The Revolution Is Here: Democrats Ignore It at Their Peril

The Revolution Is Here: Democrats Ignore It at Their Peril

'Whoa,' Says Edward Snowden as Sanders Vows to End Prosecution of Whistleblowers Under Espionage Act

'Whoa,' Says Edward Snowden as Sanders Vows to End Prosecution of Whistleblowers Under Espionage Act

New Poll Shows 65% of Democrats More Likely to Back 2020 Candidate Who Supports Medicare for All Over Obamacare Tweaks

New Poll Shows 65% of Democrats More Likely to Back 2020 Candidate Who Supports Medicare for All Over Obamacare Tweaks

Our Revolution and the Progressive Movement

Conservatives Grasp at Straws After CBO Minimum Wage Analysis Shows Clear Benefits

Conservatives Grasp at Straws After CBO Minimum Wage Analysis Shows Clear Benefits

Just Say No To Joe

I never paid much attention to Joe Biden when he first came into the national spotlight as the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I was too busy fighting the State of New York, trying to keep my family together after my first wife died. I did see the news clips of the way the committee treated Professor Hill, and I was outraged that they would denigrate her and try to make her out a liar. But that was of secondary importance to me at the time.

Then when Biden became Vice President, the biggest thing I recall is that I supported him, but only because he was Barack Obama ‘s choice as running mate. And his penchant for gaffes and humor was appealing in a way that George W. Bush’s was, making him seem like someone I might want as a neighbor or at a cookout. And I loved the comic memes that came out during that period, with him and Obama allegedly commenting of the doings of the political day.

I only began really looking at him when he was being put forth as a potential Presidential candidate, when he was acting so coy that some would wonder if he was seriously considering running. His record, as I saw it, was atrocious. But even then I didn’t take him seriously, because he hadn’t actually announced yet.

Then came Lucy Flores’ op-ed about Biden’s touchie-feelie habits, followed in short order by other women’s accounts of similar occurrences. Troubling indeed, especially in light of Donald Trump’s egregious behavior toward women. I wondered if the Democratic Party would back him as their preferred candidate, or would they eschew him in the age of #MeToo?

We got our answer, more or less, in April, when he announced that he was throwing his hat in the ring. The Democratic establishment ramped up its smear machine against progressive candidates and their supporters. And their media lapdogs worked harder than ever to try to marginalize the progressives who had already announced, even going so far as to try to trap Bernie Sanders into making political gaffes and completely ignore Tulsi Gabbard, Mike Gravel and, to a slightly lesser degree, Andrew Yang.

Oddly enough (or maybe not so odd if one thinks about it), those supporting Biden have been trying ever since to take the focus off his record showing his conservative “values”, in a concerted attempt to make it appear that progressive opposition to him as a candidate is solely predicated on his penchant for being handsy.

It’s not.

While Biden’s proclivity for being hands-on is problematic even in comparison with Trump, that pales in comparison to his legislative record. It’s that record that inspires the progressive antipathy to his candidacy, much more so than the #MeToo narrative.1991

First there was his attack on Hill in 1991. True, he offered a half-assed apology for the way she was treated, stating that he wishes he could have changed it. That, though, is an outright lie, since he indeed could have changed it, because he was the one in charge of that committee.

He helped write the 1994 Clinton crime bill that began in earnest the slide into mass incarceration of mostly minorities and the enabled the rapid expansion of the for-profit prison industry.

He supported the Clinton welfare “reform” that pushed more families into poverty.

In 1995, he wrote the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act that later became the so-called PATRIOT Act, which he voted for in 2001.

In 1996 he voted against gay marriage.

In 1999 he helped repeal the Glass-Steagal Act that protected against bank fraud and largely prevented a second Great Depression.

He voted for the 2002 Iraq invasion.

He voted to end student bankruptcy protection in 2005.

He supports our seemingly endless foreign interventions and regime change wars.

He supported NAFTA, TPP and the disastrous China trade bill that cost far too many American jobs.

He supported the bailout of the banks that caused the Great Recession of 2008, for which nobody was prosecuted.

