it never is. Remarkably the 'establishment' resides here @ DU.

I don't know if I'd call them the establishment or tools of the establishment, though. I don't think the establishment posts here all that much.

They will say or do anything to get elected and it means NOTHING.

When those folks do leave we will remember them. Much like those folks who came here to tell us why it was so important to invade Iraq.

They only go away after the dirty dealing is done and will never come back to admit they were full of deceit. We know who they are and we that are still here in a year or two will be saying ' We told you so'

and most of the establishment doesn't post here, merrily.

So long as that change is a continued march to the right, into the arms of corporate America

as the world passes our nation by.

They will rule over a slum with the occasional glittering palace.

hence:

http://www.unitedprogressiveparty.org/

Its just been taken over by creepy greedy people.

that it is not worth any more investment of my time, energy, money, persuasion, marketing, canvassing or phone banking.

After 35+ years as a Dem, I left the party last week, as did every Bernie supporter in my family, and some of them have been Dems longer than I have been alive.

It has succeeded pretty well....

I hear a lot of bull slogans about a "corporate agenda" from people who are decidedly not Democrats, despise Democrats, but demand endlessly in a completely tiresome manner that we become them because they have unilaterally declared themselves to be wonderful.

They chose as their avatar, unsurprisingly a candidate who similarly likes to lecture people, with a healthy dollop of self-regard, on why they should become as moral as he is.

Mind you, they offer no real reason about why they are so wonderful, so admirable, but still insist that we become them.

If "Bernie" wants to make demands, winning the nomination would entitle him to do so. But he hasn't won, which as far as I'm concerned, is a good thing. He's inflexible, dogmatic, glib, self absorbed and entirely concerned with trumping around with his entirely negative views.

It's easy to criticize everyone else, far more difficult to demonstrate one's capability to actually build.

If one wishes to be emulated, one needs to demonstrate something worthy of emulation.

Have a nice day tomorrow.

My father was a Republican, I'm not.

I've been voting Democratic for more than 40 years. There are somethings I'd like to see change in my party - I'm not, for example, comfortable with the scientific illiteracy that members of the far left wing of our party so proudly display - but I'm not here to announce that the party has to change or I'll launch into a torrent of criticism.

I hoped to vote for Bill Richardson in 2008, but when he got knocked out I didn't announce that everyone had to endorse Bill Richardson's views, or I'd spend all my time ignoring McCain to criticize Obama.

When Obama was well in the lead, I got behind him, and to this day, I'm glad I did.

You, and many others, are here to announce that the Democrats suck because they're not, um, you. Frankly, you're nothing but a distraction from the fact that a wide eyed racist insane person has won the Republican nomination. You seem entirely less than interested in that fact, but simply want to prattle on about how no one else is good enough because they're, um, not you.

I'm unimpressed.

If your great-grandfather was a Democrat, and voted for Woodrow Wilson, that has no bearing whatsoever on what you are, any more than the fact that my father voted for Richard Nixon three times has any bearing on who I am.

Have a nice day tomorrow.

...than do-nothing scolds who call themselves Independents and refuse to work as part of a team.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

And, if you hate scolds so much, why are you scolding?

Independents are like neighborhood kids outside the house staring in through a window and complaining about the people inside, their decor, clothes, etc.

Libertarians are just...odd. But some of them have "a thing" for Sanders, too. Go figure.

We could argue all day about 'scolding' but the time for trying to take down Clinton is long past. Nothing is served by trying to cripple our next President. Sanders is not going to magically come out on top. He's a good man with good ideas but he's not our next President.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

Caucus the first year he got to the House and chaired it for its first 8 years. Was the amendment king in both houses, getting a great amendment to Obamacare, among other things. Senate Dems loved him so much the DSCC would not support any Dem who challenged him in Vermont, etc. Did a great veteran's bill with McCain. Your post is fact free.

But Senate Dems aren't endorsing him for President, either. I think they, like the electorate (I'm surprised by this, actually) know him better: that he's good with legislation and making inspiring speeches but not for much beyond that. Maybe he has some crippling shyness problem but he does not work well within a team. And that's kind of a necessity to work within one of the largest teams in the country.

