2020 Choices...or, The Lack Thereof

Sometimes I get really tired of seeing through the bullshit. In this case, it's the pretense that there will actually be an honest competition for the Democratic Presidential nomination. The DNC has already made it abundantly clear that they will never allow Tulsi Gabbard or Bernie Sanders to get the nomination - and that every other candidate is in their pocket. That particularly includes Elizabeth Warren, who has received donations from quite a few billionaires and has stated that she WILL accept big business donations in the general election. She also transferred ten million from her Senatorial campaign to her Presidential one. That ten million includes a lot of money from businesses and the rich.

I was listening to some DNC people on NPR tonight, and the plan was so obvious that it was painful: they're going to ram Biden down everyone's throat, with a token minority VP - probably Harris, Buttigieg, or Booker - to give themselves an SJW club to beat down angry progressives. "Unity" will be brayed at progressives day and night. Progressive discussion groups will be subverted, taken over, or shut down. The attempt to guilt progressives and paint them as responsible for Trump will be ceaseless. Obama will be rolled out to support Biden, and we'll get lots of identity politics and egregious virtue-signaling.

Unfortunately Bernie has already made it clear that he'll play ball with the DNC's plans, and will campaign vigorously for whoever the DNC anoints. He'll be a broken man at that point, presumably, but it won't matter. He'll be finished.

None of this takes much imagination. It's exactly what happened in 2016, with different names.

Biden will probably end up losing, and the DNC will blame progressives until human civilization collapses (probably in about thirty years or so).

If for some reason Biden falls through, Warren is clearly the DNC's next choice. After that they have Harris, Buttigieg, Booker, Gillibrand, Klobuchar, and the third tier of corporatist toadies. In any case, the DNC is the best friend that Trump could ever have; they'll gladly hand him the Presidency again as long as they can keep progressives split, confused, and disorganized. Forestalling an anti-capitalist populist movement is the DNC's primary purpose.

Personally, I see the real question as being one of human survival. Our species is in clear medium-term jeopardy; we are within a decade of the point of no return, if we're not already there. Billions are going to die if we don't take radical action, including ending the fossil fuel industry and embarking on an unprecedented remaking of human civilization to allow our species to have a survivable future.

None of the DNC's candidates will tolerate the sort of drastic action necessary for us to avoid extinction. Period. Trump will kill us a bit earlier, but the oligarchs that the DNC serves are implacably opposed to the sort of worldwide movement that is our only option for survival.

The DNC and RNC are working for humanity's extinction, whether or not they admit it to themselves. Supporting human extinction is something that I absolutely refuse to do. I will not be supporting Biden, Harris, Buttigieg, Booker, Gillibrand, or Klobuchar. The only candidates that I would support are Gabbard or Sanders, as those are the only two who offer any hope that my (not yet born) grandchildren will survive.

Otherwise I'm voting Green. The Greens were right all along. They deserve credit for that. I'm quite sure that the votes will be rigged and the Presidential results will be falsified to show virtually no votes for the Greens, but at least I will know that I didn't participate in the genocide of our species.

How Will the DNC Stop Sanders?

Stopping Sanders isn't the problem; the DNC has all sorts of options to do that. The real problem is doing so in a way that doesn't disaffect a significant portion of Sanders supporters, thereby causing the formation of a viable and independent left-populist movement.

That requires subtlety and confusion. But it can be done.

Remember that superdelegates have only been disenfranchised for the first ballot at the convention. If that ballot doesn't produce a clear winner, superdelegates vote in all succeeding ballots - which means that the DNC is completely in charge.

Given the number of candidates (the vast majority of them corporate Democrats of one flavor or another), avoiding a clear winner in the first ballot will be relatively easy. But even so, it's necessary for the DNC to be cautious. If they're blatant in fixing the nomination, the backlash could be strong enough to cripple the party permanently. That could mean the end of big donations, which must not be allowed to happen.

So the most likely scenario is this: There's no winner in the first ballot. Before the second ballot (or possibly even before the first one), the corporate candidates pool their delegates behind a single choice, probably the one with the highest total to begin with. That's most likely to be Harris or Booker, but my money would be on Harris. Pete Buttigieg might be handed the VP spot, which would explain why he's been part of the "Stop Sanders" DNC lunches that the New York Times recently uncovered.

With the support of the superdelegates, the anointed corporate candidate will be crowned. Sanders isn't likely to object; a threat to his Senatorial committee positions would be sufficient to force his cooperation, as it did in 2016. Angry Sanders supporters will be reviled as sexists (assuming it's Harris), racists, homophobes (thanks to Buttigieg), and sore losers. Meanwhile the DNC will eventually announce that they will convene another committee after the election which will fix the superdelegate rules (again). David Brock's online operatives will buy out, take over, or otherwise destroy online centers of pro-Sanders activists, as they did in 2016.

Of course, the outcome is a likely win for Trump. But that's an acceptable outcome for the DNC. Their primary purpose (no pun intended) isn't to win the Presidency. It's to keep the left from splitting off from the Democratic Party and becoming a viable alternative to the two-party duopoly. Or worse, from their viewpoint: becoming a movement that threatens the entire system and the status quo.

