New Poem: BLUE MAGA HAIKU

 vote blue regardless 

 vote blue you no matter who

 vote blue mindless now

New Poem: The Silence of the DNC

 Trump goes low, they say nothing

 better to watch slow crack of GOP ice

 an erosion that could last until 2024

 >

 let the lies speed like stock trading 

 allow the primaries to be Trump-centric

 easier than speaking truth right now

 to malignant power 

 >

 Trump goes lower and lower

  and they foolishly think they’re going high

  by saying nothing 

New Poem: I WAS IN THE HOUSE WHEN THE SUPREME COURT KNOCKED IT DOWN

 they killed Roe Versus Wade

 then they went after the EPA

 ideologues giving extremists what they crave

 laws only to be decreed by corporations and states

 large money Democrats yodel this familiar tune:

 VOTE BLOOO NO MATTER WHOOO

 some voters will be scared into blind support

 terror of a nation with federal bans and more overturns

 but if the Democratic majorities occur

 very little of what’s promised will change

 with lots of rationalizations about the Beltway

 and reluctance to do anything resembling activism

 because activism might scare big donors and cultural conservatives 

 so get ready for an America with liberty liposuctioned 

 and a 2024 with air raid sirens again yodeling:

 VOTE BLOOO NO MATTER WHOOO

New Poem: LOOKING FOR THE NEXT BARACK

Loosely inspired by Colin Hay’s long-ago song “Looking For Jack”

media pundits looking for the next Barack
admiring Pete Buttigieg’s bomber jacket
waking up to read about Deval Patrick
some day, some way
the electorate will swoon like Chris Matthews

Democratic donors looking for the next Barack
someone cool, mostly unflappable
makes people rest easy after Trump
respects the markets and past trade deals
won’t raise the 1%’s taxes

some day, some way
a majority  will find him excellent
and they’ll cheer him, boo obstruction
drink in his aspirational smile
again accept change only in increments

Hamilton Nolan on Joe Biden’s latest political life.

Excerpted from THE GUARDIAN:

I am not mad at Joe Biden. He is a type. His type is “The Old Way of Doing Things.” Now that he is in the race, his type is represented. He rounds out the field. Now, Democratic voters truly have the entire buffet of choices, from “True Leftist Insurgent” to “Bland, Winning Young Résumé-Polisher” to “Indistinguishable Ambitious Congresspersons” to “The Same Old Kind of White Guy As Always”.

This is nothing to fear. This is healthy. This is a perfect referendum on where our country is now. Joe Biden, the avatar of the past, believes that he’s well positioned because after the shock of the Trump years, people want to go back to where we were. Wrong. People want to go somewhere new. I fully expect Joe Biden to step out of his campaign headquarters and fall directly into the huge pit that has opened up as America moved tectonically to the left. There is nothing scary about the candidate that represents the political philosophy that produced in the public the deadly cynicism that gave us Donald Trump. This plain fact will never be accepted by the sort of people who believe that Joe Biden is the answer, because accepting it is an indictment of an entire generation of leaders who consider themselves quite successful.

The Republican party has long been a corrupt tool for serving the interests of the rich by lying to the poor; dwelling on their role in bringing us here is like scolding an alligator for biting off your hand after you stuck it in his mouth. The Democrats are the ones who were supposed to save us. It was their failure in this duty that allowed the catastrophes to pile up. They failed to stop the post-Reagan explosion of economic inequality; they failed to stop the militarism that has embroiled us in endless war; they failed to argue for things like healthcare and education as rights rather than purchases; they fed our most vulnerable citizens to an evil machine labeled “criminal justice” in exchange for votes from racists. They earned their turn in power by agreeing not to use that power for the common good. And here we are: incredibly divided, hopelessly unequal, justifiably sick of our broken institutions, and very, very angry.

Good luck on the campaign trail, Joe. You’re about to meet an America that has already left you behind. I’m sorry you’ll have to find out the hard way.

Why progressives will always be subordinate in the Democratic Party.

Someone in media/film writing I follow on Twitter retweeted the following statement from a person I'll not name here.  It's the perfect summary of the centrist, big donation-dependent wing of the Democratic Party (who think they've become a little more liberal because Tom Perez, who talks a good game about the party's future and unity, was elected DNC head over Keith Ellison) and the contempt they still hold for the more progressive (i.e. Bernie Sanders supporting) membership.

Democrats are your friend who'll die single, waiting for a person too perfect to exist.

Republicans are the guy who fucks whoever is there.

Jim Newell on the Democratic Party leading resistance from behind

From an article on Slate.com: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2017/02/the_democrats_are_leading_the_resistance_from_behind.html


Millions of people marched against Donald Trump the day after he was inaugurated. Republican members of Congress can’t hold town halls without being set upon by protesters hassling them about their agenda or the blind eye they turn to Trump. Resistance groups are gathering massive support online; the ACLU will never want for money again; the courts have blocked Trump’s order restricting travel into the United States. As Republicans put the Affordable Care Act on the chopping block, regular people are mustering a moral language for defending it that Democratic politicians have been loath to employ. Constituents have a powerful ability to find the right defense for something dear to them when someone is trying to take that thing away. Maybe the job of Democrats at the top isn’t to draw up a message in a focus group. Maybe it’s to follow those people on the ground expressing it already.

