you see it's the same old shit with these types.

i have been saying that they don't actually want to see real change. it's the outrage and acting morally superior that they like.

She also backed Edwards in 2004 over Kerry. I don't fault for that so much since it wasn't clear what a slime Edwards was at that point. But she's a total moron when you look at the bigger picture.

And Meryl Streep has more talent in her left pinky than Susie has ever possessed.

She lives a life of privilege. She is a narcissist who likes the attention she gets through her outrage.

Compare her to Joan Baez, a woman who has lived her life in a way that has truly sought to improve the lives of others. And she has done so with quiet grace without the need to make it about herself.

thank god these people saved us for Hilliary Clinton

These types result in the Presidencies of Richard Nixon, George W. Bush and Trump. It is almost incomprehensible how Democrats could have possibly lost in 2000 and 2016

she would be complaining right now about how he turned his back on his revolution, and that we need to primary him in 2020.

to put some Goldman-Sachs honcho in charge of the economy. That seems to be a recurring theme no matter who gets into office or how.

No one is pure enough for people like her.

that they are manipulating from within. I have no doubt that Wall Streeters are in collusion with the Russian interference of the election.

My suspicion is the CEO is a Democrat. You recruit those people for their expertise, but you also put moral confines on them. You wouldn't want a bread baker to electrically wire your house would you?

she is seriously fucked up.

You laid it out flawlessly. You attacked her methods and beliefs - not her. By the way - I agree on all of it.

I believe you are right.

Her smug superiority and unrestrained glee at the election outcome persuaded me to stop watching.

Where her next meal will come from, where she will live or whether she will be ripped out of the only country she knows and sent to a place strange to her.

She's white. Double privilege.

... voted FOR the Iraq War Resolution (fancy that) and Susan Sarandon didn't have a single word to say against him when she was supporting him for president.

So WHY does it matter ONLY for Hillary, but not for other candidates who voted for the SAME FUCKING RESOLUTION.

Sarandon can go **** * *** *** ****** **** for all I care.

I wouldn't piss on her if her hair were on fire.

She's worthless.

Less than worthless! She's a liability.

her vote in 2008.

I give you points for Sarandon's litmus test, but its' not like there was no difference between Clinton and Edwards by the time of that primary in regards to that decision. The very fact that Clinton did defend her vote for as long as she did is absolutely problematic, but I do agree with you, Sarandon was not consistent here.

Consistency though, is probably not your own personal litmus test.

You are spot-on! K&R

makes sense.

You have no back up for your assertions other than based on your feelings. Feelings are not meaningful her. Sarandon gave us Citizens United and the gutting of the voting rights act. If you are proud of these accomplishments by Sarandon, then I feel sorry for you

This board is for members of the Democratic Party. If you so dislike the Democratic Party, maybe this is the wrong place for you.

tamp down any criticisms of how we ourselves operate. If you are the type to insist on unquestioning loyalty, then I suggest you are the one in the wrong place.

I am working hard within the party. You might try working in the real world and see what it is like.

I could tell by your posts. If you want anyone who is actually participating in trying to help the party to take your posts seriously, you really should participate in the real world.

As for my efforts, I am very busy on voter protection issues (I helped trained 200+ poll watchers in Harris County and helped it turn blue). I am currently helping to organize a PAC to help on grass roots issues in my county. We had a training session last weekend and another on Feb. 25. We passed out 75 copies of Indivisible at the last meeting and had a DCCC representative talk about targeting CD 7 in Texas.

Again, the real world takes real work. There are a good number of posters on this board who work with their parties in the real world. MineralMan is one of my favorite posters and he is very active with his party.

can't hide behind that as an argument when we're debating issues and positions. That is a cop-out. Your real-world experience should translate into the stronger argument...it should not be the argument.

Btw, voter rights is a huge issue and I'm glad you are putting energy into that.

I am former college debater and a lawyer. Expressing your feelings is not debating. Your personal beliefs are meaningless in the real world as to policy. You really should read up on the issues and attempt to use facts in these discussions if you have no direct or personal experience. I was a delegate to the national convention and got to interact with BOB idiots and stein fools first hand. The claims that the Democratic party is corrupt are silly and you nothing to back these claims up other than your amusing feelings.

