Dems Destroyed in 2016 Election STILL Struggling to Take Responsibilty

Non-voters did NOT cost Hillary this election. It wasn't third parties or Wikileaks or Comey, either. These dialogs, coming out of the Democratic establishment in order to avoid responsibility for their epic failure to make any meaningful headway at all this election cycle, are complete and utter bullshit. In political commentary we call that "punching down": Blaming the powerless for the failures of the powerful.
HILLARY cost Hillary this election.  
What cost Hillary this election was that almost 1 in 10 DEMOCRATS voted for Donald Trump.
That's right. Hillary was such a badly chosen candidate that not only was she completely unable to attract the center, she wasn't even able to unify her own party.
Let's be crystal clear about what just happened. Hillary didn't just fail to inspire Democrats to "get out the vote", although that was certainly a factor. Hillary Clinton actually drove voters across the aisle.It would seem a no-brainer that Hillary was just a bad nominee.
But no. Instead of taking responsibility for the fact that they rigged the primary process over threats of a #DemExit and nominated a candidate with a trending #NeverHillary hashtag, the Democratic establishment is trying to blame people who didn't vote, or voted outside the two party duopoly.
Blaming Jill Stein is stupid. If EVERY Stein voter had voted for Hillary she still would have lost. Gary Johnson is a CONSERVATIVE. If he took votes from anyone it was Donald Trump. Rachel Maddow is in the throws of cognitive dissonance when she suggests half of Gary Johnsons voters would ever vote for Hillary Clinton.

People who don't vote are not the problem. If a person can't be bothered to stay informed, they shouldn't vote. Uninformed voters don't help the Democratic Process.  
Besides, in Michigan (where Hillary lost by only 11,000 votes) 90,000 voters filled out their downticket ballot and left the ballot bubbles for President empty. Non-voters were just not the problem.
While the Democratic establishment and their bleating herd of loyalists are struggling with this concept, one undeniable truth is clear as day. They have nobody to blame but themselves.
Most of you have seen the Jonathan Pie video floating around, and SOME few liberals have shown at least a few glimmers of understanding, but most of them STILL haven't taken the real message to heart. They are creating a narrative that the reason they lost is that they didn't try hard enough to persuade.
WRONG.
Yes their unwillingness to communicate with dissenters... driven by an arrogant presumption of their innate moral superiority... was certainly a problem for them. Calling people sexist, or racist, or privileged was, indeed, an outrageously STUPID strategy for persuading people, but that was just the tip of the iceberg.
Their REAL problem was their shitty, war-criminal, corporatist candidate. Trying to "persuade" people wouldn't have changed that.
Listening might have.
If they had listened when #BernieOrBust started to trend... If they had been willing to compromise rather than "persuade"... They would ALL be celebrating today and Donald Trump would be back to his old day job of driving business ventures into the ground.
In the end the Media is going to hide their collusion with what has been, perhaps, one of the most colossal and incompetent failures in US politics since the Civil War by turning this into another variation of their "Bernie Bro" narrative. And they'll succeed. They'll blame Jill Stein or Bernie Sanders the same way they blamed Ralph Nader for 2000. That was a lie then, and it's a lie now, but it will play because they're the mass media and there's nobody around to say otherwise.
But those of us few who are informed and paying attention know better.
The Dems didn't lose this election because people didn't vote. They didn't lose because people voted for Jill Stein. They didn't lose because Bernie was mean to her before the primary.
They didn't lose this election because they didn't persuade.
The Dems lost this election because they refused to BE persuaded and that's 100% their own fault.

Steel Rainfall

Ain't no "why" once flak and bone fly.
The fog of war. The blinded crowd.
Brassy anthems play out, proud.
Drums beat out the same old call:
"Embrace with us the steel rainfall".

Stars and spangles fade to gray.
Were they colored yesterday?
Once again the wheel comes 'round.
The blood of good men feeds the ground
While with ingenious sleight of hand
Kings and generals make their stand
And with a patriarchal frown
They lock the whole damn kingdom down.

The innocents that we would free
Sleep beneath a symphony
Of missiles and artillery
While an arrogant cacophony
Of procedural propriety
Hides our culpability.

