And nails it, in my opinion.
The BlueMeanie and I disagree often, but usually respectfully. When it gets disrespectful, it tends to be my lapse, not his.
One area where we disagree is what constitutes a troll. My definition is narrower, so narrow that it applies only to those we’ve banished from the site, with one obvious exception, the Thuckmeister. Ole Thuck repeated himself for the sole purpose of annoying the crap out of us all, bloggers and readers both. The Captain has annoyed me at times, but I doubt that was his intention, and some of his comments are hilarious. On balance, I welcome his input.
BlueMeanie has a lower “troll threshold.” Repeat yourself a bit, and ….
Which brings us to Liza, a frequent commenter here, labeled a troll by Blue Meanie for preferring Jill Stein to Hillary Clinton. In responding, I think Liza articulated quite well a feeling many of us, including yours truly, have:
Tom, it doesn’t bother me even slightly that Mr. Meanie thinks I’m an internet troll. He is not particularly receptive toward those who do not agree with him. Who cares?
What I expect going forward is for these “realists” to hammer away at “Party Unity, Trump Must Be Stopped” and not much else. Bernie will do the best he can, but no one can unify diametrically opposed positions very easily. How do we “unify” the old establishment politics, the old political fossils like the Clintons, super delegates, the bought and paid for Congress, corporate rule, protection of the wealthy class, biased and complicit mainstream media, hawkish foreign policy, etc…WITH believing in social and economic justice, protection of the planet, concern for future generations, diplomacy before war, etc… There is no intersection.
The people who chose Bernie Sanders want a change in leadership and still hold out hope for reforming the Democratic party, I suppose. I admire youthful optimism, I just happen to be more cynical.
And the elephant in the room, of course, is the presumptive nominee herself. Such a terrible choice, but the DNC has rammed their party royalty down the voter’s throats and they intend to see it through. Her dismal record is out there, totally accessible, yet the die hards keep playing this “emperor is wearing no clothes” game with us. I’m just tired of it.
So, onward to the Lesser of Two Evils general election. It is historic, in a way. Have there ever been two worse candidates at once? Not in my lifetime, that I recall and I go back to Nixon/McGovern. There is a documentary about McGovern called “One Bright Shining Moment: The Forgotten Summer of George McGovern.” Yes, indeed, those who do not know history are bound to repeat it.
Yeah, I go back to George McGovern as well. Well put, Liza. Pretty damn good for a troll.
Thank you, Mr. Lord, for posting my comments. Yeah, some of us trolls have honed our skills to a level where it is difficult to tell us apart from the real commenters, now known here as the “realists.”
I knew someone out there would get the McGovern connection. It actually made me feel somewhat better yesterday, just thinking back to those times and all of that youthful optimism.
And then there is Bernie Sanders. A 74 year old lifelong warrior for peace and justice, who somehow has managed not to lose his ideals in that long tunnel of time (to paraphrase Jim Croce). There is much to be learned from what he has accomplished in this 2016 election for those who are in alignment with his message and are willing to work for real change.
Assuming Hillary becomes the president, it won’t be long before the Democrats learn that their establishment politics do not work for a nation that has profoundly changed in significant ways since the 1990s. But the “Democratic” oligarchs want to take this to the end of the line, to their last dying gasp, and that day will come. Yes, that day will come. The old guard will have to pass the torch because they are going to be dead or demented or in nursing facilities. They’re already close. I just hope there are some young leaders out there who understand this, who have the courage to forge a new path. Bernie Sanders showed them how it’s done.
I was a huge Croce fan, but can’t place what you’ve paraphrased.
Hillary will be the next President. There’s little doubt of that, outside of an indictment, or Trump stepping down before July. Which means it’ll be 2024 before a true progressive could seek the Democratic Party nomination. Can it wait that long?
