i’m curious, Bill: What do You think the RNC’s Main Goal is?
In any event, given that that is the DNC’s Main Goal, then why haven’t Principled Progressives of America formed their own political party so as to give Americans that choice for Systemic Reform come election time?
Is at least part of the problem that a significant number of Americans disagree with and, in some cases, categorically reject the principles, policy proposals, and promises of Progressivism? Which may explain why there are no “Progressives” in Washington, eh?
Jeff, I'd like to use this conversation as the basis of my next piece to be posted tomorrow. I hope that's OK with you. No need to answer my last question--you can address it later. Thanks.
Jeff, the RNC seems content to ride the Trump wave, knowing that Trump can be controlled and perhaps coopted as well.
Trump lacks core principles, so I think the RNC's main goal is to shove Trump in directions that are consistent with RNC imperatives, such as lower taxes on corporations, financial deregulation, and the dismantling of the welfare state and anything that smacks of socialism.
i agree completely with Your assessment of the RNC, Bill. Especially the part about Trump being controllable and cooptable. If he wasn't, he would have never become a President who completed a full term in office.
In any event: Do You have any thoughts as to why Principled Progressives of America have not formed their own political party so as to give Americans that choice for "Systemic Reform" come election time?
My guess: lack of money. Corporate cash isn't flowing to progressives. Plus some progressives have been coerced, manipulated, or otherwise propagandized to believe they can "push" Biden (or Harris etc.) in progressive ways. Of course, it's total BS.
Recognize as well that progressives were burned by both Obama and Bernie. Finally, progressive energy is sapped by "woke" cultural issues rather than focusing on class issues and an antiwar agenda that would also prove attractive to some on the Right.
That's my quick take. Of course, the other part is the MSM that smears progressives as "far left," Putin puppets, and unelectable.
So the problem, basically, is that there are not enough Americans ~ especially those with money to spend on politics ~ who agree enough with the proposals of Progressivism to actively support it and actually work to make it happen.
Strangely, Jeff, I wrote a reply and it disappeared on my own site!
Here's what I think I wrote: What we need, as Bernie said, is a political revolution, but then Bernie decided not to lead it.
How do you effect this revolution? It's extremely hard because so many powerful forces are arrayed against it:
1. Both major political parties in America are against progressive reforms.
2. Corporate elites are against them.
3. Corporate media is against them.
4. Coercive forces such as police forces of all stripes are against them.
What is required is a mass movement willing to be disobedient organized along class interests. A movement of left, right, and center. A movement of the 99% against the 1% (and the .1 -.01%).
Rich and powerful "citizens" (and recall that corporations are citizens now) will not simply hand over power. They will have to be persuaded, convinced, and possibly coerced.
Also, the rich and powerful know how to divide, distract, and demobilize the masses, while keeping the many as downtrodden and debilitated as possible. Hence all the "unhoused" people we see, all the immigrants, all the poor people suffering. Those poor unfortunate souls are partly there to scare the rest of us.
Thomas Jefferson famously opined that "The Tree of Liberty must ne refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." (That's from memory.) Who is willing to bleed, and how much blood must flow, and even then, will it get any better?
It's easy to be cynical and pessimistic here, by those are paralyzing forces. We have to be optimistic or at least determined, else the USS America will continue to slip under the waves of corruption and bankruptcy. Any by "bankruptcy" I mean spiritual and moral as much as financial.
What say you? Is there any hope for meaningful change in the USA, and how can that be implemented without violence?
At this point, a number of congressional representatives and senators have publicly called for Biden to step down. DC politics is blood sport. There's no way they walk this back - if you revolt against the king, you have to succeed. There will be reprisals for them and others if Biden retains power - no matter what the MSM reports.
In the end, it will be the big money donors who decide - sorry Joe, that's the way it is.
Our country has been this way since at least the late 1800s. The wealthy have controlled both the news and the government, and they work together to make sure that capital is fully in control of the gears of government as well as what people hear about what is going on. The DNC and RNC are not political organizations, they are corporations. That's why the DNC could say in court that they make their own rules, and they can break them whenever they please. If non-rich people had any say over who was running for president, it definitely would not be this fake lineup of corporate stooges. I just read that Jill Biden is doing his campaigning now while Joe takes a nap. At least Trump can do his own stump speeches, even if they sound juvenile as hell.
The DNC has been putting the onus on the voters since Reagan sent Jimmy Carter back to Plains. As long as the money keeps coming in, there's no reason to ever put up a viable candidate. As Jim Bouton was once told by the N.Y. Yankees management during contract negotiations, "Players come and go, but the owners will always be here."
