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Rebkeh

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Gender: Female
Home country: USA
Member since: Sat Oct 17, 2015, 10:59 AM
Number of posts: 2,450

About Me

Progressive in the Midwest, a transplant from both coasts, homesick for the eastern one. Traipsing the line between calling it like I see it and knowing when to keep my thoughts to myself. *note: I slip a lot.

Journal Archives

2016 (270)
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- April (65)
- March (84)
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2015 (29)
- December (8)
- November (15)
- October (7)

Must watch/read Amy Goodman interview about Bernie or Bust, video plus transcript

Bernie Sanders Fans Debate Whether to Vote for Hillary Clinton if She Is Democratic Nominee

Friday, 06 May 2016 00:00
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! | Video Interview

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35941-bernie-sanders-fans-debate-whether-to-vote-for-hillary-clinton-if-she-is-democratic-nominee

Interview with Kshama Sawant and Michael McGinn of Seattle, WA

As Democratic challengers Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton press on in the Democratic primary, Sanders trails in the pledged delegate count by more than 300. Add in superdelegates, and Clinton is just under 200 delegates shy of the number needed to clinch the nomination. Even as Sanders maintains his commitment to stay in the race, voters looking for political revolution are facing the question of whether or not to support his rival Hillary Clinton if she becomes the Democratic nominee for president. We host a debate between Kshama Sawant, Socialist city councilmember in Seattle and member of Socialist Alternative, who is a Sanders supporter and says she will not support Clinton; and Mike McGinn, former mayor of Seattle from 2010 to 2013, who hosts a podcast on social change called "You, Me, Us, Now." He is a Bernie Sanders supporter, but will back Hillary Clinton if she becomes the nominee.

TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: We're the road at Bellevue College near Seattle, Washington. With the departure of Senator Ted Cruz and John Kasich, Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee for president. Meanwhile, Democratic challengers Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are pressing on to next week's West Virginia primary. Despite Sanders' recent win in Indiana, he trails Clinton in the pledged delegate count by more than 300. Add in superdelegates, and Clinton is just under 200 delegates shy of the number needed to clinch the nomination. But neither Sanders nor his supporters seem ready to concede. At a news conference Sunday, Sanders appealed to the Democratic Party's superdelegates.

snip

AMY GOODMAN: The division among Democrats who support Bernie Sanders versus Hillary Clinton recalls the 2008 presidential campaign and the staunch Clinton supporters who joined together under the acronym PUMAs, or Party Unity My Ass, they said, vowing never to back her then-rival Barack Obama.

Well, for more, we're joined by two guests. Mike McGinn is the former mayor of Seattle, serving from 2010 to '13. He hosts a podcast on social change called "You, Me, Us, Now." He is a Bernie Sanders supporter, but will support Hillary Clinton if she becomes the nominee. Kshama Sawant is a Socialist city councilmember in Seattle, member of the Socialist Alternative, a nationwide organization of social and economic justice activists. She also is a Bernie Sanders supporter, who says she will not support Clinton.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Kshama Sawant, let us begin with you, because you really started this whole Bernie or Bust campaign. Explain what it is.

Lots more at link:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35941-bernie-sanders-fans-debate-whether-to-vote-for-hillary-clinton-if-she-is-democratic-nominee

Posted by Rebkeh | Sat May 7, 2016, 02:11 PM (0 replies)

For those avoiding gd-p, my posts there

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511918793

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511918887

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511918941

Posted by Rebkeh | Sat May 7, 2016, 02:00 PM (0 replies)

Like It or Not, the Democratic Party Now Must Answer to Millennials

Like It or Not, the Democratic Party Now Must Answer to Millennials
Thursday, 05 May 2016
Aisling O'Donnell, Truthout | Op-Ed

One of the most recurrent allegations leveled at Bernie Sanders supporters is that they are young. On the surface it is difficult to imagine that accusing a supporter base of populating an age bracket could be advanced as a serious critique, but such is the frequency with which the observation is made that one has to assume that there is some popular appeal to the coupling of youth with political illegitimacy.

