Daily Kos

but I'll go with hope for now and keep working for it.

It contains this:

www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/14/1292085/www.commondreams.org/view/2014/04/14

hopelessly hopeful.
Thanks for finding the proof for which we already knew to be truth.
Peace and Blessings!

So you may as well have some optimism.

what country we owe allegiance to?  Is our allegiance to the Constitution and to a democratic country or to whatever we have ended up with after the assault by the .1 percent?

A nice illustration of the value of history. I wish more people knew of Frederick Douglas - not just the shallow knowledge that he existed, but a deeper understanding of what he stood for, what he fought for, and what he accomplished.

get well soon!

food poisoning can be painful and very stressful

{{{Susan from 29}}}

of our food and water are brought to you by the United States of Incorporation and all the politicians they've purchased who continue to deregulate and not enforce any existing laws.

All power to the 1% which is delivering slavery and death at record speed.

Hope you recover quickly.

media.

They profit from the current system - that's where the vast majority of campaign contributions end up - paying for TV ads.

So media owners have no incentive to cover any policy news or campaign news - the things that affect our daily lives and that an informed electorate would need to know about  -  other than the horse race stuff about how much money people are raising. Of course they think that's news. They're waiting with baited breath to get that money in their coffers.

TV and radio stations operate on a monopoly basis on publicly owned airwaves (for now still) but they have abandoned all pretense of serving the public interest. Liberal bias? Try corporate bias. Try self-interested bias.

It seems like our only hope to change things is to pursue a couple of constitutional amendments (a protected right to vote and a another to clarify that constitutional rights apply to human beings and not to legally created entities of limited liability) and to beef up some more public media organizations.

This will be an incredibly steep climb.

Is there anyone who can lead this effort?

Purely from a problem solving tack, we could start by listing the things we have done that have not worked so we're not doubling-down on failure.  We should list the things that the 1% has done that have worked (for them).  Kind of a root cause analysis of how we got where we are.

This would quickly turn into a lengthy treatise, so I'll spare everyone that here and now, other than to reiterate how important I think it is to understand exactly HOW we got to this point - the good, the bad & the ugly; our tactical actions and failings (and occasional successes) and the 1%ers tactical actions and successes (and occasional failings).

sitting in the pot with all of us,
 it reads 212F.
We collectively shrug, and continue to float to the top, one by one.
Instead of the usual; railing against the corrupting inflence of money, I'm going to go a level deeper;

 the economic definition of freedom.

This insidious version of freedom, defined as the easy ability to accumulate stuff, has done immense damage to our understanding of the concept. It benefits the oligarchs, because every transaction anywhere nets them a little something; it defiles the environment, as more stuff gets made and thrown out, and price pressures (keeping the 'free; in freedom) mean cutting corners in workplace safety, environmental impact, and fossil fuel based transportation. But worst, it defines freedom as a commodity, measurable by property, while obscuring the real thing; opportunity and dignity. To too many people, freedom mans low, low prices on guns and Chinese made American flag T-shirts at Walmart.

How about a FASCIST Oligarchy.

If you are uncomfortable with the word, I suggest one should look it up.

when Ronnie Ray-Gun was elected and the Immoral Majority was coming into power, but I also believed that the situation would be self-correcting when more Dems were elected. I was wrong.

comfy and still Republican in large part.  When the poor and middle class are bled dry, the 0.01% will be coming for their assets and then they'll wonder why nobody did anything to stop them.  Too late by then.

....as were all of the Soviet Bloc States.  On the other hand, so is the modern German state.

upon a time every where was a free speech zone.

has always been messed up, "on the brink", and more. With rare exception we've had mostly regressive backwards looking government with occasional flashes of brilliance. But all progress has come slowly, and often at great cost. That we're at the mercy of the oligarchs isn't new and in some ways we're better off because unlike the Gilded Age of 120 years ago we've got a more diverse population. Women couldn't vote in most states in the 1890's, for example. We've managed to bumble and stumble our way thru civil war, world war, economic and ecologic collapse, and more. Sure, it sucked and it sucks now, but it isn't written in stone that the rich will win.

S/he would be on notice that we know the score.  Not that one needs a study to make the point, but this provides an opportunity to drive the point home.  

said teabagger can not deny that the information (and knowledge) was available. They are then vulnerable to accusations of authoritarianism, acting as stool pigeons for the Kochs and the corporate oligarchy.

