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Originally Posted by Greger
[quote]

I'm gonna keep harping on this...the very disorganized 'far left' in this country needs to organize and get out the vote. Swarm the f*cking voting booths like they were a Trump rally. Every nook and cranny of this nation has extreme leftists who will be sitting on their hands and ignoring the primaries. If they(and you) want Bernie to be President then they gotta get him nominated.

If ever there was a time for the phrase 'No sh!t Sherlock!' this would be it.
Now you have to look at the impediments to having that nomination happen. The first would be the Democratic party. Second would be the corporations that own media and suppress and distort leftists proposals. Third would be the delegates (sorta bandaided that in the DNC reconciliation negotions after 2016) and fourth would be a funding apparatus to go around the DNC. (fixed that one with alternative funding structures for progressives) all before the 2020 nomination. Not bad for a 'disorganized' left.
A heavy lift to say the least but the left has far more obstacles than the center right and far right parties have when it comes to getting on ballots and having their votes counted. They're fighting both right wing parties.
Most of what the left proposes today was mainstream back in the today. Referring to it as far left and serves as an admission on how far to the right we have come with our two party monopolies.
A final observation. The yutes and progressives came out for Obama with his phoney hope and change rhetoric in 2008. No so much for Clinton's 'It's all good'. I believe it could be repeated with Sanders authentic populism. Maybe Warren. Not convinced with the others.

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Originally Posted by Jeffery J. Haas
Originally Posted by chunkstyle
I think it's been mentioned already Jeff, but you and I see politics very differently. Incrementalism is the definition of lowering expectations.

What exactly are you waiting for? Permission?
Is that how you think politics works?

I already said how I think it works.
I can expand on that a little if you want.

I'd like to use the switch from analog TV (NTSC system) to digital (ATSC) as a loose analogy.

ATSC Standard A/53, which implemented the system developed by the Grand Alliance, was published in 1995; the standard was adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in the United States in 1996.

Television sets generally cost anywhere from $149 to $2500 in the years prior to 2009, which is the year we finally left the old 1930's NTSC analog TV technology behind for keeps.
Maximum size for a CRT TV screen back then was somewhere around 40 inches.

It took almost five years for the last CRT (square standard definition glass 4:3 picture tube) TV sets manufactured to finally start hitting the dumpsters, and there are still a few stubbornly hanging on.
There's still a few rotary dial telephones and VHS decks sitting around and still being used, even today.
And vinyl and even reel to reel are making a comeback.
In the case of vinyl, a large enough comeback that a brand new record pressing plant went online here in L.A. a year and a half ago, and a couple of others elsewhere in the USA and abroad.

The switchover from analog SDTV to digital HDTV also took several years, with stations still broadcasting their old analog signal side by side next to their new digital HD signal.

On June 11, 2009, one day before the analog shutoff, the National Association of Broadcasters reported that 1.75 million Americans were still not ready. 971 TV stations made the final switch to digital on June 12.
The final off-the-air moment caused stations to swamped with thousands of angry calls from people who STILL did not know that analog TV was going bye-bye.

1996 to 2009, and we're talking about television sets!

Should I try using electric cars as an analogy instead?

No. I'm not good with analogies.

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Me neither. I have no idea what he was going on about.

Incrementalism is like trickle down. Always promised but never delivered.

We are witnessing the incremental legalization of cannabis products. Not pretty is it?

Let's look at our incremental improvements on civil rights and race issues? Kind of embarrassing to think about, eh?

How about those incremental boosts to the minimum wage?

Ten years ago there was a stab at making healthcare "more affordable" Not universally available, just "more affordable".

That's incrementalism at work. See if you can find other examples...:)


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Originally Posted by Greger
Me neither. I have no idea what he was going on about.

Incrementalism is like trickle down. Always promised but never delivered.

We are witnessing the incremental legalization of cannabis products. Not pretty is it?

Let's look at our incremental improvements on civil rights and race issues? Kind of embarrassing to think about, eh?

How about those incremental boosts to the minimum wage?

Ten years ago there was a stab at making healthcare "more affordable" Not universally available, just "more affordable".

That's incrementalism at work. See if you can find other examples...:)

Well, don't try making it appear that I am an advocate for it when I am simply pointing out the same issue you guys are.
You're right, that is what we're up against. All of it.

