Let's name what is needed. A very high top income tax rate and a strong graduated income tax that limits allowable deductions. No cap on Social Security taxes for individuals and corporations. That keeps SS solvent. Universal health care and single payer system. You can't have a competitive market when their is high inelastic demand. The present health care system is inefficient and extractive. A strong EPA with power to limit poisons and carbon emissions. Trump's EPA enables pollution always. Support National Parks and other public lands. Forgive student loans and increase support for education from pre-school to post-graduate. Our present system basically benefits banks. Develop a sensible immigration system that is clear, easy to comply with, and recognizes the value of needed labor in a number of fields. Court reform is necessary, with term limits and age limits in place. Perhaps first, campaign finance reform, eliminating corporate funding, limiting contribution (including self-financing), and reducing the endless cycle of campaigning so politicians can actually work for us instead of constantly panhandling. Support candidates who come close to supporting this agenda. Most don't.
With the shocking mendacity of the Republicans, a way to bypass them and to get humanity tuned into saving itself is to make everyone aware of how endangered we are. If everyone knew it’s life or death to deal with overshoot and global warming, we’d drop all adversity and turn all our attention to dealing with what to do. Join me in figuring out how to wake humanity up.
A major stumbling block is the need to give up what some think is rightfully ours. Giving up wealth is harder than going through the eye of a needle after all. Affluenza is really a disease. Fully agree on overshoot and global warming.
How impressive your knowledge base is. Our system is so entrenched in capitalism that people won’t grapple with fundamental change unless it’s life or death. Join me in trying to convince humanity that that is what’s going on.
I will and I have been. I am an environmental and public health professional and have been telling everyone who would listen for the last 40 years that it is much worse than they realize and that we must adjust our lives or we will have them adjusted for us in a much more painful way. There is no other choice.
That's what everyone needs to understand. The collapse experts are beside themselves at humanity not getting it, but they have no constructive ideas for what to do. Here's where I wrote up something we could do to get humanity tuned in, and I'm trying to get it to take off:
Giving it up does not mean falling back, but falling forward into a livable planet and a viable community. We can live without waste and extravagance -- virtually all of us already do. Fear not the new, democratic economy!
One of the first things that's got to go is our nation's and citizens dependence on the individual automobile. We should be putting virtually all of our transportation dollars into public transportation like trains, buses, trolley cars, etc. Even if you made every single car electric it wouldn't be enough. The amount of resources used to make each of those cars is staggering. We are going to have to change almost everything about the way we are living now in order to even come close to approaching a more sustainable existence with the Earth. I speak as an environmental and public health professional with years of study and practical experience behind me. There will be things that we gain by changing the way we live for sure, but we have to acknowledge that change, especially at this level, is going to be brutally hard for many people.
That's the idea to sell, how what we will get is better than what we will give up! One of my advocacies is an ad campaign. We are good at advertising. Let's sell that idea.
One would think the “shocking mendacity of the Republicans” on top of the atrocities Trump has foisted on the country would have already spurred humanity to save itself. I believe it is beginning to happen, but not nearly fast enough. That’s the big question - how do we “light the fire” under everyone’s feet and get this into warp drive?
Some of these subjects are so large and overwhelming, it's a big ask. However, the path to get there begins with the overwhelming popularity of so many issues being blocked by bad faith Repugnicans. They key here is to stop the cheating. Once we start passing what we need, more doors open. Undoing the power of money is huge. Trust-busting to bring back real competition of ideas. Remember what Fox "News" attorneys told the judge in open court, in their defense: "No rational person would believe a word they say". It's on the record, and should be repeated all day, every day, in connection with every single bit of their compulsive cheating.
After we undo the Republicans we have to undo the Democrats. They both draw from the well of money perversion, just one side being venal at it. A deeper dive, under everything, is in order.
You,ve said it a LOT better than I did today! The suggestions you lay out have been on my mind for a long time, and acutely since the current President was “elected”. Now, as many commenters have asked, how do we turn all this talk into focused action?
I agree with Corbin Trent that “Republican light” Democrats like Clinton, Newsom and the like cannot save our country much less our own party. I believe we need someone like FDR at this juncture. The only candidate I have heard that sounds like that is Governor Pritzker of Illinois. Like FDR, he is from old money but rejects the prevailing ethos of the very rich and sounds genuinely angry with it and der tRumpf. I think he understands what the working people and what’s left of the middle class need. We need radical change. We need to have the very rich pay their share, we need to take the middlemen out of health insurance, we need to tax the transfer of great wealth between generations in order to pay for the infrastructure upgrades so badly needed and for real education reforms, not to mention to pay down tRumpf’s enormous debts. We need to be able to invest in rural hospitals, not close them down. We need to invest in high speed rail and we need to regulate the many industries that are becoming increasingly monopolistic or oligaristic. CEO pay over 1000% of workers? Tax it higher after it hits a threshold, say 300 or 500%? We have to stop the flow of wealth into an increasingly smaller percentage of our population at the top. We need to take care of our seniors, our youth, our veterans, our mentally ill, our addicted, our working families, and our disabled. In short we need to take care of everyone in our society. We also need to be truly “Christian” by again welcoming immigrants and refuge seekers and helping them to integrate into our society, not rounding them up and putting them into concentration camps for months before we ship them off.
