Wattree's picture

    BERNIE SANDERS FOR PRESIDENT

    BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE
     
    BERNIE SANDERS FOR PRESIDENT
     
    I like Bernie Sanders. He seems to be non-calculating, and he talks common sense. The same is true of Elizabeth Warren, and I think they would make a great ticket. In fact, the perfect ticket. The only problem is, Bernie Sanders is a self-avowed Democratic Socialist, and the American people have a knee-jerk response to the word "socialist."
    .
    Americans have been conditioned by capitalists to revile the word "socialism," even democratic socialism.  They associate it with despotism and closed societies. So the people simply have to be educated into a better understanding of the "isms."  They have to be educated to understand that both socialism and capitalism can be either good, or toxic if taken to extremes - and at this point, capitalism has gone way off the reservation.  According to a Princeton study, unrestrained capitalism has destroyed American democracy.  That's right. Princeton University has done a study that has declared that America is no longer a democracy. It is now an oligarchy, completely controlled by the rich (http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746).
    .
    In addition, capitalism is responsible for the genocide of as many as 100 million Native Americans (6 generations over 100 years), the atrocities of slavery and Jim Crow, America's current economic plight, and capitalism threatens to destroy the planet by placing profits before science. Democratic socialism, on the other hand, simply means to have the common sense to give people priority over corporations, and between now and the next election the people can be educated to that fact - especially when they're hungry and economically depressed.
     
    BERNIE SANDERS AND PEOPLE SKILLS
    .

    A Hillary Clinton supporter told me that one of the problems with Bernie Sanders is he doesn't have any “people Skills.” Well, that’s EXACTLY what most people like most about him. “People skills” implies a well honed ability to manipulate people. We don’t need that. What we need in America right now is someone who’s willing to just go from the shoulders, as we used to say back in the day, and that’s exactly what Bernie does. Bernie simply says what he thinks, while Hillary is prone to first commission a poll to see what words are most popular and what words are least popular.
    .
    In addition, in spite of the claim that Bernie lacks people skills, he’s drawing more people to his appearances than any other politician in America. The reason for that is simple - the people feel him. He's like their next door neighbor. Most people don’t feel Hillary in that way. They see her as a celebrity,  and they support her because she has name recognition, and they feel like “it’s her turn.” I don’t feel that way. I feel like it’s MY turn.

    .

    HILLARY CLINTON'S MENTOR

    Finally, I'd like to make it clear that I don't dislike Hillary Clinton, but I don't completely trust her either. She comes off as much too careful and calculating, and she's far too remote from the people. She's also far too much of a political animal for my taste. When I listen to her speak, I feel like I'm being "handled."  She also gives me the impression that she's much more interested in attaining office than she is in helping the people. In short, she's much too mechanical and she doesn't seem to have any real passion - and what passion she does have seems manufactured.  She strikes me as all ambition, and the people are merely an afterthought that she'll make every effort to help if she happens to stumble across them. In addition, I haven't forgotten that she's a former Goldwater Republican, and I'm also very uncomfortable with her association with the Bilderberg Society. I don't like secret societies - especially when they're trying to control the world.

    THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS BAD KNOWLEDGE.

    A couple of friends asked me in response to this piece why was it necessary to bring up the fact that Hillary Clinton campaigned for Barry Goldwater over 50 years ago. I'll respond to that question with a question - why not? A true progressive always gives truth priority over ideology.  In fact, that's what it means to be a progressive.  So again, tell me, why shouldn't I mention it?

    I'm a writer.  My job is to disseminate information and  knowledge, and since there's no such thing as BAD knowledge, I don't pick and choose what knowledge I disseminate. I write to relate knowledge, not hide it. The tendency to be selective in the dissemination of knowledge is one of the most serious problems that we have in this country. Isn't that one of the major complaints being lodged against the mainstream media?  And it's a valid complaint, because it's led to an entire generation of under-informed people - a population of people who are merely  "edge-ucated,"or who have only been brought to the edge of a true education, because someone, somewhere, have decided that revealing certain information is "inconvenient." That is THE primary reason that most people don't know the many contributions that Black people have made to this country, because someone decided that information was inconvenient.

