We can step back and look at ourselves. We know some things for sure. We don't want Mike Pence in the White House. Mike Pence represents all of the worse ideas of Donald Trump in the body of someone who is a capable individual, an accomplished politician who can actually get things done - the 'wrong' things, but he would achieve many parts of his agenda.
At the same time, we are not at all certain that we can survive far into the future if we keep Trump in the White House.
The list of reasons we want to remove Trump grows longer each day he is president. Hoping to survive as a species on the planet and hoping to survive as a nation in the world, it appears imperative that we change directions. Trump's capacity is questionable. What path is open to us? We are reduced to very few options, especially since we regard Mike Pence as being worse in many ways.
Those who believe or pretend to believe should all pray, "God help us now!"
Revolutions are a nasty business. We really don't want to be running around in the streets shooting and killing each other. This is especially true when we look at the history of revolutions and the long term success rate.
Not only that, but the corporate establishment has armed itself with the latest and greatest military equipment the world has ever seen, claiming it's for local 'law enforcement'... meaning, putting down a revolution. We can forget all of that 2nd amendment stuff - the citizenry would be slaughtered, to no avail.
Our only genuine hope for improvement appears to be peaceful civil disobedience on a super-massive scale. Virtually every citizen must be a participant. With 'universal' participation, we would have 'universal' healthcare, for example.
The corporate structure, the military structure, and the structure of 'law enforcement' would all come crumbling down if we all, 'universally', stopped engaging ourselves in making it 'work'. It is the individual 'foot soldier', for example, that makes the system function ...allows the system to function.
Those at the 'top' have no real ability to accomplish anything on their own. Their wealth is the result of the worker's work. Their power is the result of our bowing to their lies. Those at the 'top' are completely dependent on us for anything and everything. We are not dependent upon them for anything other than being abused in every way imaginable.
|
According to Aristotle the cause of upheaval is inequality. He strongly advised the rulers that they must believe that they can fool some people all the time, all the people for some time and not all the people all the time.
|
Our choices are very limited. We can go with Donald Trump wherever that takes us. We could remove Trump and go with Mike Pence. We can revolt. We can pray to whatever deity we wish. We can unite as citizens and forge our own direction. Or, as is usually the case, we can do nothing.
Things seem to be skidding downhill at accelerating rates. It seems that there may still be some time left to make some corrections. We know for certain that the 'system' will not be self-correcting no matter how bad things get to be.
Inequality in our society can be fixed. If we can't find a peaceful way forward, ultimately, as shown throughout history, there will be a revolution. That can be ugly. We don't want that, and it can be avoided
We are all afraid. We are all suffering.
We can bring ourselves together in a massive effort to save ourselves. We can engage ourselves in a 'hive' mentality. We can peacefully 'occupy' or protest or disobey or object or what ever works as non-cooperation. If that 'foot soldier' simply refuses to pull the trigger, the war would be over, and that's the truth !!!
The Establishment Still Doesn't Recognize
The Political Revolution That's Happening
The path ahead for real progressive change is becoming clearer and clearer.
from Common Dreams by Jeff Weaver
"It’s not about a single leader. It is about a movement of millions Americans who want a better life for themselves and their families, and leadership that gives voice to those universal aspirations."
Three weeks ago, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced a Medicare for all bill with some of Democratic senators, which were a third of the Senate Democratic caucus. Just two years earlier the senator had introduced another such bill with zero cosponsors.
The latest introduction was hailed by some as an impossible achievement. After having achieved what the naysayers and many Beltway insiders admitted was the impossible, they quickly pivoted to the impossibility of moving the ball forward legislatively.
For those of us who supported Bernie Sanders’s presidential bid in 2016, this was nothing new. We spent a year confronted by all the impossibilities — he’s too left, he’s too old, he can’t raise money, he’s not coiffed enough. As he started to move in the polls from around 3 percent, they said his support had a cap.
When tens of thousands showed up for rallies during what the media dubbed the “Summer of Sanders” they said those crowds would not turn into votes. When he earned the votes of millennials of all races and eventually voters under 40 of all races, they said his appeal was too narrow. Even in the face of demonstrated success (winning 23 Democratic primary contests), raising almost a quarter of a billion dollars averaging $27 each, and demonstrating his remarkable stamina by carrying on a daily schedule that had the youthful media corps dragging -— there was always another hurdle and that hurdle was always most certainly impossible.
Nowhere was that false narrative louder than the criticism of his bold agenda as pie in the sky, rainbows and unicorns, or free ponies for everyone. Guaranteeing health care for all, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and providing tuition-free college were, at best, empty promises with no hope of success and, at worst, they were deliberate flim-flam. They were, after all, “impossible.”
