This is a bit of a throw-away post while I try to finish one or two other diaries that have stalled a bit, but… I’d read a diary at Caucus99% yesterday with Politico’s coverage of this what? Development or devolution?
Good on Amy; good on those who resigned over the Bern & Co.’s unprincipled financial switcheroo/s. Glad they felt the Bern’s burn. Any more questions about Bernie’s ‘Revolution’? A few excerpts:
AMY GOODMAN: Claire Sandberg, you were a part of the Bernie Sanders campaign. You were the organizing director for Our Revolution. But right before it launched last night, you and more than half the staff quit. Why?
CLAIRE SANDBERG: Yes. Well, last Monday, as we were—as the staff at Our Revolution was—I’m sorry, there’s an echo. So, last Monday, as the staff of Our Revolution was preparing for a very busy week, gearing up for the launch event last night, we learned that Jeff Weaver would be stepping in to run, actively manage, Our Revolution, which was a decision that was met with unanimous concern among the entire staff at Our Revolution. And—
AMY GOODMAN: Now, Jeff Weaver was the campaign director of Bernie Sanders during his presidential campaign.
CLAIRE SANDBERG: Yes, Jeff was the campaign manager at the organization. And all of us who worked on the campaign who moved over to Our Revolution did so based on the promise that Jeff Weaver would not be involved in Our Revolution or that his role would be strictly constrained as a legal adviser or a board member who would have somewhat of a token role. But it became clear—and so, there were two main concerns among the staff. One, we all saw how Jeff ran the campaign, and there were a number of concerns about that. Secondly, Jeff’s leadership and advice as a legal adviser had already hamstrung Our Revolution before it even launched, specifically Jeff’s decision to constitute the organization as a 501(c)(4), which prevented us from doing effective down-ballot organizing for candidates, also effective down-ballot fundraising. And—
AMY GOODMAN: Why is that, Claire?
CLAIRE SANDBERG: Well, Jeff has gone on the record admitting that he wanted to form the organization as a 501(c)(4) for the express purpose of accepting billionaire money, which of course flies in the face of what all of our supporters were so excited about, that we were taking a country back from the billionaire class without the use of billionaire money, $27 at a time.
Well, a 501(c)(4) organization has a number of problems with it. One, federal officeholders cannot be involved in 501(c)(4) organizations. So, there is a real question about whether Bernie could even be involved as a spokesperson, as someone who could send out emails. Secondly, candidates cannot coordinate with 501(c)(4) organizations. We can’t—we can’t have private, nonpublic conversations about, for example, how to mobilize volunteers or what voters we’re talking to. We can’t make sure that we’re not duplicating efforts, calling the same voters twice. We can’t do any of those things.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Larry Cohen (incoming board chair of Our Revolution) , what about this?
LARRY COHEN: Well, you know, I’m not going to get into a legal wrangle with Claire. I think the key is that all of us on this board believe that we will mobilize millions of people. We’re not here to run campaigns. That would be a different kind of organization. We will mobilize millions of people against the TPP. We will enable people to donate to campaigns. We will be involved in eight ballot measures that are on the website right now, OurRevolution.com, that range from getting big money out of politics to single-payer healthcare in Colorado. We will be supporting, you know, great candidates, from Pramila Jayapal, who’s running for Congress in Seattle, to people running for school board. So, this is not—none of us on this board, and the design of this is not to run campaigns. The design of this is really to continue the political revolution.
…yada, yada, read the rest concerning Bernie’s having been a No-Show for Tim Canova,” in his South Florida battle against U.S. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Cohen’s bullshit response.
But lol; re: Colorado’s ballot initiative Amendment 69 to implement Medicare for all, read the brilliant Renee Parson’s August 24, 2016 scathing indictment ’Obamacare Supporters Oppose ColoradoCare’
Not just state Dems, but ‘progressive organizations’ are working to tank it (say it with money), NARAL, some trade unions, the Koch Bros. and
“Meanwhile the main opposition group, Coloradans for Coloradans, which crowed about the Democrats joining the opposition, have collected $1 M from Anthem, $450,000 from UnitedHealthCare Services, Healthone Systems and Centura Health $250,000 each, Cigna Health $100,000, PHRMA $100,000, the Colorado Association of Realtors $100,000 and so forth – you might image the rest of the list.”
Vanity Fair’s hit piece notes:
“The brewing conflict within Our Revolution reached a fever pitch last week during a conference call between Weaver, Kenneth Pennington, the group’s recently departed digital director, and Jane Sanders, chairwoman of Our Revolution’s board, Politico reports. The trio had a discussion wherein Pennington reportedly voiced his concerns, but was unhappy with the resolution and quit shortly afterward. Weaver has written off the slew of resignations as growing pains within a group that still “has to find its footing,” according to Politico. “People are very excited about continuing the work that was done on the campaign and making sure we bring Bernie’s progressive vision to reality.” The revolution, sans revolutionaries, soldiers on.”
But moar from August 16 Weaver:
‘In private call, DNC flexes unity with Clinton camp and Sanders team’, politico.com
“I know that sometimes in primaries there can be sharp elbows, and I hope I haven’t bumped into too many of you,” Weaver said on the call. “But as we go forward into the general election, I’m very happy to be working with members of the Clinton team in trying to get the secretary elected.”
