whereisjustice
whereisjustice's Journaltime to go...
I wonder what makes anyone want to write something critical about conservative politics - is it to offer a previously unrepresented point of view, suppressed as politically incorrect? Maybe we want to advocate for those who don't have the means to challenge a corporate sponsored point of view? Or is it just a metaphysical itch that needs to be scratched?
I'm sure it can be fun for some, but for me, it isn't. Presenting unpopular, difficult points of view missing from our national dialog often requires sharp criticism. Just the mere mention of these issues is enough to cause discomfort, especially among large political organizations concentrating power when they should be solving problems.
While there are no absolutes in this world, there is an asymptotic trajectory the Democratic Party is traveling along that leads to zero citizen participation and an over-reliance on a minority of wealthy decision makers. It's about as absolute as it can get.
A technocrat will argue that this is OK because every message can be analytically controlled for perfect pitch. The end-product resonates perfectly among "independent voters" drawing them in. This is the way, they argue, the Democratic Party is best served. We simply send money and leave it up to the professionals, the experts at managing perceptions.
The processed image, of course, is Photoshop perfect. Too perfect. Like the beautiful, happy people popping pills in a TV drug ad. Like the people in the video announcing Hillary as a presidential candidate. Like profit sharing and corporate tax breaks as a means to solve Black unemployment. Images of medicated bliss are so powerful, we simply ignore the side effects, such as brain hemorrhage, liver cancer, unemployment, poverty and prison.
But let's not dwell on the negative. Who doesn't love profit sharing? There you go, unemployed men and women of America - we are giving you PROFIT SHARING (*). When you get a job, you can share the profit. See, we're helping the Black community, unlike the other candidates.
So, why should I write about it? Why not leave it up to the professionals? I guess because even they don't always get it right. Or perhaps they have their own interests and narrow point of view leaving a large gap of understanding. Or maybe the editor just doesn't give a shit about jobs to Asia or tax breaks for the rich.
Whatever it is, I believe the more unique and critical voices the better. And that's the problem for me. In an increasingly technocratic world, we have the false notion that everything can be controlled. Every opinion is becoming is carefully sculpted to an ideal beauty, i.e. the lowest common denominator of electoral sensitivity. Naturally, some things just cannot be said.
It's a standard of American beauty I can't meet. For example, I think it is important to point out, given worldwide hacking, the irresponsibility of a Sec. of State keeping a secret email server managed by who-knows. It was horrible judgement. I don't care who the fuck did it before her. She has 1000s of people in her organization working for her and her foundation. Someone should have told her. Were they afraid?
And it IS fucked up to accept cash for her foundation from foreign countries at the same time State Dept. negotiations with the same country are on-going.
If we don't call this shit out for what it is "fucked up" then just how bad does someone have to behave before we hold them accountable? What next? It's the same logic that let the banks get away with conspiracy and fraud - they should have been brought up on RICO.
That's what I think. It makes me imperfect. A dissonance within a Democratic Party that demands perfect resonance.
Democratic Party leadership has dropped anchor in trickle-down harbor. They intend to drill deep and they don't give a fuck. Why not protest? The technocrats who see everything as some sort of multi-variate calculus of political advantage will always dominate this place. Absolutely safe, they say. And that's sort of what's happening to American life on a larger scale, carefully managed image of exceptionalism propping up a severely broken political process. We focus on the process, not the product. And, of course, we fall farther and farther behind.
Those who have the skills, time and courage to voice a strong, critical, dissenting view within their own political party, you have my total respect. This is something that gets harder and harder each passing year as our political elite intersect around self-serving economic policies supporting rich over the non-rich. Few people have the time to fight it. We are too busy trying to put food on the table.
Before PETA complains about the horse I am beating - best wishes to everyone in the progressive group. I've enjoyed sharing thoughts with kindred spirits.
(*) holy mother of fucking god, she really did offer this as a credible economic plan. It is THE most cynical thing I've seen any (mainstream) candidate propose during a crisis of disparity since Reagan. PROFIT SHARING of what - Walmart, Burger King, Uber drivers? We are moving to the gig economy (think poverty stricken China and India) and Clinton rolls out corporate tax breaks and profit sharing. It's fucked up and needs to be called out as a shitty economic proposal during a crisis of inequality.
Dear BLM, I just discovered there is an old, white, tough on crime millionaire [View all]
who advocated the exact polices that NAACP says has been destructive to Black lives.