Recent polling now shows escalating support for a Medicare for all health care system. Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is now the position of the Democratic Party. Target has announced it is moving toward a $15 minimum wage for all its workers by 2020. And tuition-free college is advancing in a number of states including a new two-year community college program in Rhode Island. All impossible! All happening.
That is what Bernie Sanders dubbed the Political Revolution. It’s not about a single leader. It is about a movement of millions Americans who want a better life for themselves and their families, and leadership that gives voice to those universal aspirations. It was pooh-poohed by so many cynical talking heads and defeatists in the establishment – including some in our own Party. They didn’t get the Political Revolution then and they still don’t.
This horse-blinded conventional “wisdom” played out in the last week when the Republicans, like Dracula rising yet again from the grave, tried once more to strip millions of their health insurance by gutting the Affordable Care Act. The Republican talking points tried to conflate saving the ACA with efforts to create a Medicare for all program. Many Washington insiders panicked. Hadn’t Bernie Sanders handed the GOP an argument that would allow them to strip away the ACA’s considerable gains?
Never mind that Bernie Sanders has been the active point person for the Democratic Party in fighting the Republican “repeal and replace” efforts. The senator organized over 170 events in support of the ACA, including many in so-called Trump country. As one outlet observed , “No one in the [Democratic Senate] caucus has put as much skin in the fight against repeal as the Vermont senator, who kicked off the party’s health-care resistance with a rally in Michigan a week before the inauguration and has been touring the country and in opposition pretty much non-stop.”
The carping reached a boiling point when Sens. Sanders and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) agreed to a CNN debate against the sponsors of the latest Republican repeal bill. Surely, Bernie Sanders was playing right into the hands of his enemies by letting them frame the fight as Repeal and Replace vs Medicare for all.
As it turns out the Sanders/Klobuchar tag team pretty much mopped the floor with their opponents who, ironically, spent much of the time making the case for Medicare for all by highlighting the abuses of private health insurers and the pharmaceutical companies.
Those with less fortitude missed the point — that one can lay out a bold vision for the future while defending the progress that has been made. They don’t get that the limit of what’s possible is the beginning of what is impossible and you only achieve the maximum of what’s possible by testing that ever-changing limit. Protecting hard fought gains while always pushing forward is the story of all the major successes of Democratic Party in the modern era.
Each generation builds on the progress made by its predecessor. FDR began the process by transforming America with Social Security and a host of other reforms. But he could not achieve his goal of universal health care. Truman tried next without success. LBJ created Medicare and Medicaid. Then came the CHIP program. President Obama created the Affordable Care Act. Each was a move toward universal access to health care. And the changes each iteration made to previously existing programs was not a repudiation of the previous advance but a fulfillment of the promise that today’s gains are the building blocks for tomorrow’s. The same is true for Medicare for all.
In every case outlined above, these Democratic leaders had to contend with the forces of reaction simultaneously working to destroy what had been achieved and working to prevent further progress. It wasn’t just from the other side of the aisle. Each of these Democratic leaders faced opposition from some of those forces in our own Party.
FDR’s fights within the Party are legendary. History will also remember the terrible role played by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and others in torpedoing key elements of the Affordable Care Act that President Obama supported like the much talked about Public Option. In that sense, not much has changed in the current fight for universal health care.
For all those despairing in these rather depressing political times, the last two weeks should offer a ray of hope that it is in fact always darkest before the dawn. Despite the defeatism among too many on our own side, and the ceaseless attacks we will face from the Republicans and the billionaire class they represent, the path ahead for real progressive change is clearer and clearer. Sadly, most in the establishment still don’t get it. To them, it’s always impossible and that is why they fail. The don’t see the political revolution that is happening right before their own eyes.
Jeff Weaver served as campaign manager for Senator Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign.
The Political Revolution That's Happening
The path ahead for real progressive change is becoming clearer and clearer.
from Common Dreams by Jeff Weaver
"It’s not about a single leader. It is about a movement of millions Americans who want a better life for themselves and their families, and leadership that gives voice to those universal aspirations."
Three weeks ago, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced a Medicare for all bill with some of Democratic senators, which were a third of the Senate Democratic caucus. Just two years earlier the senator had introduced another such bill with zero cosponsors.
The latest introduction was hailed by some as an impossible achievement. After having achieved what the naysayers and many Beltway insiders admitted was the impossible, they quickly pivoted to the impossibility of moving the ball forward legislatively.
For those of us who supported Bernie Sanders’s presidential bid in 2016, this was nothing new. We spent a year confronted by all the impossibilities — he’s too left, he’s too old, he can’t raise money, he’s not coiffed enough. As he started to move in the polls from around 3 percent, they said his support had a cap.
