The oligarchy has always had control. This is a shot at taking that control away and putting it where the founding fathers pretended that they wanted it.

One that I agree with. However most argue that the change is quite recent, and that they want to go back to the good ole days.

And a top tax rate of 80%.

We built highways, not prisons.....

One parent made enough to raise a family.....

Except if you were black of course....

Or if you espoused political views that got you labeled as a Communist and blackballed from working.
Or you were the victim of domestic violence (not treated as a criminal matter in the 50s)
Or you flew on airplanes (5x as likely to be in a fatal crash).
And so on and so on. Life expectancy was ten years shorter. Infant mortality (which is still embarrassingly high in this country, particularly for African Americans) was four times higher.

so that this guy who voted for Iraq would now be president. Right, Manny?

I guess I can't count on your vote?

As I said, I'm evidence-based. I oppose a Manichean view of politics. I don't need to pretend a politician is perfect to support them. No one is perfect, least of all politicians. You don't seem to have understood the point of my thread at all.

But you're right about my vote. I will vote for Democrats, from the President on down the ballot. I fully expect a number of them won't be my particular choice, but that's how it has always been. Not having been being born into class privilege, I'm not the sort of person who expects to get everything my way.

But most of the ones that claim to be privileged now are voting for Hillary. Food for thought....

Sanders supporters average $80k plus a year. Clinton has higher support among those earning under $50k a year. That also, I think, relates to the fact he has more support among white people and men, whereas she has higher support among women and people of color, who average lower incomes.

However, certain members of the site have publicly disclosed details about their personal circumstances, so you might take that into account when reading some of my responses.

though it might be. Skinner has said in general DUers are more affluent than the general population.

Here is one link in regarding to demographic data. http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251542288
The link to the original poll is provided in the OP. I've seen similar patterns indicated in other polls as well, which you could easily verify yourself.

No surprise there.

I've got plenty of senior/non senior friends voting for Bernie.
Not one of them is making 80 grand a year.
Some are Lakota ( Native Americans).

status. The Admins have provided that helpful search box up to the right.

And kudos to Manny for having morals and placing people above increasing his personal wealth.

be overturned in favor of McCain, that suited his morals.

Again.....the handy-dandy search box provided by the Admin of this site proves helpful.

exchanges. If you use the helpful search box provided by the admins, and Google our usernames and some keywords like "cafta" or "gefilte fish" or "benghazi" you will see them.

If you have a problem with Manny, I suggest you take it up with him not me. I don't like talking about others behind their backs or in front of them. Personally, I like Manny just fine.

He's got that going for him, which is nice.

On Thu Nov 5, 2015, 12:35 AM an alert was sent on the following post:

Manny has shared with us his Ivy-League education and privileged
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=768470

REASON FOR ALERT

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.

ALERTER'S COMMENTS

Part of a string of stalking/call-out posts in this thread. Discussing people in threads where they are not participating is strictly junior high. DU deserves a lot better.

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Thu Nov 5, 2015, 12:48 AM, and the Jury voted 1-6 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Meh!
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: This one was hard to judge- I cannot seem to get a grasp on the subject of the comment-from what I saw in the thread, I do not think that it is bad
Hell, this is tea and crackers compared to what I write
and you guys are asking me
really, though, it was not definitive enough
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: The poster in question is consistently idiotic ( and maliciously so) but the bar for a hide has got to be higher than that.
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Oh BOOHOO, alerter.. Don't be such a hypocrite. I've seen what manny throws out there. Speaking of deserving better.

Did ya ever alert on him?
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #7 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given

Thought you'd like to know.. I alerted on Juror #3

Or use the DU search bar above.

election. We have to throw out the Oligarchs that are literally killing us. They are putting large numbers of minorities into prisons and killing some in the streets. They have put profits about humans as we have 16 million children living in poverty and another 16 million children living in low income homes. If we care at all about them we must vote for change. Sen Sanders can't save us, we have to save ourselves.

Is a discussion of policies or reforms people can organize around rather than the politics of personality and insults toward anyone who differs in their assessment of one member of the political elite vs. another. Yet we have't seen anything like that. Everything is about one man's career, opposition toward Clinton, and resentment toward voters who on average are less affluent and privileged than the demographic supporting Sanders.

from Sanders supporters and derision from HRC supporters.

and during that entire period I have seen you repeatedly make posts in opposition to Hillary Clinton in particular. I distinctly recall your entering a thread of mine on Marxist theory to insist it was some sort of covert plot to get Clinton elected because it committed the sin of showing that Rand Paul was not leftist (as some at the time were insisting). I have also been personally insulted by you repeatedly and seen you insult others, calling people who earn very little "corporatists" because they do not share your contempt for one woman.