Michael Moore on Democrats and why 2016 was lost.

From a recent VARIETY cover story, excerpt found on the Hollywood Elsewhere site:
Variety: “Did the Russian hack of the DNC play a decisive role in swinging the election to Trump?”
Michael Moore: We need an investigation into the hacking, but the Democrats should not be thinking that they lost because of the Russians. The Democrats lost because of the Democrats. It’s the second time now in 16 years where the Democrats won [the popular vote] but lost. That is so revolting that the old guard of the Democratic Party should all resign. They let us down, the majority, now twice. I’m done with it. I’m going to help lead the charge to take over the Democratic Party.

Re the reaction to DNC leaks.

Among the pushback rationalizations you will likely hear from those who want the Hillary train to run on time:
A. Assange is Bad Bad Bad!
B. These leaks might be connected to Putin
C. Bernie would have lost anyway
D. You're a child if you object to what the DNC did

In terms of the DNC and now almost departed chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz, I'll quote
70s TV cop Tony Baretta:
"If you can't do the time, don't do the crime."

The day after the progressives were neutralized.

Here's an editorial cartoon/meme from TRUTHDIG's Dwayne Booth aka mr. fish:

London GUARDIAN article assesses Obama one year into Presidency.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/jan/16/gary-younge-obama-first-year

Although the article linked above has an unnecessarily dumb-edgy "Even Charles Manson could beat him" tagline, it has some sobering assessments of Year One of the Obama presidential term as the White House and the Democratic Party plan to metaphorically go over Niagra Falls in a barrel to ensure that the Massachusetts senate seat vacated by the late Ted Kennedy doesn't go to a Republican. As the media is drumbeating, this could be the (gasp!) end of the health-industry-friendly health care plan--and possibly the beginning of Obama being forced to do Clinton-esque soccer-mom pandering (plus more capitulation to Republicans) for his remaining three years in office.

Take a look at this passage in particular (highlighting by me):
"Many on America's left are also ­disgruntled with Obama. They believe the healthcare reform, without a public option, will be inadequate, that the war in Afghanistan will unravel, the stimulus bill was insufficient to kick-start the economy and that his economic team is being run by Wall Street. But unlike the right they have so far failed to turn their disillusionment into a potent political force."

If the Tuesday Senate replacement election doesn't go Obama and the Democratic Party's way, it's safe to say that the sort-of-left in this country will opt more for depressive rationalization of the "oh, he had too much to contend with from the Bush years" instead of organizing for meaningful Change that benefits people who won't cash corporate paychecks during their lifetimes.

My generation wants to set me straight re Tea Parties and government.

Here's a lengthy response that someone who went to high school in my hometown sent to me publicly on Facebook (related to yesterday's post):
Liberal groups are almost always coordinated and funded by centralized groups whereas the tea-parties where almost all spontaneous local uprisings by pissed off citizens. Sand? We don't need no stinking sand! Propaganda? Dude . . . I think you may be subsisting on it.A. Governments are necessary entities, not persons.B. Governments produce nothing. They are always a sum-zero to sum-negative net creators. The only true wealth is created by producing something worth more than it's inherent cost.C. The more control you give any government the more control it will demand and ultimately take. Our founding fathers understood this impeccably.D. If you have a $1.00 problem it will always take a governmental entity at least a $1.50 to TRY and fix it, which it seldom ever does. At least not without creating numerous collateral new problems.... E. EVERY re-distribution experiment to date has failed to even begin to compete with the over-whelming success of free enterprise. Anyone want to live in North Korea, Russia, China, Cuba, or Venezuela? How many East Germans died trying to get to West Germany before the wall came down?F. Ever gotten a job from a poor person?G. I have more bullet points but it's way past my bed-time!

More great political commentary from Matt Taibbi

From the October 22nd entry ("Elizabeth Warren For President") on Matt Taibbi's blog http://taibbi.rssoundingboard.com, here's an excerpt (the boldface is provided by me):
I’m personally of the opinion that our main problem lay with the fact that the Democratic Party as currently constituted is more afraid of losing the financial support of Wall Street and the health insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry than it is of losing progressive voters. In fact, I think I’ve put that wrong, because it implies that the Democratic Party pushes the agenda of industry insiders out of fear. That is a misread of the situation, I think.

I think they prefer those people to their voters. I think they feel more comfortable with them. I heard a story recently from a Democratic Party operative who tells me that certain members of one of the president’s cabinet departments only got wind of how hard it is out there for ordinary people to pay their bills when they invited in a major corporation to give them a presentation about their financial outlook for the holiday season — and through that report found out that this company’s prospective customers were spending less because large numbers of them had been laid off, or had huge medical bills, or had maxed out their credit, and so on.

Letters from customers, survey answers and such, were read to the cabinet group. And they were shocked. This is how they find out about the economic reality of this country — accidentally, from a major campaign contributor! That’s how out of touch these people are.