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
Refusing to be LULZed Back to sheep.
arf arf! dagnabbit, the folks at BAR are gonna have a hella good time w/ this, eh?
wd ( i can’t comment with firefox, oddly.)
Heard about folks quitting our revolution 5pm news before the 9p stream. Very disappointed and further details above confirm the demise of “ourrevolution,INC” for “grassroots” organizing.
It’s VERY similar to Obomba killing Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy the day after his ’08 election. Damn shame.
I voted for Jill Stein in ’12 and will do the same this time tho “the game is rigged” to put it mildly.
As far as Bernie goes, I’ll always praise his 18 months of full out run for the presidency with everything stacked against him: all the media and DNC actively working against him and state party election rules (had to be registered Dem October 2015 to vote for him in NY, even so they purged blocks of voters in his Bronx birthplace just in case) plus cutting polling places. It took every dirty political trick to stop him and even then Clinton had to use the “super delegates” to get the 2325 necessary to “win” — not to mention AP announcing her “win” the day before California and 6 other states voted.
Still feeling the Bern but ourrevolution is toast.
morning, karenjj2. you’re not alone in still honoring his run, nor feeling bitter about his being robbed by media, voter purging, etc. he was essentially an FDR without the threat of the wobblies, so yeah, i could like his domestic stuff, but certainly not his militaristic bent. as an aside, norman solomon is at trnn with an interview titled:
‘Sanders Launch of “Our Revolution” a Step Forward and a Step Backwards; Norman Soloman, head of The Bernie Delegates Network, says the overall structure and objectives of “Our Revolution” are encouraging but Sanders retreated from positions he took towards the end of his presidential campaign by not addressing US foreign policy and wars’
guess i missed that, i often asked folks why the sported ‘bernie for peace’ avatars. perhaps bern’s FP had ‘evolved’? ;-)
so many amerikans were sooo hungry for someone who touted populist policy, but forgot that from the start that bern had said he’d endorse the red queen if he lost the primary. the ‘sheep-dogging for HRC’ charges. but yes this all reminds me of O shutting down his ‘organizing for amerika’ thingie. who needs actual people power now we’re IN?
i saw some folks at c99% claiming that he was only endorsing her w/ such fervor because…the PTB had threatened his life. they don’t have to, do they, since it’s been decided that she’s in the white house already in all but physical fact, and ooof! her transition team is a good ‘un.
my guess is that the green prez ticket ‘results’ will read about how they did four years ago. juliania showed me in email that their numbers never changed after some time in the night. gotta keep those upstarts down! but i’ll vote for ajamu baraka; stein’s okay for a white gurl./s
the guardian said about his livestream that the issues he talked about were tpp, citizens united, and …mebbe one other thing. then the author pointed out that ‘some’ were noting that our revolution is run by white guys; do you know if any people of color are/were on the board?
Karenjj2
“Still feeling the Bern but our revolution is toast” seems to be a tad too far reaching or a putting the cart before the horse. Of course, here in our wonderful Sonoran Desert, the “revolution” has existed for all these many years, even when The Bern was politically active in the 1960s, And as is quite obvious, this boosterism for progressivism will continue apace, despite the less than majority of progressivisms, from a geographical descriptive, of the East of the Mississippi River.
Now, I will commend the former employees for resigning since they have no interest in ascribing to the ‘dark money’ and where wealthy donors to The Bern, cannot be located, and yet, “keeping clean” is difficult to accomplish.
Jaango
hey, jaango; i have some news almost ready to post that concerns your neck of the woods, as well as my long-time outrage. i just need to try to edit out half of it so it’s er…it’s not too long too read, as so often happens. ;-)
As an infernal Progressive Optimist and a staunch Democrat, for these past many years, I have advocated the establishment of a seminal “Democratic Progressive Caucus PAC,” and done the premise that the successful fundraising would start on creating a staff of both writers and attorneys. To wit, the staff would craft the Progressive Agenda and the attorneys would take Agenda and craft the legislation required in order to have this legislation introduced in the Senate at the completion of each re-election cycle. And yes, no “progressive” Senator would have either a leadership position or a decision-making position.
In closing and until the Progressives begin to challenge the Democratic Senator in the respective chamber in Congress, Progressives at the state and local levels, will NOT have any “influence” or capacity to achieve a substantive or long term success. Consequently, we, as progressives will be discussing the dearth of issues with no resulting successes being seen on the political horizon. As such, it been great for a discussion on the internet, but our Reality is begging for our attention.
Jaango
Wendy,
I’m looking forward to it, with bated breath and breadth!
Jaango.
lol; dunno if you’ll think it’s Good News or Meh News. but i’m almost finished editing, but sadly…haven’t cut much. as the man said so well…”and so it goes..”.
and let’s not forget that after all the revelations of the awful shenanigans the DNC pulled to torpedo his run, Bern meekly did nothing. or rather folded faster than Al Gore on laundry day. I don’t get the expection that he would have done anything otherwise once in office. The DNC represents the interests he’d have to take on in office. and he didn’t.
and ditto WD’s point about foreign policy. It may be encouraging that his campaign revealed that Americans are really hungry for some real change. not to get into “conspiracy” mongering, but maybe that’s why Trump is running? frighten us all into the HRC camp?
ah, you may be speaking about ‘coincidence theory’, rather. while looking for the man who’d coined that term on a blogging help word doc i keep around, i saw this oldie but goodie:
“Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip, but the really well-trained dog is the one that turns his somersault when there is no whip.”