Sanders supporters agree with you on policy because you post about the policies he discusses. Anything Sanders proposes good and Clinton's are bad. Another poster managed to gin up outrage to a proposed voluntary gun buy back program by invoking NRA-type hysteria about Clinton "confiscating" guns. Evidently not wanting to see the US have the highest homicide rate in the Global North is now deemed Third Way in this new bizarro world where the candidate determines what people decide to believe.

As for policy, you post above references the poor, but the policies I've seen you champion are about the middle and upper-middle class. In fact, I recall quite clearly that you were the person who insisted that funding food stamps was an adequate response to poverty. Having grown up on food stamps, my own view is that it is not. It is necessary stop gap in a system that is based on rampant inequality and lack of opportunity. It is in fact the status quo, not reform and certainly not "revolution." Nor do I agree that it is outrageous to expect the children of the upper-middle class to work 10 hours a week to contribute to their own education. People, even lowly Clinton supporters such as myself, have a right to disagree with you on policy. Perhaps if I'd been born into the upper 5-10 percent, I might not be such a "corporatist" shill for Goldman Sachs and the 1 percent. It is comments like those that you have made continually for years now that suggest your concerns are not about unifying around a reform agenda.

Talk about projection. just wow.

This lame attempt to cast Bernie as some kind of "privileged" monster who "resents" poor people is just
so ugly and completely uncalled for, it belies your intent -- not to discuss issues, but -- to demean and
engage in personal attacks against Bernie and his supporters.

No where did it say so. The insults about people on this site who do not support Sanders as "turd way," corporatists, and "camp weathervane" are continual. That is a fact. Additionally, polling data indicates that Sanders supporters average higher incomes than Clinton voters.

I provided a summary of the demographics of polling data about the breakdown of voters supporting the various candidates.

"Yet we have't seen anything like that. Everything is about one man's career, opposition toward Clinton, and resentment toward voters who on average are less affluent and privileged than the demographic supporting Sanders."

thought it would make a good title on an old glam rock vinyl album.

and that number that might have been convinced at one point seems to be declining.

You are correct. People have had to concoct this cult of personality, and to support it, a hyperbolic, fear-mongering narrative that summons a dystopia in which democracy will die (or is already dead) and every imaginable ill will transpire. It paints any nonsubscribers to the cult as—pick your term—oligarch worshippers, Third Way iconoclasts, corporatist collaborators and/or victim players on the one hand, or just plain too stupid to see the "truth" on the other. (Hint: it's always a mistake to paint your opposition as stupid.)

Facts are ignored or outright suppressed because the narrative of the "prophet" must survive. Nonbelievers must be sent to re-education camp or ridiculed. When facts intervene, they must be censored or subjected to conspiracy theories.

And really, in the end, it all just drives people away rather than toward what may have started as a properly idealistic enterprise. It has turned at once fantastical and mean-spirited, and it is futile. The broader populace of America is simply not that angry or mean, except at its most fervent edges.

It's just incredibly sad, and not worthy of the cause it purports to support.

issues but completely based on personality.

The "we're all doomed if Bernie isn't elected" posts are sounding like a parody of religious tent revivals.

What I find ironic is that so many people who scoffed at being "scared into" voting for whoever the Dem nominee is because of SCOTUS picks are the same people trying to "scare" others into supporting BS by declaring that war, famine, pestilence and death will befall the nation if he's not elected.

Goldman-Sachs and the billionaires will continue even if the billionaires buy the WH for HRC.

We need change from the corrupt status quo. This is a class war and the People will prevail.

It's not a "class war" - there are BS supporters and HRC supporters of all classes.

It's also not a "fight for the soul of the Democratic Party" - another trite MSM term that shows up here way too often.

It is also not a choice between the 1% and the 99%, nor a choice between endless war and eternal peace.

It is what it is - and always has been - a primary season full of battling contingents who support different candidates.

No more, and no less.

"The People" is not a monolithic group. No matter who winds up as the Democratic nominee, "the People" who were in the majority will have prevailed. That's how democracy works.

And that was when he was doing better in the polls overall. Black Democrats are considerably more working class on average than their white counterparts.

That's just one example. What does that tell us about the "class war" allegedly between Sanders and Clinton? Give me a break.

Good post, BTW.

...colleges, taxing the rich, etc.

I don't want to do this because of friends here but I DO plan to renounce my American citizenship if a republican wins this next election. I'll know for sure that America is not for me. It's no big deal.

Is it "reductionist" or "simplistic" to believe that a candidate receiving large corporate donations
will be expected to "deliver the goods" in exchange for their "investment"?

Is it an "exaggeration" to say a nation is an Oligarchy when evidence-based studies and reports
have been saying this for years, and where unlimited "gifts" from billionaires & multi-billionaires
to candidates using a Citizen United fig-leaf have become the new normal?