He supports fracking and the oil and gas pipelines that are and will continue to damage our environment.

He keeps taking big corporate money, including the usurious credit card industry, making him beholden to those organizations.

He’s called THREE TIMES to cut Social Security, called for an increase in the retirement age, and opposes a living wage.

He opposes Medicare For All and the Green New Deal.

He opposed measures to let consumers sue for price-fixing.

And you want me and other progressives to support his candidacy for the highest office in the land? Because…. Trump!

I don’t think so.

© May 21, 2019 by Donald C. Rice Jr.

Citing 'Unprecedented' Power of Zuckerberg, Facebook Co-Founder Says: 'Time to Break It Up'

Citing 'Unprecedented' Power of Zuckerberg, Facebook Co-Founder Says: 'Time to Break It Up'

Chris Hedges destroys Rachel Maddow

WashPo Smears Accurate Journalism On RussiaGate

The Question of Reparations

In a recent episode of The Real News, Jacqueline Luqman interviewed Adolf Reed, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, on the issue of reparations for the descendants of slaves in America.  Overall it was a rather wide-ranging discussion, but the primary focus was on the response of Bernie Sanders in comparison to the other Democratic Party candidates for the 2020 Presidential election.  The main question is whether Sanders should have a specific answer or policy on that issue instead of denigrating the idea of "writing a check".

A salient point that was mentioned in the interview is that there is no consensus on exactly what is meant by reparations.  This was discussed in some length comparative to the length of the interview, and what was apparently agreed upon is the need for further discussion, and perhaps legislation aimed at coming to a conclusion on what would be appropriate in this day and age, as well as the political viability of tackling this idea as a society.

I have a few questions on this issue.  Some might think that the question of Sanders' response would be foremost, but they would be wrong making that assumption.  It's well-known among my friends, colleagues, family acquaintances both on-line and off that I'm a strong supporter of Senator Sanders and the progressive agenda.  But here I wasnt to focus specifically on the issue of reparations.

As noted, both here and in the interview, there is no consensus on the issue.  If I recall my history classes correctly, the original solution to slavery after the Civil War was to give the freed slaves, as the once-popular saying goes, "40 acres and a mule".  (As an aside, this was actually done in South Carolina, until after Abe Lincoln was assassinated and the new President, Andrew Johnson, took back the land and the mules.) 

The question then should logically turn to how that solution could be translated to fit our modern-day society.  In other words, what would be an equivalent, in today's societal and economic terms, to those 40 acres and a mule?  Further, we need to ask ourselves and society as a whole if it can be done; and if so, how we can do it.

In my view, we the people should be the ones to find solutions, for the very simple reason that the greatest positive changes in human society have come about, not from the leaders, but from the people, in movements of the masses.  So we should be the ones to not only find the solution to this issue, but to then communicate that (or those) solutions to our elected representatives, including (and perhaps especially) to those who are seeking the Presidency.

© March 30, 2019 by Donald C. Rice Jr.

Jacqueline Luqman's interview can be seen here:

Bernie and the Reparations Debate

 

The Mad Doctor Returns

Rhames Blond
as
Agent Double-Zero 9-1/2
in

The Mad Doctor Returns

A Satire
by
Don Rice Jr.