If he wants to be the "lone wolf" all his life -or if his personality prevents him from breaking out of this- then that's what he'll always be: a lone wolf. Not President. Still someone to be admired.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

Sponsoring legislation and coming up with ideas is great! Someone who does that and also possesses implementation skills is even better. Sanders seems to lack that second pillar.

Not being able to win the endorsements of his own co-workers pretty much says why he's failed to win the endorsement of the electorate.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

The title of this thread, is "I have not seen ONE..." blah, blah, blah.

Implicit in that statement is a commentary that someone has to change - in a completely undemocratic way - to be, um, "worthy."

I'm not interested in being an "independent" for the sake of joining some idiotic herd of self declared "independent thinkers."

Now. For the record, I don't vote Democratic because I love every candidate the party chooses. I vote Democratic because the Repukes are so bad.

I have had to really hold my nose a few times. For example, in 1988, I voted for Michael Dukakis, over George I, even though his (Dukakis's) energy policies were as stupid as those that Bernie Sanders is still offering up almost 30 years later.

They didn't work; they aren't working; they won't work.

Thirty years ago, the concentration of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide, as of [link:ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_weekly_mlo.txt|May 25, 1986] in the planetary atmosphere was 350.32 ppm as measured at Mauna Loa. This was an increase of 1.66 ppm over the same week of 1985.

We just spent on this planet, in the last ten years alone, two trillion dollars, on the type of approach to energy that Bernie Sanders endorses, so called "renewable energy," which is neither renewable - as it relies on exotic (and often toxic) materials which are rapidly being depleted - nor sustainable, nor affordable.

I have been writing about the results of this failed approach to addressing climate change in this space recently:

April 2016 over April 2015 sets the all time monthly record for increases in atmospheric CO2.

After two trillion bucks in ten years, the reading for carbon dioxide concentrations at Mauna Loa was 408.86 ppm. The rate of increase is even worse than it was in 2015, which was the all time worst year ever recorded, average weekly readings in 2016 are measuring 3.46 ppm over the same weeks of 2015, again, the worst year ever.

Bernie Sanders' approach to this: Rail against the world's largest, by far, source of climate change gas free energy, nuclear energy, and demand to suck more money out of the pockets of the poor and into the pockets of rich assholes living in McMansions with (toxic) solar cells on their roofs.

If you think that I give a rat's ass, in this dire emergency what a herd of cranky lemmings shouting meaningless slogans think about the need of my party to change into something as idiotic as they propose, you're mistaken.

From where I sit, Bernie Sanders is a tiresome, unthinking egotistical automaton who can't stop shouting the slogans he was shouting when he was twenty years old. Now when I was twenty, I shouted many of the same slogans he's still shouting, but the difference between me and Sanders and the majority of Democrats is that we could and did grow up.

I don't want a President who can't grow. I don't want Sanders, and I don't give a rat's ass about how many people demand what they call "change." In general, they're clueless. Change for change's sake is just idiocy. One needs to have a direction and a goal with clearly defined paths to explore identified. There's none of that among any damned Sanders worshiping sloganeering loudmouth I hear here.

None of it. And that's what I personally want of Sanders. None of it.

Have a nice evening.

..."condescended."

Let's compare my specifics about climate change, in which I noted that a two trillion dollar "investment" in ten years in so called "renewable energy" has lead to an annual increase - the second derivative - in carbon dioxide concentrations that is increasing, not decreasing with your political outlook which consists of an announcement that Ms. Clinton is " a fucking spinning, lying, panderer."

This sort of mentality is just this side of Trump, and is a reflection of the level of idiocy that has come to dominate political thought in these times. In this context, I fear for the future of my country and the world, but as an old man, I must surrender to cynicism, and confess plainly that there is little, nothing actually, I can do, other than vote for the grown up, Ms. Clinton.

There's no point even speaking to people on the level of engaging in ersatz "political theory" that consists of announcements by spoiled children that a major Democratic Candidate "a fucking spinning, lying, panderer". In twenty years of writing here, I used to encounter significant intelligence, along of course, with some blank stupidity of course, but there's less and less now. I suppose, though there's little value in confronting blathering sneering fools on the internet.

In twenty years, I almost never used the "ignore" button here, but if anything has changed for me, that would be it.

One hopes that someday you'll grow up enough to have regrets, but you're starting from a very low level, and in my experience, some people do not, actually, ever grow up.

Have a nice life.