    Thus, the fact that Hillary Clinton was a part of the Barry Goldwater campaign in her youth may be quite significant to a person who wasn't cognizant of that fact. And it takes on more significance when you take into account her current association with the very secretive Bilderberg Society, and even more significance when you consider the political strategy espoused by her close friend and mentor, the late Saul Alinsky.  Alinsky said, "True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism. They cut their hair, put on suits, and infiltrate the system from within." 

    So a person who wasn't aware of this fact may want the opportunity to assess her motives for themselves. After all, it's not like Hillary was a naive little girl who was simply following in her mommie and daddy's footsteps. She was so passionately motivated that she didn't simply support Barry Goldwater, she took it to the next level and actually went to work on his campaign. So that obviously wasn't just a young girl's passing indulgence.  When she went to college she became the PRESIDENT of the "Young Republicans" at Wellesley College. That reflected a passion, commitment, and dedication to the conservative cause. 
    .
    So to say that Hillary spun on a dime is an understatement.  Thus, the question that needs to be pondered is, did she suddenly undergo a passionate epiphany, or was her sudden change of direction a cynical calculation based on ambition because she saw which way the wind was blowing.  Every individual deserves the right to make that assessment for themselves.

    So again, why should I take it upon myself to hide Hillary's past from those who may not have that knowledge?  It's one thing to admire a person (as I do Hillary Clinton),  but let us not get so caught up in our admiration of an individual that it causes us to go blind and stupid. That's also a serious problem in this country. That's what conservatives do.

    .

    Eric L. Wattree

    Http://wattree.blogspot.com

    [email protected]

    Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

     

     

    Comments

    Hillary is beating Sanders 93 to 3 with black voters. He can make gains by reaching out to young activists who can raise his visibility in the black community. Hillary is a known entity. While not fully trusted, she beats all the Republican candidates. The activists in Baltimore, Ferguson, etc have more in common with Sanders than with Clinton.


    RM,
    .
    I remember when Hillary was ahead of  Obama by 37 points in Black community.  Even the paper I was writing for (The Los Angeles Sentinel) was supporting her.  I was the only one supporting Obama.  I told two journalists that Obama was not only going to win the nomination, but he was going to be the next President of the United States. They fell out laughing and told me I was naive. So I bet them both - a hundred dollars each.  When Obama won the nomination I told 'em to let it ride.  Then when he won the Presidency, I had two things to celebrate - plus, the last laugh.  


    But the next US Corp. President will come from the Republican faction, not the Democrats this time boys and girls. So whoever it is, believe you me, it'll be a Republican.


    Another,

    I don't think so. The GOP doesn't have a sense of limits, so it's going to sabotage itself:


    DICTATOR!!!!
    .
    THE GOP IS UN-AMERICAN
    Eric L. Wattree's photo.


    DICTATOR!!!!
    .
    THE GOP IS UN-AMERICAN
    Eric L. Wattree's photo.


    It's really unfair to analyze Wattree's blogs on silly things like facts and rational analysis. He's made it very clear that his writing is designed to inspire young African Americans. The proper way to analyze a Wattree blog is not whether it's true or logically consistent but whether it's effective propaganda. Remember, "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes," making facts and truth a far distant second when it comes to inspiring young African American minds. I'd like to commend wattree for wrting another lying bullshit piece of inspiring propaganda.


    What young African-Americans know about American Indians is that Native Americans did not wind up on reservations by magic. They know that despite casino wealth, life on reservations is dismal. There is a high suicide rate on the reservations. 

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/the-hard-lives--a...