Great piece, Corbin. This 71 year old boomer couldn’t agree more - right down the line. I love that you cited the Arsenal of Democracy. Yes we’ve done great things to fight fascism before - and it’s time to do it again. Let’s get to it!
Screw them and their billionaire-funded million-dollar-a-year think tank. It's the same old BS - anything but addressing the real issue. How is the "Contract" project coming? I saw that AOC is planning a run for either the Senate or President in 2028. And that Bernie has been supporting young candidates like Mamdani and Platner. Is a Progressive movement forming? How can I help give it a push?
I worked 2 Bernie campaigns— and was a convention delegate in 2016– Bernie had the majority of votes — but the neoliberal superdelegates trashed his candidacy, ignoring the voices of we the people. In 2020 Obama( for whom I ran 2 campaigns in rural FL and won) gathered the dem candidates together to give Biden the monopoly in delegate votes— even while Bernie was winning the popular vote.
The neoliberals handed Trump to us on a platter, gave us Biden who continued funding the genocide in Israel, and abandoned the chance to challenge the (really rigged by Musk & party)2024 election with hand recounts in swing states— Harris would have won….What did the neoliberal Dems do?
Crickets. And again gave us Trump.2 — even worse than before.
We MUST support the New Wave of Progressives in Congress— and vote out the old neoliberal guard…
Bernie’s rallies across the country are dismantling the MAGA base— we need to focus on welcoming them to a true return to an inclusive, diverse Democracy that will benefit all, and restore the Federal infrastructure which our taxes pay for— that will return our country to one OF THE PEOPLE
Yes!! This is OUR country that WE built. What irks me is that every corporation in this country uses the infrastructure that WE built. (Roads, bridges, railways, sea ports, airports), Yet they don’t pay taxes. They use OUR infrastructure for free, while we continue to maintain with OUR taxes…
You have perhaps hit the nail on the head. It is too easy to be anti-Trump: he is a despicably immoral person who has taken advantage of a broken political system. So we bitch and complain (as we should) but NO ONE offers any solutions. “We have to get rid of Trump!!!” Duh but then what? And you are right that relying on a party that has a 25% approval rating ain’t gonna cut it. As one who is outside looking in, one thing is obvious: we have to MAAA. Anything else will just be a hamster wheel to nowhere.
"It was our own elite. The ultra-rich. The centi-millionaires and billionaires and centi-billionaires. The multinational multi-trillion-dollar corporations and all their cronies. That's who did it."
THIS GROUP "THE ESTABLISHMENT" (above you mentioned) OWNS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY TOO! NOT JUST THE REPUBLICANS!
All the ESTABLISHMENT "ultra-rich" want is a weak feckless Democratic Party. A Democratic Party just strong enough to help them fight off any 3rd party opposition, but not strong enough to win control. They want a Democratic party that will NEVER EVER mention a RIGGED TAX CODE, A RIGGED HEALTHCARE SYSTEM, A RIGGED EDUCATION SYSTEM, A RIGGED COMMERCE & TRADE SYSTEM, A RIGGED JUDICIAL SYSTEM, A RIGGED CORPORATE SYSTEM, A RIGGED MAJOR MEDIA SYSTEM, A RIGGED IMMIGRATION SYSTEM, A RIGGED WELFARE SYSTEM, A RIGGED BANKING AND FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM, and last but not least A RIGGED WALL STREET all that are RIGGED to benefit the "UltraRich" and the lazy able bodied opportunistic poor, dumping most of the costs on the Working Middle Class AMERICANS who work paycheck to paycheck.
The DEMOCRATS HAVE NO PLATFORM. Its all social issues that divide us....Exactly what the "Ultra-Rich" want!
Good writing Hank. It appears (at times) Mr. Corbin has little grasp on the extent and depth of the horrendous juggernaut you describe,. It's not about rallying democrats (they're surely as much of the problem as pubs are) . It's about rallying people to consciousness about their own self importance, power and will to take responsibility for their lives. This system exists only because of our subservience to it, our susceptability to the brainwash bombarding us every day with lies, bad (inaccurate) news and discouragement of what is possible. In effect it brings many into a "lull" about living and sets up the elites main ultimate agenda: depopulation, dehumanization and total control of our every action. One big control piece now imminent is the stabile coins aka digital dollar....a trap for sure, amongst many others.
