"Of Course I Don't Advocate Sitting Out the Election!" Some DU'ers Missed This:

[KoKo]

Last edited Mon Oct 13, 2014, 09:08 PM - Edit history (1)

An incredibly interesting Post by a DU'er that makes some excellent points. Whether one agrees or disagrees it's a "Good Read."



DU'er Savannahmann here...........

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Of course I don't advocate sitting out the election

But I think it's a lot of hooey. No one here would have seen that article if you hadn't posted it. But you needed a scapegoat to explain why the Democratic Party lost the Senate. Now, thanks to you, I have the perfect defense as to why the Democratic Party appears to be losing the Senate Election, bookmarked in fact. The reason that Ms. Carmen Velasquez is upset is that she's worked hard for the Democrats for ten years. For ten years she's asked that the Democrats address the problems that she sees every day. Immigration reform.


For ten years, five elections, the Democrats have said yes, if we're elected, we'll take care of it. But they never have. They've been too afraid to address the problem. Now, Ms Carmen Velasquez is angry. This time all they're getting is the promise that the President will take executive action, like he said in the spring, and the summer, after the elections, sometime.

But as I explained, everyone knows that's not true. The inevitability of Hillary people will be screaming at the White House to do nothing of the sort that would poison her chances at winning the election in 2016. Vulnerable Democrats in the House and Senate will be screaming just as loud behind closed doors pointing to this election as proof that the Republicans can win, and the party must come first. We just can't afford to lose the racist vote, while ignoring the Latino vote.

This reminds me of West Wing, the TV Show. In it Toby is talking to a Politician, who is expressing the level of upset from one of the core groups of the Democratic Party, the environmental movement. Toby asks where they're going to go? What will they do, vote Republican? Toby dismisses the threat, because he believes he will win either way. The Democratic Party leadership assumed that the danger of losing the support of Ms. Velasquez was non existent. Look at the quality of the woman we lost, pandering for the racist vote. Look at the support we've lost, as we hope to get a few more racists to support our party. Racists who will abandon us the second we do anything for Ms. Velasquez. Look how useless it is, because we're still losing the Senate. Look at what a waste it is. Afraid to act for fear of putting the Senate in jeopardy, and in doing so, we've put the senate in jeopardy.

The point of Ms. Velasquez, and of mine for longer is this. You can't take your supporters for granted. IF you don't see that point, then there's no hope. You haven't proven your point, you've proven one of mine. That principles and ideals matter, and you have to live up to your promises. Because I honestly doubt that Ms. Velasquez would be able to encourage the Latino community to turn out and vote for people that they believe have betrayed them. I can shout GOTV all day, and not erase that sense of betrayal. I can shout GOTV from now to election day, and not make a dent in the hearts of people who have seen loved ones deported all the while knowing that the person I helped get elected, promised it wouldn't happen.

Nothing I say to a progressive like you could make you stay away from the polls. No argument I can conceive of would make a dent in the people who feel betrayed by the actions of those they've elected. Principles matter, and one principle the Democratic party have seemingly forgotten is this. Don't promise what you can't deliver. We destroyed Bush '41 with read my lips, no new taxes broken promise ads. Did we think that no on would hold our side accountable for broken promises?


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My VIEW:

The Post was in Reply to This where fellow DU'ers tried to Trash Lefty "Common Dreams" Website for Posting an Article from Politico and some thought that "Common Dreams"Website should be Banned or Something for posting a very good article from Hispanic Activists that we DEMOCRACTS SUPPORT:

WTF is going on with Dem Party to Trash it's Democratic Websites who post articles that Hispanics are Unhappy with Immigration Policy by Dem Party?

WHO are they supposed to go to? The REPUG TEA PARTY for HELP? GIVE ME A BREAK...they feel Abandoned by DEMS!

Published on
Tuesday, September 09, 2014
by
Politico
Obama Broke His Promise to Latinos (Maybe We Should Sit This Election Out)

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/09/09/obama-broke-his-promise-latinos-maybe-we-should-sit-election-out

[hobbit709]

1. K and a BIG R

[JaneyVee]

2. Didn't prez grant amnesty for millions?

I believe we need CIR but executive actions can be undone by the next prez just as easily. Passing CIR via house and senate makes any reform much harder to undo. I believe he will use executive action power on this issue regardless, he's got nothing to lose.