The Laws of Social Dynamics

1. Never get a stiffy for your boss.
2. The ability to alter the facts to fit their views is the one thing stupid people have in common with powerful ones.
3. The reason you hate your parents is that most of the time, they're right.
4. The reason you hate your kids is that most of the time, they're right.
5. Waitresses don't flirt with you. They get paid to look you in the eye and smile.
6. Everybody loves an honest man who knows how to keep his mouth shut.
7. The more reason you have to be lonely, the less anyone cares how you feel.
8. Listen by watching. Talk is composed of flapping lips and hot air.
9. Thoughtlessness is deadlier than malice.
10. If you're bored, it's because you're boring.
11. Most people will thank you for your patience by blowing you off.
12. Cheaters prosper.
13. No matter how much they smile, everybody hates the last asshole in the bar.
14. Nine lies out of ten are told at you, not to you.
15. Beauty and character are an exceedingly rare combination.
16. The likelihood of any given group making an intelligent decision is inversely proportional to the number of people in the group.

 

#OurRevolution is Dead. Progressives Killed It.

#OurRevolution has doomed itself. By deciding that promoting progressivism is more important than putting a stop to government corruption they have permanently marginalized themselves.


Bernie had a wide range of independents supporting him including libertarians like myself and other disenfranchised conservatives. He even had the support of a number of Republicans. But be clear...
We supported Bernie despite his progressive world view, NOT because of it.


With the appointment of Jeff Weaver as the unelected "President" of the organization #OurRevolution is clearly positioning itself to put itself into debt to big donors, become a part of the corruption that it's pretending to champion against. It has decided to accept systemic corruption in order to promote a progressive agenda.


That is not a movement I have any wish to join.


The Greens are no alternative either. Bernie was a reformer who happened to be a progressive. We could live with that. Jill Stein is a progressive who happens to be a reformer. That's a pretty big difference.


We need put an end to the oligarchy FIRST. We need to agree to disagree on everything else. We can work out the rest of our differences later.


No... this "revolution" is over. Progressives killed it. I'm going back to the Libertarians for now.


You "revolutionaries" let us know when you're ready to start a revolution we can ALL get behind. Let us know when you're ready to focus on getting the legalized corruption out of the political process.


In the meantime enjoy getting nothing done.

Monkey Tale

I climbed to the top of the highest tree in the forest
Just so I could see the view

But there was a dead monkey up there
And that made me sad

So...
I decided to enjoy my success from halfway down.



It was still very grand
And it didn't smell so much like dead monkey.

An Open Letter to the Democratic Party

Maybe this is our fault. Maybe we weren't clear. Maybe we shouldn't have made it so personal. It doesn't really matter any more, but I feel the need to try to explain it one last time.

When we told you we were #BernieOrBust we meant it, but maybe we shouldn't have made it about Bernie. When we told you we were #NeverHillary we meant it, but maybe we shouldn't have made it about Hillary.

This isn't about them. It never was.

This is about a system of government we no longer believe in.

No... I'm not talking about the Republic. I'm talking about what it has become as a direct result of the so-called "two party system", which has really become more of a single "pro-business" party with two squabbling factions.

We like to pretend this process is Democratic, but it's not. The same tiny handful of super wealthy corporations owns and funds the whole pageant. The same moneyed interests fund both parties and own the media that props it up.

Bernie tried to challenge this system from the inside, and he chose the Democratic party to do it. We supported him because we supported what he was trying to do, and by extension we supported you. 
 
Maybe we should have used the hashtag #DemocracyOrBust. Maybe we should have used the hashtag #NeverOligarchy. Maybe if we had depersonalized it you would have understood our message more clearly. By personalizing it we invited recriminations and bruised egos to obfuscate what we were trying to say.
  
But that's not how hashtags work. Hashtags are reflections of our flawed, beautiful selves in all our glory. They reflect the passion of the moment and as people we can't help ourselves but to write our plays replete with heroes and villains.

And let's be honest, when confronted by an opposing point of view we'd all rather be offended than try to see clearly into a deeper underlying meaning.

The problem with Hillary Clinton isn't that Hillary Clinton is a bad politician.