All we know with reasonable certainty is that 2016 -2020 is mostly lost for any kind of progressive agenda at the federal level. Some things will absolutely have to move forward, like criminal justice reform, for example. But, honestly, I’m out of predictions. Unlike Bernie Sanders, the Clintons have had no consistent message (on any issue that I am aware of) over time and I do not expect that change. We’re still waiting for universal healthcare (Hillary’s first epic failure) that Bill promised in 1992. I have very low expectations for the newly minted “progressive” Hillary.
Anything could happen between 2017 and 2020. After Trump, the GOP leadership might heal itself and run an electable candidate in 2020, limiting Hillary to one term. And there are other possibilities we can all imagine that are not too far-fetched.
Progressives will need to work harder for victories at lower levels, that reality should be coming into sharper focus. Getting rid of a few GOP governors would vastly improve the quality of life for millions of Americans. Just ask the folks in Flint, Michigan. The goals will just simply have to shift to what is achievable because from now until 2024 is a very long time.
The Jim Croce song that I referenced is called “Age”. “I’ve traded love for pennies, sold my soul for less, lost my ideals in that long tunnel of time.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5sO0HbB5WY
There is a special place in hell for those who will not support Clinton. Just ask the Walton family or any of the current board members.
Democrats Will Learn All the Wrong Lessons From Brush With Bernie
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/democrats-will-learn-all-the-wrong-lessons-from-brush-with-bernie-20160609#ixzz4BCIsKUq0
Are we witnessing a dishonest election?
A between state comparison based on the used voting proceduresof the 2016 Democratic Party Primary for
the Presidency of the United States of America
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6mLpCEIGEYGYl9RZWFRcmpsZk0/view?pref=2&pli=1
I would like to see Hillary Clinton pick Bernie Sanders as her Vice President. This is actually quite common, picking a primary opponent to run on the ticket. Reagan picked Bush in 1980, even after Bush called Reagan’s ideas “voodoo economics”. Obama picked Joe Biden, who was one of his harshest critics during the 2008 primary.
Sanders as Vice President could continue to make his arguments inside the White House for his main issues, income inequality, big bank oversight, raising the minimum wage.
There is talk of others for Vice President. The problem with many of the names mentioned, including Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown, is that their Senate seat will flip to the Republicans, as Republican governors will pick their replacement. Given the nature of the Senate, the Democrats cannot afford to give up any Senate seat.
Clinton could pick someone like Al Franken or Amy Klobuchar. However, I think our best choice this year is Bernie Sanders.
But when was the last time you dropped everything because Biden was giving a speech?
I doubt Hillary wants someone to upstage her, Hillary’s VP will be on a short leash.
Bernie would end up in the White House basement mumbling about his stapler.
The candidate that you support, Sen. Sanders, indicates that he himself will work with Hillary Clinton to defeat Donald Trump. Does that disappoint you? Would you rather see Sen. Sanders support Jill Stein?
in a word YES!
Which is worse, troll or shill?
I vote for shill. Trolls are usually pretty obvious, but shills will write long, seemingly thoughtful comments, pretending to be rational/open minded, and are intentionally deceptive.
I’ve seen what I think are right wing and left wing shills on this site.
I expect months of comments from shills about how Sanders supporters “need to realize” this, how we “must do” that, and if we don’t fall in line the world will end and it will be all because of Sanders supporters.
It’s not the media’s fault, or the DNC, or Fox News, or Debbie Wasserman Schulz’s fault, or Hillary’s votes for wars and Wall Street speeches that the world will end.
It’s all the fault of Sanders’ supporters.
I think it’s time for people to realize how super delegates got to be super delegates. They were elected to positions whose responsibilities included voting rights at the national convention!
There really are two paths to becoming a super delegate. One path is by being elected by Democrats in the normal routine of filling party offices. The other is by being a Democrat elected to public office. The former are truly representatives of Democrats; the latter are sort of hybrids having been elected with votes from the public at large which probably include some non-Democrats.
In any case it is just plain silly to think the system is not representative. If you don’t like it put in the time and energy to get elected to a party or public office and then abstain at the convention.