But this bullshit of accusing Bernie supporters of not being "real" Democrats is one of the most insulting things I've ever read on DU. It almost makes me feel like I've stumbled onto the wrong website. Yes I know Bernie has the support of a lot of independents. But if the party want to ignore the HUGE amount of lifelong Dems who support the issues Bernie brings up, they are going to lose people big time. I may even be one of them and I've been a yellow dog Democrat for 40 years.

that the Democrat Party used to be about. Not the greedy, self absorbed establishment politics it has become.

And many of us feel the same way. You don't want to change and neither do we. Frankly your views reflect exactly the way that the Democratic Party is now. And those views are why many of us are leaving/have left. We will find greener pastures and have a nice day today.

This worked well in the years after 2000, when we had that poorly educated brat Nader running around complaining about NBA officiating while some of us were working to try to stop the wars in that period.

Nader was perfectly free to focus on important issues like NBA officiating because the War in Iraq, the destruction of the World Trade Center, the destruction of the banking system was all um, Al Gore's fault.

Gore, as you will recall, was exactly the same as Bush.

I like your avatar for Bernie by. It looks like an old religious ad.

I actually don't think that our so called "progressives" are very useful; they don't know very much about the world and barely seem to live in it. So it's not like it's going to be a tremendous loss. We'll just have to live with far less negativity and whining, coupled with a curiously derived sense of imperiousness from a decidedly powerless group.

Enjoy the upcoming holiday weekend.

and then "I actually don't think that our so called "progressives" are very useful; they don't know very much about the world and barely seem to live in it. So it's not like it's going to be a tremendous loss."

Wow..Okay, sure, whatever you say. Goodbye.

Last edited Sat May 28, 2016, 01:03 AM - Edit history (1)

The guy couldn't pass a basic course in either chemistry, physics or toxicology, but nonetheless felt perfectly free to shoot his mouth off on subjects he knows nothing about.

That, unsurprisingly, applies to Sanders as well.

Incredibly, there were enough people people who were equally uneducated, and they bought into Nader's horseshit, leading to some very, very, very pernicious effects not only for the Iraqi people and the American families who lost their lives in that quixotic adventure, but also for the planetary atmosphere.

Seven million people die each year from air pollution, and the ignorance of Ralph Nader and the people who listened to him, as an awful lot to do that. I could elaborate, but it would be useless, because not only people who think highly of Nader scientifically illiterate, they're rather dogmatic as well.

I hold Nader's rhetoric and that of people stupid enough to admire him responsible for that enormous loss of life.

And, in fact, your response, with the lit up picture of that fool Sanders working as the avatar, completely and totally validates my extremely low opinion of most, if not at all, Sanders supporters as useless, if not malign.

As for what you "say," I couldn't care less.

I'm sure you'll enjoy Trump, and gloat mindlessly that Bernie the loser should have been the nominee and speculate with the requisite mysticism that he would have won, but I will hold the group of mindless thugs did nothing but rail against Ms. Clinton - with disinterest in Trump comparable with the disinterest of dumb shit Naderites in 2000 in Bush - responsible for this crime against all future generations.

Have a nice weekend.

...is OK with YOU!!!

You said:
"If one wishes to be emulated, one needs to demonstrate something worthy of emulation."


Spurning Corporate Cash, Wall Street Money, and SuperPacs
IS worthy of emulation. He HAS set a great example that I can only wish politicians like Hillary would follow.

All of the Sanders' people here that want change don't have a clue. They think that just because THEY want and demand change that it should happen. It requires real work on their part which apparently they are unwilling to do. They think that just by electing a President all of their issues will be resolved.

They also think that someone who was never part of the party will get the job done. A man that shuns interaction with others and gets all cranky when he doesn't get his way. He is only one person. And what all of his supporters don't understand is what they want won't matter if they don't utilize the structure to their advantage. Electing one man to lead the country wouldn't even get it done. Because if they don't do the same down ballot the power they seek remains out of reach.

There are nearly 500 members of the DNC. Think of them as cats and trying to herd them.

16 million American children living in low income homes, more infants die in America before reaching the age of 1 year than any other modern country and you don't care. As long as the Clinton Family amasses more and more and more wealth, you will be happy.