Quite the opposite. She's an extraordinarily skilled and accomplished politician. The problem is the system she is a part of, which literally legalizes bribery. Being a masterful operator in a system which leverages campaign financing into legislative power and incentivizes corruption by allowing politicians to amass vast personal fortunes by peddling influence is not something to be proud of.

Now it's over.

We're sorry you've chosen not to embrace our campaign to restore Democracy to the Republic, but we will not be unifying with you in support of the Oligarchy.

You're going to have to pull this one off without our help.

Please don't take this as an invitation to debate or persuade. Don't waste your time and ours trying to convince us that your Oligarch is better than their Oligarch or trying to scare us with Donald Trump. We know all about the supreme court. We've heard it all before.

Trump and Clinton are just two sides of the same coin. This isn't an election any more. It's a dog and pony show and when it's over Hillary and Donald will still be going to the same cocktail parties together, with all the same wealthy donors whispering in their ears, smiling for the cameras and laughing at each others jokes.

In four more years, when nothing has changed, we can try again.

A Simple Free Market Equation

In the end
Math don't bend.

You gave it away yesterday.
Ain't nobody gonna give it back.
You're out of the black.

Ain't no exchange,
   no price range,
      no market,
         no store,
            no commodities floor

Sells the shit you really need.
And everybody
   Everybody
      EVERYBODY needs a thneed.

Like a wallet we clutch at some broken old crutch:
   Thinking to much?
   Afraid of the pain?

You can't have a headache if you don't have a brain.
Don't pump blood if you're afraid of the stain.

The Democratic Party is Wasting it's Breath

Why I'll Never "Unify" Behind Hillary

It's not because I'm a conservative. It's because she's a "conservative", or more accurately, she's a Republican.

The Republicans like to brand themselves as conservatives, but they're not. Most people who self-identify as "conservative" believe in all kinds of oppressive politically liberal policies. Likewise many self described "liberals" actually support a lot of Conservative values.

If you accept the most basic definition of political conservatism as a function of smaller, government, lower taxes, and less intrusion on the lives of citizens, the Republican brand of conservatism becomes laughable.

The drug war does NOTHING to advance the cause of political conservatism.

Creating government bureaucracies and law enforcement agencies to regulate who can get married or use which bathroom does NOTHING to advance political conservatism.

A large military, constant war, the Patriot Act, Domestic Surveillance; All of these Republican "conservative values" are viscerally offensive to real political conservatism.  ANYTHING that does not protect the welfare of people, their rights to life, and liberty (their rights under the Constitution) is just none of the Governments damn business.

The term "Social Conservatism" was coined specifically to deflect criticism that modern neoconservatives no longer reflect real politically conservative values. The real meaning of "Social Conservatism" is; "Big government liberal positions held by people who like to pretend they hate big government and liberals".

I don't agree with a LOT of Bernie's policy's, but on the core issue of government corruption and corporate influence I agree with him completely. Until we break the stranglehold of the Oligarchy on the political process it will never be possible to make, or even honestly address, any kind of meaningful change (including a shift toward real political conservatism, many planks of which are better represented by the progressive movement than they are by the Republican party).

In the meantime, if the government is going to steal a third of my income anyway? I'd just as soon they spend it on education and health care than on bombs and bank bail-outs.

Legalized corruption is not an issue that Hillary will EVER address. Quite the opposite, government corruption is the source of ALL her wealth and power. She not only won't address them, she has shown that she will fight to protect that system time and time again.

I will NEVER support Hillary Clinton for president. If that means we have to trust God to see us through 4 years with a racist buffoon in the Oval Office, so be it.

I remain, and will remain, #BernieOrBust.

News that's Not on the News

California poll workers are being lied to by the California DNC.

They are being told in training that independent voters, who are allowed to vote in CA primaries, are to be given "provisional" ballots.

This is a lie. Provisional ballots are almost never counted.

Registered Independent voters (or as they are called in Cali, "No Party Preference" voters) are supposed to be given something called a "crossover" ballot. These are included in the initial vote counts.

The DNC Thinks You are Stupid

They would have you believe that this is an honest mistake. They assure us that his has nothing to do with propping Hillary Clinton up against Bernie Sanders' tendency to win outstanding, even overwhelming, upsets when independent voters participate.

No steps are being taken to retrain their poll workers.