Hillary Clinton is nearly 70 years old, white, with an estimated net worth of $31,195,006 in 2010.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/summary.php?CID=N00000019&year=2010
A supporter of conservative economic, law enforcement and military policies, in 1994 she proclaimed:
"We need more police, we need more and tougher prison sentences for repeat offenders...
"We need more prisons..."
"three strikes... has to be part of the plan."
Here's what the NAACP says:
Racial Disparities in Incarceration
African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population
African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites
Contributing Factors
"Get tough on crime" and "war on drugs" policies
Mandatory minimum sentencing, especially disparities in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine possession
"Three Strikes"/habitual offender policies
Zero Tolerance policies as a result of perceived problems of school violence; adverse affect on black children.
http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet
Ms. Clinton, an older, white, multi-millionaire said the solution to the economic injustice against Blacks is...
CORPORATE TAX BREAKS AND PROFIT SHARING
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/hillary-clinton-propose-incentives-corporate-100002119.html
Seriously. She said that.
So, all you need is a job at a profitable corporation. Like Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan.
Ok, perhaps now you can see that Hillary Clinton's ideas for helping the Black community aren't helping, they are hurting.
There is a middle class civil rights leader whose career has been spent not being a multi-multi-millionaire, or Walmart director, or Wall Street lobbyist at $250,000 a pop, not advocating sending jobs to Asia, but as someone who advocated for civil rights for over 40 years.
Not only that - this person believes sending jobs from the US to low wage workers in Asia harms non-rich people as evidenced by the devastation in Black communities around the country.
Bernie Sanders has an estimated net worth of $429,004 in 2010.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/summary.php?CID=N00000528&year=2010
Here's what Sanders is proposing to support the Black community:
– Invest in our crumbling infrastructure with a major program to create jobs by rebuilding roads, bridges, water systems, waste water plants, airports, railroads and schools.
– Transform energy systems away from fossil fuels to create jobs while beginning to reverse global warming and make the planet habitable for future generations.
– Develop new economic models to support workers in the United States instead of giving tax breaks to corporations which ship jobs to low-wage countries overseas.
– Make it easier for workers to join unions and bargain for higher wages and benefits.
– Raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour so no one who works 40 hours a week will live in poverty.
– Provide equal pay for women workers who now make 78 percent of what male counterparts make.
– Reform trade policies that have shuttered more than 60,000 factories and cost more than 4.9 million decent-paying manufacturing jobs.
– Make college affordable and provide affordable child care to restore America’s competitive edge compared to other nations.
– Break up big banks. The six largest banks now have assets equivalent to 61 percent of our gross domestic product, over $9.8 trillion. They underwrite more than half the mortgages in the country and issue more than two-thirds of all credit cards.
– Join the rest of the industrialized world with a Medicare-for-all health care system that provides better care at less cost.
– Expand Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and nutrition programs.
– Reform the tax code based on wage earners’ ability to pay and eliminate loopholes that let profitable corporations stash profits overseas and pay no U.S. federal income taxes.
“If we are going to address the issue of crime in low-income areas and in African-American communities, it might be a good idea that instead of putting military style equipment into police departments in those areas, we start investing in jobs for the young people there who desperately need them,” Sanders said.
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/215648-sanders-ferguson-shows-need-for-black-unemployment-bill
By BLM's words and actions, it seems like there is obvious confusion between these two people:
- Bernie Sanders, a humble, civil rights leader pushing for jobs
- Hillary Clinton, a Wall Street promoter and millionaire who pushed for-profit prisons.
I'm obligated to point this out to you.
Thank you for your time and here is more reading for your interest:
The Clinton dynasty’s horrific legacy: How “tough-on-crime” politics built the world’s largest prison system
http://www.salon.com/2015/04/13/the_clinton_dynastys_horrific_legacy_how_tough_on_crime_politics_built_the_worlds_largest_prison/
Why Hillary Clinton Lacks Credibility On Criminal Justice Reform
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2015/04/30/why-hillary-clinton-lacks-credibility-on-criminal-justice-reform/
(moved from general discussion)
Dear BLM, I just discovered there is an old, white, tough on crime millionaire
who advocated the exact polices that NAACP says has been destructive to Black lives.
