidency that
> was kitsch from start to finish. Reagan ended his address to the nation
> thus: "We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this
> morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and 'slipped
> the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God'."
> In fact it was the White House that had doomed Christa McAuliffe and her
> companions to be burned alive in the plummeting Challenger. The news event
> required the Challenger to go into orbit and be flying over Congress while
> Reagan was delivering his state of the union address. He was to tilt his
> head upward and, presumably gazing through the long-distance half of his
> spectacles, (one lens was close-up, for speech reading,) send a
> presidential
> greeting to the astronauts. But this schedule required an early morning
> launch from chill January Canaveral. Servile NASA officials ordered the
> Challenger aloft, with the frozen O-ring fatally compromised.
> Reagan dozed through much of his second term, his day easing forward
> through
> a forgiving schedule of morning nap, afternoon snooze, TV supper and early
> bed. He couldn't recall the names of many of his aides, even of his dog.
> Stories occasionally swirled around Washington that his aides pondered from
> time to time whether to invoke the Twenty-fifth Amendment. Reagan's sons,
> Michael and Ronnie, disagreed whether or not his Alzheimer's began when he
> was president. "Normalcy" and senile dementia were hard to distinguish. The
> official onset was six years after he left Washington DC.
> As an orator or "communicator" Reagan was terrible, with one turgid cliché
> following another, delivered in a folksy drone. His range of rhetorical
> artifice was terribly limited.
> The press flattered him endlessly and vastly exaggerated his popularity and
> his achievements, starting with the nonsense that he "ended the Cold War".
> He did nothing of the sort, the Soviet Union's sclerotic economy having
> doomed it long before Reagan became president.
> He lavished money on the rich and the Pentagon. The tendencies he presided
> over were probably inevitable, given the balance of political forces after
> the postwar boom hit the ceiling in the late 1960s. Then it was a matter of
> triage, as the rich made haste to consolidate their position.
> It was a straight line from Reagan's crude attacks on welfare queens to
> Clinton's compassionate chewings of the lip (same head wag as RR's) as he
> swore to "end welfare as we know it". As a PR man, it was Reagan's role, to
> reassure the wealthy and the privileged that not only might but right was
> on
> their side, and that government, in whatever professed role, was utterly
> malign.
>
> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
>
> Ronald and Nancy Reagan. (photo: unknown)
> http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/07/the-cult-of-the-reagans/http://www.co
> unterpunch.org/2016/03/07/the-cult-of-the-reagans/
> The Cult of the Reagans
> By Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn, CounterPunch
> 20 March 16
> The queen of head is dead. At 94, the life of Nancy Reagan, the pin-up girl
> for the genocidal War on Drugs, finally blinked out. Rat Pack actor Peter
> Lawford, who frequently appeared on Ronald Reagan's General Electric
> Theatre, wrote in his memoir that Nancy gave the best blowjobs in
> Hollywood.
> It's one of the most benign things you could say about the woman who saw
> herself as a kind of Catherine the Great for the American Imperium.
>
> Already the airwaves are throbbing with misty tributes to the Reagan years,
> an age than never really was. Here then is a corrective to the manufactured
> history of Ron and Nancy and their court that Alexander Cockburn and I
> wrote
> on the centenary of Reagan's birth. –JSC
> he script of the recurring homages to the Reagans remains unchanging: with
> the Gipper's straightforward, sunny disposition and aw-shucks can-do style
> the manly Reagan gave America back its confidence. In less flattering
> terms,
> Reagan and his PR crew catered expertly to the demands of the American
> national fantasy: that homely common sense could return America to the
> vigor
> of its youth and the economy of the 1950s.
> When Reagan took over the Oval Office at the age of 66 whatever powers of
> concentration he might have once had were failing. The Joint Chiefs of
> Staff
> mounted their traditional show-and-tell briefings for him, replete with
> simple charts and a senior general explicating them in simple terms. Reagan
> found these briefings much too complicated and dozed off.