In reality, the disenfranchising of young people is an easy way to dismiss their grievances, a sort of a crowd directed ad hominem attack. This narrative has not only appeared in mainstream media, but both Hillary and Bill Clinton have sought at points to publicly make ridiculous the political participation of young people.

snip

Compounding these deep-set infrastructural problems, voter suppression in Arizona and New York, and the lackluster response to it, has only intensified suspicions that the democratic process is neither free nor fair, and that interference in the most rudimentary exercise in political participation is commonplace. This has exacerbated a sense that somehow young people do not exist in a full enough capacity as citizens to expect meaningful participation or recognition in the electoral process. In a climate of such heightened tensions, it is indeed risky to imply that young people are petulant or reckless when they refuse to fall in line behind Hillary Clinton.

snip

The concerns of Sanders millennials are reflective mostly of a desire to preserve some of the world they will inherit. Refusing to take seriously their grievances reveals a willingness to ignore the terrifying enormity, perhaps even impossibility, of that task. If an account is not given for voter suppression and penance not made to restore the confidence of a disenfranchised demographic in democracy, there is no telling what the fallout will be. But if history is to be any instruction, willful disregard of the suffering of poverty without recourse to political participation usually ends in violence.

Far from being myopic and disconnected, millennials are media savvy and politically shrewd, and they are not going to be placated by the type of windy rhetoric that sated the Obama electorate. If Hillary Clinton wants to bring them to the ballot box behind her, she is going to have to do more than talk in sweeping terms about uniting a party against a common enemy: She is going to have to convincingly change her politics, and in an atmosphere of high mistrust, that may prove complicated.

Read it in full:
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/35891-like-it-or-not-the-democratic-party-now-must-answer-to-millennials

Posted by Rebkeh | Sat May 7, 2016, 01:59 PM (77 replies)

Why I’m Still For Bernie: It’s not about winning battles, it’s about winning the war

Aside from my distrust of her, Hillary is too focused on policy. I don’t think her approach is the better one, simply because it serves two masters. Further, there are other reasons:

1. Structural change – changing the policies so they support equality is not going to be sustainable unless the policies, in turn, are supported by structures that are consistent with their aims. As it stands now, the structures are built to maintain inequality, no amount of policy change is going to be safe in such an environment. Bernie aims to take both approaches, to address policy AND structure - which is the correct way. Hillary aims for only one approach while benefiting from the neglect of the other.

If you do not take both approaches, you essentially will have a wack-a-mole situation, especially since all the republicans have to do is unravel the policies before they even take root. Even in their current weakened state, giving them such opportunities would help them more than it would help us. Leave them weakened, for God's sake. Stop the co-dependency. They will not be destroyed by anyone but themselves, that’s how it works. Take a “please proceed” approach to the republicans. Stop helping them, let them keep digging, give them more rope and for the love of God, get out of their way.

2. Fighting the ideological war, rather than policy fights, requires the moral high ground because the means shape the ends. If you fight by lying, cheating and stealing, the victorious outcomes will empower liars, cheaters and thieves. Which, in turn, only repeats the ugly cycle and digs us deeper into the quagmire. We cannot defeat conservative or republican ideology by becoming conservatives and adopting republican ideology. The usual tactic of divide and then conquer by co-opting your enemies will not bring justice for anyone but those who have already arrived. It does not help the people at the bottom, it helps the people in the middle – this is not progress. This is not justice. This is not Truth.

3. Bernie brings us a rare opportunity to leap ahead instead of inching along at a slow crawl. Bernie brings light to dark places and there are far too many shadows in the political arena, shadows that empower the enemies of justice, truth, fairness and democracy. We may not ever have another chance to get it right.

So, getting to the structures of inequality in all its forms, countering the toxic ideology of the right, and because sunshine is the best disinfectant, is why we need Bernie.

Don’t blow this, America.

On a final note, at some point we must stop fighting the symptoms of inequality and start fighting the causes of it. It’s on us, I don’t want someone that says, “I got this.” I want someone that says, “We got this.” The power is to always be with the people, ultimately. There is only one person up there speaking this language.