Naming and describing are critical...who and where are they.

We might make common cause with the tea baggers, instead of fighting with them.

They are right when they complain that our democratic leadership has sold out to the corporations.  Of course, they say that to get back in power so that THEY can sell out to the corporations, because hey ... corporate money greases the skids and, after all, greased skids is what the whole thing is really all about.

The Democratic party is no longer the party of the workers. Evidence: Obama's unfailing support of the TransPacific Trade Partnership Treaty. How bout them Democrats, not able to preserve the safety net? Not able to stop the obstructionist GOP or even make election-points out of the obstructionism to run the GOP out of office ...

More evidence that we can make common cause with the TP: Obama's support of NSA spying (he's a constitutional law perfesser fer Crisesake). The spy machine, drones and all, is the next piece of the military industrial complex, and the fact that IT IS HERE is proof enough for me of the thesis of this diary.

I picked an interesting tidbit up from a talk by Jack Gleeson (King Joffrey!) at the Oxford Union on the cult of celebrity. He cites Jamshid Tehrani of the University of Durham, who says that status/celebrity worship probably comes to us from evolutionary psychology*: that people tend to mimic the behaviour of successful individuals, the good and the bad.
Given that psychopathic behaviour is an effective strategy in the current business environment, people who want to succeed, be they politicians or store managers or twirlers, will  hold these same psychopaths up as role models and base their own behaviour on them. I suspect that that is why politicians gravitate toward wealthy businessmen people tend to vote for those politicians, even against their own self-interest. It is a product of evolutionary psychology which will be particularly difficult to winnow out.

*at about 13:10

I met several men who were seriously advocating a return to a rule that only men (yes, just men) with a certain level of property ownership (quite high) should be able to vote.

of this scene from Remains of the Day
https://www.youtube.com/...

and in that novel's world, votes were allocated via the amount of wealth a person owned.

Considering the Hunt was a billionaire, was extremely close friends with Robert Welch and the founders of the John Birchers, was allied with other Texas oil men, used the proceeds from Hunt Foods to buy radio time to push religious fundamentalism from Dallas up through the lower Great Plains, and his right hand man was ex-CIA (sic), today's situation plays out as a one-off imitation of Alpaca. Same result: oligarchy.

(For more info on HL Hunt and his time and families, see Harry Hurt III's 'Texas Rich'.)

with opportunity for all. Unless you were female. Or black. Or, God forbid, gay.

(And please don't dismiss that as just "culture war stuff" - that's real for a whole hell of a lot of people).

That's actually helpful. I didn't catch the time period.

Imagine how much more extreme it would be now.

nor build the cars.

not about voting it is about policy, i.e., what is written by the agencies after the law is passed by congress and the agency has to figure out how to implement the law.  It is the comments that are requested via the Federal Registry and what the bureaucrats (both career and appointed) do with and who's point they listen too.  A good current example we are all familiar with is Keystone XL pipeline or an Endangered species determination.  The back end of lawmaking that many of us do not participate in because they ignore us even more than in the front end legislative part.

Who are the people to voter for?

It's obvious congress works wayyyy more on the behalf of the one percent than they do us; you expect non voters to vote for the front men? Nope. the non voters figured it out long ago.

Here's where more attention needs to be paid to Russell Brand.

and check your stats; the last two POTUS elections did not have a 58 percent voter turnout.

voted for an alternative candidate, that candidate would win. Or even a substantial portion of the non-voters.

But it would be a mistake to assume those who don't vote are monolithic in their views. They may be just as divided as those who do vote.

That said, the trend is that the more people who vote, the more likely it is that Democrats win the election. So this would contribute to a solution. But it does not solve the basic problem that BOTH parties are tools of the ultra-wealthy - the reason many don't vote in the first place. That is what we need to change.

of spending the time and effort to vote. You think people who find the privations of standing in a line to vote too bothersome  are actually going to suffer privations and danger of civil disobedience let alone civil war?

Ha.