Elected Bill Clinton twice; SHOULD have elected Al Gore since he got more votes that Bush; and elected Barack Obama, twice.
Why should it change?
Bernie Sanders has been a member of the Democratic Party for 15 months. Hillary Clinton has been a member for 44 years. Longevity should count for something.

Banks, multinationals and foreign governments been buying favor with 'our democratic party' politicians?

What a specious argument.

SMDH.

I am appalled by the Democratic Party's inability to promote a candidate whose approval rating blows Hi11ary's right out of the water. Are you honestly okay with the Corporate Oligarchy taking over our media, our politics AND our global economy? Our younglings deserve better.

you won't get anywhere close to getting a candidate in the WH or changing the party. Fortunately you represent a tiny little fraction of the Bernie supporters.

It's tiresome, isn't?

from the party's cold, dead hands. Even if that's what it takes, it's worth it, this nation can't survive when both of the major political parties are captured by corporations.

I completely agree with the O.P., it's been shocking and brazen, their disregard for the left wing/populists of their party.

Where does it go from here? D.U. pretty much prohibits discussing all the options.

I would still work within the party, with a new caucus or an eligibility-tested Progressive Caucus (they'd need to do things like prohibit candidates from taking corporate money, and help fund-raise for their candidates so they could compete without it. Maybe they could have a platform based on Bernie's positions).

Short of a major change like that, I will focus elsewhere, outside of the party, for an actual vehicle of populist change. I'm a solid progressive, but I don't think there are enough of us to get it done, we need a populist movement that defines itself around a populist/corporate axis rather than a left/right one. Public money for elections, all out to beat climate change, stop participating in/instigating/financing the militarism. We can fight about all the other issues but stay allied, it will take everything we've got to bring these changes about. Once we get the money out, everything else becomes much easier.

chain of money to the corporate choke on the US. That said, it is also a perpetual domestic argument and little gets accomplished with our current 11% approval rating for congress. The population serves as little gears in a vast machine providing wealth to a severely skewed distribution of wealth. Until this changes the US will continue its path to full Idiocracy. Changes need to be made and IMO the current parties are incapable for the above reasons of charting the course.

and they would have to be monitored and enforced. I'm just trying to think of some way to do this within the party, the more obvious solutions are to declare the party dead and build a new one, not impossible but a much heavier lift.

Corporate profits are up by 144% and the S & P 500 stock market index is up by 154%.
http://www.factcheck.org/2016/04/obamas-numbers-april-2016-update/

No one is going to dispute the FACT that Wall Street has done very, very well during Obama's Administration.

The huge problem is that Main Street never recovered. The wealth and income gap has grown much, much worse. More and more people are facing (or are very close to facing) poverty. And, Establishment Democrats pretend that everything is GREAT! That is going to piss off a lot of regular citizens. Rightfully so too. And, this is an answer to your question as to why should the Democratic Establishment change. It is because they clearly are not working to further the interests of average citizens. They are all in for the financial elite's agenda.

Thanks for the stirring pro-Bernie post!

...being shared with America's Working Class and Poor.

so this will interesting. Signs? They are in a mammoth steel trap and some political sense of skill they have not shown much of since the eithies at least would be welcome just about now. Or corruption may have rendered this impossible too. We'll have to see how many compromises or illusions they can come up with when the painful and gamed primary process comes to its embarassing end with a fairly weak putative "winner".

Substituting for what must be done with the usual pre-Convention bluster is literally the only thing they can do at the moment and that too is fatally flawed because it only postpones the actual conciliation with a remarkably strong "loser" more interested in policies and ideas than his "ambition".

Bluster will not change their ailing November strategy. Wishful thinking or fighting Trump like the entire GOP did will not guarantee victory without the Sanders voters. Yet they just might see no other way than to postpone reality until November. Are downticket Dems happy with this state of affairs? Most of them risk their careers for institutional obstinacy, not the obstinacy of impassioned voters.

I'll vote accordingly.

You trash Dems as much, if not more than any Republican.

btw ... DWS didn't have to give Bernie any seats on the committee. Giving him 5 was generous.

But we get it, the perpetually disgruntled are going to complain no matter what happens anyway. There's almost no reason to give them anything.

They'll go right back to trashing Dems instantly anyway.

You want to both maintain a duopoly and tell people to get lost and cede to you and like minds control of the only effective avenue at representation but it doesn't work like that, no has to love it or leave it.