   He moved from the office area onto the catwalk that ran through the assembly line, searching for an off switch.  He was confident he could find it before too many of the cyborg monstrosities were ready to be activated.  As a precaution, he held his portable E-M Pulse Cannon/Taser close to his chest, ready to aim and fire in any direction if necessary. 
   It looked oddly like the old, no longer made Walther PPK once carried by his fictional spy hero.  In fact, he'd had the weapon specially made to bear that resemblance.  But it was capable, in theory at least, of fending off both these infernal electronic machines and the equally deplorable living human beings who built them.  But he hoped it wouldn't be needed, he so strongly abhorred violence even against mindless automatons, living ot not.
   Just as he stepped off the conveyor walkway, looking strangely like an actor he'd seen in a slew of violent drama films over the years, a trap door opened beneath his feet, startling him.  He reached for the edge of remaining floor, but missed and plunged into utter darkness.  He heard the sound of gas jets spewing some foul concoction as he slammed into an unyielding surface, presumably another floor, and was almost instantly rendered unconscious.
   He was groggy when he came to, but only for a brief moment.  He quickly discovered that he was held in place by steel arm and leg bands, and had been stripped of all his fancy gadgets that might have aided in his escape.  He looked in awe as a wall the size of five football stadium viewscreen lit up, blinding him momentarily.
   When his vision cleared, he was staring into the super-sized face of his old arch-enemy, taking up most of the screen.  Half of the visage drooped motionlessly, the boxy jowls seeming to be in a state of decay.  The other half grinned evilly down at him, eyes agleam with a boundless, unwavering hatred.
   Calmly, with an air of nonchalance, the agent said, "Well, if it isn't the notorious Doctor Elizabeth Kissincheney.  Our best intelligence had it that you were dead."
   "Only the Kissinger half of me, Mister Blond.  I can thank you for that.   Seriously, I do thank you.  That part was getting more pedantic by the day, trying to lecture me on the subtleties of world domination.  He was acting like the reincarnation of Machiavelli, for God's sake!"
   Blond replied blandly, "No.  You don't say."
   "Oh, please, Mr. Blond.  Don't start with your insufferably snide conversational ploys.  They won't work this time, now that my other half is no longer in control of my speech center."
   "Well, since sarcasm won't work, would you be so kind as to satisfy my curiosity on one question?"
   "Since you're completely under my control at last, I see no harm in indulging you, Mr. Blond.  What is it you wish to know?"
   "You're obviously all male, the epitome of German Jewish American masculinity.  So how is it you came by such a feminine first name?  Why didn't you stay with the name your father gave you, Ernest?"
   The good doctor raised an eyebrow.  "Oh, that?  It was simply a matter of honoring the memory of my dear departed daughter.  You see, she had a deliciously demented man's brain, but it was trapped in a woman's body.  She always wished to be a man, but was never able to make the transition.  So when the ungodly Christian right wingers arranged her assassination for that thought crime, after a suitable period of mourning, I changed my name to hers as a means of eternal remembrance.  It's the least a good father could do, don't you think?"
   "Oh, indubitably.  The very least."
   "I'm so glad you approve.  But I must say, I'm rather disappointed.  I thought you, of all people, might have a more appropriate question, considering your current, rather precarious predicament."
   "Now that you mention it, I do have a question on that, too.  What are you planning to do once I'm out of the way?"
   "Oh, many things, Mr. Blond.  Through my international network of arch criminals, I'm going to destroy modern civilization as we know it, and then rebuild it in my image.
   "I'm going to sow discontent in the corrupt practices of world political systems.  I'll create a plethora of social justice organizations to rise up against them.  I'll call them Occupy, Black Lives Matter, Code Pink, Hashtag Resistance, and so forth, to engage the unwashed masses as a rebellion against the destruction and denial of civil liberties and human rights worldwide.