[Major Hogwash]

3. I don't know what you're talking about.

Is there a link to that comment?

[countryjake]

10. Did you read what KoKo posted? It seems fairly clear to me.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5660175

[winter is coming]

4. "turn out and vote for people that they believe have betrayed them"

This is where we have a comprehension gap in some GOTV efforts. To the hyper-partisan, the idea that the GOP is worse is an unassailable argument that should be sufficient to get any non-Republican voter running to the polls.

That's not going to be as persuasive as they imagine, though, with voters who feel betrayed by the Dems. You can tell them the GOP is worse, but they've been betrayed by you: why should they believe you now when you lied to them before? And even if they agree you're right, the "choice" they're being offered is between two parties, neither of which are representing their interests.

[woo me with science]

5. Excellent post. the Obama administration has also continued the outrageous arbitrary quota

for prison beds in private prisons, which are overwhelmingly used to profit from immigrant detainees. His 2015 budget continues arbitrary quotas for private prison beds that overwhelmingly house immigrants.

It is wrong. It is fueled by profit-seeking private prison lobbyists. And it is an abomination.

The president asked for what in his budget?!
http://www.presente.org/campaign/tell-obama-remove-quota-from-his-budget/original_email/

News flash: President Obama’s 2015 budget requests a wasteful and dangerous policy that indiscriminately jams immigrants into private prisons.

Immigrants who have committed no crimes or only minor crimes are being stuffed into prisons to meet an arbitrary immigrant body count quota passed by the House of Representatives in 2006. That means ICE has a sick incentive to rip immigrant families apart, profile Latinos in border communities, and give billions of dollars away to private prison corporations like GEO Group -- all for no good reason.1

President Obama could push back against this policy. Instead, his budget request legitimizes it. It’s one thing for GOP extremists to request a policy like this -- it’s another thing entirely when a President who claims to support our communities does.

Some people call it the “bed mandate.” We call it the immigrant imprisonment quota. Whatever you call it, it’s bad news -- so why does President Obama seem to support it?

Controversial quota drives immigration detention boom
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/controversial-quota-drives-immigration-detention-boom/2013/10/13/09bb689e-214c-11e3-ad1a-1a919f2ed890_story_2.html

By Nick Miroff, E-mail the writer

KARNES CITY, Tex. — In the past five years, Homeland Security officials have jailed record numbers of immigrants, driven by a little-known congressional directive known on Capitol Hill as the “bed mandate.”

The policy requires U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to keep an average of 34,000 detainees per day in its custody, a quota that has steadily risen since it was established in 2006 by conservative lawmakers who insisted that the agency wasn’t doing enough to deport unlawful immigrants.

But as illegal crossings from Mexico have fallen to near their lowest levels since the early 1970s, ICE has been meeting Congress’s immigration detention goals by reaching deeper into the criminal justice system to vacuum up foreign-born, legal U.S. residents convicted of any crimes that could render them eligible for deportation. The agency also has greatly expanded the number of undocumented immigrants it takes into custody after traffic stops by local police.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials say that they are not needlessly jailing immigrants to meet a quota and that they find plenty of candidates for detention and deportation by targeting criminals who pose a threat to public safety and border security.

But critics of the mandate note that the majority of ICE detainees are not violent offenders. Immigration judges eventually allow many to remain in the United States, but the detainees may spend months in costly federal custody, even when far cheaper alternatives are available, such as ankle bracelets and other forms of electronic monitoring.

Hopes frustrated, many Latinos reject the ballot box altogether
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4759030

Thanks for drawing attention to that excellent post. It was worth logging in to rec.

[KoKo]

6. Good Links...Read... It's not that any of us are against Obama

Last edited Mon Oct 13, 2014, 10:35 PM - Edit history (1)

but he is a "Lame Duck President" at this point and Dems need to Move Along because there's only Two Years Left of Obama and WHAT AND WHO will come after HIM?

We need to be on our Toes....alert for Candidates who Express Our Values. Obama has had his Time........we need to MOVE FORWARD.

[woo me with science]

7. +1 The lesson to be learned

is well-expressed in your post:

We need to be on our Toes....alert for Candidates who Express Our Values.

If we have learned anything these past six years, it is that we can no longer rely solely on party labels to be sure of the values and policies a politician will express.

Let's not get fooled again.

[KoKo]

9. I think about all we've been through...especially those here on this site....

It's been a great learning experience. I will always remember these long years as something I learned so much from.