~ George Orwell
added on edit: i’d meant to say that when i’d taken the ‘less bugsplat bernie’ diary i gave to karnjj2 up yonder to naked capitalism on another long post supporting bernie to the Nth degree, a former commenter at FDL whom i’d considered one of the brightest and wisest told me (along with many others) that bernie would be so busy enacting beneficial domestic policy that…he wouldn’t have Time for foreign misadventures. wtf?
some other blogger said one time that US domestic policy, SS/Medicare/etc., as meager & awful as it is, is really a bribe to get us all to look the other way on FP. w/enough butter, we ignore the guns.
certainly “middle classness” serves that function as well.
seems to be about right, but since the social safety net is so meager now, wealth inequality is staggering since 2008 (esp for blacks), the nation’s turned its lonely and frightened eyes toward ‘the new mother of amerika’ who will…will…fix it all?
i love the trumpeter’s quote: oh, yes, the foundation does some gr-r-r-eat things, like arrange mega weapons sales for the house of saud, etc. oh, sorry; that was just coincidental, not post hoc ergo propter hoc at play, nossir!
“I don’t give a damn about your emails” will go down in history, along with the captain of the Titanic saying, “what’s an iceberg?’
WASF.
ha! i hadn’t heard that quote, so went a-binging. you were right, and oooh, these fellers had some responses and pointed some good ‘fallout’. ;-)
whazza WASF?
The only advantage a 501(c)(4) gives to donors is anonymity. In a revolution, it’s not only billionaires who could use anonymity, but I doubt that that occurred to Jeff Weaver at all — post campaign careers being what they are. The price that the organization (it is an organization and not a movement once it’s incorporated and tax deductible) is that (1) it must serve some policy or advocacy role and (2) supporting candidates must be a lesser part of its expenditures and in doing so it must not coordinate with the candidates.
The conventional way of using 501(c)(4) organizations is huge between-year policy advocacy and non-stop negative advertising against those opposing those policies during election years. And they typically end the negative ad with “Call Rep. So-and-So and tell him he’s wrong about such-and-such.”
There are some interesting possibilities for culture jamming with a 501(c)(4). I don’t think Our Revolution has any idea what culture jamming involves. but if the hire the Yes Men, ……
I wonder which billionaires Jeff Weaver has in mind as sugar daddies.
now their website says contributions aren’t tax deductible; here’s their privacy policy (2L2R $ me), but w/ all the talk about digital communications, they don’t seem to note a twit account. ‘our revolution’ on twitter seems to be mixed with bernistas and greenistas.
billionaire sugar daddies (there must be mommies too, by now)? lol. surely “pierre”, prolly not gates, but come to think of it: did bernie ever say “i’m sick of hearing about the clinton foundation investigations?” you wouldn’t believe how many librul websites believe (or pretend to believe) it’s an actual factual philanthropic organization. no pay to play, no pay for access, no nuttin’. same for herr gates and the mizzus.
i, alas, caught a moment of some trumpinista (trumpinator? trumptator?) spokespoodle on Fuchs news saying:
The Clinton Fdtn is the most corrupt organization in the world.
and
They do a lot of good work.
speaking of orwell & holding contradictory opinions at the same time…
Thanks for the correction. Yes, 501(c)(4)s are not tax-deductible; that’s why most veal pens have both 501(c)(3)s and 4s. A tax-deductible thank the donors side and an advocacy and politics hide-the-donors side. Threatened withdrawal of donations to 501(c)(4)s is how the 1% control and guide the veal pens to actually sacrifice the little calves who were attracted to the 501(c)(3).
Or how AARP wound up supporting the grand bargain.
yes! and thank you, thd. but i’d add: if, as it seems, the our revolution folks do mean, even now, to use donations to run adds (against even clinton?) the interviewer asked norman solomon, as though the D platform is anything but yak and shite), i see why those hopeful…said thanks, but no thanks. the title i’d brought is a bit misleading, now that there’s a transcript up.) still, no solomon fan i yam. but: prepare for 2018, i many ways understandable (not that there’s actually verifiable time for syrians, et.al.
The quote that is staying with me this morning from a counterpunch article is:
“There is no lesser evil.”
So, I would class Bernie Sanders in with Hubert Humphrey and ilk, whilst somewhat mangling the ancient greek aphorism that one should count no man honest until after his death.
When supposedly well meaning politicians (I am going to be harsh here) funnel funds, national attention, integrity etc. etc. into a black hole, acting as if they are the political New Best Hope, what they have done is mindbogglingly and deceitfully wasteful.
There was even on counterpunch this morning an article asking “Did Al Gore Throw the 2000 Election?” or words to that effect. Does the question even need to be asked? Who was the ‘lesser evil’ in that race? is my question – that’s the big one that has needed to be asked since the turn of the century.
Oh yes, history will remember you, Bernie Sanders. But not in the way your better angel wishes you would be remembered. You will remembered as the latest HH in a stream of HH’s, cast in the Obama mold.
So no, I am reversing myself and saying that yes, although sometimes evil does good in its sham advocation of causes, have we seen it? So far we have not. Evil triumphs, (I will still hope temporarily,) having diverted our attention (and our energies!) from the true advocates of good.
There is no lesser evil. (In the Orthodox “Our Father” the last line is “. . .and deliver us from the evil one.” Not simply “evil”; and no gradations! )
Bernie, like Obama, is a sham.
[For those who do not remember or were not alive at the time, Hubert Humphrey, after considerable Bernie-like advocacy of liberal causes in the Senate and even as VP, as the presidential candidate espoused and supported LBJ’s debilitating Vietnam policies and scuttled the political peace movement already in emotional disarray due to the assassination of Robert Kennedy, enabling Nixon to continue the carnage. Well worth remembering.]
i thank you for the history lesson/reminder on HH. for me, his visage became over time…the darkness that lurked within. please don’t consider this any sort of a worthy argument okay? but i did note that bernie, aside from his glowing fervor about the Red Queen when endorsing her had said to the effect: ‘above all, #NoTrump, and he didn’t mean a bid in bridge.
so he and sooooo many others will salve their consciences by claiming that theme, as well as ‘party first’, and after all, no matter his explanations, he ran as a Dem. rather similar meme to natioanalism, i often think. as: minorities have always voted D, and won’t be pried away easily, no matter how bubba C f’ed them over in twelve directions, O’bama as well.
“what is peace, grammy juliania?” asked the wide-eyed young child….
‘Tis my feeling, wendye, that Trump is the invention of the ptb who orchestrate the duopoly, so whilst the salve most certainly exists for those who cannot see or don’t want to see, my hope is their numbers are diminishing.
Lovely first post this Tuesday over at counterpunch.org does take my strong stand and provide concrete evidence – ‘Giant Sucking Sound at Lake Champlain’ (or title to that effect):
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/30/86203/
“. . .Funicello [Green Party candidate] is the first known Congressional candidate to be excluded by Our Revolution. . .”
The article is short, but I would hope there are other Green candidates not pursuing the mantra of ‘if it doesn’t count in your state, vote for us.’ It is really past time for the state candidates that matter to shuck the duopoly if they want to be voted for by us peons. The reach is too far of the national parties. What’s in a name, state Democrats? Independent is more roselike, go there.
Grieved has a comment at MofA referring back to Gandhi’s four points for success – it’s in the latest thread about the NYT – I posted agreement that we are in the third one – ‘then they fight us’. But the unsaid part of that has to be ‘then we fight back.’
And yes, wendye. Peacefully ;))
[if you’re a kiwi, what choice do you have? Try crossing swords with that wonky beak? Fly with those stumpy wings? There’s no way to peace. Peace is the way.]
And bravo Colin Kaepernick also – not being a football fan, I knew him not till now. Way to go, sir!
it’s tuesday; is that juliana at the café day as it is for glen ford at trrn? ;-)
ye gods and little fishes: talk about a giant sucking sound:
“Funiciello said when he asked Our Revolution organizers why he wasn’t invited, he was told his campaign was too “aggressive and divisive.”
“I have called [invited to speak and schmooze] Mike Derrick an air dropped Republican who worked in the State Department on missile defense,” Funiciello said. “I’ve asked – why is this air dropped Republican spoiling the race? That’s me being hostile and aggressive? I consider it being honest.”
when i called for revolution at my.fdl, i always added the caveat ‘nonviolent’, as i’d a) never call for anyone to take up arms when i won’t, and b) the metaphorical 101st airborne, and c) who takes power then, even if it’s successful? and yet, i so admire the zapatista movement, and their local revolution did kill at least twelve humans, whether in self-defense or not, is still debated.
are the nights cold where you are? 48-ish here, brrrr. no wonder the gardens here are so crap. i did see some photos about his ‘not uniform’ and failing to stand for the pledge or the anthem or something. cool.
yes. HH was before my time, so good history.
“Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell;
Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,
Yet grace must still look so.” from Macbeth
i wonder if you’d explain what the quote means to you, jason. i can see it in at least two different ways.
Divinity of hell!
When devils will the blackest sins put on,
They do suggest at first with heavenly shows…Iago. I love that phrase, divinity of hell. The Clinton Fdtn’s rape of Haiti doesn’t negate Haiti’s real needs, which, to the Clintons, are just the magician’s puff of smoke to distract from the sleight of hand.
Oh that’s a beautiful quote, Jason. I’m writing that one down.
Some of Jason Leopold’s key points, which are being obscured because this is an election season and the rest of the DC culture that makes the same kinds of decisions about records preservation will likely get off the hook because Clinton is succeeding in ducking the real issue, which finally has little to do with legality or ethics but a public expectation of a right to know in order to hold accountable. This norm was undone by the very creation of classification and the elaboration of those laws since the 1917 Espionage Act that is used by the Obama administration against whistleblowers.
What that says about the way Hillary Clinton operates is that she is a very consultative actor and reaches beyond government to people in whom she has long-term trust in judgement and ability to be confidential. That is her way, like it or not, of coping with the myopia and tunnel vision caused by the DC Beltway bubble, the Village culture. And that is one of the reasons that the Village hates the Clintons–still. And why she has to work publicly to pressure folks like Kissinger to desert Trump. Think she hasn’t cultivated his vanity for just this moment of endorsement?
The Bush family — Poppy and W — essentially misclassified much of the controversial papers of their administration as personal and shipped them off to their libraries for “editing” and to be deep-sixed. This became a news item and a scandal on the lefty blogs in the 2009-2010 period but never got government or public scrutiny. It was only historians’ interests who were trampled went the narrative. Leopold is arguing that it is not just the historians who have an interest in accurate recording of events and the correspondence about those events. The public, and the journalists who still serve the public, have and interest as well.
And here is the nut in Jason Leopold’s opinion:
The story that the Clinton camp issued was that she was too technology averse to use the complicated security provisions of the State Department system, and that that system had poor provisions for linking with her Blackberry. That says this to me from an IT support perspective. (1) Clinton is a Blackberry addict just like most youngsters are iPhone addicts. (2) Blackberry is a security risk and cannot be linked easily to the State Department system. (3) The government still has the illusion that people don’t have private lives outside government service and cannot accommodate use of government IT services for private communication (even granting the ethical issues involved), especially for high-ranking officials who have little private time except as it is piggy-backed with government activities. (4) No one knows how to parse out work and personal messages they send to acquaintances. (5) No one knows how to classify communications to confidential outside advisors who were but are not necessarily now holding security clearances (or at least not holding clearances they can publicly admit to). (6) It is the position of all agencies in the government that FOIA is an illegitimate invasion of their confidentiality by the public. FOIA exemptions also allow the regulated to hide the bad actions they have been gigged for by the regulators as confidential business information.
Those are the real issues with the emails. Everything else is just the great community fun of dunking a witch. And whether the witch is guilty or the witch is innocent, there is still a drowned witch and a great community spectacle of atonement.
The real solution is the repeal of the Classification Acts that keep secrets from the public to begin with. They have allowed public officials to dodge accountability for quite some time. And the public has an insurmountable cost trying to find enough information to make good judgement about elections. And then the media and government officials have the gall to talk about “low information voters”.
We all are those — by design.
yes, a question: can you explain your last sentence here, please? ” That is her way, like it or not, of coping with the myopia and tunnel vision caused by the DC Beltway bubble, the Village culture. And that is one of the reasons that the Village hates the Clintons–still.”
you are a dear to post the pithiest parts and add your own analysis, thd. there are too many yummy parts to quote one, but it’s hard not to applaud your last two sentences…and love the drowned witch metaphor. thank you so much.
it seems like joe wislon got some nice (unprovable) favors, and i seem to remember the MCC, but only vaguely. but again: oh africa, oh africa; they want all your mineral wealth! seems like an electoral support favor.
(i’d fallen asleep by mistake more than design when i went to rest my bones and eyes; i may have a question later.)
Wendy, WASF=We Are So Fucked! (I was trying to maintain my rep for gentility lol.)
Your link to the Leopold interview was last year, seems to me the info that came out this past week really shows how Bernie missed the boat (and he shoulda known better).
Hey Bernie, can ya bark like a sheepdog? Good boy. Down. Stay.
WASF
ach; thank you for waxing gentle in disguise. love the acronym, though. yes, that date was apparently when he’d said those words (first debate, i think the essay said?)
i will say that at naked capitalism on lambert’s water cooler, he featured not only the DN interview, but several other sites mentioning the same theme, but he pretty much attacked folks who agreed with the sell-out fukkery of it all, and a few made ‘we’ll see’ noises’, as well. i know there’s a tendency to see candidates, movements, as black or white, love/hate foaming at the mouth, but this one seems to be even more that way, don’t you think?
yeppers, WASF, but then…when have folks with conscience not felt so, say sinceJFK was assasinated, then bobby and mlk? this may or may not resonate with you, but RL has been so difficult for me this past year, past couple months especially…that this final recording of the late great john trudell…is like being in the best church in the world, no belief in a deity required. other worlds, other dreams… a different reality, i reckon.
Ah, dear, dear Wendy, your talent for finding the beautiful thoughts in poetry and music is unexcelled, and I am not unable to share the appreciation that is so central to your consciousness, but in all honesty,my hard-edged intellect carries more weight with me, and that intellect tells me that we are truly beset with monsters on all sides, monsters who deliberately take advantage of our softer natures with lies and confusions and distractions, to great effect, and before we can love we must hate, we must loose our anger, at least until the monsters are driven back far enough to make room for the universal love we all crave to have a chance to bloom and become a new normal.
The blatancy of the evil natures of all our political actors and the media that serve them have never been so clearly revealed as in this election cycle, and yet the People that I have pledged my heart and allegiance to still do not want to see that it will take action well beyond beautiful thoughts and feelings to get us out of this mess that we are in due to having remained passive for decades while our futures were stolen from us in steady increments.
Many are going to die in the coming times, that is a sad certainty, and I can only hope that among those dead are many of the right ones.
Somehow we must contrive to keep alive a spark of the beauty within that you always reference, but right now it is rage that should be at the forefront of our thoughts, or we are all lost.
you may or may not have misconstrued the reason i gave you the video; if so, i may have spoken wrong. (oh, and ‘wd’ is just fine here.) for me, the importance of finding supreme beauty in art, music, poetry…is more about having both rage and dreaming of a better world in our hearts at once, if for no other reason than finding some measure of sanity when we’re feeling lower than a snake’s belly. note my rage and loathing in my sheriff fooking joe diary, for instance. ;-)
and for jove’s sake, john trudell (just the first paragraph says some of it, but doesn’t tie the timing of their deaths to just after he’d burned an amerikan flag on some courthouse steps or other) has known the most ugly and murderous parts of USian violence, but somehow made it out the other side to both indict the system and offer some spiritual possibilities for us. he wrote and performed this one just before ‘his ride showed up’; maybe just weeks before he died of cancer last december. meaning: i admire his balance; yes, to know the light, one must sincerely know The Dark, and too few are willing to know it. willful ignorance is soooo much easier, as are identity politics.
i agree more than high hopes will be needed to turn the ship around, and while i used to see a revolution for democracy, as i read around the ‘librul’ websites, my belief falters mightily. most folks are fat and sassy, hate putin, love the ovien queen (h/t jason), hate assange, and love nato wars that spread western democracy™ around the globe, killing so many, sending so many into diaspora, well, you know the list.
the only armed insurrection i can imagine at this point would come from the uber-conservative right. whoever said that ‘the left in this nation abjures power’. sounds about right to me, more’s the pity. guess that’s all i’ve got to say for now.
I’ve used up my usual quota of three posts this morning, but there is the rc of old, he who persisted ad infinitum on an fdl post that shall not be named and won my undying respect. Well met, once more, fellow traveller! I have such ‘people that I have pledged my heart and allegiance to [who] still do not want to see’ myself – do not we all?
Someday, (I hope soon) they will see; that’s my faith, dear heart.
It may well be a personal shortcoming of mine that I have to focus on one major theme at a time in order to make significant progress in any endeavor I decide to take on.
If I mix loving empathy and righteous rage simultaneously as my focii, I just wind up being like Goldilocks’ porridge, which might make me “just right” for eating, but also makes me very ineffective as a wannabe change agent lol.
A man has got to know his limitations–Dirty Harry ;-)
i give up, as you once again seem to have misread what i’ve said. no matter, i have basil from the farmer’s market to shock, poblano and sweet peppers to broil and store for winter. ;-)
if empathy: for ourselves.
“…is more about having both rage and dreaming of a better world in our hearts at once,”
No, I think I got you, I just can’t do it the way you do it. And vice versa, I guess.
Different strokes . . .
okay, dirty harry; ‘what we have heah…is a fail…yure to com.mu.ni.kate’
~big boss hawg: cool hand luke
One needs to recognize one’s limitations, and the limitations of one’s strategy choices, even if Dirty Harry doesn’t say anything about it. ;-)
Seriously, I just can’t help but see that we are losing more and more ground and critical battles whilst we try to be spiritually loving and righteously angry at the same time. Are we not now at the lowest point politically that we have ever seen before in our lifetimes?
I think the term that applies is “cognitive dissonance,” but, in any event, it certainly is dissonance.
Sanity and rage are not mutually exclusive.
we seem to be talking past each other so far that i’m not sure how to respond, rc. (i spent time listening to time dreams again, as well.) but first, i’d offered trudell’s song as a restorative measure for when times get too tough to bear, or so i’d thought.
second, if you’re fine with where you are, that’s fine with me; i’m not trying to change you; what a silly and futile thing that would be. i often don’t like who i am, how i be, so i dream and sometimes find a measure of understanding, at least. i will say that john’s ‘ancestor memories’ (genetic memories) would be far different than mine; i cared for almost none of my ancestors that i knew, but we can always envision the mother, father, grandmothers, that we might go to when we need aid or solace.
third, i seriously am baffled by your contention here: “we are losing more and more ground and critical battles whilst we try to be spiritually loving and righteously angry at the same time.”, as in” who is this ‘We’?
fourth: do you really believe that you and i can change any of these dark things without ‘the many’? i know i’ll never be occupying anywhere again, so for me…some of it’s a moot point. my writing hardly qualifies as ‘jamming the machine’ any longer, and the little things i can do for my neighbors and family, i do, and as well as i’m able.
and yes, i think rage (sometimes hovering around hate) are proper responses to the dark days brought to us by Our Leaders and Future Leaders.
i mused earlier about the possibility that when i used to attack someone rather strongly, i sometimes would add (ooopsie, one love) in. you always seemed to not get that it was funny to me, although the ‘we are all brothers’ theme does seem so, but some of our kin take the darkest roads possible. i don’t think all humans are redeemable, or even candidates for restorative justice, given that so many would never admit their crimes, much less apologize for them.
for instance, once again, i’ll ask you to read what i wrote about sheriff joe (my current diary). you must remember him, as i prolly threw a few tantrums over him at my.fdl, although…the one i dug up was from 2012, so maybe i wasn’t even on your radar then. but i’d never shoot him, nor anyone for that matter, although i would be able to kill someone w/ my bare hands if they threatened the life of any i love.
but again; we seem to be having ‘a failure to communicate.’ ;-)
Sorry, I did not mean to make it complicated, nor did I think my POV was complicated. Nor was I trying to criticize you or your POV.
