The problem you complain about found its roots in 2016 when Bernie failed to challenge Hillary at the convention and show the world what a true fraud she and her pals Donna Brazile and Debbie Wasserman Schultz were and embarrass the Dem insider establishment into responding to the populace that was once the Dem base.
I so wanted Bernie to win in 2016, but, alas, it wasn't to be. Centrists had the money and the politicians controlled. Fight on. It is worth whatever it takes to save this once wonderful country!!!!!
I still have 4 Bernie bumper stickers on my old 2002 Suburban. (I have to have it to pull my travel trailer; no need to point out that it isn't a green choice!) It serves as a billboard--lots of square footage to display bumper stickers. I am too old to do much else other than to stand up for the right things as I go down the road. Peace, Love, and Brotherhood from an old hippie!
He had no support from the DNC or any centrist/ corporate Dems. Not Obama, Eliz Warren or anyone. They called us old ladies Bernie Bros! They would not support a "socialist". Unfortunately greed and fear has eaten their souls
I'm gonna keep nagging you, Corbin, because I do think you're onto something, but you stop just shy of really saying it. Again this is like 40% "who", 40% "why" and maybe 20% "what". You need more what.
In this essay you say things like:
"The government built water and irrigation infrastructure that turned the Central Valley into the food supply for half the country"
And
"Medicare for All. Public ownership of AI infrastructure. A housing program that builds and owns, not just subsidizes."
Medicare for All is a slogan. One that's clear enough in principle but the mechanism and the actual experience is hazy for a lot of people. What does this actually mean to our day to day experience with the healthcare system?
What is our equivalent of the TVA? There are actually citizen owned utilities NOW, but a lot of those people don't even know they have decision making power and the structure has been co-opted by a smaller group who do know.
There are many smart people working on this — doing this — you can find a lot of information about it from ILSR (institute of local self-reliance).
What else is there?
When hurricane Maria hit PR, it was people's ability to organize and build solar microgrids that got the power back on while the big utility schemed and managed planned blackouts to ration the grid. Cuba, when food imports were hit by the fall of the USSR, the people built the organopónicos to grow their own food.
You say "public ownership of AI". What does that really mean? It also makes the continued build out of that infrastructure (i.e. data centers) sound inevitable, even though it is massively unpopular, across the political spectrum. Probably on their own data centers are contentious enough to be a key campaign pledge.
There are also really smart people talking about an "AI commons" and a"democratic agenda for AI governance". See the work of the One Project.
People want concrete ideas, not kitschy slogans, and not just politicians who will "fight" against what's wrong. Trump was able to win on the premise of disrupting the existing system and now people have found out that without a clearly articulated alternative, disruption may actually only mean organized collapse and mass grift all the way down into the abyss.
WHAT, *exactly*, are these new candidates offering? WHAT *exactly* would we get excited about instead of just mad about?
On AI, he'd regulate it HARSHLY instead of helping to build it. He and his Brain Trust would understand that AI is just another stock bubble, created by the same monsters who gave us 1929.
We need to go after the for profit healthcare system. This happened to me. I was scared into a breast removal from the LIE of cancer, and another Dr. just tried to get me for lung cancer liver cancer. I didn't do it this time I told all those doing the tests what she was doing. I didn't have any cancer in my body.
Corporate healthcare providers have been found to submit false diagnoses for seniors to increase payments from Medicare, which undermines patient trust and can lead to unnecessary treatments. This fraudulent behavior is being actively investigated and prosecuted by authorities to protect Medicare beneficiaries.
I’ve been saying for years, even before 2015, that every state needed at least 2 Bernie Sanders. The thought that each state could have 2 Senators that would have the same policy ideology as Bernie would do wonders for our USA🇺🇸 Multiplying that in Congress would be even better. 🎐🧚🪄🌈🦄
We need to talk about public money instead of taxpayer money too 💵
I've been saying this for years and believing it for even more!! It is way past time that we begin to make this wealthy nation work for all of us, not just the privileged few. It is time we all took notice; before it is too late; and collectively do something about it; other than grumble. Let's do this!! We know we can, we know we must.
Politico just reported, "DNC members rejected a symbolic resolution to limit the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and dark-money corporate groups in Democratic primaries — an unsurprising result that is nevertheless a blow to those within the party that have been infuriated by the pro-Israel group’s recent interventions.
