Because lives aren't improving financially.

Economics is certainly a big part of this.

People are struggling. It's the poor, the lower middle class, the middle class and even the upper-middle classes. We are all being jerked around and nickeled and dimed to death. All of this while our wages stagnate--and we're paying SO MUCH MORE for healthcare, groceries, gas, college, etc.

We used to pay nothing for healthcare. Now we pay 7,200 a year. Our grocery bill has doubled. Those are pay cuts. Significant pay cuts.

Frankly, I'm sick and tired these "consumer confidence" surveys. I call bullshit on all of them. Everyone is worried. Everyone is having a hard time maintaining their lifestyle or making ends meet. But we hear that "Consumer confidence is up!" and we assume that the problem is with ourselves. I think those studies are fixed and serve to keep us self-blaming and blind to the real problem--that we have been screwed seven ways to Sunday.

Our personal financial situations aren't improving, as you said--and the Internet and online communications allow us all to compare notes, speak truth and understand that others are experiencing the same things.

People to people communication is improving.

People are being taught to think of themselves as consumers, measure themselves by wealth, and to mistrust each other.
The politicians and media in the 60s and 70s talked about American citizens, then we all became mere consumers.

Bring back "citizens" (and "taxpayers" are not the equivalent!).

I am a human being. I have a name. I have a family. I have a community.

entirely by design.

I think it was aimed those still doing well ( or well enough ) as a way to de-emphasize earning power and the importance of demand on the economy; and emphasize spending. As in "My money will go further if ( insert manufacturing or service vocation employee ) make less".

“Customer and consumer are not the only words being used to change the nature of citizenship. The word taxpayer now regularly holds the place which in a true democracy would be occupied by citizen. Taxpayers bear a dual relationship to government, neither half of which has anything at all to do with democracy. Taxpayers pay tribute to the government and they receive services from it. So does every subject of a totalitarian regime. What taxpayers do not do, and what people who call themselves taxpayers have long since stopped even imagining themselves doing, is governing.”

Daniel Kemmis, former mayor of Missoula, Montana

best while to corporate subjects but citizen is a beautiful concept we need to get back to by any means necessary.

Most of us have no alternative to Social Security and Medicare. The Christians churches aren't suddenly going to start making our house payments or pay for our medication. There are no viable alternatives.

Unconnected like those who dont pay attention till election day.

Or the types who are out front of Kimmel's studio answering questions as if they are complete morons.

We know the hard right wont vote for him but many others might.

Gotta get the message out, need WAY more money.

But yes,, it is possible that the dysfunctional political system we have may lose out to us the people, finally

George Carlin would be proud

to God/Goddess' ears.

Once the "bipartisan" trade deals are passed, we will be very much under their control more than ever before.

... with so many "good" things happening with socials issues in the Supreme Court, and hey, we did things with events like "Obama vetoing the Keystone Oil Pipeline bill".

But this TPA and subsequent "trade" bills are the ulterior power grab pieces that they keep trying to sneak by us and have still been succeeding in doing so. I think they realize that the CRAP they are doing is extremely unpopular with ALL Americans and there is no real 'left/right' divide on this either.

But things like the TPA coupled with the TPP, TISA, and other even worse "trade" bills down the road will basically make things like "vetoing the Keystone Oil pipeline" basically useless despite the appearances of it working in our favor now. It is their "ace in the hole", which they are still trying to keep hidden from us, even if they are having a harder time doing so the more Americans realize they are being sold a bill of goods constantly by both parties.

The more we can succeed in drawing attention to what ultimately happens when other bills are passed with the "assistance" of Fast Track (TPA), the more we can make the case of who should be thrown out with a huge kick to their rears come 2016!

We need to elect a president and a majority of pols in both houses of congress that will reverse this trend of pols being bought out by big money to their bidding. If we wait until after that, I fear we won't have another election to really make that happen, and by that time, it might be all she wrote in terms of climate change too.

I ask people, that despite some of the very extreme and reprehensible hate from those like Dylan Roofe out there and others that swallow the right wing BS to a similar degree, we really need to find common ground with a lot of the more reasonable Republicans and independents, and make sure that they understand that there are some core issues that we should be able to agree upon where we restore a government that is answerable to a democratic vote of the people, and not to who is the highest bidder in paying for an election.