How about if you want to be a corporate enabling, pro intervention, surveillance state loving, torture excusing, wage killing, free traitor, environment ignoring, drug warring, labor disdaining conservative why don't you go clean the bigots out of the Republican party? No? Can't make you? No shit but neither can you send people that aren't happy or even intolerant of the direction of the party just because you are blissfully content.

You want a tiny country club of the faithful? End the duopoly and folks will gravitate toward their own ideological confines.

When you become head of the Party and tell me to leave, I will.

Informed them of their right to do so.

OP seemed unaware of it.

Party had to change or it would have faded away. When I was a kid, African Americans were demonstrating and suing the Party just to get a delegate seated who was black. The Party changed most fully, Dixiecrats became Republicans, we lost them and yet gained millions of voters. Change.

In my early adulthood, this Party was very negative toward LGBT and that had to change as well, the LGBT did not leave to please those who were living in the past we changed the Party and pulled it into the 21st Century while many Democrats were shouting that it was too much, too soon, not Christian and so forth.

Of course the Party today is fairly certain it owns the very minorities that had to force our way in. Fact is you do not own us, fact is you need us all or you can't elect anyone to anything. If this Party had not constantly changed, this Party would be dormant today. A memory. A racist, homophobic memory.

I think change is what saves us. Should we have remained as we were in 63? 84? No sir, we needed change and that's what we got.

... leaving the party means going independent, and that means you don't get much say in the selection of candidates.

... but at least some influence.

Let me guess:
No mandatory Civics class in your high school?

In OUR "democracy" it IS the responsibility of the majority to protect the voice of the minority.
What you seem to be wishing for is a different kind of government and Democratic Party where the tyranny of the Majority RULES, and the rights and privileges of our system don't apply to the minority.

Remember the post partisan hype once promoted in the Democratic Party? It was sneaked in in right in front of our noses now it is too late.

when the Koch Brothers, Merck, and a bunch of other corporations funded the Democratic Leadership Council.

He got fooled the Republican Party is one more place where the nut cases and those unwilling to cooperate go to die. Obstruction contrary obstinate ignorance is no way to govern. Protecting privilege from the marks who think they have a voice and their best interests are served while laughing your way to the bank that works.

Me either.

If they had wanted to be associated with the New Deal or Great Society, they would not be calling themselves New Democrats.

Why would a political party want to change something that has been working?

Yelling at us isn't working.

... I think that's clear. Can the democratic party be that? It looks like the answer might be no.

never part of it in the first place. Not all, but many.

There will be changes but it won't be because of the whining of Independents and Libertarians.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

Most of the Bernie supporters at DU are long, long time Democrats. Deal with it.

Sanders is picking his own committee members. Are you sure there is not ONE sign that things are changing, as the OP states?

Sanders has great ideas and we should listen to him. Too many of his supporters, however, like to get in the gutter and trash-talk anyone they don't like. There is a world of difference between Sanders' idealism and what we see on DU.

It doesn't mean we can't admire Sanders. I do. His supporters? Not so much.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

officials and their families are awash in corporate cash and want the gravy train to continue."

Both the Republican and Democratic Establishments have come under the corrupting
influence and domination of the Corporatists -- the Republicans since always, and the
Democrats beginning with Reagan.

No, the Democratic Establishment won't change. That's why Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth
Warren have begun their movements to tackle the problem - not just on the surface - but
at its very roots: Break Up Wall Street's death-hold on our nation!

And a huge and gargantuan job it is! I admire them for their courage. These two are the
leaders of the Liberal/Progressive Democrats.

Donald Trump is nominally a Republican, but basically he is his own man. He takes orders
from nobody. Oddly enough, the Republican Establishment is cautiously giving in to him,
after having initially opposed him. They still are opposing him, but very cautiously.

I think one of the reasons for this cautiousness is that Corporatists and their minions,
the Republicans, have gained their tremendous power over our nation mainly through
trickery, bribery and corruption. They have practically BOUGHT THEIR WAY TO POWER.
But this has no influence on Trump. He cannot be bought because has plenty of wealth
of his own. Also it looks like he is the spoilt brat type, and he does things in his own
way only.

The Republican Establishment people are stuck with Trump. The Democratic Establishment
people are dealing with Sanders, but the Democratic Establishment people have the upper
hand at the moment.