   "At the same time, I'll build an opposing force meant to quash that rebellion, and raise up leaders who will foment violence against all those social justice warriors.  I shall bring on the mythological Armageddon so long sought after by unthinking religious zealots the world over.  It will be glorious!"
   "That's juggling a lot of eggs in one basket, don't you think?"
   "That's what makes it so deliciously diabolical, my dear Rhames.  It's all right to call you Rhames, isn't it?"
   Blond nodded his head, encouraging the madman to continue.  "But how are you going to keep it all together, to keep all the different parts working properly?"
   "That's the best part, Rhames.  I'll partner with big industrialists, corporate managers, advertising executives  and entertainment moguls to brainwash people into turning on each other with different perspectives on how society should be run.  Together, we will bribe politicians and other world leaders to support these variously incompatible causes and solidify the chaos that will inevitably ensue."
   "That's a rather ambitious plan, isn't it, Liz?  I may call you Liz, mayn't I?"
   "Ah, flattery will get you nowhere, Rhames.  But I shall indulge it this time, because I have a secret weapon.  I have you, Rhames."
   "Me?  Now I truly am curious.  How do I fit into your sociopathic scheme?"
   "It's quite simple, really.  I will have my mad scientists turn your skin white, whiter than even the palest Nazi communist socialist Hitlerite who ever lived.  And I will program your brain to believe you are the the second coming of the Christian Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, and announce your miraculous arrival to the evangelicals of the world so they will all follow you."
   Blond shook his head, his pale dreadlocks waving and flopping.  "It will never work, Liz."
   "Why won't it work, Rhames?"
   "I won't lead them anywhere but off a cliff at the edge of this flat Earth.  And I ain't gonna be turned into no Got-damn cracker, muthafucka!"
   "Ah, but you will, my friend.  Do you see that steel motorcycle helmet lowering toward your head?  It's filled with wires and devices that will drill into your brain and change the neural pathways that control your thinking processes.  Your brain, such as it is, will be made over to conform to my will, and only to my will.  Oh, please don't struggle, Rhames.  You cannot escape my clutches.  If you think otherwise, you are mistaken.  Your faith in your puny abilities is sadly misplaced."
   Blond shook his head vehemently as the helmet continued its descent toward him.  "NOOOOO," he screamed.
   Then he saw in his mind's eye a little green hobgoblin with pointed ears moving on their own, and heard a voice, seeming to come out of nowhere.  "Feel the Farce, Luke."
   "But I'm not Luke, dammit!"
   "Of course you're not.  Feel it anyway, my young apprentice."
   Blond closed his eyes and shunted his thoughts aside.  "Yes, my master," he whispered.
   He focused on his left arm, willing a cheap plastic panel to slide open.  Out popped a metal cylinder with a button on one side.   He pressed the button, and a beam of coherent light sprung forth.  The restraining band popped open, releasing his arm.  He waived the cylinder like a wand and yelled, "Accio E-M Cannon!"
   A broom came flying toward him, slapping his face.  "Dammit," he yelled, "I'm not Harry either!"
   Finally a blue police call booth appeared out of thin air.  A giant octagonal salt shaker popped out and aimed Blond's E-M cannon at the screen and pulled the trigger, releasing a pulse and then two thin wires that flew through the air.  The screen burst open and there behind it was the half-ruined Doctor Kissincheney, small as a gnome, waving his arms and crying, "I'm melting!  I'm melting!"
   The salt shaker transformed into a beautiful blonde witch and glided onto the broom, taking control of it.  "Well, Rhames, this is another fine mess you've gotten yourself into.  But now it's over, and I have to get back to my family.  Gilligan's asleep finally, and Ward wants to beat the Beaver again.  Ta-ta!" 
   Blond watched as the apparition faded back into the ether.  "Nice to see you again too, Morticia," he said.  "Until next time."
   Her disembodied voice replied, "Oh, there won't be a next time, Rhames.  This isn't a serial on the telly, you know."
  