    Yes, there was a plague that diminished the Indian population, but the surviving Indians were placed under the domain of the colonists and then the United States. There were documented battles in Virginia and the West. The Indian Removal Act and the subsequent Trail of Tears was no myth.

    http://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears

    Laugh at Wattree's numbers. Not 100 million deaths, just hundreds of thousands. The reality of what has been done and continues to be done to the Indian tribes remains horrific.


    I'm not laughing at wattree's numbers. Everyone makes factual errors now and then. I laughing because even after it was clearly demonstrated that his facts were wrong he continues to use them. It's a pattern with him. I find that hilariously funny.


    ocean-kat. In all seriousness, Watree has considerably changed the way he expresses this very particular grievance. The 100 million number that I think is in dispute appeared in a post by him titled:

    How Black People - And Poor And Middle-Class White People - Are Being Used As Instruments Of Their Own Destruction

    Here is the the reference:

    We demonize Adolph Hitler and the Third Reich (as we definitely should) for slaughtering 6 million Jews, but it has been estimated that the United States slaughtered as many as a 100 million Native Americans, and we can't even get an accurate count on how many millions of African American slaves were slaughtered during slavery, and then continued to be slaughtered during the Jim Crow era and right up to this day.  

    Compare that to this: 

     In addition, capitalism is responsible for the genocide of as many as 100 million Native Americans (6 generations over 100 years), the atrocities of slavery and Jim Crow, America's current economic plight, and capitalism threatens to destroy the planet by placing profits before science. 

    Those are very different assertions. I might be able to get behind that second one. Seems like Wattree might have taken the criticism to heart.  


    It's only a step-down if you don't pay attention to the details.

    First, 100 million over what century/6 generations? Lemme guess, he ain't talking 1620 when the French plague I referenced hit. "Capitalism" - of course capitalism in common speak around here didn't exist before the US.

    Second, if by some miracle he is referring to that (rather than the more obvious period of the US Indian wars), it's hard to blame capitalism for the unintentional plague caused simply by unwittingly carrying devastating bacteria and viruses between two tragically different & completely separated biospheres. The Brits introduced rabbits to Australia with quite drastic negative eco repercussions - would that be a capitalistic bunny attack?


    Both statements are equally false. The change is  simply the particular group wattree wants to demonize with lies in this blog. Even if we assume every European who came to the America's was a capitalist, which is not true as PP has posted, it was not genocide.

    The death of 80% to 90% of the natives was the result of the simple vectors of infectious diseases on a population who had never encountered them and had little to no resistance. Had the immigrants been what we might imagine to be Christ like saints the outcome would have been the same. 90% of the population would have died. The only difference is the Christ like saints would have treated the 10% who survived much better.


    Let's try to be fair to Wattree - in some alternate universe, it's probably important who Hillary supported for President when she was 16, some 51 years ago. If the flutter of a butterfly's wings in the South Pacific can cause a hurricane in the North Atlantic, maybe these political purity tests mean something too. Of course butterfly wings don't actually do that, but then again, numbers don't matter either - it's sentiment, impressions, and most of all, sheer mind-numbing repetition, like the drips that create stalagmites and the river flow that carved the Grand Canyon over millions of years - we will all succumb eventually.


    Wattree is not alone is his sense that Hillary is not trustworthy. It is a gut feeling. I hear the same comment from multiple acquaintances of different ethnicities. Watching a segment of the Harlem   Book Fair on C-SPAN, all of the authors on one panel: Christopher J. LeBron ("The Color of Our Shame"), Samuel Kelton Roberts Jr. ("Infectious Fear"), Imani Perry ("More Beautiful and More Terrible"), and Nell Irvin Painter ("The History of White People") were unanimous in stating they did not trust Hillary Clinton to fight for their interests. Similar comments have come here on Dagblog.  

    This sense of unease flies in the face of her actual very Liberal voting record. People look for something to justify their unease. Her years as a "Goldwater Girl" has come up as a source by multiple people before. Wattree is not an outlier. There is a trust gap.