We need to make the point that even though we may disagree on many "left/right" issues, that we shouldn't be made to hate each other for our stances on them, and that if we work to restore our democracy the way it was intended to be by our forefathers, that maybe we can find a good way to make common ground solutions that allow both sides to be winners in most ways, and that we should both commit to ensuring that a process exists that honors that way of settling divisions between the beliefs we have in a civil manner.

Bring back the sense that bribery once again is considered a crime, and that we need people elected that will restore it to being such and that it actually gets enforced and prosecuted among those that feel they can get away with it if they have enough money and power to do so the way they do today. I think we can build 99%er consensus on issues like this if we work hard enough for that and build good ways of having forums to discuss that rationally that doesn't rely on infrastructure controlled by Corporate Amerika.

Bravo! I agree with you completely.

We are just a vehicle to get them to, as is dreamed of in baseball's minor leagues, The Show. Because The Show is where the money is and where the power is. Once they get to The Show, most of them immediately start working on getting reelected. And chasing money. And are instructed on how they are going to vote. I think that, honestly, most politicians just disengage from the voters once they are sworn in.

Unless there is an actual uprising of some sort, they don't even need to control us. The cops, and ignorance of the system, keep us fairly quiet.

We are told that we should work locally to get the kind of people we want elected - and then the DNC and RNC decide who they will actually back for national office.

I know that Bernie and Liz and some others are not like that. And they get called names by the executive branch for their trouble.
As Brad Pitt says in some movie - the United States is not a country, it is a business. And now, with the TPP, TISA, and TTIP, the US is just a part of a global corporate fiefdom.

Hard to be chipper about this stuff some days. I may just drop out. It is heartening beyond measure to see my grandson and his friends animatedly talking about Bernie Sanders, and being involved. I hope they do not get disillusioned. I do think that a lot of the young people who are flocking to Bernie will not bother voting if he is not the nominee. Not because they Hate Hillary, but because they see Bernie as an agent of change, and they see Hillary as the usual Establishment. That say hello to president Cruz/Walker/Whoever threat does not impress them. They feel they will get kicked in the ass no matter what. That's why they were not voting in the first place. 54,224 subscribers to the sub-reddit for Bernie, 301 subscribers for Hillary. They don't hate her, they just don't care.

our candidate of choice they will have to listen to us. We are the government not politicians.

keep them home, don't send them to Washington. There is no longer a benefit from having them in Washington full time.

There is no longer a reason for our Senators and Representatives to meet in Washington. Making them stay home will make it harder for them to go against the will of the constituency, harder for lobbyists to buy them, and make them 535 small targets for terrorists instead of one large target in Washington. The constituents could keep a much better eye on them also not to mention easier access. Local press could have better access and also keep an eye on their dealings.

The politicians referred to are servants of the plutocracy, which exerts control.

The title of my post refers to the tipping point at which Enough voters break free of that control and Become the Change that is Needed.

they can be informed and make their own ideas instead of having stuff rammed down their throat by the TV networks or newspapers.

We have to read newspapers like the UK independent or Guardian etc. to get the real news about our country.

My FB feed is amazingly progressive and they all realize how fucked the media is.

However, one important thing will be to get people to vote. I know many progressives who will not vote for Hillary but are very excited about Bernie.

false flags, fear and intimidation. We're just having a spell where we are allowed to think for ourselves.

So, let's not fuck this up.

Mike Lofgren nailed it.

"The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted."
http://www.mikelofgren.net/

BOTH parties are OWNED by corporate "special interests".
They have very effectively locked any third party out of the running.

We vote Democratic because we are (or perceive ourselves to be) slightly less screwed by them.

Like the old joke goes...
"Jake, you know the game is fixed. Why do you play poker there?"
"Hey man, it's the only game in town."

maybe even longer.

But money still controls politics. "We the people" will never be in control unless we take big money out of politics.

"The food is terrible".

the other replies...

"And such small portions".

Politics reminds me of that one all the time.

There is a commercial/industrial brand and an organic brand. As different as chalk and cheese, right? Until you dig into the corporate structure and find out they are owned by the very same parent corporation. If you buy either one the parent corp makes a profit.

Same as American politics - at least Before Bernie. I bet the owners aren't too happy about him trying to muscle in on their turf...

And nothing lasts forever and they will find out one day.

We are feeling the economic squeeze and our promised economic solutions are not working. Second reason i wish to add is our cheep easy access to the internet. These two reasons combine to make for a motivated and enlightened electorate. I believe the result will see us elect Senator Sanders to the White House.