> The Joint Chiefs then set up a secret unit, staffed by cartoonists. The
> balance of forces were set forth in easily accessible caricature, with
> Soviet missiles the size of upended Zeppelins, pulsing on their
> launch-pads,
> with the miniscule US ICBMs shriveled in their bunkers. Little cartoon
> bubbles would contain the points the joint chiefs wanted to hammer into
> Reagan's brain, most of them to the effect that "we need more money". The
> president really enjoyed the shows and sometimes even asked for repeats.
> Reagan had abolished any tiresome division of the world into fact or
> fiction
> in the early 1940s when his studio's PR department turned him into a war
> hero, courtesy of his labors in "Fort Wacky" in Culver City, where they
> made
> training films. The fanzines disclosed the loneliness of R.R.'s first wife,
> Jane Wyman, her absent man (a few miles away in Fort Wacky, home by
> suppertime) and her knowledge of R.R.'s hatred of the foe.
> "She'd seen Ronnie's sick face," Modern Screen reported in 1942, "bent over
> a picture of the small, swollen bodies of children starved to death in
> Poland. 'This,' said the war-hating Reagan between set lips, 'would make it
> a pleasure to kill.'" A photographer for Modern Screen recalled later that,
> unlike some stars who were reluctant to offer themselves to his lens in
> "hero's" garb, Reagan insisted on being photographed on his front step in
> full uniform, kissing his wife goodbye.
> Years later Reagan boasted (that is: lied) about liberating the Nazi death
> camps, even as he was forced to defend his deranged decision to bestow
> presidential honors on the dead at the cemetery in Bitburg, Germany, final
> resting place for the blood-drenched butchers of the Waffen SS. Reagan
> possessed a special talent for the suspension of disbelief when it came to
> the facts of his own life. Perhaps, if the earth in Simi Valley ever
> decides
> to disgorge his corpse, the custodians of Bitburg could erect a cenotaph
> for
> Reagan on those chilly grounds.
> The problem for the press was that Reagan didn't really care that he'd been
> caught out with another set of phony statistics or a bogus anecdote. Truth,
> for him, was what he happened to be saying at the time. When the
> Iran/contra
> scandal broke, he held a press conference in which he said to Helen Thomas
> of UPI, "I want to get to the bottom of this and find out all that has
> happened. And so far, I've told you all that I know and, you know, the
> truth
> of the matter is, for quite some time, all that you knew was what I'd told
> you." He went one better than George Washington in that he couldn't tell a
> lie and he couldn't tell the truth, since he couldn't tell the difference
> between the two.
> His mind was a wastebasket of old clippings from Popular Science, SF
> magazines (the origin of "Star Wars", aka the Strategic Defense Initiative)
> lines from movies and homely saws from the Reader's Digest and the Sunday
> supplements.
> Like his wife Nancy, Ronnie had a stout belief in astrology, the stars
> being
> the twinkling penumbra of his incandescent belief in the "free market,"
> with
> whose motions it was blasphemous to tamper. He believed Armageddon was
> right
> around the corner. He also believed tomato ketchup could be classified as a
> school meal, striking back at the nose-candy crowd who, as Stevie Earle
> once
> said, spent the Seventies trying to get cocaine classified as a vegetable.
> Reagan's view of Nature was strictly utilitarian. When Reagan was governor
> of California, David Brower, the great arch-Druid, goaded him into making
> his infamous declaration: "Once you've seen one redwood, you've seen them
> all." That Zen koan-like pronouncement pretty much summed up Reagan's
> philosophy of environmental tokenism. Later, Reagan propounded the thesis
> that trees generated more air pollution than coal-fired power plants. For
> Reagan, the only excuse for Nature was to serve as a backdrop for
> photo-ops,
> just like in his intros for Death Valley Days, the popular western TV
> series
> that served as a catwalk for the rollout of the B-movie actor as a national
> politician.