    "Wattree is not alone is his sense that Hillary is not trustworthy." - note I specifically omitted the trust gap as none-of-my-business/past-my-paygrade/undecidable - but having other people blinkered enough to obsess on Hillary's teen behavior as justification for anything doesn't make me feel better about Wattree's point or him not being an outlier - if truly widespread, it just makes me feel more despair about humanity in general (e.g. "A Confederacy of Dunces" as penned & panned by Jonathan Swift). Perhaps her color of nail polish can also irrationally justify a trust gap. Or perhaps they could just figure out why exactly they have a trust gap rather than clinging to spurious reasons - that seems to be the more  mature approach. Maybe it's rational, maybe it's a phobia. Bringing up Goldwater indicates the latter.


    Perhaps her color of nail polish can also irrationally justify a trust gap.

    Don't be silly. Her nail polish simply reveals her overwhelming vanity irregardless of it's color and has nothing to do with her trustworthyness.

    But hair style is different and has played a big part of the media narrative about Hillary for years. Frankly I don't see how anyone can trust someone who has changed her hair style as often as Hillary. If she was truly trustworthy she'd have the same hair style she had when she was 16.

     


    RM,
    .
    I thought we came to an understanding about a month ago.  Please don't try to defend me, or my position, with trolls. You're not getting through to them anyway, because they're not interested in understanding anything you say. They're not even interested in the issues. All they want to do is drag you into a  sandbox, engage in spitball fights, vent their frustrations, and try to justify their insecurities. They're involved in a desperate attempt to reconcile what they were raised to believe against a reality that they don't want to accept. But that's a childish indulgence that shouldn't be reinforced by adults. So please don't encourage that kind of immaturity on my wall. If you enjoy the back and forth with them, do it on their wall (if they ever write anything) or your wall, but please don't engage them here.
    .
    Thank you, RM.

    Wattree


    RM,

    For your benefit, this is my closing statement on this issue:

    THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS BAD KNOWLEDGE.

    A couple of friends asked me in response to this piece why was it necessary to bring up the fact that Hillary Clinton campaigned for Barry Goldwater over 50 years ago. I'll respond to that question with a question - why not? A true progressive always gives truth priority over ideology.  In fact, that's what it means to be a progressive.  So again, tell me, why shouldn't I mention it?

    I'm a writer.  My job is to disseminate information and  knowledge, and since there's no such thing as BAD knowledge, I don't pick and choose what knowledge I disseminate. I write to relate knowledge, not hide it. The tendency to be selective in the dissemination of knowledge is one of the most serious problems that we have in this country. Isn't that one of the major complaints being lodged against the mainstream media?  And it's a valid complaint, because it's led to an entire generation of under-informed people - a population of people who are merely  "edge-ucated,"or who have only been brought to the edge of a true education, because someone, somewhere, have decided that revealing certain information is "inconvenient." That's also THE primary reason that most people don't know the many contributions that Black people have made to this country, because someone decided that information was inconvenient.

    Thus, the fact that Hillary Clinton was a part of the Barry Goldwater campaign in her youth may be quite significant to a person who wasn't cognizant of that fact. And it takes on more significance when you take into account her current association with the very secretive Bilderberg Society, and even more significance when you consider the political strategy espoused by her close friend and mentor, the late Saul Alinsky.  Alinsky said, "True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism. They cut their hair, put on suits, and infiltrate the system from within."

    So why should I take it upon myself to hide Hillary's past from those who may not have that knowledge?  It's one thing to admire a person (as I do Hillary Clinton),  but let us not get so caught up in our admiration of an individual that it causes us to go blind and stupid. That's also a serious problem in this country. That's what conservatives do.