These are just questions. I look forward to hearing your answers. Maybe I'm misunderstanding
your OP, and I'm trying to keep an open mind.

The realities of issues are complex, but they do have to boil down to essence.

And the essence is that wealth and power have been siphoned from the lower and middle classes uo to the small elite at the top, and into the coffers of massive corporate monopolies.

Clinton is far too close to that systemic corruption to change it.

Who can be believed? .. based on how a candidate has changed or not changed over time
on an array of issues, and how their words align (or not) to reflect their funding base.

These ^ are considerations that informed voters ponder, to compare candidates, as well
they should.

Through further bankrupting our country with military misadventures. The enrichment of the MIC has run like a cancer through our democracy destroying civil rights, impoverishing our communities, disproportionately targeting the poor who are often simple pawns for greedy oligarchs etc.

Her latest article stating her plan to cozy up to Netanyahu and strengthen relations is deeply troubling. He's a war criminal heading up an apartheid state.

Im not impressed with her support of continuing military involvement in Libya or Syria.

So I'm not saying Bernie Sanders will "save" democracy but I guess I find him and O'Malley to be less likely to continue our disastrous foreign policies which have been dictated by the MIC to our great detriment.

Now pull the other one.

The U.S. will keep chugging along like a tugboat.

Democracy will not end when sanders is not nominated let alone elected. Clinton will make a fine president as president Obama has. What is doomed is the republican party as they die off. 100,000 minority kids turn 18 every month. They don't think democracy is doomed. If elizabeth Warren had run you would be saying bernie who?

Bernie wouldn't have. He chose to run, because no one else was challenging Hillary. He doesn't want to be President, he needs to be President to help this country.

I have never seen Hillary as any thing other than wanting to be President. After Bill's run in the White House, she became a New York Senator because it was a higher profile position than Arkansas. It was a stepping stone for her to run for President. Did she actually do anything for New York, nope, not really. The only thing that I can give her kudos for, is keeping her promise not to run for President in her first term as Senator. Other than that, her word really means nothing.

Z

If the Republican Party died, we'd have a one-party system. How unstable would that be? How long could it last? I agree that the Republican Party is dying, but the Democratic Party now is nearly indistinguishable from the Republican Party of fifty years ago. A new party on the left will rise if the Republican Party dies. When that happens, will you stay a Democrat even though your party now represents what you used to despise? Even though its name hasn't changed?

We have all been maneuvered into infighting during the Primaries, and focused so very heavily on the presidential seat in the Generals. So much so, we've largely ignored state and local elections.

I got a huge walk up call during tonight's MSNBC shows telling us that while we were distracted, the Republicans, who make up a smaller percentage of the nation, have gerrymandered districts, undermined local elections with outside money, and damaged huge voting swaths with suppression laws...we've not paid enough attention to these issues and what we have to show for it are over 900 local and state offices that have been lost to Republicans.

How Is any Democratic President going to accomplish anything when both houses are filled with Republican contrarians? The Republicans have laid out plans to be implemented over decades, implemented them in a slow, hardly noticeable steps forward, and we have let them accomplish these moves largely unchallenged.

Folks, time to get involved at the local level. If one of the most conservative states in this nation (Utah) can elect and openly gay person as the new Mayor for its State Capital (Salt Lake City)it can be done everywhere.

the republicans that are the real problem. I pledge to support our nominee. period. Anything less is a vote for the republican clown crazy car.

I would be broke.

We'll move forward, whoever is elected.

If we don't nominate Bernie, we are missing a huge opportunity to actually regain some ground rather than just hold the line with the lesser-of-two-evils approach.

The going logic is "slow down the inevitable disaster just a bit."

Not "doomed," but a significant difference. Those differences would be in the lives of the subaltern, who could see their basic civil rights rolled back through, for example, SCOTUS decisions voted on by GOP-appointed majorities. I have yet to see any discussion of HOW a Sanders presidency could constitute a difference in the nature of American society itself.

The analog ignore feature seems to be faulty.

Democracy in America is already non existent as evidenced by a number of studies including one by Princeton and Northwestern Universities. They state and I quote “When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose.”

When running for president costs upwards of one billion dollars. When corporate third parties have no ceiling by which their contributions are limited and are free to lobby to their hearts content, Democracy doesn't existent.

When bi-lateral, trilateral and multi-lateral trade agreements tie the hands of government from the civic level all the way up to the presidency, Democracy doesn't exist.

When 1% of the population have a higher net worth than the other 99%, Democracy doesn't exist.

When the only two viable political parties are singing from the same hymn sheet to the tune of the corporate elites then Democracy doesn't exist.