> To execute his rapine environmental policies, Reagan turned to his Interior
> Secretary James Watt, whose approach to the plunder of the planet seethed
> with an evangelical fervor. He brought with him to Washington a gang of
> libertarian missionaries, mostly veterans of the Adolf Coors-funded
> Mountain
> States Legal Foundation, who referred to themselves as "The Colorado
> Crazies." Their mission: privatize the public estate. Many of them were
> transparent crooks who ended up facing indictment and doing time in federal
> prison for self-dealing and public corruption. They gave away billions in
> public timber, coal, and oil to favored corporations, leaving behind toxic
> scars where there used to be wild forests, trout streams, and deserts.
> These
> thieves were part of the same claque of race-baiting zealots who demonized
> welfare mothers as swindlers of the public treasury.
> Watt, who was himself charged with twenty-five felony counts of lying and
> obstruction of justice, never hid his rapacious agenda behind soft,
> made-for-primetime rhetoric. He never preached about win-win solutions,
> ecological forestry, or sustainable development. From the beginning, James
> Watt's message was clear: grab it all, grab it now. God wills it so.
> Hearing all the cosy talk about the Gipper, young people spared the
> experience of his awful sojourn in office, probably imagine him as a
> kindly,
> avuncular figure. Not so. He was a callous man, with a breezy indifference
> to suffering and the consequences of his decisions. This indifference was
> so
> profound that Dante would surely have consigned him to one of the lowest
> circles of hell, to roast for all eternity in front of a TV set on the
> blink
> and a dinner tray swinging out of reach like the elusive fruits that
> tormented Tantalus.
> It was startling, back in 2004 when he died, to see the lines of people
> sweating under a hot sun waiting to see Reagan's casket. How could any of
> them take the dreadful old faker seriously? The nearest thing to it was the
> hysteria over Princess Di.
> The explosion of the Challenger space shuttle of January 28, 1986, a
> disaster that prompted one of the peak kitsch moments in a presidency that
> was kitsch from start to finish. Reagan ended his address to the nation
> thus: "We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this
> morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and 'slipped
> the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God'."
> In fact it was the White House that had doomed Christa McAuliffe and her
> companions to be burned alive in the plummeting Challenger. The news event
> required the Challenger to go into orbit and be flying over Congress while
> Reagan was delivering his state of the union address. He was to tilt his
> head upward and, presumably gazing through the long-distance half of his
> spectacles, (one lens was close-up, for speech reading,) send a
> presidential
> greeting to the astronauts. But this schedule required an early morning
> launch from chill January Canaveral. Servile NASA officials ordered the
> Challenger aloft, with the frozen O-ring fatally compromised.
> Reagan dozed through much of his second term, his day easing forward
> through
> a forgiving schedule of morning nap, afternoon snooze, TV supper and early
> bed. He couldn't recall the names of many of his aides, even of his dog.
> Stories occasionally swirled around Washington that his aides pondered from
> time to time whether to invoke the Twenty-fifth Amendment. Reagan's sons,
> Michael and Ronnie, disagreed whether or not his Alzheimer's began when he
> was president. "Normalcy" and senile dementia were hard to distinguish. The
> official onset was six years after he left Washington DC.
> As an orator or "communicator" Reagan was terrible, with one turgid cliché
> following another, delivered in a folksy drone. His range of rhetorical
> artifice was terribly limited.
> The press flattered him endlessly and vastly exaggerated his popularity and
> his achievements, starting with the nonsense that he "ended the Cold War".
> He did nothing of the sort, the Soviet Union's sclerotic economy having
> doomed it long before Reagan became president.
> He lavished money on the rich and the Pentagon. The tendencies he presided
> over were probably inevitable, given the balance of political forces after
> the postwar boom hit the ceiling in the late 1960s. Then it was a matter of
> triage, as the rich made haste to consolidate their position.
> It was a straight line from Reagan's crude attacks on welfare queens to
> Clinton's compassionate chewings of the lip (same head wag as RR's) as he
> swore to "end welfare as we know it". As a PR man, it was Reagan's role, to
> reassure the wealthy and the privileged that not only might but right was
> on
> their side, and that government, in whatever professed role, was utterly
> malign.
> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
>
>
>