April 6, 2016

Yep. May Day, 1970, on the Green. Jerry, Dave, Kunst, and me took some Owsley

that Abbie brought up from Cambridge for "guidance" the night before. Abbie said the fuckin' fascist pigs had tanks by the side if the road on the way in. Allen was straight, and reciting poetry and doing Omms. Suddenly all hell broke loose when Nixon's agents provocateurs let loose with some rocks and bottles at the pigs. I remember Jerry grabbing the mike on the Podium, shouting something like "Don't go down there, this is total shit!" before the pigs hit us with the tear gas. National Guard was all over the place...a band was rockin' the Green...and then, the girl, surrounded by a strange white light, (it could have been Hillary), appeared out of nowhere and flashed the peace sign from the podium. The band stopped playing in this surreal moment when time stopped - and that's exactly when Ingall's blew (Nixon's people again), glass and concrete flyin' everywhere.

The mystery girl in the white light disappeared into the screams and thick smoke. I looked for her later, to no avail. No one knew who she was.

Was it her? Or was it just the Owsley playing tricks with my head?

I guess we'll never really know.

March 30, 2016

Merrily, sad to say, the video below illustrates exactly what we're dealing with:

Ignore is our friend.

March 15, 2016

Before I ever agree to vote for Hillary in the GE, I will need the Dem Establishment to give me the

pet Unicorn that I ask for, prior to the vote. After suffering through years of abuse, my vote is my vote and mine alone, and it can no longer be taken for granted by the Third Way. Not ever again.

This is known as "leverage". (pun intended)

Right now, my preferred pet Unicorn looks a lot like a set in stone contract for an Executive Order, publicly backed by the Dem Establishment, shutting down all fracking operations in the US. I already know that Bernie Sanders has a plan to give me my pet Unicorn. I don't expect Hillary will get the nomination, but I'm making my needs known just in case the unthinkable occurs and she wins the Dem nomination fair and square..

Empty promises, lip service, and simply "being better than a republican" will no longer accepted as satisfactory payment for my vote. I expect the utmost in integrity and service from the employees I elect to serve me.

Show me the Unicorn!

March 10, 2016

But if she stops lying about Bernie, what will she have left to campaign on?

Maybe her surrogates could start lying about Bernie supporters, too, and use that to campaign on.

Oh, yeah, wait...that didn't work out so well either, did it? Now they've gone all the way back to the 50's and Joe McCarthy for some red scare material to campaign against Bernie with.

Someone should tell Secretary Clinton that red scare McCarthyism tactics didn't work out so well for Nixon in 1960. And thank heaven for that, if people had fallen for Nixon's red scare BS, we would never have had John F. Kennedy for our President.

Speaking of lying, and "I am not a crook" Nixon, let us hope Secretary Clinton's various issues that she is reluctant to reveal and clarify don't result in a headline similar to the one below a year from now:

March 9, 2016

There are many other reasons as well. The turnout of Left Independent voters in Michigan

is one example of why Clinton cannot beat Trump in the GE. Similar minded voters exist in every state in large numbers.

Independents and most millennials nationwide simply will not show up for Clinton. They, like traditional Democrats, want Bernie in the WH. Right or wrong, they feel the difference between Bernie and Clinton is little different than the difference between Bernie and a Republican.

The urban electorate that accounts for the majority percentage of the Clinton votes is not at all representative of the overall electorate in most non-urban, and some urban, areas of the US. Take Michigan, for example. Wayne County alone, where Detroit is located, gave Clinton 163,886 of her statewide total of 576,723 votes.

That's roughly about 35% of her total votes statewide in Michigan. One county gave her 35% of her total vote count.

Clinton may win the battle of the Democrats, but she cannot win the nationwide war. Bernie is the sole candidate that can beat Trump in the GE.

Because my state has closed primaries, a critical part of our ground game here has been registering Independents as Dems so they can vote for Bernie in the primaries. I've had more than a few left leaning Independents practically spit in disgust when I explained to them that, in order to vote for Bernie in the primaries, they had to register as Democrats. Some even got angry at me and told me that there was no way they would register as a Democrats. I hope they changed their minds later on.

This is the legacy of the *Third Way New Democrats*. Driving traditional Democrats from the party, and alienating left leaning independents to the point where they would rather stay home and deal with a republican in the WH rather than vote for a fake Democrat.

"Looks like we're still in Kansas, Toto"

March 9, 2016

Bernie! Wooohooo!