It is only when things get so bad in this country, which it eventually will, that sitting on the sidelines is basically a death sentence that things will change. It's not like the French revolted until they started starving.

n/t

because my own experience tells me that is a facile reply.
I have been in that circumstance, and I am witnessing my daughter and her young family going through the same thing. I see it all around me at work, where nearly everyone is part time, trying to piece together a living, couch surfing, living in the sharing economy, etc.
Almost every one of the people I am referencing has an active and busy Facebook account. They all know haow to play Angry Birds, words with friends, and once upon a time they were all kings of Farmville. Game of Thrones is a huge topic, as is Walking Dead, and any number of reality TV shows. Miley's antics are universally known within 24 hrs of the latest foible...you get the picture.
It may be that some people literally do not have time to read a few news articles instead of status updates, but the explosion of social media across so many demographics makes the idea that everyone below a certain income threshold has no time to participate in preserving our political system inaccurate. Their in-depth knowledge of pop culture takes time and effort to develop.
It is a question of priorities, as it always has been. the poor people who  marched on Washington made it a priority, as they did when they faced the fire hoses and dogs. The kids of Occupy weren't paying expenses on the trust fund card, by and large, either.
We are a far more distracted and distractable bunch than we used to be, and the concerted effort to misdirect the frustration of millions of people has been enormously successful so far.

After all voting rights have been far expanded from 'white male property owners'. I think a better question is are we finished? And the answer to that is no we still have quite a ways to go.

Buy locally and give up some comfort and convenience.  The only real vote left is money, and we must cast that vote to get back any meaningful political vote.

It is the new civil disobedience and it confronts special corporate rights in court. Not obviously being covered on the evening news.

There is no democracy on the federal, state or even county level, but we do possess our inherent right of self-governance as persons. 160 communities across the nation have passed ordinances elevating our rights above corporate rights.

This process is meant to push democracy up through the system. It is furthest along in Colorado which is on the verge of a ballot measurefor a constitutional amendment affirming these rights.

The petroleum industry has called community rights a "gamechanger" for corporate America and fear it.

basic agreement over out situation, then we can form an alliance.  Our present fascist oligopoly and police state should trump any other matters.

as you say, we ought to have common cause.

The Wild West cowboy face-off was scary because it activates those old myths that work with large populations. But it also points up that land and local mean something.

I still believe in local politics. There was an Exxon CEO who joined his neighbors in fighting against fracking wells in his community. That can happen.

Since communities are being invaded every day by fracking, factory farming, and other corporate harms, fighting back can become a natural consequence.

Wouldn't have given me healthcare.

because it's probably true.

Does voting really work anymore?

Didn't think so.  Look at Gore v. Bush, the SCOTUS handed that one to GWB.

But oh, NADER!

'cause the Rethugs (a.k.a. the Grand Oligarchy Party) are busy at work in the states they control to make it damn difficult if not outright impossible for "those people" to vote.  Or even count.

I'll bang this drum again.
In 2010 our little town lost its dem rep to a republican. In 2012 we fixed that; a small town can be flipped with the effort of a few people. (small in this case is under 1,000 voters). we sent a stronger Dem coalition to the state house, along with a mandate to start work on single payer and close the time bomb nuke plant VT Yankee. And we reelected Bernie to the US senate.
That was the work of local people and groups determined to make a difference. Vermont has less than 1 million people, so the whole state is essentially local in the sense of electoral politics. That is a critical factor because it largely negates the effect of money with face to face politicking.
The federal focus of dKos is important; it's not a regional forum; but it does tend to lead to feelings of helplessness. when I get down, I look locally, and am reassured. Life is better in my little corner of the world.

none of the left orgs nor even the dem party seem to have any response

if we all just bought a pitchfork. When word got out that all the hardware stores were completely out of pitchforks with long waiting lists to buy more it might get the message across. Perhaps coupled with a general strike after the pitchfork buying. The idea that if we just keep voting the Oligarchs will eventually lose out is pretty naive imo. As more and more laws are passed to make sure they never lose. I can't think of a single instance in history where the Oligarchs just gave up and got voted out. Can you?

violent rhetoric occasionally takes on a life of its own. Even if you don't intend to act on it, someone else might.

I think that fixing our problems will take a combination of the courts, the ballot box, and nonviolent, focused activism. I also don't think it will be easy or quick, or that we'll ever fix things completely.

My only concern about "local community rights" is that it might sound like a great idea if you live in Berkeley, but it's different if you live in a red state.

civil disobedience. Sounds like everything you're talking about is going through legal channels like lawsuits and initiatives. Am I missing something?

… a largely parasitical, historically care-denying layer of corporate bureaucracy headed by plutocrat CEOs?