Ray, absolutely. One of the journalists who deserves a good deal of praise to the present for revealing the corruption of the 1980 election was the late Robert Parry.
Technically, that was the beginning of "The Forever War."
Recall also that 1979 was the year the US began supporting and supplying the Mujahedeen and a guy named bin Laden in Afghanistan so as to give the USSR "its very own Vietnam."
My guess is that Carter figured that that would keep him in the good graces of the MIC [before it morphed into the MICIMATT].
The purpose of most organizations is to perpetuate the leadership of those organizations. RFK Jr. etc. would be a threat to that purpose. They may put in different people. So the DNC goes with the leadership that is current. No matter what his condition.
It was the Obama Regime that planted the seed for gifting the world with the Ukrainian catastrophe when it engineered the coup in 2014. And paved the way for ultimately 14,000 Eastern Ukrainians to be killed by the new regime in Kyiv, reaching that magic number under the Trump Regime.
All that Biden has done and is doing is carrying out what his immediate predecessors set the stage for: To give Russia another Afghanistan just like Carter and Bush I intended.
But the specific, long-range goal of the 2014 Coup was to eventually get Russia involved in a War about and in Ukraine. And that goal has been achieved.
"Operation Gladio was the codename for clandestine "stay-behind" operations of armed resistance that were organized by the Western Union (WU) (founded in 1948), and subsequently by NATO (formed in 1949) and by the CIA (established in 1947),[1][2] in collaboration with several European intelligence agencies during the Cold War.[3] Although Gladio specifically refers to the Italian branch of the NATO stay-behind organizations, Operation Gladio is used as an informal name for all of them. Stay-behind operations were prepared in many NATO member countries, and in some neutral countries.[4]"
i’m curious, Bill: What do You think the RNC’s Main Goal is?
In any event, given that that is the DNC’s Main Goal, then why haven’t Principled Progressives of America formed their own political party so as to give Americans that choice for Systemic Reform come election time?
Is at least part of the problem that a significant number of Americans disagree with and, in some cases, categorically reject the principles, policy proposals, and promises of Progressivism? Which may explain why there are no “Progressives” in Washington, eh?
Jeff, I'd like to use this conversation as the basis of my next piece to be posted tomorrow. I hope that's OK with you. No need to answer my last question--you can address it later. Thanks.
No need to get my OK on anything, Bill. i look forward to tomorrow's piece and will answer Your last question then. Have a Great day.
And Thank You for BV. It is one of very few Candles In The Darkness.
Jeff, the RNC seems content to ride the Trump wave, knowing that Trump can be controlled and perhaps coopted as well.
Trump lacks core principles, so I think the RNC's main goal is to shove Trump in directions that are consistent with RNC imperatives, such as lower taxes on corporations, financial deregulation, and the dismantling of the welfare state and anything that smacks of socialism.
What do you think?
i agree completely with Your assessment of the RNC, Bill. Especially the part about Trump being controllable and cooptable. If he wasn't, he would have never become a President who completed a full term in office.
In any event: Do You have any thoughts as to why Principled Progressives of America have not formed their own political party so as to give Americans that choice for "Systemic Reform" come election time?
Damn good question.
My guess: lack of money. Corporate cash isn't flowing to progressives. Plus some progressives have been coerced, manipulated, or otherwise propagandized to believe they can "push" Biden (or Harris etc.) in progressive ways. Of course, it's total BS.
Recognize as well that progressives were burned by both Obama and Bernie. Finally, progressive energy is sapped by "woke" cultural issues rather than focusing on class issues and an antiwar agenda that would also prove attractive to some on the Right.
That's my quick take. Of course, the other part is the MSM that smears progressives as "far left," Putin puppets, and unelectable.
That's a pretty good quick take.
So the problem, basically, is that there are not enough Americans ~ especially those with money to spend on politics ~ who agree enough with the proposals of Progressivism to actively support it and actually work to make it happen.
Can You think of any way to change that?
Strangely, Jeff, I wrote a reply and it disappeared on my own site!
Here's what I think I wrote: What we need, as Bernie said, is a political revolution, but then Bernie decided not to lead it.
How do you effect this revolution? It's extremely hard because so many powerful forces are arrayed against it:
1. Both major political parties in America are against progressive reforms.
2. Corporate elites are against them.
3. Corporate media is against them.
4. Coercive forces such as police forces of all stripes are against them.
What is required is a mass movement willing to be disobedient organized along class interests. A movement of left, right, and center. A movement of the 99% against the 1% (and the .1 -.01%).