At the same time they implement a "trade" deal that will wind up screwing millions of Americans, Democrat and republican, gay or straight.

They know they've lost the culture wars, but as long as they can keep control of the economy, they retain control of the people.

...in your damnation.

I would have preferred you say "some" instead of "we" and "us". I know I don't fall into your neat little compartments.

And I also would have preferred you posted this in "General Discussion - Primaries" since it's a sly pro-Sanders post.

things won't start to change until the American people take to the streets in the hundreds of thousand and stay there for months. If rocks need to be thrown so be it. As much as I like Bernie and have a small amount of hope he wins the presidency the PTB will never and I repeat never let him near the white House, they can't take the chance. With electronic voting machines with no paper trail the election will be rigged or he will be assassinated just like JFK and RFK. Voting alone will not rid this country of the cancer that controls it. People have to get fighting mad, think French revolution mad.

The tpp is settled, greece is leaving the euro, and spain is next. Puerto Rico is broke and the us civil war just had a flareup. The 1% could care less, they have their money and the politicians they bought. As much as i like Bernie, the people with the money will never allow him to be elected.
Monsanto controls the food, the banks control the politicians, shell controls the energy. They were never elected to do this, they paid their way into control. Voting merely changes who gets bribed, and our attention continues to be diverted by the brainless confederates, and loudmouth politicians while corporations pick our wallets of what little cash we have left.

But I think we all live in bubbles. If you hang out on DU and at Bernie rallies in Madison, you feel the energy pulsing toward a Brilliant! New! Future! Full of hope and change, amirite?

I didn't buy the idiot swoonfest in 08, made of college kids and true believers who apparently thought Obama would change the world with his youth, looks, rhetoric, and skin melanin content. I'm glad he was elected, mostly so we can get over the myth of the Magic Black Savior and recognize that a black president is just a regular human and can be as charmingly mediocre as all the whites who came before (That's equality!) If Hill is elected I will be delighted to see a female prez be as mediocre as preceding males, and if Sanders, I will cheer for the mediocrity of the first Jew after a parade of nonstop dullards invoking Jeebus and pretending to pray every Sunday.

Stuff will happen. Or it won't. I'll vote my conscience, buy my ticket and take the ride. But in my world, among my peers, all I see is business as usual ... except that it's a few degrees warmer than it was eight years ago, with a smaller polar icecap - and a lot of the 08 swooners have grown up a bit.

……I don't think they've lost control at all. Not in the least. They're destroying unions, control the media (yes even the stories on the internet), can cherry pick their voters via gerrymandering, income disparity is growing, the TPP is about to kick in, we still have foreign affair policies that are creating terrible suffering around the world and will come home to haunt us, etc.

Yes, we'll get some social progress for oppressed people, maybe a little less discrimination, and a pittance of higher wages——but they never really cared about social issues anyway—it was all just a way to manipulate a wedge between people who should be united.

Regardless, we need Bernie more than ever!

I do wish enough people would tell the worthless ones (we know who they are-too countless to name) to F off and leave us alone. They seem to have to do everything you said in your post to stay in power-even they know they are living in their own dreamworld.

"Niemand ist mehr Sklave, als der sich für frei hält, ohne es zu sein."
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elective Affinities

More people are realizing freedom isn't following but leading the pathway to change.

I appreciate being moved to some optimism right about now.

Politicians don't have control of us, we have control of them. I feel like we've lost control of them to corporations.

Much depends on how long the bandaids last. Not only have the Politicians lost it so have the Oligarchs who may be headed for their bunkers. The next few years are not going to be pleasant. Who ever wins in 2016 may wish they hadn't.

us old yellow dogs will no longer sit and lay on that porch to guard them.

And right on!

something changing, this time people are going off the ranch and showing up in droves for Bernie. Is it possible MSM won't be able to silence him? I think this will be his biggest hurdle, media and too much money!!

For crying out loud, most politicians are bribed into submission by corporate crooks. It isn't an accident that qwe have a campaign finance system that leaves congressmen and state legislators dependent on the generosity of corporate criminals to their livelihoods. This is the trough were the politicians feed and grovel to get enough campaign financing to run an effective re-election campaign. We, the People, have been priced out.

So it's no wonder that politicians have lost control over us. We are irrelevant to them. We cant do any more than give spare change -- of which we have less and less every election cycle -- to the candidates. The candidates spend there time appealing to crooked bankers or fossil fuel magnates who what to keep producing dirty energy, whether we can breathe the air or drink the water is no concern of theirs.