    Because she didn't even have her drivers license then, you long-winded self-absorbed blowhard lunk. She was a minor. Didn't you say you were some kind of addict streetrat until someone straightened your wild ass out? Yet you're going to hold eternal judgment on what a candidate did as a kid? When did Buddha get his shit together? Gandhi? Martin Luther King? Mandela?Mother Theresa? Malcolm was a hood, not even soul on ice, until far into his 20s when he got paroled. But all this shit is meaningless to you - you're just throwing out empty platitudes.


    I understand. 


    I don't pick and choose what knowledge I disseminate.

    Every one picks and chooses what knowledge they disseminate, especially when writing an article about a person. It's impossible to tell everything a person has done in their life so one must chose what is important or what most fits with their partisan slant to produce the most effective propaganda. It's very clear what choice you make in everyone of your blogs.


    Ocean-Kat,

    You and your bud never cease to amaze me.  You claim that I write partisan crap and propaganda, yet you never seem to miss an episode. What are you some kind of masochists or gluttons for punishment?  If I read one of your pieces and read one stupid remark, I would never read you again. My time is much too valuable to return time after time and wallow in bullshit. So what's up with you?  What could possibly motivate you to continue to read my articles?  Ordinarily, it would make me scratch my head, but in this case and a handful of others, I'm pretty sure I know the answer to that question, and frankly, it just delights the hell out of me.

    I have a lot of experience in this area. I've come to call it the Obama syndrome, and I must admit, it's both flattering, and it's quite satisfying to watch you suffer. But it's also tedious and a gross waste of my time having to deal with you, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to relegate you to the sandbox with your buddy PP.  That way I don't have to waste my time dealing with you, yet, I can still enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that your out there suffering, and trying to reconcile a reality that life never prepared you to deal with.  And let me leave you with a little something else that should bring you a lot of comfort - there are hoards of other Black people out here just like me. So you'd better get on your game, if you've got one.


    You claim that I write partisan crap and propaganda, yet you never seem to miss an episode.

    It's a small site. I read everything that everybody posts here. That way I'm aware of the whole of the conversation as it takes place over multiple threads. This is the only site I take the time to comment. Some people are more interesting  than others, but I read everyone. You're pretty much the worse. A blight on the overall quality of this site. Pointing out your bullshit is one way of noting that not everyone here agrees with your nonsense.

     If I read one of your pieces and read one stupid remark, I would never read you again. My time is much too valuable to return time after time and wallow in bullshit. So what's up with you?

    That's a lie, but lying is what you do most of the time. We've been arguing for about two years and you've claimed time and time again how you won't waste your time with me but it never happens. Just a few days ago you read my comment and replied several times.

    enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that your out there suffering, and trying to reconcile a reality that life never prepared you to deal with.

    I'm not suffering at all. I actually enjoy a good debate. The worse part for me is you're so bad at it that it often becomes boring. I'm also well prepared to deal with this reality. I'm happy with most everything Obama has done. My main complaint is he has not gone far enough fast enough. Since I don't expect any democrat to go far enough fast enough for me I was prepared for it.

    there are hoards of other Black people out here just like me

    I don't believe that. I would not disrespect the intelligence of black people so much. I've read many articles and books by black authors and they are not like you. There's a reason Tanehisi Coates is writing for the Atlantic and you are not. There's a reason Melissa Harris Perry has a show on MSNBC and you do not. They and others are public intellectuals with integrity and insight and you're a lying bragging showboat writing propaganda that appeals at most to the least educated people.

     


    TOS warning:  Personal swipes aren't necessary and aren't welcome.  Let's just stick with the subject.  Thanks.


    TOS warning:  Keep it civil, please.  Thanks.


    "My time is much too valuable to return time after time and wallow in bullshit." - nonsense, you have lots of time you waste repeating the same tripe. You just don't like explaining yourself, pretending you're too exalted to trouble yourself with the minnows at your feet. Get over yourself - write something quality that's not full of intellectual and factual holes. Your pieces are embarrassments, but you keep doubling and tripling down on basic errors or worse spurious claims and ugly attitudes. In the years you've been posting here you'd could learn something rather than try to hold this laughable teacher before unworthy students posture with RR as your trusty acolyte. But you are right - we shouldn't waste our time with you since no matter how damaging what you say might seem, there's very minute chance that anyone would take you seriously, much less repeat your claims. So I'll take your single good advice and piss off.