I agree with pretty much all of what you've identified. Unfortunately, Dems aren't blowing it on positions and messaging just because of advisors. They've run candidates that attract corporate campaign money, their incumbents are beholden to the same corporations as Republicans, and so they sing the Republican tune in a slightly different key.
Two dogs with the same master, getting their food bowls filled from the same place, guard the same house. If Democrats want to change their party, they'll abandon the corporate incumbents, fund and rally behind progressives in primaries and redouble their efforts in the general for those same candidates. Begging puppies on a corporate leash to do working people's business is a fools errand.
It’s not just Jentleson and his cohort of craven opportunists. The setup for continuity of the current Dem power structure runs through the entire media (social or “mainstream”) ecosystem.
Not entirely sure I understand the “Arsenal of Democracy” concept, but allow me to throw basic MMT into the conversation.
Demand:
“We want universal healthcare, education, etc. and a reduction in wealth inequality.”
Traditional Dem Response:
“We can’t afford any of that, though we’ll pass a few performative measures that nibble around the edges of those issues.”
MMT response:
“We will prioritize those issues in response to the needs of our population. We will turn on the magic money machine and generate the funding necessary for worthwhile programs.”
Traditional Dem and GOP response:
“But that will increase the money supply and henceforth inflation”
MMT response:
“We will control inflation by removing an equivalent (or greater) amount of money from the system via taxation. The amount and route of dollars removed from the system will also address that whole ‘wealth inequality’ concern.”
Traditional Dem and GOP response:
“But then our billionaires will leave and take their wealth with them!”
MMT response:
“Unlikely, especially because we still control access to dollars globally and there’s only so many hard assets that they can carry with them, because we can control that loophole too.
The rich will be able to enjoy the true immigrant experience and show up at their new country with little more than a suitcase and a completely disgruntled former model.”
Response from all those who claim that we’re a nation deeply in debt and have no money to fund public programs:
“But we must tax before we can spend and perform the Pay-Go ritualistic denial of government services”
MMT response:
“Bullshit. How do you think all these corporate subsidies and bailouts get funded ? We’ve used the aforementioned practices multiple times to float the Banking industry, airlines, etc. And we will definitely use MMT to generate every bit of funds to bail out the Crypto Bros when their scam (that we’ve incorporated into every nook and cranny of our economic infrastructure) collapses.”
So… healthcare or corporate bailouts. Imma guess most people take the healthcare et al. option if they had a candidate that could articulate the MMT approach.
Also, as previously mentioned “the call is coming from inside the house” regarding supposed progressive influencers, not just Jentleson’s self serving scam. Nathan at Current Affairs had a pretty good discussion regarding the Dark Money taking over the performative Lefty Influencer World.
Informative and hilarious once they let Pakman and BTC bury themselves.
Very much agree with your assessment, Corbin. That's precisely why the Rural Urban Bridge Initiative and 15 other groups have launched our "Beyond Resistance" campaign to put farmers, workers and rural communities at the center of the fight to beat Trump AND the almost-as-difficult task of remaking the Dems as the party of the working class. This campaign is putting forward specific policies, like the Rural New Deal, that focus on rural, small town and Rust Belt people and their needs. Would love to chat with you about this, Corbin, and anyone else who reads your substack. You can read about the Beyond Resistance campaign here: https://ruralurbanbridge.org/beyondresistance and you can reach me at anthony@ruralurbanbridge.org. Thanks. Anthony Flaccavento
Interesting. So you're in Walmart's hometown, or close to it, yes? I had a three year long consulting gig with Heifer Project in Arkansas about a decade ago. Some of it was the eastern part of the state, near Memphis, while other work was in Little Rock and occasionally NW AK, around Fayetteville, if I recall.
So, from north to south the towns of NWA are Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale and Fayetteville. Bentonville is Walmart. Rogers is Tyson, Springdale is JB Hunt Trucking and Fayetteville is the University of Arkansas and, of course, the Razorbacks. I live in Farmington which is just SW of Fayetteville. Just SW of here is Prairie Grove. I mention these because part of the huge influx of of folk into NWA is occurring in these areas. Increased everything--development, traffic, etc.
"The ultra-rich. The centi-millionaires and billionaires and centi-billionaires. The multinational multi-trillion-dollar corporations and all their cronies. That's who did it."
And who funds the Democratic Party?!? More billionaires, banks, and multi-nationals.
Warren Buffett said, "There is a class war and my class is winning."