© March 19, 2019
by Donald Charles Rice Jr.

The Attack on Ilhan Omar and Pelosi’s Unconditional Support for Israel

The Attack on Ilhan Omar and Pelosi’s Unconditional Support for Israel: Nancy Pelosi pledged support for Israel “even if the Capitol crumbles”, as major Democratic Party funder and pro-Israel advocate Hiam Saban looked on - our panel discusses anti-semitism, Israel and the Democratic Party with Jacqueline Luqman, Jeff Cohen and host Paul Jay

2020 Primaries

Centrists have taken to asking progressives if they will support Biden, or Harris, or Booker, or whatever other establishment politician as the Democratic nominee for 2020.  For me, Biden and the rest are too damaged to be acceptable as President, by the fact of their cowtowing to corporate interests over the will and the needs of the people.

Centrists accuse progressives of having “purity” tests. That’s a false narrative if ever there was one, because we fully understand that nobody is pure, not even Sanders.

Then you say we’ve got a litmus test. Now, I can’t speak for all other progressives, but for myself, I say yes, I DO have a litmus test. And here it is:

If a candidate is against Medicare For All, he or she won’t get my vote.

If a candidate is against tuition-free public education, he or she will not get my vote.

If a candidate is against ending regime change wars against countries that do not and cannot threaten us, he or she will not get my vote.

If a candidate is against the Green New Deal, he or she will not get my vote.

Those are my top priorities. But there are other issues. Black Lives Matter, for example. An end to systemic discrimination on any basis. A return to the support of collective bargaining that the Democratic Party establishment has all but abandoned.

I’m sure you get the picture. All the things the Party left behind when it followed the Clintonesque path to corporate whoredom.

Do I insist on ALL of the above? No, of course not. Can’t have everything all at once. But those top four items, they are essential. They are the absolute minimum necessary to get my vote. And that will depend entirely on what each candidate’s actual record shows them to be. Not what they say on the campaign trail or to the cameras.  No more platitudes, no more personality politicking. 

Just the record.

 © March 18, 2019 by Donald Charles Rice Jr.

Kamala Harris: Progressive?

The other day I saw that Joy Reid of AM Joy had a guest on her show strongly stating Kamala Harris would lose support for her Presidential bid from the black community.  The reason?  She has a white husband.  This guest said that she should dump him and get with a "strong black man" id she wanted that support.

This is utter nonsense.  The fact taht she's a black woman married to a white man has absolutely nothing to do with her qualifications, or lack thereof, for the office she's seeking.  The only thing that should be considered in deciding whether or not to support and vote for her, or anyone else, is how her record compares with her talking points.

When Kamala Harris first ran for the Senate a couple years ago, I liked her.  Here was a relatively young black woman who believed in law and order, and had done some good things to improve the California criminal justice system.  So I thought, "Fine, let's expand that to the federal level."  And she won that race.

But then, only a year and a half into her first term as a Senator, she started meeting with Hillary Clinton's money backers.  It looked like she being groomed for a run at the Presidency, and that she wanted to give it a shot.  So I began looking deeper.

At her CNN town hall, she said that she stands on her record.  So let's take a look at that.

She'd been a prosecutor, then headed the head of a big city prosecutor's office, and finally the California's Attorney General.  But what did she do in those positions?  What stands did she take?

She fought against a court order  to release non-violent offenders in order to combat prison overcrowding. Her stated reason? The state of California would lose all that almost free labor.

Most of those non-violent offenders were in for possession and/or use of marijuana, and most of those are minorities (read: black), many of whom she prosecuted. But she now claims she wants to decriminalize pot.

She talks about how DNA evidence needs to be used, but fought against defendants asking and begging for it.

She even defended the death penalty.

And then there's Steve Mnuchin. Her staff found a thousand bank fraud violations on him, and told her if they kept looking, they would find another thousand. But she decided not to prosecute. When asked, she claimed her staff made the decision. And now Mnuchin is Trumps' treasury secretary.

To be fair, she did accomplish some very progressive things as well.  These are shown in a New York Times article by law professor Laura Bezelon:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/opinion/kamala-harris-criminal-justice.html

She stands on her record.  Fine, she's entitled to do that.  But we, as voters, must look at that record as a whole. 

She claims to have been a progressive prosecutor, but her record is mixed on that, leaning more conservative than progressive.  Running against Bernie Sanders, Liz Warren and Tulsi Gabbard, she comes up short on any progressive score card I can imagine. 


© 2019 by Donald C. Rice Jr.

'Medicare for All and Equal Rights Aren't Trends': Ocasio-Cortez Fires Back After Aaron Sorkin Lectures Young Progressives

'Medicare for All and Equal Rights Aren't Trends': Ocasio-Cortez Fires Back After Aaron Sorkin Lectures Young Progressives