You can count on four things:

• Hillary Clinton is going to win the California Primary.
• There are going to be an unusually large number of provisional ballots submitted, and ignored, this year.
• We are going to see the same voter purges, double digit exit poll discrepancies, poll closures, ballot shortages, and polling machine "malfunctions" that we saw in NY.
• The mainstream media and Hillary's supporters will gleefully ignore the overt disintegration of our democracy and once again turn the outrage of Bernie's supporters into another variation of their "Bernie-Bro" dialog.

What rank and file Dems don't get is that the DNC is throwing them under the bus.

It's very likely that Bernie's supporters have already been driven away from Hillary for good but, if not, a shady California primary will be the last straw for hordes of Bernie's supporters both inside the Democratic party and out.

The Clinton campaign, unable to attack Sanders' for anything other than being ridiculously poor for a US Senator, and having a disorganized wife who lost their tax returns, has instead leveled a merciless barrage of attacks against Sanders' supporters. We have been portrayed as sexist, racist, stupid, naive, privileged, and even violent.

Having thus alienated pretty much every progressive independent in the country, and almost half of their own party faithful, Hillary's attempt to unify voters will be a disaster. Bernie supporters are already flocking to Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein or vowing to write Sanders in.

The Democrats are poising themselves to loose the white house to Donald Trump, and the Democratic Party bosses know it.

They would like to keep the White House, of course, but their need to protect the corrupt system that allows both them and their campaign contributors to profit by bartering votes for tax breaks, subsidies, and bail-outs is far more important than the results of a single election.

In simple terms...

The DNC would rather lose with Hillary Clinton than win with Bernie Sanders. 

Nevada's Unlearned Lesson for Hillary Dems

Barney Frank recently implied Bernie Sanders' supporters were responsible for Washington gridlock because they are low information voters. He suggested that the real problem in Washington is that Sanders' people don't understand how the system works and aren't participating in it.

Recent events would seem to pretty much prove he has everything ass-backwards.

It's certainly true that certain Democrats' unwillingness to participate in mid-term elections is central to the odious political failures that pretty much defines their party these days. Laying that on Bernie Supporters, though, is absurd.

Never mind that so many of Sanders' supporters are independents whom one ought not reasonably expect to support Democrats, mid-term election or otherwise. The real absurdity of this assertion lies in the establishment candidate's recent upset in Nevada.

In the Nevada Caucus popular votes are calculated to assign delegates who are tasked to cast their actual votes at a state convention. In 1776, when news traveled at the speed of a trotting horse, this was a reasonable and necessary process. In an age of instant communications, it is an absurdity. Still, both parties cling to this "tradition".

There are a number of excuses for this offered by party bosses, but there is only one real reason.

Both parties work hard to rig their elections in favor of candidates preferred by the party bosses. State conventions help serve this purpose.

For this election the favored Democratic candidate is Hillary Clinton, while the preferred Republican candidate was Paul Ryan (although even if they can force the GOP primary result to a  national convention they may need to settle for Ted Cruz).

The parties assume that many grassroots "upstart" candidates will elect "low information" delegates who don't understand the importance of attending the state conventions. The assumption is that low-information delegates will think of the convention as an unnecessary formality and not show up, and this will give establishment candidates (who will presumably field delegates who understand and participate in the party process) an edge.

That's exactly what happened in Nevada, but it didn't work out the way the Dem party bosses had hoped.

Hillary won the primary in Nevada by 5 points. Based on these results both camps selected delegates to be dispatched to the state convention to cast their votes for a final tally, and this is when things went all wonky for the DNC.

Hundreds of Clinton delegates didn't show up to the convention.

When the delegate votes were tallied, Bernie Sanders had won the state.

I'm not even going to talk about the shady things the DNC did to try to keep the state when they realized what was happening. That's a discussion for another time.

What REALLY matters here is what it says about the DNC and their "presumptive" nominee. It's a bitter pill that the DNC has so far been unable to swallow. The events in Nevada are indisputable, though.

The low-information voters that Barney Frank is complaining about... The Democrats who don't follow through and fail to participate in the process when it really matters, are NOT Sanders supporters. The low information voters, the ones who stay home when it's time to vote, are the ones flocking to Hillary Clinton.