It was not hard to tell that you have no real world experience. Your claim of corruption in the Democratic party was really rather sad.

As for voting rights, Texas is dealing with a voter suppression laws due to the gutting of the Voting Rights Act due to the stupidity of fools like Sarandon and Nader. Nader and Sarandon were proud of giving bush the 2000 election just as Sarandon and Stein are proud of giving Trump the 2016 election. The 2000 stupidity of Sarandon and Nader gave us Citizens United and the gutting of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. There are consequences to such stupidity and arrogance as evidence by JPR idiots, BOB fools and morons like Sarandon. You may believe that Sarandon is a hero but I find her to be sad and rather stupid person.

on the upper right corner.

If you search my username and terms like "Jill Stein" "Assange" "Greenwald" "Snowden" or hell....for shits and giggles, just about anything, you'll see I was right.

I can only provide you links. Can't make you understand them.

can be searched for with my name, regarding anything to do with Sanders or Sarandon or Nader or Snowden.

And you can counter with "I refute your refutation...just go back through my thousands of posts and find my best refutations..."

Your history is irrelevant. If you can't answer a post then don't but this 'my history' stuff is nonsense.

If you are not a part of the Democratic Party, maybe you might want to post on a different board. I am member of the Democratic Party and I am active inside the party. If you want to change things you might want to participate in the real world

....are a lot closer to each other than either is to the center.

You might want to research "political horseshoe" before, as you so succinctly put it, "just spouting it".

Below is a link to a basic primer. You're welcome.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory

No use being nitpicky about so-and-so isn't progressive enough, or petty disagreements about past endorsements. Who gives a shit you guys! I feel it is detrimental to be divisive and complain amongst ourselves. The fascists would love to see that. I'd rather focus on a unified front, we all have a common cause now.


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You would have a stronger case if she acknowledged that her previous actions were detrimental to the well being of our country, and stopped advocating similar actions in the future. But she adamantly refused to do so, despite being given ample opportunity by Chris Hayes in the interview. Furthermore, this is not the first time she has advocated for destructive voting behavior -- she supported Nader over Gore, and perpetuated the myth that Gore and Bush were equivalent.

She does not share the same goals as I do, or as anyone who actually wants progressive policy to be enacted (as opposed to the opportunity to complain about the fact that it is not enacted).

It is always about what they want and not about a broader list of societal needs. They use asinine, contradictory arguments to buttress their self viewed moral superiority.

Propaganda like she spouts aided and abetted 45 getting into the oval.

Susie won't be affected (or, at worst, minimally) by the fascist tide. She'll still have her health care, money and fame to shield her or mitigate its effects, so what does she care.

The protests and resistance is wonderful to witness. However, these measures are purely defensive and just maintains - for now - what's in place (the ACA, for example). Any meaningful, humane legislation (and/or executive orders) is on hold for, probably, at least 4 goddamn years. And the damage that will be done - economically, environmentally, socially, culturally - may be irreparable.

She can go f*ck herself with her misplaced sanctimony.

People like her have few of the daily worries that poor Whites, minorities, immigrants and poor communities have. She doesn't awake each day knowing that she has to scramble to survive.

Her theory that a GOP president will lead to revolution is stupid and does not work in the real world. Sarandon is a very stupid and selfish person who can rot in heck

do the right thing at numerous times in the past on the left. Frankly, the only reason the Democratic party still has something going for it is because there are voters and activists who refuse to give the party unquestioning loyalty, and as such, it continues to have to chase that voter base and challenge its own status-quo.

The Democratic party has been historically weak on calling out the money and corporations for the last 30 years, and that has a whole lot more to do with why we lose elections than people like Susan Sarandon, but you don't care about any of that. If you were at least being honest, you would take the strongest interpretation and deconstruct it, rather than your straw-man version of her position.

It isn't that some people think its okay for suffering to rack the world...its that they think our trajectory makes that suffering unavoidable... that unless we do wake up while we can still do something...it will be too late. You can disagree with that logic. You can try, desperately to point to the good things we've been doing as a nation over the last 30 years, but I've got to tell you, that field is pretty bleak. Still, if you focused on why her approach is too dangerous or why she's simply wrong about the state of the world, I would be able to trust your intentions.