Candidate Purity Tests

I found this on Alternet, in the comments on a post about Kamala Harris.  It was written by a user calling himself "Griffon".   I thought it worth sharing for those who insist on maintaining the status quo in their chosen candidates without regard for the records of those same candidates."

 ~~~~~

Why is it considered a "purity test" for an honest representative who'll demand an end to f#@king Torture?

Why is it considered a "purity test" for an honest representative who'll demand an end to support for unilaterally obliterating foreign civilians?

Why is it considered a "purity test" for an honest representative who'll demand my goddamned taxes get tracked, accounted for, and used for infrastructure, education, clean water, free college and Universal Healthcare which covers everyone. Every...single...one.

Goddamn it.

I'm so f#@king sick of democrat sackless tribal ass-hats actually defending callous republican policies (under the guise of the failure-crat platform, of course), like the ACA; a rapacious, forced-tax that sees 20-50% increases yearly, which a large swath of the Public can't even afford and which provides sub-par "coverage," and only after an exorbitant, knee-buckling deductible, not to mention skyrocketing prescription pricing and increasing medical bankruptcies.

All of which excludes hundreds of thousands, nay millions of our fellow citizens. It never had to be this way. We have plenty of money. We can afford to care for our citizens. We can afford to educate and clothe, encourage and heal our countrymen....except where the two privatized, parasitic corporate parties, DNC and RNC, are involved.

The democrats and republicans are paid to deny us healthcare. The democrats and republicans are paid to deny us access to education that doesn't bury future generations in indentured slavery and crippling debt.

The democrats and republicans are paid to deny us clean water, clean air, decent internet, even the least accountability. The democrats and republicans are paid to deny us a standard of living that other countries have long achieved; like Norway, Sweden, Canada.....

It doesn't have to be this way. Why does anyone keep defending this insanity? It doesn't take anything more than people simply deciding it can't be like this any more. Period.
The private corporate DNC and RNC are not unlike those predators in Hollywood and USAG who have exploited and abused a vulnerable Public for $$$ and power. They have used their positions to get away with murder and worse...until those abused in Hollywood and athletics decided this will not continue. Period.

They joined together; they were stronger than one or two alone and stood up to the hierarchy that sought to keep them silent and afraid. The Public must now do the same thing; stand up to the monstrous abuse of the DNC and RNC and destroy those organizations that have worked tirelessly to keep the Public in debt. bondage, illegal wars, paying for a Torture state, militarizing our domestic police force, and drinking leaded (and worse) water.

We are here now directly because the democrats (and republicans) don't work. They have long thrown us under the bus, then indulged in the worst, worst rationale for their abject failures; victim blaming. See, it's our fault that we didn't want a cheating, lying Wall St. spaniel for a leader. It's our fault that we're sick of expanding wars, Torture, failing infrastructure, bloated Pentagon, Tax cuts for the filthy rich, Corporate Welfare, billions in tax havens, corporate slavery/overseas sweatshops. It's our fault that we're sick of being the World leader in arms sales, bombing innocent civilians, making dedicated enemies by the hundreds for obliterating whole families, villages, cities.
It's all our fault, you see?

Somehow, I don't recall voting for a single one of these atrocities, obscenities, extraConstitutional abominations, Frauds, Violations of Due process, Indefinite Detentions, Pipelines, Oil Spills, Fracking, Uranium deals, Environmental catastrophes, Superfund abandonments.....

But somehow, it's all our fault. The Public finds this obvious, obvious DNC/RNC corporate, mercenary agenda repugnant, destructive, unconscionable, inhuman, monstrous, barbaric.....but it' our fault for rejecting it. It's our fault for finding such as both Trump and clinton repulsive and indefensible.

It's our fault for wanting human rights, basic sanitation, drinkable water, Due Process, clean energy, justice for all, egalitarian legislation.....Peace.

Our fault.

Here's an idea; Let's make it our fault for putting the DNC and RNC out of business and out of our government. Let's make it our fault that the Pentagon reins-in its extravagant and dishonorable behavior. Let's make it our fault that we force Universal healthcare policy. Let's make it our fault that domestic police are trained in de-escalation instead of Murder, Inc. Let's make it our fault that education and college don't shackle future generations with dream-killing debt. Let's make it our fault that corporations no longer own our votes, vote counts, voting machines, voting software, voting results, and vote totals.