March 7, 2016

It depends on your value system. If conscienceless global imperialism, utter

disregard for human beings and the value of human life, major global exploitation of labor, unfettered destruction of the environment, the mass slaughter and maiming of millions of people in the name of profit, corporate establishment control of mainstream media for the purpose of brainwashing cultures, control of governments by wealthy private interests, etc, ad nauseum, are not evil in your estimation, then I reckon that corporations and their establishment culture and systems are not evil from your point of view.

However, many of us, myself included, consider the aforementioned, and incomplete, list of unspeakably wicked crimes committed by the corporate establishment to unquestionably constitute evil, and no amount of pleading the case for the corporate establishment is going to change that POV.

March 6, 2016

Reagan just keeps on winning, long after his death.

It's sad, how completely the Dem party has become a tool of wealthy private interests.

The propaganda from these wealthy business interests has created a large Dem voting bloc that has been brainwashed into consistently voting against their own best interests, and against the interests of the rest of us who are not wealthy, and/or socially advantaged. Now, we have two parties, and a government, completely controlled by wealthy private interests, and both of these parties have millions of media brainwashed voters who are doing their bidding, beyond all reason, logic, common sense, and compassion for others.

This is no longer the party of the People that I so proudly joined almost a half century ago. I'm tired of banging my head against the wall year after year, competing against this bloc of *New Democrats* within my own party, that cannot even give me a valid, logical, coherent reason for why they vote to nominate candidates whose primary function is to serve only the wealthiest among us.

A house divided against itself will not stand, and progressive Democrats are not at fault here.

March 3, 2016

The grapes of wrath.

The math already proves that Clinton cannot win the GE, and the odds of her winning the GE become slimmer with each passing day.

The Democratic party may want to consider renaming itself "The Third Way", because "Democratic" no longer accurately describes this co-opted New Democrat Frankenstein party' owned by oligarchs, that is making all the great Democrats and Democratic Presidents before Nixon roll over in their graves.

Dem turnout in the primaries is low. Republican turnout in the primaries is way up. Neither Democratic POTUS candidate, not Clinton, and not Bernie, can win the southern states, where an enormous chunk of Clinton's base resides. It just ain't gonna happen there. Hillary can win none of the other red states, and can win few, or none, of the swing states. Right independents don't trust her, and the newly registered Dem voters, millennials, and left independents that Bernie brought to the dance with him will not vote for Clinton in any significant numbers. Many long time progressive Dems are done with voting for the lesser of two evils, are totally disgusted a the complete lack of integrity within the Clinton campaign, will see Clinton's nomination as a grave insult to their intelligence and integrity, and will either stay home, or vote third party for POTUS, and vote Democratic in all other elections. Having no where else to go, the dispossessed Dem left will very possibly attempt to form a new left coalition party with the Greens and other independent left parties and individuals. Many traditional Dems will hold their noses and vote for Clinton, but there will be fewer of these voters than ever before in history.

Vote for Bernie. A Perfect Storm is coming if Clinton is nominated. Please, don't shoot the messenger. My contingency exit plans in the case of Clinton nomination, and the inevitable, subsequent President Trump emergency are already in place.

"....and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." ~ John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 25

peace

February 26, 2016

It's true, less than 4 years of the New Deal cured some republicans of the notion

of conservatism being good for them forever by the time of the 1936 election. Democrats controlled our government for about 20 years after FDR was elected.

"...In order to dismantle the New Deal, ultraconservatives have invested many billions since the late 1970s in changing the way conservatives think and artificially widening the gulf between sides so that most believe cooperation with us in anything would be harmful to the nation."

True, I saw it happen. Nevertheless, conservatives gave us that mythical gift of "pragmatic conservatism" with Nixon in '68, and again in '72. And then went on to insult the entire universe by electing Reagan an 1980. Conservative Democrats joined with conservative Republicans to place an unquestionably evil man in the position of Commander in Chief of the United States. So not cool. The "left" is the very antithesis, the polar opposite, of Reagan.

I'm old, and the older I get, the more I see the damage inflicted upon humanity by conservatives continue to mount. Even in its least extreme form, it still contributes to impoverishment of our people, and the destruction of our planet.

"Democrats moving to the middle is a double disaster that alienates the party's progressive base while simultaneously sending a message to swing voters that the other side is where the good ideas are.' It unconsciously locks in the notion that the other side's positions are worth moving toward, while your side's positions are the ones to move away from. Plus every time you move to the center, the right just moves further to the right." George Lakoff