When tens of thousands showed up for rallies during what the media dubbed the “Summer of Sanders” they said those crowds would not turn into votes. When he earned the votes of millennials of all races and eventually voters under 40 of all races, they said his appeal was too narrow. Even in the face of demonstrated success (winning 23 Democratic primary contests), raising almost a quarter of a billion dollars averaging $27 each, and demonstrating his remarkable stamina by carrying on a daily schedule that had the youthful media corps dragging -— there was always another hurdle and that hurdle was always most certainly impossible.
Nowhere was that false narrative louder than the criticism of his bold agenda as pie in the sky, rainbows and unicorns, or free ponies for everyone. Guaranteeing health care for all, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and providing tuition-free college were, at best, empty promises with no hope of success and, at worst, they were deliberate flim-flam. They were, after all, “impossible.”
Recent polling now shows escalating support for a Medicare for all health care system. Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is now the position of the Democratic Party. Target has announced it is moving toward a $15 minimum wage for all its workers by 2020. And tuition-free college is advancing in a number of states including a new two-year community college program in Rhode Island. All impossible! All happening.
That is what Bernie Sanders dubbed the Political Revolution. It’s not about a single leader. It is about a movement of millions Americans who want a better life for themselves and their families, and leadership that gives voice to those universal aspirations. It was pooh-poohed by so many cynical talking heads and defeatists in the establishment – including some in our own Party. They didn’t get the Political Revolution then and they still don’t.
This horse-blinded conventional “wisdom” played out in the last week when the Republicans, like Dracula rising yet again from the grave, tried once more to strip millions of their health insurance by gutting the Affordable Care Act. The Republican talking points tried to conflate saving the ACA with efforts to create a Medicare for all program. Many Washington insiders panicked. Hadn’t Bernie Sanders handed the GOP an argument that would allow them to strip away the ACA’s considerable gains?
Never mind that Bernie Sanders has been the active point person for the Democratic Party in fighting the Republican “repeal and replace” efforts. The senator organized over 170 events in support of the ACA, including many in so-called Trump country. As one outlet observed , “No one in the [Democratic Senate] caucus has put as much skin in the fight against repeal as the Vermont senator, who kicked off the party’s health-care resistance with a rally in Michigan a week before the inauguration and has been touring the country and in opposition pretty much non-stop.”
The carping reached a boiling point when Sens. Sanders and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) agreed to a CNN debate against the sponsors of the latest Republican repeal bill. Surely, Bernie Sanders was playing right into the hands of his enemies by letting them frame the fight as Repeal and Replace vs Medicare for all.
As it turns out the Sanders/Klobuchar tag team pretty much mopped the floor with their opponents who, ironically, spent much of the time making the case for Medicare for all by highlighting the abuses of private health insurers and the pharmaceutical companies.
Those with less fortitude missed the point — that one can lay out a bold vision for the future while defending the progress that has been made. They don’t get that the limit of what’s possible is the beginning of what is impossible and you only achieve the maximum of what’s possible by testing that ever-changing limit. Protecting hard fought gains while always pushing forward is the story of all the major successes of Democratic Party in the modern era.
Each generation builds on the progress made by its predecessor. FDR began the process by transforming America with Social Security and a host of other reforms. But he could not achieve his goal of universal health care. Truman tried next without success. LBJ created Medicare and Medicaid. Then came the CHIP program. President Obama created the Affordable Care Act. Each was a move toward universal access to health care. And the changes each iteration made to previously existing programs was not a repudiation of the previous advance but a fulfillment of the promise that today’s gains are the building blocks for tomorrow’s. The same is true for Medicare for all.
In every case outlined above, these Democratic leaders had to contend with the forces of reaction simultaneously working to destroy what had been achieved and working to prevent further progress. It wasn’t just from the other side of the aisle. Each of these Democratic leaders faced opposition from some of those forces in our own Party.
FDR’s fights within the Party are legendary. History will also remember the terrible role played by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and others in torpedoing key elements of the Affordable Care Act that President Obama supported like the much talked about Public Option. In that sense, not much has changed in the current fight for universal health care.
For all those despairing in these rather depressing political times, the last two weeks should offer a ray of hope that it is in fact always darkest before the dawn. Despite the defeatism among too many on our own side, and the ceaseless attacks we will face from the Republicans and the billionaire class they represent, the path ahead for real progressive change is clearer and clearer. Sadly, most in the establishment still don’t get it. To them, it’s always impossible and that is why they fail. The don’t see the political revolution that is happening right before their own eyes.
Jeff Weaver served as campaign manager for Senator Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign.
'we' should recognize the truth - 'we' have the strongest hand, and 'we' need to learn how to use it...
No comments:
Post a Comment