Let's make it our fault that we staunchly refuse to trade King George for hundreds of thousands of petty, smaller dictators in CEOs, Goldman Sachs, Monsanto, Time-Warner, Comcast, Verizon.....they are nothing more than imperialist dictators destroying democracy.

Corporations are the most dangerous insurgency, and the graveyard of democratic fundamentals. Corporations are where democracy goes to die.

Let's make it our fault that corporate rule and right-wing policy gets buried instead. You just need to decide. And stick. And stick. And stick.

Purge!

Well, the Senate wasted no time in getting their bullshit bill passed.  Now it goes back to the House for a final vote on the reconciliation, then to Trump for his signature.  If Trump signs it, which he is likely to do, there's only one thing left to do. 

We MUST stop arguing personality politics, put up a slate of real progressives, vote them into office next year.  It has to be real progressives, because corporate Democrats won't do it.  They're too beholden to Wall Street and big money interests to do what's right for the country and We the People.

Proofs of that are too numerous to go into, but I'll give a few examples:

Corporate Democratic leaders have come out against re-importation of prescription drugs from Canada at lower prices.
 
They've come out against universal health care, knowing that the ACA is both insufficient to the needs of the people, and that it's a giveaway to the insurance industry, having been largely written by that industry's lobbyists.

They've come out against breaking up the "too big to fail" big banks and "too big to jail" bankers and stockbrokers who caused the Great Recession of 2008.

Corporate Democrats have refused to stand with the fight for 15 to increase the minimum wage to a living wage.

President Obama, as a candidate, promised to protect whistle blowers.  But while in office, he prosecuted more of them than ANY OTHER President before him. 

After Candidate Obama promised to bring our soldiers home from Iraq and Afghanistan, but after doing so to a great extent, he sent them back to fight again in those places and seven more countries.  And some of those soldiers are PROTECTING the Afghan poppy fields while heroin usage here in America is on the increase once again.

Twice, he tried to open the Arctic preserves to drilling for oil, after promising not to do so.  He did nothing to fix our crumbling infrastructure, and made a single half-hearted attempt to bring jobs back from overseas.

And Tom Perez, after beginning a unity reform tour with Bernie Sanders, proceded to purge the Democratic National Committee leadership of real progressives.

So what are corporate Democrats going to do for We the People?  Not a damn thing, based on their records.

Why does this happen?  Why do they betray us, their constituents? 

There's a saying: Follow the money.  Every one of them has recieved big donations from corporate America. 

Cory booker got a big one from Big Pharma before he voted against importing Canadian drugs, the same drugs from the same pharma companies that make them and that cost a lot more than they do in Canada.  Every one of those corporate Democrats gets donations from the corporations that benefit from their betrayal of the people of this nation.  Big Pharma, Big Medicine, Big Oil, and so on. 
Don't believe me; but don't believe them either. Break out of your confirmation bias.  Look it up for yourself, and learn the truth. 

What it comes down to is this: If you keep trying to silence progressives, you're digging the grave of your party, and of this country as a semi-functioning Democratic Republic.

It's time... No, it's well past time, to purge the Democratic Party, all of our political institutions, of corporatists who are robbing the nation blind and destroying our country.  It's OUR country, dammit, NOT the corporations!

Don Rice Jr.
© December 21, 2017

Wake up, Democrats!

Here's something for everyone to consider.  In the 2017 election cycle, almost all of which were local and state-level races, where candidates running on the Democratic Party ticket won even over high-power long-time Republican office holders, the ones who won were mostly newcomers. Even more interesting and informative in light of the divisiveness of establishment politics is that those who won by the largest margins are progressives who were backed by progressive organizations. 

Justice Democrats, Democratic Socialists of America, Our Revolution, to name a few.

Some of those candidates had very little support, if any at all, from the Democratic Party; in at least one case, the Democratic Socialist who ran on Virginia, was told that he couldn't possibly win.  Who told him that?  The Democratic Party of Virginia, which also declined to support him in any way, in spite of the fact that he ran on the Democratic Party line.  But he won anyway, by a wide margin, unseating a long-term Republican up for re-election in a Republican stronghold.