"But how do we pay for it?"

"How do we pay for it?" seems to be the first question that opponents of the Green New Deal ask. That's more than a little remarkable, for two reasons:

First, the people who are asking that question about the GND never ask it about the eight off-the-books wars that the USA is waging. Cost apparently wasn't a concern for them when it comes to war. Nor are they concerned about the 1.5 trillion dollar tax cut for the super-rich that was rammed through Congress - nor the many tax cuts that were put through previously to benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations. The question only seems to arise when it comes to tax cuts for the poor and middle class.

Second is the sheer insanity of that question. There are times when cost doesn't matter. For example, World War II. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, did the people of the United States discuss calculating whether or not they could afford to go to war? Shouldn't they have considered surrendering, since that might have been cheaper? What was wrong with Americans back then, that they considered their freedom and survival and sovereignty beyond price calculations?

Seriously, there are times when price no longer has meaning - such as in this case, where not taking all-out action to mitigate climate change will almost certainly result in a situation where money will literally be meaningless. Once civilization ends and the human race is extinct, currency will be nothing more than rotting, stinking bales and piles of paper. Coins will be meaningless lumps of metal. And the electronic records which represent the majority of the world's so-called value will have vanished into sheer nonexistence.

If someone is pointing a gun at your child's head, you don't stop to run a cost-benefit analysis before acting to save your child. Because some things are beyond price. And a planet that is habitable for human beings is one of them.


- Just curious, is anyone reading these? I can't help but wonder.

The Outsider

If you asked me to tell you how many online "progressive" or "socialist" groups I've been kicked out of, I honestly couldn't tell you. It has been a dozen, at least, and could easily be more than twenty. Or thirty.


I haven't been kicked out of this one yet, but this is how it generally goes. The EarthStrike subreddit is supposed to be a group for a "rapidly growing movement to avoid irreversible climate change". Now that's definitely a goal that I support! There's no issue as important to humanity - in fact, there's never been an issue that's close to as important.

Which is why I responded when I saw a post asking if anyone would be interested in a leftist solidarity group, a place to organize and discuss and network. I'll paraphrase rather than quote anyone other than myself, but my own answers will be verbatim.

Me: What sort of leftism are you talking about?

The response was anti-capitalist, anti-oppression. After a bit more discussion, I said:

I was kicked out of r/socialism for saying that antifa people who want to initiate violence to silence people that they disagree with, have fascistic tendencies themselves.

I was kicked out of r/latestagecapitalism for questioning posts which promoted Hillary and the DNC.

And I pretty much quit r/occupywallstreet over a bunch of pro-DNC trolls that the moderators seem to be protecting.

That was just here on Reddit, of course. I couldn't tell you how many supposed progressive or revolutionary groups I was kicked out of on Facebook and other places. Of course, almost all of those groups were either attacked or bought out outright by David Brock and the DNC.

The answer I got from the OP was that those bans seemed unfair except for the first one.

More discussion ensued, and the responses I got from commenters got more and more hostile. The idea that the First Amendment should apply even to speech that we found abhorrent enraged almost every responder (except one, who was heaped with abuse for sharing my opinion). One guy even claimed that there was no evidence that the planet was becoming uninhabitable - in fairness, though, that response was downvoted.

My own comments began receiving a large number of downvotes. It was quite obvious that the same pattern I'd seen before was being repeated: if I wasn't about to be outright banned, I was clearly going to be persona non grata. So my last comment was:

Ah, such tolerance. I voice concern about initiating violence against others for their speech, and immediately receive many downvotes - and no doubt this post will be downvoted too.

The basic concept of the First Amendment appears to be beyond the understanding of the majority of Americans. Instead, it's "free speech for me, but not for thee" - the personal and political equivalent of American exceptionalism.

I don't support free speech for the people I disagree with because I actually agree with their opinions. I don't. I support free speech for everyone, because if it doesn't apply for everyone, it soon won't apply for anyone - except the people at the top.

People who truly cared about the Earth wouldn't be looking to fight poor and desperate people who have been suckered into right-wing ideology. They would be looking to convert them. In the end, they are in the same dead end trap as the rest of us. Advocating violence against them for their misguided and hateful opinions doesn't improve the situation. It only gladdens the hearts of the oligarchs who would rather see the underclasses fighting against each other instead of turning their sites on the real authors of our misery: the 0.01%.

And just because I know that it's going to be said: no, I'm not saying that right-wingers should be allowed to plan and carry out acts of mass violence without interference. Those are crimes, and should be treated as such. I am saying that once you give anyone the right to silence others for any reason when it comes to the expression of their opinions, you have just become an agent of fascism yourself.

If we are lucky, we have twelve years before the Earth is in a death spiral that will be beyond our power to divert. We don't have time to be fighting political battles with other people who are as much victims as we are. We should be finding ways to fight the real enemy. It's just horrifying that so many people on all sides would rather be fighting each other than fighting for a future for the world.

Okay, I'm done. Downvote away.