"They also punted on a pair of sweeping resolutions concerning conflicts in the Middle East that pushed the party to support conditioning military aid to Israel. The measures were referred to the party’s nascent Middle East Working Group, which is meeting for the fourth time this week and has been slow to coalesce around an agenda."
I echo what other commentators have said here: Democratic Party leadership needs to go, and NOT be replaced by a new generation of corporate, do-nothing sell outs.
If you want to get rid of the Democratic Party and avoid having whatever replaces it go the same way (as happened with the Green Party in Germany), you need to change the system and not just the people. IMHO this requires four Constitutional Amendments:
(1) An amendment that ends money in elections as free speech and corporations as people with constitutional rights (see https://movetoamend.org);
(2) An amendment that says all national offices are to be filled by some version of ranked choice voting with proportional representation (see https://fairvote.org);
(3) An amendment that fills SCOTUS seats for fixed terms with Appellate level justices selected either by sortition or a ranked-choice vote by those justices themselves, not the president or teh Senate (this not currently the focus of any organization, but see term limits discussions at https://www.brennancenter.org);
(4) An amendment that allocates Senate seats to states on the basis of their populations just as is done for the House, but still with state-wide elections for those seats and a minimum of one seat per state (the Rule of 100, also not currently the focus of any organization).
I hope A Fight Worth Having will consider incorporating such amendments into its platform.
Overthrow the Israeli occupation of America and this bullshit stops. Any genuine true-blue red-blooded Americans left in this country? Start up the militias! We have enemies to abolish. Glorious days are ahead. Let freedom reign.
We do not need to support the existing Democratic Party. We need to TAKE CONTROL OF IT. Fifty states have written the two-party dominance into their state laws in hundreds of places per state. It would cost many, many billions of dollars and tens of millions of citizen activists to change those laws. Taking over the Democratic Party is much more achieveable. Then we can make it a democratic socialist party.
Or the Green Party (which has been around a lot longer BTW). Though I'd go even further and say what we need to do is recreate something like the Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies!). Because Capitalism is global resistance to it needs to be global as well.
Yes, yes, yes. A young woman ran as DEM candidate for US Rep in this mighty red WNC district. She had no backing, up against a full house and one candidate who had already been anointed by DEM party at state and federal levels. She came in second which was an incredible feat. Her name is Zelda Briarwood. She’s young, totally, unabashedly liberal and unafraid to put that out there even in serious headwinds. I’ll look up her contact info and get it to you. She is awesome, just like you!
Obviously, I cant vote for her - live in NYS - but she sure seems like someone who should be included by Corbin and his Pac! If only she was in NYS - she hits all my high spots.
We flipped 41 House seats in the 2018 Trump midterms - giving us a solid majority. And all spending bills originate in the House! The Progressive caucus worked together to add excellent essential spending elements. The Senate was still Red and, as expected, McConnell stripped away every progressive $ - setting up what ought to have been memorable battles in the joint reconciliation process. But Pelosi did not call a single conference committee. All our time, shoe leather, donations, and hope = Zero Change.
"When they show up with a team, when they’ve committed to each other before they’ve won anything, they’re showing voters they understand what’s standing in their way and they have a plan for taking it head on."
Isn't that what the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) is supposed to be doing? You've had little or nothing to say about the CPC Corbin.
Is the CPC leadership also failing? Wouldn't it be wise for A Fight Worth Having candidates to commit to joining and trying to take over the CPC leadership before they set their sights on the Dem. congressional leaders?
I think the The questio has the CPC been effective sort of answers itself. And I agree that replacing the leadership in the cop probably is a smart idea.
Nice assessment, and I agree. I have believed this for as long as I’ve been the least bit interested in politics. I don’t get excited too often about Democratic candidates any more, especially after the huge disappointment Kamala Harris was to me and so many other Americans. Maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe it was stolen. Doesn’t matter at this point because the Democratic Party didn’t even protest it, not even a single recount, even given the extremely suspicious circumstances. I felt betrayed by my Party.
I am excited, however, about Graham Platner in Maine but, as usual, the Democratic (PAC-owned) establishment are trying to bury him under Janet Mills, who has a record of losing to Susan Collins. Platner is filling town halls all over and has a commanding lead in the polls, yet the Democratic Party is trying to LOSE the race and give Susan Collins 6 more years. It’s hard to get excited about the Democratic Party anymore. Until the leadership changes, nothing else will.