Just saying that for me personally, justifiable rage does not make me feel like I’m in danger of losing my sanity, so I find little use for the message from Trudell, and that for me the big struggle is always to reach maximum clarity to that I can be more focused in my determination to insist that regular folks (“WE”) get fair treatment in a reasonable world..
i’m not sure what you hear in trudell’s song; w/ poetry, the meaning is in the eye of the beholder. no, i don’t think you’re criticizing my point of view, just misunderstanding it, is all. no matter. but this is the we i’d meant; i should have bolded it: “whilst we try to be spiritually loving and righteously angry at the same time.” but again, no matter; i’m sure you’re just where you want to be.
but to get the taste of ‘time dreams’ outta your head, here’s another. just had a long conversation w/ a friend from deecee who runs an opera co. that plays 18th (iirc) french opera. he blew my socks off saying that he’s never written before, and somehow found himself setting down prose/poetry that was rap, sorta. decided to forgo setting them to music for now, so i mentioned trudell’s spoken word songs to him, said i’d send a few. but while i was choosing some, i thought this might be just right here. (i prefer ‘cry your tears no more’ (usa genocide, sociocide, tra la la), but it has a dejected sound to it.)
‘rich man’s war’
on edit: come to think of it, i’m not sure that i have a point of view. like many, i’m just ‘running down the halls w/ my arms outstretched touching the walls’ (h/t barbara kingsolver) feeling my way along a day at at time. ;-)
I am also feeling the effects of this very confusing and discouraging time in our history, which is why I reach for something concrete in preference to the lovely and important but less-than-concrete inspirations and comforts that come from poetry and music. IMO, drastic direct action of the kind most recoil from will be necessary if anything is to shake us out of this mess we have gotten into by being too passive for too long. You may recall my previous persistently obnoxious exhortations to FDL readers, going back almost TEN YEARS to READ the Declaration of Independence (and how I was excoriated for it, and ultimately banned); that tells you why I am now where I am.
We don’t have a right to demand a perfect messenger at this point, after all our passivity and inaction, IMO, but when I look at the flawed candidate Trump, as opposed to the known very evil Clinton, I must conclude that nobody else is offering ANY chance that the strangling duopoly might be damaged and the prevailing paradigms might be broken down somewhat.
For that reason alone, part of me is rooting for him to kick Clinton’s (and the Establishment’s) ass. I must say that I also have AGREEMENT WITH SOME OF HIS SIGNATURE ISSUES, E.G., THE NEED TO HAVE A CONTROLLED BORDER, THE NEED TO SCRAP THE BAD TRADE DEALS, AND THE NEED TO DIAL BACK AGAINST THE PREVAILING OVER-THE-TOP-RIDICULOUS POLITICAL CORRECTNESS.
Pardon the caps, unintended, but I’m too beat up right noow to re-type. No microaggression intended lol. :-)
Folks don’t need to see all these things my way to be good guys, just making sure that we all keep operating in good faith is good enough, methinks. Lies, careless misapprehension of easily-knowable facts, and reluctance to deal with our own uncomfortable contracdictions of beliefs are the things that hurt us most, and help our Establishment overseers the most, IMO.
We are indeed living in “interesting times.”–h/t old Chinese proverb
as i remember it, you’d said that you’d been capriciously banned for ‘racism’, and yes, i know exactly how the cluckers worked (against me, as well). but i do remember your asking if you (or ‘we’) could talk about asymmetrical warfare for the future possibilities. the answer was, of course, “No.”
as i’ve noted elsewhere, at least the librul quasi left is far too comfortable to engage in direct action, especially the white ones. ;-) but we discussed that theme here, and i can’t actually recall how the conversation went, small wonder, lol.
but my thought is that only when there’s a massive uprising noting how illegitimate our nation’s leaders, protectors, and military misadventures are, there will be change of some sort. and yes, there could indeed be a common solution afterward, that is good for most. but how in a nation with so many millions of citizens across such a large landmass does any sort of direct democracy get enabled?
often i reckon that ‘we’ are too dependent on leaders. if a spark comes, we hope we’ll know it when we see it, eh? meanwhile, i’ll take inspiration as it comes, myownself. (big grin) ‘n oldie but goodie.
This is a classic and valuable confrontation, worthy opponents. Be discouraged, neither one!
Thank you both.
Hah, wd, in your old age, you have confused my LAST banning from FDL (i.e., the one immediately following my cheek-tongued diary, post-Trayvon, inviting readers to self-test, to the effect of, “How many times are you willing to bang your own head on the concrete before concluding that you would be justified in shooting yourself?), with my earlier experiences after suggesting that folks oughta start at least thinking about the idea of revolutionary tactics and when they might be appropriate..