Hillary Clinton is nearly 70 years old, white, with an estimated net worth of $31,195,006 in 2010.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/summary.php?CID=N00000019&year=2010
A supporter of conservative economic, law enforcement and military policies, in 1994 she proclaimed:
"We need more police, we need more and tougher prison sentences for repeat offenders...
"We need more prisons..."
"three strikes... has to be part of the plan."
Here's what the NAACP says:
Racial Disparities in Incarceration
African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population
African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites
Contributing Factors
"Get tough on crime" and "war on drugs" policies
Mandatory minimum sentencing, especially disparities in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine possession
"Three Strikes"/habitual offender policies
Zero Tolerance policies as a result of perceived problems of school violence; adverse affect on black children.
http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet
Ms. Clinton, an older, white, multi-millionaire said the solution to the economic injustice against Blacks is...
CORPORATE TAX BREAKS AND PROFIT SHARING
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/hillary-clinton-propose-incentives-corporate-100002119.html
Seriously. She said that.
So, all you need is a job at a profitable corporation. Like Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan.
Ok, perhaps now you can see that Hillary Clinton's ideas for helping the Black community aren't helping, they are hurting.
There is a middle class civil rights leader whose career has been spent not being a multi-multi-millionaire, or Walmart director, or Wall Street lobbyist at $250,000 a pop, not advocating sending jobs to Asia, but as someone who advocated for civil rights for over 40 years.
Not only that - this person believes sending jobs from the US to low wage workers in Asia harms non-rich people as evidenced by the devastation in Black communities around the country.
Bernie Sanders has an estimated net worth of $429,004 in 2010.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/summary.php?CID=N00000528&year=2010
Here's what Sanders is proposing to support the Black community:
– Invest in our crumbling infrastructure with a major program to create jobs by rebuilding roads, bridges, water systems, waste water plants, airports, railroads and schools.
– Transform energy systems away from fossil fuels to create jobs while beginning to reverse global warming and make the planet habitable for future generations.
– Develop new economic models to support workers in the United States instead of giving tax breaks to corporations which ship jobs to low-wage countries overseas.
– Make it easier for workers to join unions and bargain for higher wages and benefits.
– Raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour so no one who works 40 hours a week will live in poverty.
– Provide equal pay for women workers who now make 78 percent of what male counterparts make.
– Reform trade policies that have shuttered more than 60,000 factories and cost more than 4.9 million decent-paying manufacturing jobs.
– Make college affordable and provide affordable child care to restore America’s competitive edge compared to other nations.
– Break up big banks. The six largest banks now have assets equivalent to 61 percent of our gross domestic product, over $9.8 trillion. They underwrite more than half the mortgages in the country and issue more than two-thirds of all credit cards.
– Join the rest of the industrialized world with a Medicare-for-all health care system that provides better care at less cost.
– Expand Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and nutrition programs.
– Reform the tax code based on wage earners’ ability to pay and eliminate loopholes that let profitable corporations stash profits overseas and pay no U.S. federal income taxes.
“If we are going to address the issue of crime in low-income areas and in African-American communities, it might be a good idea that instead of putting military style equipment into police departments in those areas, we start investing in jobs for the young people there who desperately need them,” Sanders said.
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/215648-sanders-ferguson-shows-need-for-black-unemployment-bill
By BLM's words and actions, it seems like there is obvious confusion between these two people:
- Bernie Sanders, a humble, civil rights leader pushing for jobs
- Hillary Clinton, a Wall Street promoter and millionaire who pushed for-profit prisons.
I'm obligated to point this out to you.
Thank you for your time and here is more reading for your interest:
The Clinton dynasty’s horrific legacy: How “tough-on-crime” politics built the world’s largest prison system
http://www.salon.com/2015/04/13/the_clinton_dynastys_horrific_legacy_how_tough_on_crime_politics_built_the_worlds_largest_prison/
Why Hillary Clinton Lacks Credibility On Criminal Justice Reform
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2015/04/30/why-hillary-clinton-lacks-credibility-on-criminal-justice-reform/
Why Hillary Clinton Lacks Credibility On Criminal Justice Reform
For critics who have long argued that our criminal justice system puts too many people behind bars for too long, Clinton’s words of outrage were welcome. But they were also hard to take seriously given her history on this issue. While condemning overincarceration, she glided over her own role in promoting it and exaggerated her efforts to correct it. She referred only obliquely to the war on drugs, which has played an important role in sending nonviolent offenders to prison. And three decades after the prison population began the dramatic climb that she now considers shameful, Clinton offered almost no specific ideas for reversing it, which makes her look like a dilettante compared to politicians in both major parties who have given the issue serious thought.