I just donated an amount that hurt a bit. I don’t regret it. I think you are right. I worry that the system is too far gone and my money and your efforts will be wasted. However, it damn sure won’t happen if we don’t try. Thank you for your energy and enthusiasm. I have a hard time dredging any up myself because I’m just so tired of the BS. Trump is horrible, horrible, horrible. But as you say, our current system allowed him to be elected not once but twice. It’s not Trump. It’s the system. And just advocating to get rid of Trump and go back to the way it was before he was elected will just bring us right back here to where we are. Was it a Mad Max movie that said, “No matter where you go, there you are.”? We must do something different. I spent 35+ years combined in the military and federal government service, and it always has chapped my behind that we gave contractors our data, and helped them build systems based on that data, and then we allowed them to claim they owned the data and the system!! And even if/when we could get out from under one particular contractor, we’d have to pay them millions to get our own data and system back so we could then give it to the next contractor who’d then claim ownership and charge us to buy it back again. And around and around it goes.
The immensity of this mainstream social/political juggernaut is difficult (at best) to navigate and notice results that are encouraging. Mr. Trent's persistence in establishing a "coalition" appears admirable. A real challenge to these "monsters" (and that's what they are) however has historically been met with co-option (at best) and "elimination" at worst. As a result, a "fight worth having" within all this is a debatable action in itself. Currently we are left to our own devices to develop resilience, independence, self-sufficiency, connections amongst those like-minded, and most of all...personal optimism. It is this last quality the monsters focus most upon, as without it, nothing changes for the better anywhere. It seems appropriate, (personally) to do whatever it takes to maintain a clear vision of peace, truth, love and light, never give up...and to keep ones eyes open , to take action when appropriate to further consciousness and understanding. Realities do manifest of what the collective unconscious develops. "Keep the faith"
The problem you complain about found its roots in 2016 when Bernie failed to challenge Hillary at the convention and show the world what a true fraud she and her pals Donna Brazile and Debbie Wasserman Schultz were and embarrass the Dem insider establishment into responding to the populace that was once the Dem base.
I so wanted Bernie to win in 2016, but, alas, it wasn't to be. Centrists had the money and the politicians controlled. Fight on. It is worth whatever it takes to save this once wonderful country!!!!!
I still have 4 Bernie bumper stickers on my old 2002 Suburban. (I have to have it to pull my travel trailer; no need to point out that it isn't a green choice!) It serves as a billboard--lots of square footage to display bumper stickers. I am too old to do much else other than to stand up for the right things as I go down the road. Peace, Love, and Brotherhood from an old hippie!
He had no support from the DNC or any centrist/ corporate Dems. Not Obama, Eliz Warren or anyone. They called us old ladies Bernie Bros! They would not support a "socialist". Unfortunately greed and fear has eaten their souls
I'm gonna keep nagging you, Corbin, because I do think you're onto something, but you stop just shy of really saying it. Again this is like 40% "who", 40% "why" and maybe 20% "what". You need more what.
In this essay you say things like:
"The government built water and irrigation infrastructure that turned the Central Valley into the food supply for half the country"
And
"Medicare for All. Public ownership of AI infrastructure. A housing program that builds and owns, not just subsidizes."
Medicare for All is a slogan. One that's clear enough in principle but the mechanism and the actual experience is hazy for a lot of people. What does this actually mean to our day to day experience with the healthcare system?
What is our equivalent of the TVA? There are actually citizen owned utilities NOW, but a lot of those people don't even know they have decision making power and the structure has been co-opted by a smaller group who do know.
There are many smart people working on this — doing this — you can find a lot of information about it from ILSR (institute of local self-reliance).
What else is there?
When hurricane Maria hit PR, it was people's ability to organize and build solar microgrids that got the power back on while the big utility schemed and managed planned blackouts to ration the grid. Cuba, when food imports were hit by the fall of the USSR, the people built the organopónicos to grow their own food.
You say "public ownership of AI". What does that really mean? It also makes the continued build out of that infrastructure (i.e. data centers) sound inevitable, even though it is massively unpopular, across the political spectrum. Probably on their own data centers are contentious enough to be a key campaign pledge.
There are also really smart people talking about an "AI commons" and a"democratic agenda for AI governance". See the work of the One Project.