This is a very critical situation. The OP is right: WE ARE THE ANSWER.

I'm glad you're feeling hopeful. I may even be feeling that, as well. K&R

On a side note, I was out last weekend for Gay Pride, and I haven't been out carousing for ages. Well, so much has changed in the scene, and I realized that's because while people used to meet face-to-face - at clubs or cafes or whatever - they are now meeting online. There's still clubs and stuff (always will be), but the internet as a medium of human entertainment/interaction has eclipsed print media and radio and even broadcast TV. Not sure that's entirely for the better, but it can be if you're smart.

When I look at who isn't under investigation I think they have us tamped down fairly well. But then again, change has to start from somewhere, and there are encouraging signs.

I wrote this in late August 2012:

...If we'd had to depend entirely on the (2008) MSM news cycles, a LOT fewer of us would have learned that the Clintons also had ties to Wright and Rezko, that there were plenty of controversial clergypeople in the McCain/Palin camp, and that Joe the Plumber WASN'T a plumber...

...(S)ince 2005, I've...said that "conventional" election watchers have been loath to acknowledge that there's new skin in the game: the Internet has given the voters themselves the power to shake their dependence on the MSM and define their own roles within the election cycle...And since the last presidential election, we "little people"...have been given even more skin in the game via increased social media capabilities... More

Barely before Clint was finished, Twitter was set ablaze by #insertchair, #invisibleobama, #clinteastwooding. Nobody sat around waiting for instructions from the MSM or the network-connected blogosohere on how they ought to react -- they reacted with thousands of tweets, with the more skilled among them linking to quickly-constructed cartoons... More

Next November we'll either go to the polls and vote for one of the Koch brothers' approved candidates, or we won't. Either way they win.

HRC and Jeb would slide right thru. But people are sick of the status quo of corrupt politics.

Vote for Sen Sanders and not the billionaires choice.

It is no accident that the rise of consolidated media, corporate radio and TV, was congruent with that of the oligarchy and of anti-democratic forces.

Tom Paine said it is only error, not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.

With every dollar in the markets helping to delude the masses, is it any wonder truth is so far removed from us?

Our connectedness is allowing a rebirth of the free press and free exchange of thought so necessary for democracy to flourish.

someone (Paul Krugman?) on The Last Word the other night. Whoever said it was believes a big shift in attitude toward business/Big Money has been occurring on the right. They may only be using our vocabulary right now to identify problems, not joining us in attacking them, but that's still real progress.

Unfortunately, of course, Big Money's biggest tool, the easily-duped far right, currently gets first cut on who runs for and wins the GOP's primary races. Still, until the next primary season might just be enough time for more sensible conservatives' simmer to come to a boil. (I've only been waiting 30 years for them to come to their senses.) Hope, hope...

have lost control of us.

You bash people that criticize big business on one side of your mouth, then lament that we aren't giving full-throated support to any Democratic politicians because "OMG, a Republican might win"!!1!!

Here is a mirror.

"Things will change in this country when enough people stand up and say, 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore.'"

Possibly the most valuable weapon in Bernie's arsenal is that he tells the truth! And the more people who hear the truths he tells, the more who realize they aren't alone in suspecting that both sides have been lying to us for decades.

People KNOW the economy has not improved for the average person over the last 30 years. Everyone knows this. Our friends, neighbors, loved ones, we have watched them all struggle along with ourselves. Only the elite few benefit from this system. This is rapidly becoming obvious to anyone who is not among the elite few.

that like to believe of themselves as "on the pulse of the electorate" don't realize that they have been squashing it for years and we are scrabbling for air at this point.

Once the illusion is shattered, you have to start doing something else.

Like the TPP -- they just do what they want and don't care what the peasants have to say.

But being out of their control? - How soon can I start?

Don't ever forget....they work for US. We don't work for THEM.

I am hopeful for a voter revolt. Throw as many out as we can and stop the bullshit.

I am excited and hopeful for Bernie, but then again I was excited and hopeful about Obama.

I believe Bernie will be better.

why two populists are doing so well... and I will leave it at that.

He seems to welcome the rightwing hated just as Roosevelt did. There is no doubt that he is a man of principle and not like the politicians that so many on this board and especially the younger people disregard as corporate bootlickers who would sell out their mother for a dime.