And that was the end of my participation in that group. The downvotes my responses received collapsed many of them out of view. That's a flaw with Reddit, I think; a few bad actors, shills, or trolls can downvote positive posts and comments and effectively hide them from the whole community. That makes it easier for DNC activists to drive real activists out of the group, and turn it into an echo chamber for DNC corporate propaganda.

It horrifies me that the majority of people don't understand that if a right doesn't apply to everyone, it's not a right - it's a privilege. They're perfectly comfortable with the idea of a First Amendment that protects them, but doesn't exist for any person or opinion that they dislike. What flaw is it in human nature that people can't get that if you have the power to silence those you dislike, it's just a short step to imprisoning or killing them?

Why don't they understand that once a government has the power to selectively silence citizens, it's inevitable that that power will be abused? And turned against the people themselves?

Sometimes the stupidity of the human race makes me shake my head.

As I responded to the commenter who claimed that there was no evidence for the ongoing global climate catastrophe:

Contra stultitia deos frustra contendere.

I wish I could think of something to do.

Goals

Let's talk goals. Here's what I recall so far:

• Climate change action on a national/global scale (Green New Deal/fossil fuel ban/conversion to renewable energy)
• End wars/military actions
• Medicare/health care for all
• Jobs guarantee and/or guaranteed basic income
• Free education (including college and graduate school)
• Abolition of private prisons
• Money out of politics
• Mandatory accountability/transparency for all US police forces, demilitarization of police, independent third-party investigations of all police shootings
• Increase of minimum wage to a living wage, pegged to inflation AND studies to determine new living wage standards
• Guaranteed affordable or free housing for all
• Crash project to provide safe, clean water for all Americans
• Immediate suspension of all fossil fuel pipeline projects
• Equal Federal funding for all public schools
• Reinstatement of right to organize/unionize nationwide

Some other possibilities:

• Free daycare
• Right to privacy
• National legalization of marijuana
• Nationwide project to modernize electric grid
• Nationwide project to provide affordable or free public transportation, restoration of light inter-city rail
• Reinstatement of Eisenhower-era tax brackets and rates (91% on top tier)
• Abolition of tax loopholes for the rich
• Elimination of protected status for inherited wealth, restoration of inheritance taxes
• LGBTQ rights
• Revocation of privatized water, parking, and other state/municipal/federal projects.
• Crash program of infrastructure repair.
• Breakup/nationalization of all "to big to fail" banks.
• Rigorous anti-monopoly enforcement.
• Nationalization of Facebook, Amazon, and Google.
• Rural internetification (broadband) program
• Reinstatement of Glass-Steagal
• Nationalization/globalization of the internet

Please add any others as comments to this post.

Next steps

Lately I've been thinking a lot about what we can actually do to save the world. Social media, I'm convinced, is NOT the way to bring down this toxic system. The elite don't fear social media, because they own and control it.

What the elite clearly fears is real-world organizing by the people. That's what the Occupy movement was starting to accomplish, and that's why the elite crushed that movement so blatantly. What can we do to duplicate or even exceed the potential of Occupy?

One option would be to simply revive Occupy. But what would stop the elite from crushing it again? It should be possible to develop some effective techniques for the movement to survive a nationwide police crackdown (and make no mistake, that's exactly what happened). But I would hope that the leaderless approach of Occupy would be retained. Because once you have leaders, you have targets for corruption and conscription by the 0.01%.

Another option: I've suggested starting local face-to-face groups for neighbors to support neighbors. I've written about that in more detail in other posts here. That sort of group might be most effective if combined with Occupy's public space approach; it would provide a fall-back option to continue organizing when the police crack down. Call it "Occupy the Neighborhood" if you like.

Here's a wilder thought: what about creating a new *religion*? That would offer certain legal protections which might prove more effective at protecting the movement from blatant use of force by the establishment. The core precept could be securing the survival of the human race, and the idea that human life and dignity are worth more than any amount of money. It could be the seed of a post-capitalist society.

So...what do you think?

What's going on

People aren't understanding what's happening here. If they did, they'd be marching in the streets. Wall Street - in this case Mitt "Corporations are People" Romney - used borrowed money to take over Toys R Us. He paid off the management to the tune of $200 million, forced Toys R Us to take out a business-killing loan for billions of dollars, and took that money. And then he took the retirement and severance pay of the people who'd been working there, some of them for decades.


Billionaire Romney legally robbed thousands of poor working people of their retirement and severance funds, and threw them onto unemployment. And he's going to do it again and again, unless someone stops him.

That "someone" won't be the Democrats. Three Democratic congressmen sent Romney a letter asking him to take pity on Toys R Us workers. And that was the sole extent of their efforts: hot air and posturing. Of course the Republicans have no interest in helping those workers, either. Both the Democrats and Republicans work for the same masters: people like Mitt Romney. The Republicans don't bother to figleaf it. And the sole concerns of the Democrats are to A) keep that big-donor cash rolling in, and B) to disguise the fact that they are the absolute servants of the financial elite.

That's all. Nothing else.

Heads need to roll. And if we don't do it, nobody will.