People want concrete ideas, not kitschy slogans, and not just politicians who will "fight" against what's wrong. Trump was able to win on the premise of disrupting the existing system and now people have found out that without a clearly articulated alternative, disruption may actually only mean organized collapse and mass grift all the way down into the abyss.
WHAT, *exactly*, are these new candidates offering? WHAT *exactly* would we get excited about instead of just mad about?
On the dot. I always ask "What Would FDR Do?"
On AI, he'd regulate it HARSHLY instead of helping to build it. He and his Brain Trust would understand that AI is just another stock bubble, created by the same monsters who gave us 1929.
We need to go after the for profit healthcare system. This happened to me. I was scared into a breast removal from the LIE of cancer, and another Dr. just tried to get me for lung cancer liver cancer. I didn't do it this time I told all those doing the tests what she was doing. I didn't have any cancer in my body.
Corporate healthcare providers have been found to submit false diagnoses for seniors to increase payments from Medicare, which undermines patient trust and can lead to unnecessary treatments. This fraudulent behavior is being actively investigated and prosecuted by authorities to protect Medicare beneficiaries.
This.
I’ve been saying for years, even before 2015, that every state needed at least 2 Bernie Sanders. The thought that each state could have 2 Senators that would have the same policy ideology as Bernie would do wonders for our USA🇺🇸 Multiplying that in Congress would be even better. 🎐🧚🪄🌈🦄
We need to talk about public money instead of taxpayer money too 💵
I've been saying this for years and believing it for even more!! It is way past time that we begin to make this wealthy nation work for all of us, not just the privileged few. It is time we all took notice; before it is too late; and collectively do something about it; other than grumble. Let's do this!! We know we can, we know we must.
Politico just reported, "DNC members rejected a symbolic resolution to limit the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and dark-money corporate groups in Democratic primaries — an unsurprising result that is nevertheless a blow to those within the party that have been infuriated by the pro-Israel group’s recent interventions.
"They also punted on a pair of sweeping resolutions concerning conflicts in the Middle East that pushed the party to support conditioning military aid to Israel. The measures were referred to the party’s nascent Middle East Working Group, which is meeting for the fourth time this week and has been slow to coalesce around an agenda."
I echo what other commentators have said here: Democratic Party leadership needs to go, and NOT be replaced by a new generation of corporate, do-nothing sell outs.
If you want to get rid of the Democratic Party and avoid having whatever replaces it go the same way (as happened with the Green Party in Germany), you need to change the system and not just the people. IMHO this requires four Constitutional Amendments:
(1) An amendment that ends money in elections as free speech and corporations as people with constitutional rights (see https://movetoamend.org);
(2) An amendment that says all national offices are to be filled by some version of ranked choice voting with proportional representation (see https://fairvote.org);
(3) An amendment that fills SCOTUS seats for fixed terms with Appellate level justices selected either by sortition or a ranked-choice vote by those justices themselves, not the president or teh Senate (this not currently the focus of any organization, but see term limits discussions at https://www.brennancenter.org);
(4) An amendment that allocates Senate seats to states on the basis of their populations just as is done for the House, but still with state-wide elections for those seats and a minimum of one seat per state (the Rule of 100, also not currently the focus of any organization).
I hope A Fight Worth Having will consider incorporating such amendments into its platform.
These are definitely the tough conversations that need to be had.
Get rid of Citizens United!!
I emphatically agree.
Overthrow the Israeli occupation of America and this bullshit stops. Any genuine true-blue red-blooded Americans left in this country? Start up the militias! We have enemies to abolish. Glorious days are ahead. Let freedom reign.
Revolution is the solution.
Do we need a new party/PAC? or do we need to support existing parties: Democratic Socialist or Party for Socialism and Liberation?
We do not need to support the existing Democratic Party. We need to TAKE CONTROL OF IT. Fifty states have written the two-party dominance into their state laws in hundreds of places per state. It would cost many, many billions of dollars and tens of millions of citizen activists to change those laws. Taking over the Democratic Party is much more achieveable. Then we can make it a democratic socialist party.
Or the Green Party (which has been around a lot longer BTW). Though I'd go even further and say what we need to do is recreate something like the Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies!). Because Capitalism is global resistance to it needs to be global as well.
https://davcer.substack.com/p/so-you-want-to-run-for-office
Anyone who is awake knows you are right.