Instead, it comes across to me that you want to vilify people on the left who don't shut up and go away. We aren't even capable of nuance any more. Sarandon and Nader bad. Screw the things they fought for that you agree with...the things they fought for when few people with a voice were standing with them...it's all about whether or not they badmouthed your beloved candidate or party.

It is possible to disagree with somebody and to do so respectfully, but these posts seem intended to shame or silence criticism.

The BOB idiots are not democrats and only care if they get their way. Sarandon is a sick and sad puppy who is proud of giving the White House to Bush and now she is proud of giving us Trump. Bush gave us Citizens United and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. Sarandon and her ilk can all go to a warm place as far as I am concerned.

Your analysis is simply mathematically wrong and rather sad. Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million votes and lost the three key electoral states by less than 70,000 votes. The votes of the BOB morons and the Stein idiots would have made the difference. That fact that you do not understand the math involved is really amusing to me. You clearly do not understand the math involved

Again, I am member of the Democratic Party and I reject your sad and rather silly claim that the party is corrupt. I doubt that you are really a democrat and your posts fit JPR better than this board. You are fooling yourself if you think that you are helping the Democratic Party by helping elect trump.

Nowhere did I say that the left should avoid challenging the Democratic party. There are plenty of ways to do that, which don't involve enabling the right, impoverishing millions, deporting millions, and destroying our planet.

No one is arguing that HRC (or the current Democratic party in general) is perfect. But hundreds of millions of people would have been helped by an HRC victory over a DJT victory, and tens of millions of them are going to suffer acutely because HRC did not win. And those are just people in this country, before we even talk about the rest of the world.

By ignoring the vast chasm between HRC and DJT, Sarandon is making an explicit decision to deprioritize the concrete and gigantic differences between HRC and DJT, and all the people who will now suffer because of those differences. That would be a morally indefensible in and of itself. But it is even more indefensible in light of the fact that a large portion of what people like Susan are looking for (and the timeframe in which they want it) would only be found in a fantasy world -- a world that ignores basic truths about how politics works that have been known for hundreds of years. This isn't particularly difficult to learn or understand. While some people do not have the opportunity to become educated about the basics about our system, and how change occurs in our system, Susan has no excuse. She may honestly believe some of what she is saying, but at a certain point, refusal to acknowledge basic facts becomes wilfull blindness. Such blindness makes a lot more sense for someone who cares primarily about being able to complain, than it does for someone that prioritizes actual positive change.

It is interesting that you say that I should focus on her strong arguments. Have you seen the interview between Susan and Chris? She spent the entire interview completely ignoring the arguments he was making, and instead telling Chris that his questions weren't important enough for her to answer. This is similar among all people I have ever spoken to that have similar views to Susan, and is one major reason people don't take their arguments seriously (from a moral or intellectual standpoint). If someone actually believes that we were so "fucked" before (her words) that the difference between HRC and DJT doesn't matter, then they should be prepared to explain to tens of millions of people why their health insurance just really isn't a big deal, or their ability to stay in this country isnt really all that important in the grand scheme of things, or that the health of the planet isnt a top priority (since after all, we can easily switch planets when necessary). But they will NEVER argue this, for obvious reasons: such arguments are self refuting.

She said that Trump was oafish, clumsy and overreaching. If there's anything we won, it was a buffoon who is going to fuck up the kinds of things that have been done subtly and via attrition, for decades.

You have to acknowledge that she saw this horrible condition as inevitable if you want to have a genuine conversation about this. Yes, Trump is harmful. She wouldn't dispute that. Yes, he is affecting people's lives in real-time. But yes, people are actually resisting in big numbers. What you should be focusing on is whether her assessment of our trajectory was right, not on whether Trump is worse in the moment than Clinton. It is fair to make a case that we weren't on a very bleak road, though I disagree, and its that very road that has set the stage for the Palins and Bachman's and Turmps to get into power. If she is right about the trajectory, the question is, is it better to be slowly roasted, or to step onto an open flame, and then jump the hell off it?

By the way, at the end of the day I chose differently than Sarandon. I chose Clinton because I think the left was able to push on her and the DNC, and in the end, I was too damn terrified of what kind of damage a man like Trump could do. Although, to be frank, I'm far more afraid of regular republicans than Trump, because he IS such a buffoon, whereas some of them are less so, and more dangerous because of it.