But..you make a great point. What many of us who've been here and involved all this time might be thinking is what you said:

"Let's not get fooled again."

Yet...what I worry about is that "How could we have gotten so fooled again, again?"

So...how can we avoid getting fooled again when the choices are so limited. We don't have a stable full of "Raring to Go Dems" waiting in the wings. Yet the Repubs have the usual "Stable of Stud Fools" who will go at it for the Brass Ring once again.

Which party has the worse fools? The most electable or unelectable?

Are we much different from years past? Or is their ANOTHER CHARISMATIC OBAMA who will appear on the scene and Sweep us Off OUR FEET... Or is it Hillary....the choice of Resignation to Clintonomics and DLC Failed Policies Revisited from the "Days of or Democratic Youth with Hope for Change from Arkansas?"

I don't see NEW BLOOD DEMS...but, I do see both Warren and Sanders as "A Voice for Change" but.....without the "creds/Foreign Policy Rigid Doctrine" that the Dem Machine would take a chance with follow through with.

Obama was such an Incredible "HOPE FOR CHANGE"....whofollowed y the other DEM Presidents who were also running on....Hope for Change...that it seems we Dems are now at the bottom of the barrel fishing to find someone. We did the YOUNG and now we GO FOR the OLDER "WISE ONES?"

I'm fine with the "Older WISE ONES".......but, the country has moved beyond that...and yet there's little direction from the Youthful as to DIRECTION...

It's Tough Times...in many ways...Trying to sort out after this President who OFFERED SO MUCH. He did what he could...but didn't leave room for a Follow Up to step in his footsteps and work to get his HOPES Realized.

Maybe there just isn't much left in our system that works much, anymore. Or...we do the DYNASTY and do that "HOPE" once again with "Hillary/Bill?" Hoping they learned from their mistakes?

Sorry for all the typo's and edits...I'm tired.....

[woo me with science]

11. "Maybe there just isn't much left in our system that works much, anymore."

Last edited Tue Oct 14, 2014, 12:04 AM - Edit history (5)

Maybe there just isn't much left in our system that works much, anymore.

Well, I think that's been obvious for some time, but it is only recently that we have heard the truth spoken.

Jimmy Carter: "America no longer has a functioning democracy."

Princeton Study: US now an oligarchy, not a democracy
Citizens have virtually no input into policy anymore
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/the-us-no-longer-democracy

The Bernies and the Elizabeths will be welcomed to speak for as long as they are useful to sustain the illusion that we still have debate and democracy. Any real perceived threat to the oligarchy would be eliminated as soon as it began to gain momentum.

IMO we need to aggressively participate in a way that prolongs and amplifies for as long as possible the few voices that are speaking the truth about what has really been done to this country. Explicitly and loudly reject every corporate myth and manipulation and tie it directly to the corporate money behind the political machines and corporate politicians. Focus like a laser on the real issues of corporate ownership of our government and our elections, and expose the elaborate corporate theater our elections have become.

IMO Bernie's brilliance is that he refuses to be diverted from that education. When you can teach people to look past all the shiny diversions that the MSM will throw at them, and focus on the patterns of money and policy that never change from corporate administration to administration....

We are still educating and growing a movement, and it has to happen well beyond DU. This election will be a powerful teaching tool. It's a powerful thing when people start to see the patterns and realize they can predict exactly what will be done to them...and they start to watch for exactly how it's done.

[KoKo]

15. My Hope, Also! Nothing should go to waste for our efforts......

We might not see it in our lifetime left...but, to have been a part of it...It's what we could do for future. We did our best...and we should think about that is "time not wasted." imho.

As You Say:

We are still educating and growing a movement, and it has to happen well beyond DU. This election will be a powerful teaching tool. It's a powerful thing when people start to see the patterns and realize they can predict exactly what will be done to them...and they start to watch for exactly how it's done.

[KoKo]

8. Kick for "Savannahman's Post"....good read whether you agree or disagree...

It says "something" we need to hear...and maybe more important than just "something."

[Doctor_J]

12. but....Palin!!!!

The current dc dems do not represent liberals. At all. The president has gotten to be a joke. His worshippers are even more revolting.

[Scuba]

13. K&R

[malaise]

14. Must read - rec n/t

[KoKo]

16. ...kick for the Dilemna! Agonizing with Conscience..

.....but go with ?