Yes, yes, yes. A young woman ran as DEM candidate for US Rep in this mighty red WNC district. She had no backing, up against a full house and one candidate who had already been anointed by DEM party at state and federal levels. She came in second which was an incredible feat. Her name is Zelda Briarwood. She’s young, totally, unabashedly liberal and unafraid to put that out there even in serious headwinds. I’ll look up her contact info and get it to you. She is awesome, just like you!
https://www.zeldaforcongress.org/
Obviously, I cant vote for her - live in NYS - but she sure seems like someone who should be included by Corbin and his Pac! If only she was in NYS - she hits all my high spots.
@tomwellsforcongressflcd3
We flipped 41 House seats in the 2018 Trump midterms - giving us a solid majority. And all spending bills originate in the House! The Progressive caucus worked together to add excellent essential spending elements. The Senate was still Red and, as expected, McConnell stripped away every progressive $ - setting up what ought to have been memorable battles in the joint reconciliation process. But Pelosi did not call a single conference committee. All our time, shoe leather, donations, and hope = Zero Change.
The problem with the “Democratic Team” is, when they line up for a firing squad, they form a circle.
"When they show up with a team, when they’ve committed to each other before they’ve won anything, they’re showing voters they understand what’s standing in their way and they have a plan for taking it head on."
Isn't that what the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) is supposed to be doing? You've had little or nothing to say about the CPC Corbin.
Is the CPC leadership also failing? Wouldn't it be wise for A Fight Worth Having candidates to commit to joining and trying to take over the CPC leadership before they set their sights on the Dem. congressional leaders?
I think the The questio has the CPC been effective sort of answers itself. And I agree that replacing the leadership in the cop probably is a smart idea.
Nice assessment, and I agree. I have believed this for as long as I’ve been the least bit interested in politics. I don’t get excited too often about Democratic candidates any more, especially after the huge disappointment Kamala Harris was to me and so many other Americans. Maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe it was stolen. Doesn’t matter at this point because the Democratic Party didn’t even protest it, not even a single recount, even given the extremely suspicious circumstances. I felt betrayed by my Party.
I am excited, however, about Graham Platner in Maine but, as usual, the Democratic (PAC-owned) establishment are trying to bury him under Janet Mills, who has a record of losing to Susan Collins. Platner is filling town halls all over and has a commanding lead in the polls, yet the Democratic Party is trying to LOSE the race and give Susan Collins 6 more years. It’s hard to get excited about the Democratic Party anymore. Until the leadership changes, nothing else will.
I just donated an amount that hurt a bit. I don’t regret it. I think you are right. I worry that the system is too far gone and my money and your efforts will be wasted. However, it damn sure won’t happen if we don’t try. Thank you for your energy and enthusiasm. I have a hard time dredging any up myself because I’m just so tired of the BS. Trump is horrible, horrible, horrible. But as you say, our current system allowed him to be elected not once but twice. It’s not Trump. It’s the system. And just advocating to get rid of Trump and go back to the way it was before he was elected will just bring us right back here to where we are. Was it a Mad Max movie that said, “No matter where you go, there you are.”? We must do something different. I spent 35+ years combined in the military and federal government service, and it always has chapped my behind that we gave contractors our data, and helped them build systems based on that data, and then we allowed them to claim they owned the data and the system!! And even if/when we could get out from under one particular contractor, we’d have to pay them millions to get our own data and system back so we could then give it to the next contractor who’d then claim ownership and charge us to buy it back again. And around and around it goes.
I hear you, but you're preaching to the choir.
The immensity of this mainstream social/political juggernaut is difficult (at best) to navigate and notice results that are encouraging. Mr. Trent's persistence in establishing a "coalition" appears admirable. A real challenge to these "monsters" (and that's what they are) however has historically been met with co-option (at best) and "elimination" at worst. As a result, a "fight worth having" within all this is a debatable action in itself. Currently we are left to our own devices to develop resilience, independence, self-sufficiency, connections amongst those like-minded, and most of all...personal optimism. It is this last quality the monsters focus most upon, as without it, nothing changes for the better anywhere. It seems appropriate, (personally) to do whatever it takes to maintain a clear vision of peace, truth, love and light, never give up...and to keep ones eyes open , to take action when appropriate to further consciousness and understanding. Realities do manifest of what the collective unconscious develops. "Keep the faith"
Let me know when you'd like us to have an online public talk (https://github.com/Julian-Dumitrascu/communication/issues/8) about this!