As first lady in the 1990s, Clinton was a cheerleader for the “tough on crime” policies that produced the “era of mass incarceration” she now condemns. “We need more police,” she said in a 1994 speech. “We need more and tougher prison sentences for repeat offenders. The ‘three strikes and you’re out’ for violent offenders has to be part of the plan. We need more prisons to keep violent offenders for as long as it takes to keep them off the streets.” The Clinton administration gave us all that and more, bragging about building more prisons, locking up more people (including nonviolent offenders) for longer stretches, opposing parole, expanding the death penalty, putting more cops on the street, and implementing a “comprehensive anti-drug strategy.”
During another debate that December, Clinton was asked whether she regretted how “your husband’s crime bill…has affected the black community, or do you stand by that?” Both, apparently:
I think that the results not only at the federal level but at the state level have been an unacceptable increase in incarceration across the board, and now we have to address that….There were reasons why the Congress wanted to push through a certain set of penalties and increase prison construction, and there was a lot of support for that across a lot of communities because…the crime rate in the early ’90s was very high. And people were being victimized by crime in their homes, in their neighborhoods and their business. But we’ve got to take stock now of the consequences, so that’s why…I want to have a thorough review of all of the penalties.
As Dara Lind notes at Vox, Clinton nevertheless attacked her rival Barack Obama as soft on crime because he thought some of those penalties were too harsh. A month after Clinton decried “an unacceptable increase in incarceration,” her campaign tried to undermine Obama by citing his criticism of mandatory minimums.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2015/04/30/why-hillary-clinton-lacks-credibility-on-criminal-justice-reform/
Duplicate post removed
Watching the GOP beat up McCain shouldn't be surprising. That's how they treat older Americans...
and veteran Americans
and younger Americans
and non-rich Americans
and non-white Americans
and disabled Americans
and non-male Americans
and LGBT Americans
and educated Americans
and non-Christian Americans
and working Americans
and ...
What happened to O'Malley and Sanders is actually a healthy sign... for both of them
What we witnessed during the Netroots event is hardly the disaster people think it is. It shows just how polarized the nation has become. We've deliberately neglected and ignored the abuse of millions of Black Americans who are trapped in a cycle of poverty and abuse with no means of escape. We witnessed a basic natural response to the failed leadership of our two political parties.
Where exactly are the opportunities for non-rich Americans?
We've sent millions good jobs to Mexico, Asia and anywhere cheap labor can be found around the globe.
We've spent hundreds of billions of dollars on an absurd drug war, used as a pretense to harass and destroy minority communities.
We've passed outrageous criminal penalties for harmless offenses that attach like a Scarlet Letter to the future opportunities of millions of young adults.
We've cut assistance programs and increased college costs 3x to 10x the rate of inflation.
We've made it more difficult for the non-rich to vote.
And perhaps the worst thing we've done - we sat on our hands as a handful of criminally corrupt Wall Street banks robbed trillions of dollars from the US Treasury. These are the same banks that are now stoking the boiler rooms of mainstream media's favorite presidential frontrunners.
I've lost track of the unprovoked police shootings being reported and reviewed in the last few weeks. Cops are shooting indiscriminately at any perceived threat no matter how minor. Minorities are being killed indiscriminately.
Damn it to hell - do you think this shit can go on forever? How long do you think 10s of millions of people will continue to quietly take the abuse without civil protest?
Let's give credit to Sanders and O'Malley for doing the right thing by meeting with real people - no rope lines, no astroturf of paid supporters, no violent arrests, no free speech zones. Just the messy reality of everyday people frustrated by the institutional forces behind their oppression.
It isn't coincidence that the presumed Democratic front runner and media darling was nowhere near the collision of politics and reality. This fact is a simple artifice of a carefully manufactured campaign.
We've been given a lesson in governing style, we cannot ignore it:
One campaign relies on rope lines, carefully vetted supporters, hedge fund cash and a sanitized, meticulously autocratic, corporate front office avoiding any position that might make the rich the slightest bit uncomfortable. All of this is a GIANT clue for understanding how this candidate will govern the non-rich... rope lines and platitudes while quietly paying back the crippling debt of their entitlements.
