image from Crooksandliars.com
As I watch the establishment panic and rig the primaries at every turn it makes me wonder what our government would be like if we actually voted for candidates that represented our issues and not simply fall in line with the candidates the people who broke our government have picked for us.
Time and again I hear people who I thought had the strength of conviction say, I like Bernie and what he wants to do for us, but I don’t think he can win. Or I like Bernie and his agenda but he won’t ever be able to get any of it done. Or the worst yet, I hear them parrot establishment talking points about why someone who fights for us is unrealistic or even rage against populist ideas. There is nothing outrageous or unattainable about anything he is advocating for, but the mainstream corporate media, the establishment corporate party and the corporately owned politicians spend a lot of energy convincing us to aim low and to accept failure and whatever crumbs they feel like giving us. They give us the illusion of change without actual change, the appearance of working for us, while their hollow words turn out to be little more than pandering for votes.
Hillary makes claim that she cant be establishment because she is a woman, MSNBC cant believe young women found that offensive
After decades of two corrupt parties pushing corrupt politicians owned by the same corporate masters we have become used to completely avoidable man made disasters like the flint water poisoning, collapsing bridges, massive oil spills, natural gas leaks and New Orleans levee breach. Other greatest hits of the establishment include the destruction of our environment, mass incarceration, systemic racism, class warfare where the rich always win and the rest of us see our wages fall, our standard of living fall and a country/ planet left to the next generation that will be infinitely worse than the one we were left. Our healthcare is expensive and unattainable for many, even many with insurance who can’t handle the co pays, deductibles and drug prices. Our nation’s infrastructure once the envy of the world is crumbling. The middle class was strong and growing now working harder and longer hours and still losing ground against the cost of living. Our workforce was skilled and educated now an entire generation gets out of school with huge debt and very few good jobs. And then when we have an opportunity for real change we let the media and our corrupt two party system talk us into yet another political tool who wants us to give them the power to keep us fighting for crumbs.
Often we get an agent of actual change who actually cares about us with real plans to even the playing field and we let the establishment convince us that all of those things we truly need are unattainable and that anybody who says we can get some or all of it again is delusional or selling fantasy. We see their media propaganda arm spring into action by dismissing the candidate, mocking the agenda, lying about their record and viewing the entire race through the lens of how everything affects the establishment candidate. We see piles of the corporate money fill their war chest to overwhelm opposition.
Then there is the actual party rigging. This year we saw the DNC limit debate so that the lesser known candidates would be denied a platform to introduce themselves and then when those debates or townhalls actually do happen they pack the room with people friendly to the establishment candidate and no matter how things go down the media reports the establishment candidate won the debate and strengthened her hold on the lead. In the field the party hosts the establishment candidate in their state offices. the party has cut the populist candidate off from his own voter list when the company linked to the establishment candidate charged with securing everyone’s voter lists repeatedly failed to do so. At caucuses the party has been charged with countless irregularities to flip districts from the populist to the establishment and then refuse to investigate any let alone recount. And lest we forget the super delegates which the party chair even described this way “Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grass-roots activists”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5llLIKM9Yc
DWS explains that super delegates are there to protect insiders from grassroots campaigns
I for one am ready for that real change and have been since ‘92 when we had the opportunity to elect Jerry Brown instead of Bill Clinton who gave us wall street deregulation that crashed the economy in 08 while he also rigged the system against the poor and middle class, deregulated the media so that the establishment voices could drown out all others, Pushed for the free trade agreements that have led to the outsourcing of tens of millions of good paying jobs to slave labor countries not only crushing the middle class, but stagnating wages of those still with jobs and crushing the labor movement. He pushed for and got policies that crushed the poor and communities of color with an escalation of the war on drugs, elimination of welfare as we know it, privatization of prisons and mass incarceration and a draconian crime bill that not only put mostly poor people into prison but then saw to it that they were adversely affected forever once they got out assuring that most would be unable to rebuild their lives and end up back in prison. But that’s not how the establishment tells any of it and thusly not how most people remember it. People remember the short term prosperity, but none of the long term consequences. Then they give his wife a false legacy to run on.
And where all of this is heading is an eventual choice where the candidates who actually represented the wants and needs of the American people have been defeated and we get to choose between the lesser of two evils. We get to vote not for someone but against the much worse candidate from the other side. They tell us we need to protect the Supreme court from the other party, but never a thought to protecting it from the establishment who have an economic agenda shared by both parties bought by the same corporate interests. They tell us that their candidate represents many of the same issues that ours did, so suck it up and just vote for her… oh yeah and forget about the fact that her campaign pandering on the issues put her on the opposite side of her record on most of those important issues. So why should we believe that the person who has always supported free trade will suddenly fight for us to reject or reverse them? why should we believe that the person who has always supported offshore drilling, fracking and tax subsidies for big oil is suddenly on our side in fighting against fossil fuels for the good of our planet? Why should we believe that the person who bragged about the crime bill that destroyed poor people and communities of color will be their champion on a black lives matter platform or to push for more sensible drug laws or fairness in policing? Why should we believe that the candidate who was a part of breaking our campaign finance laws and ushered in an era of both parties selling out to corporations and is on the receiving end of more corporate money into campaigns, super PACs, foundations and personal speaking fees for her and her family than anyone in history has any interest in fixing it? And on the rigged economy where youth unemployment is off the charts and nearly everyone is working harder, longer hours and still struggling to survive let alone a decent quality of life, she has been on the wrong side of nearly every issue that rigs it.
So at the end of this rigged process, they will want us to believe that they know better what’s best for us. They want us to believe that among these last two candidates standing is the one who will champion issues important to us even when all the facts they have carefully hidden and dismissed seem to suggest that they will be anything but our champion, merely our panderer in chief who keeps everything the same.
I reject this premise and have for decades. What is most heartening is that it seems the people are also starting to reject in large enough numbers to buck the establishment and bring about actual change. We know the media won’t treat our causes and candidates fairly. We know the party will do all they can to steal the election for their chosen one. We know that lies and false narratives used to confuse or discourage people will come at us weekly if not daily… and yet now is the time we seem ready to finally take on this challenge and fight this fight. We are willing to use social media to correct the record and say everything their media doesn’t want us talking about. We are ready to donate and volunteer to offset their huge financial and organizational advantages. And we are willing to call liars liars. Now if we can just get good people who have gotten used to following the party line to set their sights higher and stop settling for yet another establishment candidate who will make all sorts of promises and deliver on few if any. Independent voters now outnumber both parties combined but generally fail to vote in large enough numbers to beat the system that drove them away from politics and voting to begin with. We need millennials who have only known a system rigged against them to show up in large enough numbers to bring about a new system. A system that our democracy has promised from the beginning but fails to deliver way more often than not.
It’s time to reject the concept of the lesser of two evils because even the lesser of two evils is still evil. We can do better and we are on the precipice of doing so. Let’s keep pushing back until we break them and get a government back that serves the people, not just the power structure and money.
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