But I very much understand the fear of a two party system that together does not challenge the actual power-base. There is a reason why democrats have attrited seats for the last 30 years at all levels of government, and that is because the money has willed it, and at the same time, we haven't fought back against that money. Instead, we've courted it and offered ourselves up as an acceptable plan B for when the populace wants to "throw the bums out."

What does that even mean?

If you are saying that Trump's deportation policy is similar to pre-Trump policy, except that pre-Trump policy was "subtle" and "done by attrition", I would take "subtle" and "by attrition" any day of the week.

If you are saying that Trump's healthcare policy is similar to pre-Trump policy, except that pre-Trump policy was "subtle" and "done by attrition", I would take "subtle" and "by attrition" any day of the week.

If you are saying that Trump's climate policy is similar to pre-Trump climate policy, except that pre-Trump policy was "subtle" and "done by attrition", I would take "subtle" and "by attrition" any day of the week.

If you are not saying any of those things, and you agree that there is a big difference between Trump policy and pre-Trump policy in these areas -- that is often the difference between bankruptcy and financial security, homelessness versus shelter, or life and death -- then your argument should include a defense of why the millions of citizens who are concretely better off under pre-Trump policy should not be considered, or should be sacrificed to bring us further along a supposed "trajectory" at a faster rate.

Because that's the problem with your general argument. The idea that current typical Democratic policy is even on the same planet as typical Republican policy (let alone the same "trajectory", a term that is hopelessly undefined and can be shaped to make any argument) is an idea that is self-refuting the second it comes in contact with any actual facts or examples. The argument is an exercise in obfuscation, which is precisely why Susan kept trying to change the focus of the conversation to something -- anything -- other than obvious and straightforward examples that absolutely shred the core premise of her argument.

You ask me to change my focus on whether her assessment of "trajectory" is correct. That presupposes that for a policy area, that policy can be neatly classified according to a one-dimensional line, and that policy always moves in one direction on the line (until everyone "wakes up&quot . It further assumes that once everyone "wakes up", that policy will return to an outcome that is better than the outcome prior to the awakening.

Both of these premises are false. To pick one example, look at campaign finance. The history of campaign finance in this country is not even close to a one-dimensional line. The last century is full of periods where the influence of money in politics increased, and full of periods where it decreased. Loopholes were found and closed, until new loopholes were discovered that were found and closed. Supreme Court jurisprudence went from more hostile to less hostile, and then back to more hostile (and then back and forth again).

Nader and Susan Sarandon complained endlessly about money in politics during election of 2000. Yet their argument was single handedly responsible for the reversal of a pro-regulatory majority on the Supreme Court in 2003, to the most anti-regulatory majority in the court's history in 2005 (which persists to this day, and will now likely persist for the rest of both of our lives). Rather than concede the error of her strategy, Sarandon has the gall to continue to complain about money in politics today -- a condition that her argument contributed to more than *anything* in the last century! -- as justification for *further* enabling of the right to stack the court with anti-regulatory justices.

If you look at this strategy from a perspective of actually trying to make progress on the problem at hand, it is clinically insane. But if you look at it from a perspective of ensuring that one will always be able to complain about/fight the influence of money in politics, by permanently ensuring that the political branches will not even have the option of doing anything about it, the strategy starts to make a lot of sense.

I respect and thank you for doing the right thing in November. I hope it is clear that your defense of her argument is what I am criticizing -- not you personally.

They depend on their complicity to screw over the poor and vulnerable. The GOP couldn't accomplished that mission they share with the likes of Sarandon and Stein without their assistance.

WHY DO WE CARE WHAT THIS LOON THINKS?

I voted for Clinton but I don't assume that anyone who didn't vote for Clinton must wish the country ill or must have been getting paid off by the Kochs or Soros or whatever other boogeyman is conjured up. (I know you didn't allege a payoff in this particular instance but that's a common example of the same sort of reasoning.)

People are complicated. Their decisions, including their political decisions, arise from a multitude of factors. Unless you've invented a mind-reading machine, you have no basis for your smear of a longtime activist who's done a lot of good.

By the way, as to your charge that people like her "prefer the United States being governed by the far right," you might note that she was one of the many Nader 2000 supporters who, in 2004, realized the error of their ways:

That is not the action of someone who wants a far-right government.