Sanders and O'Malley meet with real people, take risks with new technology and deliver razor sharp insight, analysis and solutions to the problems facing the nation. Sanders and O'Malley are doing their best to compete against a political monopoly within a political monopoly.
The presumed Democratic Party front runner helped architect the political framework that is crushing the middle class and below. As a result we are facing a nation as polarized, disparate and unjust as almost any time in history. We don't need more of the same.
In contrast, Sanders and O'Malley are innovating and taking risks. They are grappling with the serious problems facing real Americans. They've shown that they understand the challenges facing American families. They deserve our support and thanks for taking on the political elite.
I know you're out there... I hate to ask.... I know what you are thinking but...
When I got involved in local conventions for Obama before his first term, I knew two things:
1. Bush really fucked things up.
2. Clinton (friend of the Bush family) was the WRONG choice to lead the party.
I've been disappointed with Obama, that's a fact. I know many people have been disapointed. Between the Wall Street amnesty, drones, oil drilling, and most of all TPP. Perhaps the Iran deal is important in the abstract, but that seems to be the problem with today's Democratic Party. Every tangle benefit for the middle-class and below is several orders of magnitude removed from reality. It is in the abstract.
But I have come to understand that things would have been much worse under Clinton. For example, Clinton just refused to endorse a minimum wage and instead championed "profit sharing" which is just an abstract application of trickle-down economics.
And there it is, convoluted, Rube Goldberg plans to help the middle class by lining the pockets of the rich.
From regime change to drones to Keystone and climate change - the modern Democratic Party finds 1000 reason why supporting corporate interests over good public policy will eventually benefit the middle class and below.
But it never does.
There's no point of going on about. The signs of what a Clinton presidency would be like are easy to read.
Sanders is the first candidate to speak directly to the problems facing the nation in a way that Clinton will never be able to do. She is a walking conflict of interest.
So - here's the point. For those of you who busted their butt for Obama way back when, I think we all agree that neither Bush nor Clinton would be the right direction for the nation. We have another choice, Bernie Sanders.
It is time to get back in the game.
Consider being a delegate at your local conventions. It doesn't take much time. Send some money to his campaign.
I know you are pissed. Who wouldn't be? But the alternative presumed "front runner" to the Democratic Party is MUCH worse - it is the same old thing over and over and over. Jobs to Asia, environmental roll backs, corporate influence and gifts to the rich.
It's time to start thinking about getting involved. When convention time rolls around, vote for Bernie.
You can make a difference. It won't take much time.
At least you will have tried to make a difference. Your kids and their kids will thank you for it. On the other hand, there's nothing particularly patriotic or brave about voting for the status quo - the same old 3rd way, centrist, corporate-centered bullshit.
Eventually you will be asked, by someone, "why didn't you try to do something to stop it?".
What are you going to say - you were too afraid to vote for the right thing?
MSNBC Panel Mocks Clinton Campaign For Silencing Her Young Supporters
"Now why in the world would the campaign tell their own supporters who came out, young people, college kids, why in the world would you do that? This should raise some warning flags that for Hillary Clinton that is trying to control their supporters." said Susan Page, USA Today.
This was originally posted in LBN
1. it was late breaking
2. it is news that a Democratic Party candidate would instruct supporters to not talk to the press
Some people feel that having the Clinton Campaign telling young supporters to not talk to the press isn't news. I think this is news, but I'm older and not as comfortable with the authoritarian direction that our political system is traveling.
Secondly, I think it is important for people deciding about a candidate's disposition and governing style to have access to information when making choices. We've seen the rope lines, evasive non-answers, and hedging. Very telling of an autocratic corporate style.
I can't believe people think these are the qualities that make a great American political leader. We have the most difficult challenges in the years ahead and a candidate who is incapable of dealing with the issues in a straightforward manner for fear she may make Wall Street bankers a bit uncomfortable with the inconvenient truths.
On edit: I forgot this part from the original post at LBN:
From the you tube comments:
Everything ██████ ███ ███████ ██ is █████ ████ ██ ██████ ███ fine. The █████ ███████ ████ Government ██████ ████ knows █████ █████ ███ best █████.= Hillary......
How to Give a Speech without Saying Anything
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Member since: Tue Jul 8, 2014, 09:43 PMNumber of posts: 2,941