Rich and powerful "citizens" (and recall that corporations are citizens now) will not simply hand over power. They will have to be persuaded, convinced, and possibly coerced.
Also, the rich and powerful know how to divide, distract, and demobilize the masses, while keeping the many as downtrodden and debilitated as possible. Hence all the "unhoused" people we see, all the immigrants, all the poor people suffering. Those poor unfortunate souls are partly there to scare the rest of us.
Thomas Jefferson famously opined that "The Tree of Liberty must ne refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." (That's from memory.) Who is willing to bleed, and how much blood must flow, and even then, will it get any better?
It's easy to be cynical and pessimistic here, by those are paralyzing forces. We have to be optimistic or at least determined, else the USS America will continue to slip under the waves of corruption and bankruptcy. Any by "bankruptcy" I mean spiritual and moral as much as financial.
What say you? Is there any hope for meaningful change in the USA, and how can that be implemented without violence?
At this point, a number of congressional representatives and senators have publicly called for Biden to step down. DC politics is blood sport. There's no way they walk this back - if you revolt against the king, you have to succeed. There will be reprisals for them and others if Biden retains power - no matter what the MSM reports.
In the end, it will be the big money donors who decide - sorry Joe, that's the way it is.
Our country has been this way since at least the late 1800s. The wealthy have controlled both the news and the government, and they work together to make sure that capital is fully in control of the gears of government as well as what people hear about what is going on. The DNC and RNC are not political organizations, they are corporations. That's why the DNC could say in court that they make their own rules, and they can break them whenever they please. If non-rich people had any say over who was running for president, it definitely would not be this fake lineup of corporate stooges. I just read that Jill Biden is doing his campaigning now while Joe takes a nap. At least Trump can do his own stump speeches, even if they sound juvenile as hell.
Jill could campaign with a cardboard cutout of Joe next to her. Less gaffe-prone.
The DNC has been putting the onus on the voters since Reagan sent Jimmy Carter back to Plains. As long as the money keeps coming in, there's no reason to ever put up a viable candidate. As Jim Bouton was once told by the N.Y. Yankees management during contract negotiations, "Players come and go, but the owners will always be here."
Ray, absolutely. One of the journalists who deserves a good deal of praise to the present for revealing the corruption of the 1980 election was the late Robert Parry.
That wasn't so much a "Republican" plot as it was a Deep State/Ruling Political Class plot.
And the Democrats were then ~ just as they are now ~ as directly controlled by those folks as were the Republicans.
Well said, Ray.
Technically, that was the beginning of "The Forever War."
Recall also that 1979 was the year the US began supporting and supplying the Mujahedeen and a guy named bin Laden in Afghanistan so as to give the USSR "its very own Vietnam."
My guess is that Carter figured that that would keep him in the good graces of the MIC [before it morphed into the MICIMATT].
But Bush the Elder apparently had other plans.
Biden:Breshniev
US:USSR
The MIC/PMC/neocon/neolibs are fine running the US through Biden.
Biden the last best chance to save them from Trump.
The purpose of most organizations is to perpetuate the leadership of those organizations. RFK Jr. etc. would be a threat to that purpose. They may put in different people. So the DNC goes with the leadership that is current. No matter what his condition.
It was the Obama Regime that planted the seed for gifting the world with the Ukrainian catastrophe when it engineered the coup in 2014. And paved the way for ultimately 14,000 Eastern Ukrainians to be killed by the new regime in Kyiv, reaching that magic number under the Trump Regime.
All that Biden has done and is doing is carrying out what his immediate predecessors set the stage for: To give Russia another Afghanistan just like Carter and Bush I intended.
But the specific, long-range goal of the 2014 Coup was to eventually get Russia involved in a War about and in Ukraine. And that goal has been achieved.
Roger that. For the curious.. :
"Operation Gladio was the codename for clandestine "stay-behind" operations of armed resistance that were organized by the Western Union (WU) (founded in 1948), and subsequently by NATO (formed in 1949) and by the CIA (established in 1947),[1][2] in collaboration with several European intelligence agencies during the Cold War.[3] Although Gladio specifically refers to the Italian branch of the NATO stay-behind organizations, Operation Gladio is used as an informal name for all of them. Stay-behind operations were prepared in many NATO member countries, and in some neutral countries.[4]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio