Are the Democrats back on track?

That need for change hasn't gone away, whatever direction the Democrats want to take this. Right now, of course, just focusing everything on Russia. Come next election, the masses who want real change will be out in droves again, and I'd be willing to wager money that the Democrats aren't going to be providing it. They think they can just slink behind this whole Russia thing. And many democrats follow it on, hook, line, and sinker. Russia this, Russia that. Come election there's going to be a much larger problem: the fact that we STILL want change.

Last election we demanded change. It was Bernie or bust, remember? We got bust. Trump. The cards are still on the table, and it's still the same situation. Either we can have real change in the form of a leader who truly represents real change, or we can have...Trump, I guess. Because it ultimately doesn't matter if a corporate Democrat or Trump are in the White House. It's the same shit show either way that leads to things like billionaires and celebrities becoming president.

Hillary just tried to play the good politician. Which is what every schmuck politician up until Trump did. Which is what many of them still do, because they're just not that clever. They don't know how to react when Trump puts them down, so they pretend they've got morals. What are they going to say, what they really think? That he's a ****** lover because of some of his policies and God knows what else? So I don't think for a second Hillary behaved the way she did out of respect for Trump or respect for anyone else. She just wanted to look the part to get votes and behind the scenes God only knows how she treated her staff. I hear it wasn't pleasant to be around her.

 

The people who vote for the said parties, that’s who.

The DNC forced a candidate on their party’s voters who wasn’t as popular to them as Sanders. While I’m not a fan of Bernie, he definitely appealed more to the grassroots base of his party. Much more so than Hilary or the others. But rather than going with the grassroots base, they decided to cheat the election and go with the corporate base.

I also explained why I think the republicans are a disfunctional mess.

Lol, I love you Balbus. what would we ever do without you and your fiesty character assassinations?

 

While I’m not a fan of Bernie, he definitely appealed more to the grassroots base of his party. Much more so than Hilary or the others. But rather than going with the grassroots base, they decided to cheat the election and go with the corporate base.
[/QUOTE] . You're just saying that to divide Demos and stir shit, as usual. Bernie, for one, doesn't seem to be bothered. Both of them are yesterday's news.

 

6

But you said “it’s about damn time both parties stopped listening to the corporations and started listening to the people”

But as I’m saying there are those that claim one thing but seem to be wanting another - they claim to be against the corporations and for the people but when you look at the things they actually push for they would seem to favour corporations and wealth while been detrimental to most of the ‘people’.

The alt-right, ‘free market’ and Social Darwinist type ideas you have promoted are unlikely to help the majority of people but would serve the interests of a few.

We need to stop just listening to those who claim to be the people’s champion and start examining what they stand for more.

 

It has to be remembered that for much of the past 30 odd years ‘the people’ continually voted into power politicians with neoliberal ideas. There were many warnings about what could happen if they voted against their own economic interests but they did not heed those warnings.

So to me it was not surprising (although I saw it as a huge mistake) that some on the supposed left in the US and UK began to accept those same neoliberal ideas, i mean it seemed to be what ‘the people’ wanted (without realising it was not what the people needed)

They thought they could ride the neoliberal tiger and tame it – instead it eat them.

So we had Clinton Democrats in the US and New Labour in the UK (which over here was widely called Tory Lite).

This was when the ‘third way’ political parties came off the tracks and turned their backs on a lot of their base.

But now neoliberal ideas as envisioned in the early 80’s which was always deeply flawed, the neoliberalism that Thatcher and Reagan helped to promote has been tarnished by financial crises and has now morphed into the even more destructive bastard neoliberal ideologies that have given use Trump and Brexit.

To get back on track I believe the Democrats in the US and Labour in the UK have to cull the ‘third way’ neoliberals from their midst and go back to embracing more socialist ideas.

 

And once again the right seem to be attacking Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez by trying to use ‘socialist’ as if it were a swear word.

“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a product of a Marxist, socialist, anti-American ideology” [my bold]

But when they begin going into what Democratic Socialism is about you get hilarious pieces like the one by the conservative Virginia Kruta

Well, I was listening to them talk to [Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez and also to Cori Bush, who she was stumping for in St. Louis. And, they say things -- I mean, they talk about things that everybody wants, especially, like, if you're a parent. They talk about education for your kids, healthcare for your kids, the things that you want, and, if you are not really paying attention to how they're going to pay for it or the rest of that, it's easy to fall into that trap and say, "My kids deserve this, and, well, maybe the government should be responsible for helping me with that."

Distilling the absolute horrors of Democratic Socialism into three bullet points

I saw how easy it would be, as a parent, to accept the idea that my children deserve healthcare and education.

I saw how easy it would be, as someone who has struggled to make ends meet, to accept the idea that a “living wage” was a human right.

Above all, I saw how easy it would be to accept the notion that it was the government’s job to make sure that those things were provided.

OK so those are the terrible things Democratic Socialist want people to have.

You kind of go why are they terrible?

The answer from Ms Kruta is that it’s all about money – how is it to be paid for but isn’t shot bolted, how can many right wingers feign concern for the state of public finances when they are so happy to hugely increase the debt by ballooning the defence budget and with a massive tax give away to the already wealthy.

The thing is that the US could reengineer it’s economy to fit in with what the Democratic Socialist want, the political will to do so just has to be there.

 

So according to people like Virginia Kruta (see post above) the terrible things about the lefts agenda is that it wants

· Universal healthcare (especially for children)

· Good publically funded education and training programmes

· A living wage

· A government working to improve the lot of the majority of people.

So let’s play a game - since above are the horrors of the left then their opposite must be the things right wingers want and would applaud – so let’s also do simplistic bullet point of what they want -

· Reducing or getting rid of all publically funded healthcare including that for children

· Reducing or getting rid of public education and training

· Having wages that are so low they are not enough to live on

· A government working only to help a few not the many

LOL - maybe the Republicans, right wing libertarians and alt-righters should put that out as a joint mission statement.

 

Because that's what happens in every job. Right?

No just teachers. Must be a different species altogether.

 

The government is ---US. We are the government. Those people that get elected and are in Washington are our representatives. They are supposed to do what the citizens want. Some folks are sooo afraid of the government. "we don't want the government giving us healthcare--that's socialism." If the majority of voters want socialized healthcare---we'll have it. "Let's get rid of REGULATIONS--they're too hard and cost too much." Let's face it---people NEED WATCHING. Next recession or depression comes along--it will have been because of the greedy that NEED regulating. --every time, from the early 1800s until now. Want the banks and other greedy bastards reined in and made to play fairly? Regulations back in place? WE CAN have that if WE want it badly enough. Want honest, moral, fair legislators? WE can have them. OR do WE --want lying bullshitting, immoral, completely self interested, PRICKS that actually don't want to do the right thing for this country and the majority of the citizens? People that don't want to tear down protections for the environment--to tear down each and every department for which they were nominated? To be just fine with being the only modern country without socialized medicine--38th in infant mortality-- and 700 women a year dying in childbirth because of poor care right in the hospitals? To give huge tax breaks to the rich, money that they don't have to pay for education, infrastructure and other needs? Things have gone sideways to the extreme and WE need to fix this, but I think that it's going to take a while. The conned true believers with the help of Russian agitators and the right wing media are going to make it rough to recover our country and the protections that WERE---WERE--- put in place to make sure the money boys played fair. Much more damage can be done. Plenty has been done, so folks--you know what we have to do-------VOTE THESE FUCKERS OUTTA'THERE!!!
(by the way---trump lovers will NEVER-EVER-EVER-EVER- CHANGE THEIR MINDS ABOUT HIM. I come across them constantly. I will give him credit for giving China the business on trade.) This whole deal is also on the dems ---they damn sure could have seen that factories/jobs- didn't go overseas when they were in office.
Now they are going to bail out the farmers. Bailed out the banks--to big to fail! When the hell do regular people get some help??

 

The "farmers" are getting a golden crutch. $12B is not enough to straighten out their problems, many of them regulatory. You're right on the mark in pointing out the distinction between "farmers" (in quotes because so many are corporate operations) and regular people.

This "farm" bill is being sold like it was for "regular people", what else could farmers be? Right?

Wrong, there's nothing like the sight of a mechanized factory farm. Usually run by a board that shaves a nickel off of every employee's hide. Notice how strategically they donate to politicians in both parties. But why wouldn't they? They're not based in the US. They're based in Singapore.

Americans are so fucked, and most of us don't even know it yet. Why? Because we spend our days fighting each other.

 

^this

The irony of watching politicians like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Bernie Sanders come under attack because they claim the title democratic socialist, all while the government spends billions upon trillions of dollars bailing out the banking industry, the auto industry, and now the industrial farming industry, is almost fucking unbearable

Damnit america

 

In reality, neither Bernie nor Ocasio Cortez are "democratic socialits", regardless of what they call themselved, as the term has historically been used. They're social democrats. What's the difference? Socialists, at minimum, want government control of the means of production. Social Democrats want a mixed economy welfare stat like Sweden's. The term "socialism" has been poisoned by decades of use as an epithet in Cold War politics. I think Demos should ditch it.

 

Hugo Chavez was a socialist who was elected democratically.

 

. You're just saying that to divide Demos and stir shit, as usual. Bernie, for one, doesn't seem to be bothered. Both of them are yesterday's news.[/QUOTE]
I voted for HC because Bernie was not a Democrat. I want my rep to be from the same party. Next time I want someone new, young, good public speaker, and ready to put some Republicans in prison!

 

And a Great Man Hugo was!

 

I know a Republican Capitalist man here locally. He gets 119 rent checks each month from the federal government because he rents out his slum houses in the BLACK part of town to poor blacks under the Section 8 program. He is a millionaire, lives in a $900,000.00 house and drives a $112,000 Lexus. He just loves getting rich off the government and the guaranteed rent checks! That's why I don't mind if his taxes go up a little! A little socialism can level the playing field.

 

Sure. That explains why Venezuela is prospering so much right now.

 

Socialism is better than Republican Cronyism!

 

Their problems are exported from America. They had a great economy when Chavez was alive. They are an oil exporter and can pay their own way. They were one of the founding members of OPEC, like Iraq and Iran. All three are under constant attack by Americans who want to steal their oil wealth and force them to be dependents.