Are you sure about that? Those votes you reference were cast in the past. The election is supposed to start with a clean slate. You’ve just articulated a system that allows the status quo (the result of past votes) to have its thumb on the scale. It sounded great to you I’m sure when you wrote it, but I just don’t think it holds water. Think of how it would work if an incumbent were challenged. The super delegates would be the folks elected at or about the same time as that incumbent.
To be clear—I was not advocating, just describing.
Your point about “…a clean slate…” doesn’t make much sense. All the positions we are talking about here have fixed terms; the office holders are expected to fulfill their duties while holding the office. In this case those duties include participating in and voting at the national convention. That is true for super delegates and “elected” delegates alike.
1. Hillary Clinton is by far the most qualified candidate of any of the 20 or so that ran for President this time.
2. Hillary Clinton is probably the most vetted candidate (over her lifetime) of just about any politician in recent history (or maybe ever.)
3. ANYONE ELSE is better than Trump.
I have to disagree with Liza when she says “the DNC has rammed their party royalty down the voters throats” — Secretary Clinton has received well over 3.7 million votes MORE than Bernie Sanders, she has 375 more pledged delegates than Bernie, and has won more states and territories than Bernie has. She does’t need any super delegates to win by every democratic voting metric she has WON the Democratic nomination! The 15 million people who voted for Secretary Clinton deserve respect for having cast their votes as they saw best. I was not among them. I went to Bernie’s rally when he was here, I was impressed with him, and after careful consideration where I kept going back and forth between them, I voted for Bernie. But several weeks later I became increasingly unhappy with him, he was bitter, angry, making unwarranted and plainly false accusations, and ultimately violated his own principles with regard to super delegates. I came to regret my vote for him as he became more desperate and violated his own campaign ethics in seeking to overturn the will of the voters by going after the super delegates. The voters chose Secretary Clinton, not the DNC, not the superdelegates, and not the “establishment”.
If you want direct election of our Democratic Party candidates then you MUST respect the will of the voters. Personally I am happy with Secretary Clinton as our nominee. I told my friends at the beginning that both of these candidates were good ones, that I would be happy with either. I meant that, then I made my choice for Bernie based on his ideas and how he had conducted his campaign up to that point. I liked Secretary Clinton’s ideas too and I stated to my friends that if you put both of them in a room for an hour and said hammer out a deal, they would have an agreement on all the issues in 40 minutes and be drinking coffee comparing family pictures the rest of the time. Later in the campaign Bernie changed, he became willing to violate his own ethics in order to win, and I became unhappy with him. I still think he is a good man, and he may yet win back my admiration depending on how he finishes his campaign, but I now think that Secretary Clinton is the better candidate. You may feel differently, fine, that’s your decision. I am happy with how Secretary Clinton has conducted her campaign, with her support of and by President Obama, and now Elizabeth Warren, and I will vote for her in the general. But most importantly, the voters of the Democratic Party selected her to be our candidate and I respect their choice.
P.S. I support the idea of direct election of primary candidates, but I do not support the idea that people who are not registered with our Party should have a vote in OUR Party elections (you want to vote in the Democratic Primary then get off your butt and register, it’s free to join). However, that together with whether there is a primary or a caucus is decided not by the Party, not by the DNC, but by the State where the election is held. Many people complaining about the DNC don’t seem to know that (I know Bob knows that but others seem to conflate the voting method in each state with the DNC and I want to make clear they don’t get yo decide that). I agree there should have been more debates, and I wish that they were broadcast on over-the-air TV because some of us don’t have cable or satellite or broadband streaming. The networks decided which debates they would carry — the FCC should require the broadcast networks at least to carry them but they don’t. I don’t think the decision to hold fewer debates than the Republicans was to favor Secretary Clinton but rather to put the spotlight on the Republican debacle unfolding before us. Personally I would also prefer that Libertarians and Greens get their own televised debates too. But it costs a lot of money to get a network to broadcast a debate so I imagine that’s one reason we haven’t seen their candidates on tv.
green party kicked off ballot and not alowed as a write in party azbluemeenie posted with glee. so I can’t vote for jill stein and I won’t vote for anyone who voted for iraq war.