Ultimately, the economic class that funds BOTH parties and controls both parties and shares more common interests than disagreements.
The Democratic Party focuses on social issues because ONLY non-economic issues are allowed for debate.
Bottom line for citizens: until the working class wakes up and realizes who the real enemy is, we'll continue the slide downward.
Replacing the names at the top of a Democratic Party funded and controlled by the same billionaires and Wall Street banks as today will only allow for the same shallow, vapid platforms that leave the working class unmoved.
In 1983, 50 corporations controlled 90% of the media. Today, it's fewer than 5 corporations. Those companies like the decades-long neoliberalist agenda of no taxes and consolidation supplied by both parties and will use these platforms to crush dissent.
Regrettably, the Democrats allowed media consolidation to the point that mounting an effective movement by the working class may be all but impossible.
It's class warfare, and I have no faith that the current version of the Democratic Party can be leveraged to our advantage until the ruling elite fears national disintegration more than an equitable distribution of wealth.
Thom Hartmann was warning us years ago. One of his books: “Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class “
But the corporate controlled media shut him out. Just like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and most progressives they eventually sold out to Big Money. Warren and Sanders got exposed for the frauds they are now in recent congressional hearings for taking BIG MONEY from BIG PHARMA by RFK jr.
Hey Corbin. Yes, as a science/logic/fact-based progressive who identifies with NOTHING the neo-liberal agenda has glamorized for decades, I agree it is the 'system' of economics that Friedman instilled into business schools that has killed attempts at true democracy.
Now, go one step deeper, if not more. Economics is nothing more than contextual expressions of what human society defines as 'values.' Values allegedly make up the psychological matrix of what is necessary to be seen as human, what this animal interprets as important via Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
To whit - Physiological Needs: Basic requirements for human survival, such as food, water, and shelter.
Safety Needs: Protection from physical and emotional harm, including security and stability.
Love and Belongingness Needs: Emotional relationships, including friendships, intimacy, and family connections.
Esteem Needs: The need for self-esteem, recognition, and respect from others.
Self-Actualization Needs: The desire to achieve personal potential and self-fulfillment.
As a long-time field biologist/ecologist, I can attest to the learned facts that all animals and plants share, in some form or another, each of these 'needs.' The more these needs are met, the more harmonious and balanced the biotic framework of life is favored. Now Nature, as a holistic system of operations, has displayed each factor in the quantum field of entangled realities back into antiquity. Harmony, entropy, uncertainty, chaos, adjustments, adaptations and evolutionary behaviors always favor harmonic re-alignments that satisfy a certain consistency within quantum entanglement.
Messy might be a descriptive term, but within all-but-human life, and its real-time 'need' to exist with the reality of Schrodinger's cats, the ecology of Nature has done, forever, what humans just cannot get into sync with - valuing harmony more than disruption. Without this realization, all the horses and king's men have ZERO chance of making Humpty Dumpty anything other than a hologram caricature of showmanship and gaslighted delusion.
Yes, harmony works best when a vast majority of disparate elements cooperate in a shared union of needs/wants/lacks/excesses. This is democracy, where E Pluribus Unum is constant give and take and real-time, one-to-one mitigation of damages responsibly shared by all.
So before we can rebuild anything of value, we have to re-establish what 'value' actually means in real time, not how many billions Buffett trades to keep Friedman happy.
Trent as usual you are spot on with your analysis and of course you angry. That said I have two related questions: How does your analysis differ from Bernie Sanders and a minority of progressive democrats who have been saying the same thing as you for the past decade? And why are you only trashing those democrats who deserve trashing and not propping up those Democrats like Bernie and AOC, who are the vanguard of your desired revolution?
Right on the money, as usual, Corbin! But when are we going to take action? You had a new version of a "Contract with America" a while ago. Needed a lot of work, imho, to make it punchy and exciting; but I thought it was a good start. You also suggested convening a slate of candidates, headed by John Stewart, to create a "government in exile" in order to start the ball rolling. What happened? You'll need some financial support to get it all moving, and I would love to be part of the group that helps makes it happen. Let's go! Time is ever shorter!
Let's name what is needed. A very high top income tax rate and a strong graduated income tax that limits allowable deductions. No cap on Social Security taxes for individuals and corporations. That keeps SS solvent. Universal health care and single payer system. You can't have a competitive market when their is high inelastic demand. The present health care system is inefficient and extractive. A strong EPA with power to limit poisons and carbon emissions. Trump's EPA enables pollution always. Support National Parks and other public lands. Forgive student loans and increase support for education from pre-school to post-graduate. Our present system basically benefits banks. Develop a sensible immigration system that is clear, easy to comply with, and recognizes the value of needed labor in a number of fields. Court reform is necessary, with term limits and age limits in place. Perhaps first, campaign finance reform, eliminating corporate funding, limiting contribution (including self-financing), and reducing the endless cycle of campaigning so politicians can actually work for us instead of constantly panhandling. Support candidates who come close to supporting this agenda. Most don't.