When over half of the discretionary budget goes to War then Democracy doesn't exist.

One could go on and so I agree that electing Bernie won't stop our democracy from being doomed because it already is. Where I disagree is, Bernie will at least try to reverse the situation where Hillary won't. I come to this conclusion not because what what either says but by their record and by how they get their election funding.

Bad political decisions about war can lead to countless innocent lives being lost, and Clinton's decision-making on war has often been bad. She voted to authorize Bush to wage war in Iraq should he judge that the “threat” posed by Iraq warranted it. She wanted an even bigger surge in Afghanistan. She supported regime change in Libya, with disastrous results.

Particularly on Iraq. I don't believe she would have invaded Iraq if she'd been president after 9/11, but she did show poor judgement in voting for the IWR. I can't disagree there. I hope you also agree, however, that any of the Republicans would be worse in that regard, so that if she does win the nomination you will vote for her.

Last edited Thu Nov 5, 2015, 10:49 AM - Edit history (2)

The idea that anyone here believes that a President Sanders can cause change, at least the change that is needed, alone, without also electing real, yes, real, democrats to the House, Senate and every office down, is ridiculous. Though he will certainly get more done for good, working with all in congress, than someone that has called people she would have to work with, her enemy.

Just like Senator Sanders is pushing Hillary to pretend she's actually a liberal progressive, Senator Sanders is pulling up the shades on the darkened rooms of politics. It is allowing States to pass legislation that allow for publicly funded elections. It is making people demand accounting for dark money.

We have a candidate that says Citizens United was bad, finally. And we have a candidate that has called it one of the worst decisions in recent history, since the decision. Only one of those two candidates is actually walking the walk instead of parroting the other. Only one of those candidates has super pacs loudly and publicly playing Nixon type dirty tricks.

We have one candidate that is part of the 1% that said, actually stated, "When I was in the Senate, I represented Wall Street." Not the people of New York. While the other states, I represent the people of Vermont."

The money in politics is ruining this country. To say it was ever thus is ridiculous. At no time in our history was this much money used to elect someone. The time taken away from actually working while in office so they can raise money for their next election has left us unrepresented in so many places, for years at a time.

It has bought and paid for legislation that has hurt women, children and minorities. Bills like No Child Left Behind, the Bankruptcy bill, etc.

To continue with these bought and paid for legislatures, Governors, Presidents and legislation will do nothing but continue on the path of crushing the poor and getting rid of the middle class.

I want a candidate that walks the walk. Someone that doesn't have to evolve on every issue because he's almost always right from the start. Someone that is trustworthy. Someone that can bring in the down votes. Someone that represents the people. Someone who knows and states repeatedly that he can't do it alone. Someone that has consistently been able to work with Republicans and Democrats alike, passing legislation that has helped this country immensely, like the $11 billion for healthcare for the uninsured.

That's Bernie Sanders

Unless Sanders is elected one thread claims this morning!

they are totally freaking out that they are wrong about the American voters!

I'm just here for the comments.

The title just got me, you know?

Sanctimonious, self-righteous purism: It's not just for the Tea Party. No kidding.

I think that having a strong progressive in the presidency, especially a progressive who is interested in breaking up the banks and taking money out of politics and taking power away from the Koch brothers, will go along way towards restoring govt which is less of a plutocracy. but the presidency is not the only game in town, Congress counts for a lot too, and so do state reps and governorships for that matter. Bernie has lit the fuse for what is going to be a political revolution. The days of money ruling politics are coming to an end whether or not he wins the presidency. It might go a little smoother and might happen a little faster if he is the president, but it's going to happen. The movement he started Will not end with the presidency, no matter who wins it even a Republican.

and I hope people remain committed to that goal regardless of Sanders' political fortunes.

it's one of the reasons I like how Bernie has presented his campaign. He has never said it's about him or that he wants to do this alone. He wants to get gobs of people involved in the process. what he started is about much more than him as a person or a candidate, and it's about much more than even the presidency itself. I think he lit the fuse, but the fire will burn on whatever he ends up doing in his political career.

edit to add....The ugliness of this primary season could certainly pose a risk to his revolution if many of the people he inspired, particular younger people, lose hope that any meaningful change can be achieved. Whether he wins the nomination or not, he's going to have to get out front and galvanize his supporters to continue to act on various levels in different types of offices to try to effect change.

because it was already murdered a while ago.

It just warms my heart toward Hillary when her fans use it

So it matters who wins. Sanders has pledged to use as his nominee litmus test a willingness to overturn the Citizens United ruling. This needs to happen, and soon. The other avenue, getting states on board for a constitutional amendment, is a much more remote possibility.

I don't know whether Clinton has made a similar pledge about Citizens United. If she has, that would support your position; but if not, that would undermine it.