Get your guns, gather an army and we'll have a bloody revolution.
That's what it will take to wipe out that well funded blockade.
There has been more money spent to keep that sort of constipated bloat in place than the GDP of several countries combined.

So the only move beyond simple ideological peristalsis is revolution, the only kind that ever actually unseats that sort of entrenched oligarchy.

Politics is based on comfort, or perceived levels of comfort.
Make the majority uncomfortable enough, quickly enough and they will make a move for significant change.

But it's not a controlled reaction, like some sort of scientific experiment. It can go awry, vastly so.



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Interesting: Republican strategists are starting to think the Trump policy of deriding climate change may drive away young Republicans from the Party.

Climate Could Be an Electoral Time Bomb

Quote
The polling bears out Mr. Heye’s prediction of a backlash. Nearly 60 percent of Republicans between the ages of 23 and 38 say that climate change is having an effect on the United States, and 36 percent believe humans are the cause. That’s about double the numbers of Republicans over age 52.

But younger generations are also now outvoting their elders. According to a Pew Research Center analysis, voters under the age of 53 cast 62.5 million votes in the 2018 midterm elections. Those 53 and older, by contrast, were responsible for 60.1 million votes.

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I think that both the anti-climate change and virulent racism are driving away young Republicans. Old Republicans cling to whatever flotsam will keep them afloat, but their flotsam is getting waterlogged.

I believe that one election soon, perhaps 2020, will break the dam and wash the ROG (Republican Old Guard) and their flotsam and jetsam away. The "Moscow Mitch" moniker is cutting deep (not sure how deep - he is from Kentucky), and Amy McGrath, despite her stumbles, is going to prove a formidable opponent. The Democrats Have A Candidate In Kentucky. But Can She Beat Mitch McConnell? (FiveThiryEight). Trump is extremely unpopular and has coarsened the GOP considerably - and it was pretty coarse to begin with. So, this should be a "Democratic year." But... there are baked-in obstacles (gerrymandering, demographics and voter suppression) that will keep the GOP in the game for at least a decade and will threaten the next election nearly as much as Putin.

Greger put it well - we need a blue tsunami to overwhelm those obstacles, but it still won't be complete. We're in desperate times, and I think that even a rout of the Republicans will not be enough to get us back on track. Obama was two-steps forward, but Trump was 5 steps back. We'll have to do more, faster to even get where we were 3 years ago.


A well reasoned argument is like a diamond: impervious to corruption and crystal clear - and infinitely rarer.

Here, as elsewhere, people are outraged at what feels like a rigged game -- an economy that won't respond, a democracy that won't listen, and a financial sector that holds all the cards. - Robert Reich
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Couldn't disagree more.

Without class politics we will continue to have reactionary politics. Class politics offers the most accurate description of what has been impacting the majority of americans over the last forty years or so. Democrats continue to deny any class critique overall as a party. They only do social justice politics so as not to anger the hand that feeds them.

Sanders has at least changed the conversation from the vague promises of progress from Obama to one of class consciousness. For me, that's the underlying divide in the Democratic party. A politics of class vs. a politics of phoney meritocracy.

Obama was not three steps forward for many. His guy, Geitner, is running loan shark scams in poor communities now.

Nuff said.

Last edited by chunkstyle; 08/03/19 05:39 PM.
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Originally Posted by chunkstyle
Obama was not three steps forward for many. His guy, Geitner, is running loan shark scams in poor communities now.

Was he running loan shark scams when he worked for Obama, too?
If not, what's his present gig got to do with Obama?



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Have you heard the "Vote Blue no matter who" mantra lately? I like the derivation: "Vote Blue no matter who, or F*** you."


A well reasoned argument is like a diamond: impervious to corruption and crystal clear - and infinitely rarer.

Here, as elsewhere, people are outraged at what feels like a rigged game -- an economy that won't respond, a democracy that won't listen, and a financial sector that holds all the cards. - Robert Reich
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Quote
We'll have to do more, faster to even get where we were 3 years ago.
It's not gonna be long now before the whole world goes into war mode against climate change. Ultimately, if we're successful, maybe only a billion or so will die. It's going to have to be a global effort.

The rumblings have begun. There are exciting times ahead.



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