With the shocking mendacity of the Republicans, a way to bypass them and to get humanity tuned into saving itself is to make everyone aware of how endangered we are. If everyone knew it’s life or death to deal with overshoot and global warming, we’d drop all adversity and turn all our attention to dealing with what to do. Join me in figuring out how to wake humanity up.
I am trying. See here: https://wayneteel513055.substack.com/
A major stumbling block is the need to give up what some think is rightfully ours. Giving up wealth is harder than going through the eye of a needle after all. Affluenza is really a disease. Fully agree on overshoot and global warming.
How impressive your knowledge base is. Our system is so entrenched in capitalism that people won’t grapple with fundamental change unless it’s life or death. Join me in trying to convince humanity that that is what’s going on.
I will and I have been. I am an environmental and public health professional and have been telling everyone who would listen for the last 40 years that it is much worse than they realize and that we must adjust our lives or we will have them adjusted for us in a much more painful way. There is no other choice.
That's what everyone needs to understand. The collapse experts are beside themselves at humanity not getting it, but they have no constructive ideas for what to do. Here's where I wrote up something we could do to get humanity tuned in, and I'm trying to get it to take off:
Problem dire. Letting humanity know.
Working up an internet new way
https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/problem-dire-letting-humanity-know
Giving it up does not mean falling back, but falling forward into a livable planet and a viable community. We can live without waste and extravagance -- virtually all of us already do. Fear not the new, democratic economy!
One of the first things that's got to go is our nation's and citizens dependence on the individual automobile. We should be putting virtually all of our transportation dollars into public transportation like trains, buses, trolley cars, etc. Even if you made every single car electric it wouldn't be enough. The amount of resources used to make each of those cars is staggering. We are going to have to change almost everything about the way we are living now in order to even come close to approaching a more sustainable existence with the Earth. I speak as an environmental and public health professional with years of study and practical experience behind me. There will be things that we gain by changing the way we live for sure, but we have to acknowledge that change, especially at this level, is going to be brutally hard for many people.
Brutally hard beats dying. By educating people to the danger they are in, we could turn the world around.
That's the idea to sell, how what we will get is better than what we will give up! One of my advocacies is an ad campaign. We are good at advertising. Let's sell that idea.
One would think the “shocking mendacity of the Republicans” on top of the atrocities Trump has foisted on the country would have already spurred humanity to save itself. I believe it is beginning to happen, but not nearly fast enough. That’s the big question - how do we “light the fire” under everyone’s feet and get this into warp drive?
I'm for getting humanity wised up to how it's life or death to change our ways.
Some of these subjects are so large and overwhelming, it's a big ask. However, the path to get there begins with the overwhelming popularity of so many issues being blocked by bad faith Repugnicans. They key here is to stop the cheating. Once we start passing what we need, more doors open. Undoing the power of money is huge. Trust-busting to bring back real competition of ideas. Remember what Fox "News" attorneys told the judge in open court, in their defense: "No rational person would believe a word they say". It's on the record, and should be repeated all day, every day, in connection with every single bit of their compulsive cheating.
After we undo the Republicans we have to undo the Democrats. They both draw from the well of money perversion, just one side being venal at it. A deeper dive, under everything, is in order.
Excellent!
You,ve said it a LOT better than I did today! The suggestions you lay out have been on my mind for a long time, and acutely since the current President was “elected”. Now, as many commenters have asked, how do we turn all this talk into focused action?
I agree with Corbin Trent that “Republican light” Democrats like Clinton, Newsom and the like cannot save our country much less our own party. I believe we need someone like FDR at this juncture. The only candidate I have heard that sounds like that is Governor Pritzker of Illinois. Like FDR, he is from old money but rejects the prevailing ethos of the very rich and sounds genuinely angry with it and der tRumpf. I think he understands what the working people and what’s left of the middle class need. We need radical change. We need to have the very rich pay their share, we need to take the middlemen out of health insurance, we need to tax the transfer of great wealth between generations in order to pay for the infrastructure upgrades so badly needed and for real education reforms, not to mention to pay down tRumpf’s enormous debts. We need to be able to invest in rural hospitals, not close them down. We need to invest in high speed rail and we need to regulate the many industries that are becoming increasingly monopolistic or oligaristic. CEO pay over 1000% of workers? Tax it higher after it hits a threshold, say 300 or 500%? We have to stop the flow of wealth into an increasingly smaller percentage of our population at the top. We need to take care of our seniors, our youth, our veterans, our mentally ill, our addicted, our working families, and our disabled. In short we need to take care of everyone in our society. We also need to be truly “Christian” by again welcoming immigrants and refuge seekers and helping them to integrate into our society, not rounding them up and putting them into concentration camps for months before we ship them off.
Who is funding Pritzker? That to me is the tell and the determining factor. Follow the money.
He can fund himself. Very wealthy family with good values,
Great piece, Corbin. This 71 year old boomer couldn’t agree more - right down the line. I love that you cited the Arsenal of Democracy. Yes we’ve done great things to fight fascism before - and it’s time to do it again. Let’s get to it!
Signed, Builder 💪
Screw them and their billionaire-funded million-dollar-a-year think tank. It's the same old BS - anything but addressing the real issue. How is the "Contract" project coming? I saw that AOC is planning a run for either the Senate or President in 2028. And that Bernie has been supporting young candidates like Mamdani and Platner. Is a Progressive movement forming? How can I help give it a push?
I worked 2 Bernie campaigns— and was a convention delegate in 2016– Bernie had the majority of votes — but the neoliberal superdelegates trashed his candidacy, ignoring the voices of we the people. In 2020 Obama( for whom I ran 2 campaigns in rural FL and won) gathered the dem candidates together to give Biden the monopoly in delegate votes— even while Bernie was winning the popular vote.
The neoliberals handed Trump to us on a platter, gave us Biden who continued funding the genocide in Israel, and abandoned the chance to challenge the (really rigged by Musk & party)2024 election with hand recounts in swing states— Harris would have won….What did the neoliberal Dems do?
Crickets. And again gave us Trump.2 — even worse than before.
We MUST support the New Wave of Progressives in Congress— and vote out the old neoliberal guard…
Bernie’s rallies across the country are dismantling the MAGA base— we need to focus on welcoming them to a true return to an inclusive, diverse Democracy that will benefit all, and restore the Federal infrastructure which our taxes pay for— that will return our country to one OF THE PEOPLE
BY THE PEOPLE
FOR THE PEOPLE!
Amen to that!
Yes!! This is OUR country that WE built. What irks me is that every corporation in this country uses the infrastructure that WE built. (Roads, bridges, railways, sea ports, airports), Yet they don’t pay taxes. They use OUR infrastructure for free, while we continue to maintain with OUR taxes…
You have perhaps hit the nail on the head. It is too easy to be anti-Trump: he is a despicably immoral person who has taken advantage of a broken political system. So we bitch and complain (as we should) but NO ONE offers any solutions. “We have to get rid of Trump!!!” Duh but then what? And you are right that relying on a party that has a 25% approval rating ain’t gonna cut it. As one who is outside looking in, one thing is obvious: we have to MAAA. Anything else will just be a hamster wheel to nowhere.
"It was our own elite. The ultra-rich. The centi-millionaires and billionaires and centi-billionaires. The multinational multi-trillion-dollar corporations and all their cronies. That's who did it."
THIS GROUP "THE ESTABLISHMENT" (above you mentioned) OWNS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY TOO! NOT JUST THE REPUBLICANS!
All the ESTABLISHMENT "ultra-rich" want is a weak feckless Democratic Party. A Democratic Party just strong enough to help them fight off any 3rd party opposition, but not strong enough to win control. They want a Democratic party that will NEVER EVER mention a RIGGED TAX CODE, A RIGGED HEALTHCARE SYSTEM, A RIGGED EDUCATION SYSTEM, A RIGGED COMMERCE & TRADE SYSTEM, A RIGGED JUDICIAL SYSTEM, A RIGGED CORPORATE SYSTEM, A RIGGED MAJOR MEDIA SYSTEM, A RIGGED IMMIGRATION SYSTEM, A RIGGED WELFARE SYSTEM, A RIGGED BANKING AND FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM, and last but not least A RIGGED WALL STREET all that are RIGGED to benefit the "UltraRich" and the lazy able bodied opportunistic poor, dumping most of the costs on the Working Middle Class AMERICANS who work paycheck to paycheck.
The DEMOCRATS HAVE NO PLATFORM. Its all social issues that divide us....Exactly what the "Ultra-Rich" want!
THE DEMOCRATS DON'T WANT TO WIN.
Good writing Hank. It appears (at times) Mr. Corbin has little grasp on the extent and depth of the horrendous juggernaut you describe,. It's not about rallying democrats (they're surely as much of the problem as pubs are) . It's about rallying people to consciousness about their own self importance, power and will to take responsibility for their lives. This system exists only because of our subservience to it, our susceptability to the brainwash bombarding us every day with lies, bad (inaccurate) news and discouragement of what is possible. In effect it brings many into a "lull" about living and sets up the elites main ultimate agenda: depopulation, dehumanization and total control of our every action. One big control piece now imminent is the stabile coins aka digital dollar....a trap for sure, amongst many others.
I agree... however, tell us how any regular democrat can have any impact to make a change.
I agree with pretty much all of what you've identified. Unfortunately, Dems aren't blowing it on positions and messaging just because of advisors. They've run candidates that attract corporate campaign money, their incumbents are beholden to the same corporations as Republicans, and so they sing the Republican tune in a slightly different key.
Two dogs with the same master, getting their food bowls filled from the same place, guard the same house. If Democrats want to change their party, they'll abandon the corporate incumbents, fund and rally behind progressives in primaries and redouble their efforts in the general for those same candidates. Begging puppies on a corporate leash to do working people's business is a fools errand.
It’s not just Jentleson and his cohort of craven opportunists. The setup for continuity of the current Dem power structure runs through the entire media (social or “mainstream”) ecosystem.
Not entirely sure I understand the “Arsenal of Democracy” concept, but allow me to throw basic MMT into the conversation.
Demand:
“We want universal healthcare, education, etc. and a reduction in wealth inequality.”
Traditional Dem Response:
“We can’t afford any of that, though we’ll pass a few performative measures that nibble around the edges of those issues.”
MMT response:
“We will prioritize those issues in response to the needs of our population. We will turn on the magic money machine and generate the funding necessary for worthwhile programs.”
Traditional Dem and GOP response:
“But that will increase the money supply and henceforth inflation”
MMT response:
“We will control inflation by removing an equivalent (or greater) amount of money from the system via taxation. The amount and route of dollars removed from the system will also address that whole ‘wealth inequality’ concern.”
Traditional Dem and GOP response:
“But then our billionaires will leave and take their wealth with them!”
MMT response:
“Unlikely, especially because we still control access to dollars globally and there’s only so many hard assets that they can carry with them, because we can control that loophole too.
The rich will be able to enjoy the true immigrant experience and show up at their new country with little more than a suitcase and a completely disgruntled former model.”
Response from all those who claim that we’re a nation deeply in debt and have no money to fund public programs:
“But we must tax before we can spend and perform the Pay-Go ritualistic denial of government services”
MMT response:
“Bullshit. How do you think all these corporate subsidies and bailouts get funded ? We’ve used the aforementioned practices multiple times to float the Banking industry, airlines, etc. And we will definitely use MMT to generate every bit of funds to bail out the Crypto Bros when their scam (that we’ve incorporated into every nook and cranny of our economic infrastructure) collapses.”
So… healthcare or corporate bailouts. Imma guess most people take the healthcare et al. option if they had a candidate that could articulate the MMT approach.
Also, as previously mentioned “the call is coming from inside the house” regarding supposed progressive influencers, not just Jentleson’s self serving scam. Nathan at Current Affairs had a pretty good discussion regarding the Dark Money taking over the performative Lefty Influencer World.
Informative and hilarious once they let Pakman and BTC bury themselves.
Best to all
https://youtu.be/-qENvZBa-Ao?si=kdBJgKCIlCL7pTon
Very much agree with your assessment, Corbin. That's precisely why the Rural Urban Bridge Initiative and 15 other groups have launched our "Beyond Resistance" campaign to put farmers, workers and rural communities at the center of the fight to beat Trump AND the almost-as-difficult task of remaking the Dems as the party of the working class. This campaign is putting forward specific policies, like the Rural New Deal, that focus on rural, small town and Rust Belt people and their needs. Would love to chat with you about this, Corbin, and anyone else who reads your substack. You can read about the Beyond Resistance campaign here: https://ruralurbanbridge.org/beyondresistance and you can reach me at anthony@ruralurbanbridge.org. Thanks. Anthony Flaccavento
Anthony, thanks for alerting me to this initiative. It is part of the answer to the question I posed to another commenter.
Glad to hear it, Susan. We'd very much welcome your involvement in the Beyond Resistance campaign! If you don't mind me asking, where are you located?
Northwest Arkansas close to UA. Moved here in 2018 from the Chicago area for family reasons. Quite the interesting place.
Interesting. So you're in Walmart's hometown, or close to it, yes? I had a three year long consulting gig with Heifer Project in Arkansas about a decade ago. Some of it was the eastern part of the state, near Memphis, while other work was in Little Rock and occasionally NW AK, around Fayetteville, if I recall.
So, from north to south the towns of NWA are Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale and Fayetteville. Bentonville is Walmart. Rogers is Tyson, Springdale is JB Hunt Trucking and Fayetteville is the University of Arkansas and, of course, the Razorbacks. I live in Farmington which is just SW of Fayetteville. Just SW of here is Prairie Grove. I mention these because part of the huge influx of of folk into NWA is occurring in these areas. Increased everything--development, traffic, etc.
"The ultra-rich. The centi-millionaires and billionaires and centi-billionaires. The multinational multi-trillion-dollar corporations and all their cronies. That's who did it."
And who funds the Democratic Party?!? More billionaires, banks, and multi-nationals.
Warren Buffett said, "There is a class war and my class is winning."
Ultimately, the economic class that funds BOTH parties and controls both parties and shares more common interests than disagreements.
The Democratic Party focuses on social issues because ONLY non-economic issues are allowed for debate.
Bottom line for citizens: until the working class wakes up and realizes who the real enemy is, we'll continue the slide downward.
Replacing the names at the top of a Democratic Party funded and controlled by the same billionaires and Wall Street banks as today will only allow for the same shallow, vapid platforms that leave the working class unmoved.
In 1983, 50 corporations controlled 90% of the media. Today, it's fewer than 5 corporations. Those companies like the decades-long neoliberalist agenda of no taxes and consolidation supplied by both parties and will use these platforms to crush dissent.
Regrettably, the Democrats allowed media consolidation to the point that mounting an effective movement by the working class may be all but impossible.
It's class warfare, and I have no faith that the current version of the Democratic Party can be leveraged to our advantage until the ruling elite fears national disintegration more than an equitable distribution of wealth.
Thom Hartmann was warning us years ago. One of his books: “Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class “
But the corporate controlled media shut him out. Just like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and most progressives they eventually sold out to Big Money. Warren and Sanders got exposed for the frauds they are now in recent congressional hearings for taking BIG MONEY from BIG PHARMA by RFK jr.
Hey Corbin. Yes, as a science/logic/fact-based progressive who identifies with NOTHING the neo-liberal agenda has glamorized for decades, I agree it is the 'system' of economics that Friedman instilled into business schools that has killed attempts at true democracy.
Now, go one step deeper, if not more. Economics is nothing more than contextual expressions of what human society defines as 'values.' Values allegedly make up the psychological matrix of what is necessary to be seen as human, what this animal interprets as important via Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
To whit - Physiological Needs: Basic requirements for human survival, such as food, water, and shelter.
Safety Needs: Protection from physical and emotional harm, including security and stability.
Love and Belongingness Needs: Emotional relationships, including friendships, intimacy, and family connections.
Esteem Needs: The need for self-esteem, recognition, and respect from others.
Self-Actualization Needs: The desire to achieve personal potential and self-fulfillment.
As a long-time field biologist/ecologist, I can attest to the learned facts that all animals and plants share, in some form or another, each of these 'needs.' The more these needs are met, the more harmonious and balanced the biotic framework of life is favored. Now Nature, as a holistic system of operations, has displayed each factor in the quantum field of entangled realities back into antiquity. Harmony, entropy, uncertainty, chaos, adjustments, adaptations and evolutionary behaviors always favor harmonic re-alignments that satisfy a certain consistency within quantum entanglement.
Messy might be a descriptive term, but within all-but-human life, and its real-time 'need' to exist with the reality of Schrodinger's cats, the ecology of Nature has done, forever, what humans just cannot get into sync with - valuing harmony more than disruption. Without this realization, all the horses and king's men have ZERO chance of making Humpty Dumpty anything other than a hologram caricature of showmanship and gaslighted delusion.
Yes, harmony works best when a vast majority of disparate elements cooperate in a shared union of needs/wants/lacks/excesses. This is democracy, where E Pluribus Unum is constant give and take and real-time, one-to-one mitigation of damages responsibly shared by all.
So before we can rebuild anything of value, we have to re-establish what 'value' actually means in real time, not how many billions Buffett trades to keep Friedman happy.
Trent as usual you are spot on with your analysis and of course you angry. That said I have two related questions: How does your analysis differ from Bernie Sanders and a minority of progressive democrats who have been saying the same thing as you for the past decade? And why are you only trashing those democrats who deserve trashing and not propping up those Democrats like Bernie and AOC, who are the vanguard of your desired revolution?
Good question.
I suspect that Trent will not respond to my queries because to date he never has.
Right on the money, as usual, Corbin! But when are we going to take action? You had a new version of a "Contract with America" a while ago. Needed a lot of work, imho, to make it punchy and exciting; but I thought it was a good start. You also suggested convening a slate of candidates, headed by John Stewart, to create a "government in exile" in order to start the ball rolling. What happened? You'll need some financial support to get it all moving, and I would love to be part of the group that helps makes it happen. Let's go! Time is ever shorter!