Another odd thing is: The majority of Republicans are against Trump, yet he is their
Primary front-runner. The majority of Democrats are for Sanders, but Clinton is our
front-runner. We are all in an odd predicament, indeed!!

We are all keenly watching and waiting to see what further events will develop in the
future.

Many new faces at state and county central committees.

Oh, there are a few positive signs that they've finally become aware that this is no flash in the pan what with the small concessions given to Sen Sanders in reference to convention appointees and such. Still, this is just the beginning and folks with the most to lose will be fighting tooth and nail to maintain the gravy train.

Something I will do the very next day. I will only enroll as a dem if the party returns to the party of the people. I"m no corporatist and I won't support any Third Wayers ever.

"A bum. You've decided to be a bum."

Thanks for all the help, then.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

i don't do lockstep well though.

You work with the material at hand, imo, not walk away. Obviously the voters prefer Clinton over Sanders. Can't you respect that and still contribute?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

In the privacy of the ballot booth I'm not beholden to anyone or any party affiliations so that I will vote for the most progressive candidate that I can, as I do every election.

I found this primary very eye opening. Issues that I never thought were an issue for the Democratic party I'm discovering are totally not as black and white as I thought. I never thought that other Democratic members would be defending fracking or payday loans or being for the profit prison industry or the military industrial complex or willing to negotiate on reproductive rights or be pro-capital punishment.

Hope the Democratic party puts forward a candidate that I can vote for, because I am afraid that my opinions won't be appreciated here if Secretary Clinton gets the nomination. But that's only the worst case scenario.

So Hillary can concentrate on kicking Trump's ass without being stabbed in the back by Sanders "progressives".

Bernie Sanders does not own liberals or progressives and there have been quite a few of those in the Democratic Party for a long time. At one time liberals and progressives were strongly in the DNA of the Democratic Party. The best the Republicans could do were a few right wing moderates they all died off replaced by the blindingly ignorant, extremist right wing free traders, neocon war mongers, water carrying bag men, religiously insane and now plain lunatics. More than a few "progressives" if not outright liberals seem willing to stick around with a vague hope that a non fascist Supreme Court nominee might emerge. It will be interesting to see who GTFO by 2020.

Change starts small.

Making room on a platform committee and plitting to replace a weak chair are signs that the party is willing to change. How much change depends in part on how much we demand.

That's a novel argument.

I wish everyone well. Good luck. We shall need it.

It was to take it over from within. Right now the corporatists win whether it's a Dem or a Repub. They keep people thinking it's about social issues and the rank and file fight over abortion rights or gun control or emissions standards or what's said in text books or gay rights. It's all a red flag flashing in front of you, the people, the bull, being speared over and over.

Meanwhile the corporatists are only interested in money and the power that comes with it. They want to annihilate regulation - take over the MSM, fund pet politicians to do their bidding and then get the politicos to put in the correct judges, hire the politicians afterward to keep them happy (have them make speeches, give their kids cushy sinecures), craft the legislation yourselves, head the "regulatory" bodies.

They've destroyed our middle class and they are on track to irreparably destroy the environment.

But the numbers catching on are growing. So that is encouraging. There is strength in numbers and we can vote suckers out.

I think the donor class would find a strong, healthy American middle class would actually be a good thing. Just wish they'd hurry up and figure it out.

....

cared about me only to find out it was all a stupid lie for the most part. Forgive me for being naive but I am done with the same old same old and lies and "slow" no hopie changie thingie. Out Planet is dying. I am old, tired and sick and going broke. They have failed me.

I hadn't noticed over the past decade and a half that it had been changed to Independent Underground or perhaps Self-Righteous Pontificators.

corporate representatives and money, as is the entire government in general. The two areas of concern that are non-negotiable for both political parties, the banks and the corporations are a) war profits and b) the supremacy of corporate power over the power of national governments. They've already achieved the goal of perpetual war (and its fantastic profits) and the effective destruction of national sovereignty the world over is on the horizon. No way, no how are candidates who threaten any of this going to be let through the gates by the DNC or the corporate owned media. Bernie Sanders is the most viable threat to the status quo ever faced by the New Democrats. The Democratic Party apparatus has become a serious impediment to democracy.

“Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation,
are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.

They want rain without thunder and lightening.

They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

---- Frederick Douglas