I know people resist the idea of losing their soul-purity by even contemplating any kind of violent action, but it has long seemed to me that when the “others” are killing people every day by their deliberate, greed-driven practices, policies, and direct actions, in numbers that truly boggle the mind (thousands, hundreds of thousands,millions, just pick your favorite examples, and remember that to the PTB, they were all “worth it” –h/t SOS Albright), then the moral equation must eventually favor eliminating them before they kill any more innocents.
I have always offered that view as a matter of pure analysis, never advocacy.
First you try to see clearly, then we each have the opportunity to decide whether and what our own course of action should be, IMO.
As you know, my own days of fighting anybody over anything are long, long past. But clear thinking is still clear thinking, and of value, even when it issues from the physically incapacitated, and especially when so many seem to be threatened by the very idea of confronting uncomfortable facts.
We used to call it “raising consciousness,” remember?
wtf, rc? did you pay some bitcoins to one them roosians to hack our ‘Montezuma Olde Crone Society’ and note I’m the prez?
(sorry to be so long; i got offa my crutches too soon after a tumble, and now i’m on one indoors at least, for now. slows down chores, but as i allus say: “one is easier that two!”)
shooting oneself in depression or angst for the future is creepy, if that’s what you mean. shooting oneself or self-immolating, etc. in aid of stopping wars and genocides is a whole ‘nother matter to me (as if anyone would really care unless it was done on the steps of the…the…are there any buildings left that have ree access to ‘steps’? arf, arf.
but even knowing that you’ve said you’re quite comfortable with guns, what i see you doing as mocking people here: “…people resist the idea of losing their soul-purity”, as though killing others isn’t the greatest moral decision one might make. that said, i’ve read a few essays over the past few months that essentially noted ‘the limits of nonviolent revolutions’, although at the moment i dunno where to find them again. so yes, i have imagined it as i’ve read, and sure as hell root on some extra-judicial killings in the movies, i confess that i like it better when the killer is subdued by other means at the last minute, and sent to prison forevermore.
consciousness raising was first part of the card-carrying feminist movement, then used in group therapy sort of encounters in aid of discovering a group ethos for s cause, but i guess it’s a workable term, when especially the discussions are face-to-face. one reason for the failure of the ‘equalizing internet’ failed over the years is down to that, methinks. not to mention, so many blog or comment under assumed names. twitter may be the most tragi-comical of that form of communication; facebook is likely next.
but re: madeleine albright, you might enjoy seething at the war criminals at her big party recently. margaret kimberly narrates it rather well, i think. ;-) i hadn’t seen it at BAR, but stuff’s easier to read at CP for me.
oh, and juliania; i checked lambert strether’s newest diary on ‘our revolution’ to make sure someone had put up mokhiber’ ‘giant sucking sound’; two did, but at the tag end of the thread. i still may send it to the man i’d mentioned who is still waiting for godot on OR.
wd, please re-read my first para, you did not get my meaning in that long, highly punctuated sentence–it was about my banning history at FDL, not about committing suicide.
RE “mocking”-not my intent at all. Sometimes a bit of humorous phrasing is better and easier than typing out a thousand words, that’s all. I have no doubt that all here are of good heart.
Still, we have a diff of opinion about the morality of the use of force. And as to that, Mother Nature clearly agrees with me as to its sometime necessity.
But I’ll be gone soon relatively speaking, and have no children, so the future and people’s choices about it have limited personal relevance to me, except that I think the old and experienced have some societal obligation to share what wisdom we have with those who come after and can’t really have the same perspectives.
Thought exercises are a good thing, n’est-ce pas?
ah, i see that i’d read it wrong, that first paragraph. yes, all here (now, smile)
are of excellent heart, and yet we disagree from time to time, as it should be. still, that seemed like mockery to me, but never mind. in the animal kingdom ‘use of force’ is more reflexive, no? but the use of force against buildings, etc., say the ‘riots’ in the hough district of cleveland, more recently in baltimore and other cities has served as beneficial, imo. but that’s a longer subject, isn’t it?
you made me laugh w/ your ‘i’m aging, no chirren, so…’ paragraph, having caused me to think of i. welsh’s: the oldies’ votes should count less for that reason’. crikey: how ’bout 3/5 of a vote, lol?
i didn’t find quite the links i was looking for, but i was on the right track w/ ‘wrongkindofgreen’ at any rate. the bramhall one is short, the second…arrrrgg-length. and sure thought exercises are a good thing, almost always, though some of my nightmares might argue differently. ;-)
gorgeous photo, colorized or cool use of filters. as joss would have it, the clouds rolled in just before bedtime. perhaps tonight….tonight.
http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2012/05/02/why-the-cia-funds-nonviolence-training/
http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2013/04/07/capitalising-on-nonviolence/
long day here, so g’ nite. the moon is almost new tonight, and if the clouds don’t obscure the night sky as so often happens later, any of you who aren’t in places plagued by city lights, you might be able to see the milky way almost directly overhead. this is the closest image i could find. but fancy that you’re looking at the edge of our own local (milky way) galaxy, and that there are at least 200 billion galaxies in the universe (some say ‘our local universe, each comprised of hundreds of billions of stars. fancy that, for perspective.
sweet dreams, all.
Glorious photo, thanks for that, dear one.