How did these men and women win in spite of the lack of support from establishment Democrats and their admittedly powerful organizations?  They went out and tslked to people about the issues the people are most concerned with.  Unemployment and underemployment.  Education.  Health care.  Local issues like road repair and potholes.  Police brutality.

Corporate (centrist and center-right), establishment Democrats smeared Bernie Sanders, and are still trying to smear him and his supporters.  They smeared and continue to smear anyone who aligns with Sanders, in spite of the fact that he has been the most popular active politician in the country for many months.  And the way they smeared Bernie was by using right-wing Republican talking points. What does that say about corporate Democrats?

At the same time, there are a lot of Republicans in the rank and file who also supported Sanders, and would have voted for him given the chance.  But the Democratic establishment (corporate) machine, through the machinations of Debbie Wassermann-Shultz and the campaign of Hillary Clinton, made sure that wasn't possible. 

So most of those Republicans pulled the lever for Donald Trump, while the Democratic Party began bleeding membership to the Independent column.  While some relative few Independents voted for Trump, large majorities, those who didn't hold their noses while voting for Clinton, instead voted for either Jill Stein or Gary Johnson.  Afterward, while most rank and file Democrats clamored for progressive policies and change, the then new chair of the Democratic National Committee, Tom Perez, purged progressives from leadership positions. 
 
The writing is on the wall for those who are willing and able to read it.  Like it or not, the country is moving to the left.  The People want progress, not "more of the same" status quo that's really moving us further and further to the right with each new election.  The new voices, the progressive voices, are being herd more widely than ever before. 

It's time for the Democratic Party to wake up and smell the coffee.  It's time for them, who call themselves the Party of the People, to start actually working *for* the People instead of for the corporations that have taken over through their large donations, buying the support of the polititians who are supposed to be representing We the People.

The train is leaving the station, Democrats.  It's time to get on board or get left behind.  Or, in the rather crude terminology of my now-deceased elders, shit or get off the pot.

Don Rice Jr.
© December 2017

This Is The Income Inequality Video CEOs Don’t Want Americans To See

Cognitive Dissonance

 

 They’ve been screaming ‘Russians!’ ever since email leaks showed that the fix was already in. The DNC’s defense in court was that they didn’t owe anyone a fair primary process. They didn’t even try to deny it.

Those I’ve run into, online and off, who deny that the primaries were rigged, don’t even bother trying to refute the facts because they know they have nothing to support their position. Instead, they attack your credibility.  They try to gaslight you into thinking you're imagining things, that what happened didn't really happen. They’ll outright lie about it, and insult your intelligence.

In a similar vein, I came across George Orwell's essay on the Spanish Civil War, within which was this:

"And stranger yet, at any moment the situation can suddenly reverse itself and yesterday’s proved-to-the-hilt atrocity story can become a ridiculous lie, merely because the political landscape has changed."

It appears that the same thing is happening with regard to last years' Democratic primaries. There's not even an attempt to present actual evidence because they know there isn't any.  Instead, they pesent an appeal to authority, which they know is a false narrative, by insisting that this one time the intelligence community is telling the truth, in spite of their record of lying and obfuscating, even duriing Congressional testimony. Those good folks at the CIA wouldn't lie, would they? 

I even had one online "friend" who just yesterday admitted he doesn't trust the intel community to be truthful.  Yet in a remarkable display of cognitive dissonance, he also insisted that he wouldn't trust a former CIA whistle blower who spent time in prison for exposing the hidden torture programs that agency committed, telling us not to trust the intel community's veracity.

But they show no hard evidence to back up their claims, and still people believe them, because they can't stand the idea that their faux-progressive hero is corrupt.

One by one the elements of the false narrative are being knocked down.  There was no Russian involvement in the Wisconsin hacking of voter databases.  Forensic analysis of the emails released by Wiileaks show that it was an inside job, not hack from overseas somewhere.  And now the former imterim chair of the DNC admits the primaries were rigged even before Hillary announced her candidacy.

But excuses and denials are made for the corporate elitists who actually run the Democratic Party,  while those who support the establishment status quo continue with their ad hominem attacks, their gaslighting and their outrageous lies.

And that's a crying shame.