Posted by Rebkeh | Fri May 6, 2016, 10:45 AM (26 replies)

Still Feeling the Bern

Why I’m Still For Bernie: It’s not about winning battles, it’s about winning the war

Aside from my distrust of her, Hillary is too focused on policy. I don’t think her approach is the better one, simply because it serves two masters. Further, there are other reasons:

1. Structural change – changing the policies so they support equality is not going to be sustainable unless the policies, in turn, are supported by structures that are consistent with their aims. As it stands now, the structures are built to maintain inequality, no amount of policy change is going to be safe in such an environment. Bernie aims to take both approaches, to address policy AND structure - which is the correct way. Hillary aims for only one approach while benefiting from the neglect of the other.

If you do not take both approaches, you essentially will have a wack-a-mole situation, especially since all the republicans have to do is unravel the policies before they even take root. Even in their current weakened state, giving them such opportunities would help them more than it would help us. Leave them weakened, for God's sake. Stop the co-dependency. They will not be destroyed by anyone but themselves, that’s how it works. Take a “please proceed” approach to the republicans. Stop helping them, let them keep digging, give them more rope and for the love of God, get out of their way.

2. Fighting the ideological war, rather than policy fights, requires the moral high ground because the means shape the ends. If you fight by lying, cheating and stealing, the victorious outcomes will empower liars, cheaters and thieves. Which, in turn, only repeats the ugly cycle and digs us deeper into the quagmire. We cannot defeat conservative or republican ideology by becoming conservatives and adopting republican ideology. The usual tactic of divide and then conquer by co-opting your enemies will not bring justice for anyone but those who have already arrived. It does not help the people at the bottom, it helps the people in the middle – this is not progress. This is not justice. This is not Truth.

3. Bernie brings us a rare opportunity to leap ahead instead of inching along at a slow crawl. Bernie brings light to dark places and there are far too many shadows in the political arena, shadows that empower the enemies of justice, truth, fairness and democracy. We may not ever have another chance to get it right.

So, getting to the structures of inequality in all its forms, countering the toxic ideology of the right, and because sunshine is the best disinfectant, is why we need Bernie.

Don’t blow this, America.

On a final note, at some point we must stop fighting the symptoms of inequality and start fighting the causes of it. It’s on us, I don’t want someone that says, “I got this.” I want someone that says, “We got this.” The power is to always be with the people, ultimately. There is only one person up there speaking this language.

Posted by Rebkeh | Fri May 6, 2016, 10:43 AM (2 replies)

Good news

Posted in gdp as well...

A staunchly republican family member who hates Trump has decided to vote democratic this election, he's changing his registration. I don't know how permanent that change will be but, his words, "not my party anymore."

He hasn't voted in the primary yet and has decided to vote dem at least this time. And, yes, he's going with Bernie

He doesn't like Bernie but he despises Hillary. (Admittedly in a disturbing and irrational way)

So, there ya have it. The Trump effect goes several ways.

Posted by Rebkeh | Wed May 4, 2016, 05:13 PM (4 replies)

Good news

A staunchly republican family member who hates Trump has decided to vote democratic this election, he's changing his registration. I don't know how permanent that change will be but, his words, "not my party anymore."

He hasn't voted in the primary yet and has decided to vote dem at least this time. And, yes, he's going with Bernie

He doesn't like Bernie but he despises Hillary. (Admittedly in a disturbing and irrational way)

So, there ya have it. The Trump effect goes several ways.

Posted by Rebkeh | Wed May 4, 2016, 05:11 PM (0 replies)

Oops, meant to post this here earlier

I know some of you aren't watching gd-p. If interested, check my post there.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511891804

Posted by Rebkeh | Tue May 3, 2016, 07:44 PM (4 replies)

In case you are avoiding gd-p, my post there

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511891804

Posted by Rebkeh | Tue May 3, 2016, 06:34 PM (2 replies)

Let's be clear, regardless of the outcome tonight,

the primary is still not going to be over.

To try to pivot to the General Election is now, and will be, fundamentally undemocratic.

Posted by Rebkeh | Tue May 3, 2016, 05:11 PM (71 replies)

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