    TOS warning.  Please lay off the personal attacks and stick with discussing the content.  Thanks.


    Got it - mea culpa, disculpe.

    BlackLivesMattter interrupted Sanders and O'Malley at the Netroots conference in Phoenix. I thought it was just young activists demonstrating their power. It appears that they have deeper problems with Sanders, Sanders sees the economic strife in the black community as a class issues. Young black activists see class, but also see race and discrimination issues that are not a focus of Sanders campaign. The young activists want a change in tone from the Sanders campaign. Sanders is going to have to do more than talk about marching with King.

    Sanders gave a response that appears on YouTube

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWiNy6UA7zY

    Martin O'Malley was booed off the stage.


    I don't see what they did as a triumph, I see it as turning against the only ones who will ever work to support black issues.  This is not how you make friends and influence people.  

    Sanders has to make a change in tone?  What more could you possibly want from him?  He's the peoples' candidate in every way.  What a slap in the face to a candidate who clearly didn't deserve that.  They should be ashamed of themselves.  This is not how you work for change.


    I didn't pay too much attention, but maybe it's useful even to push Bernie out of his comfort zone, just as a thought. And in the market of ideas, it's not win-win - it's win-lose. The ideas that aren't fought for enough get squeezed out - only so much oxygen. A bit of guerrilla marketing that caught people by surprise - what are the actual metrics to figure out if it was a success, what were their goals? Recognition? Media frenzy? Control the agenda? Place at the table? No generic "x Lives Matter"? Naming the issue? There are lots of ways to work for change (Alinsky would probably approve here). Aside from hurting some pols' feelings, did they reasonably succeed in mission?

    Blacks get targeted by institutional racism. The structural problems impact education, law enforcement, the judicial system, home loans, health and a host of other issues. Blacks with equal financial status to whites, live in homes of much less value. Blacks are still clustered in communities of lower economic status. Racism has to be addressed. Because he focuses only on class, Sanders is not speaking directly to a large group of black voters.

    Hillary Clinton has spoken more directly about racism as in the case of Ferguson. She notes the racism in the judicial system.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/08/29/nobody-...


    NN is a liberal conference that likely supports the goals of the protesters. Did they try to work through the organizers to get some accommodation? If they didn't they harmed the liberals and themselves. If they did but were ignored and rebuffed then this was a last ditch effort to get recognition of their goals and likely justifiable.


    BlackLivesMatter follows its own agenda. They did not care what NN planned. For Sanders, it may open his eyes that he has to deal with these activists. Hillary did not come, because honestly she doesn't expect to be the first choice of BlackLivesMatter


    Here is how Hillary responds to BlackLivesMatter on Facebook. She focuses on race.

     


    RM, Bernie Sanders has got it exactly right:
    .

    RACISM AND THE CORPORATE-REPUBLICAN ALLIANCE

    .
    We are now knee-deep in a class war. The 1%ers don't care any more about White lives than they do Black lives. Clear evidence of that is they're currently clamoring to go to war instead of seeking a negotiated peace in Iran - and these are people like Dick Cheney who got FIVE (count 'em - FIVE) deferments to avoid having to place his life on the line during the Vietnam War.  Thus, the 1%ers are more interested in the profits in war than they are American lives - Black or White.  We saw an example of that when Bush and Cheney were so anxious to rush American troops into Iraq that they sent them to war without the necessary body armor to protect their lives.  
    .
    Now, they're using race as a weapon of their class war in order to maintain power in spite of their toxic agenda a rapidly changing demographic. They're using the media to keep a handful of the most vicious racists, and the most horrendous racist atrocities, on the front burner to give the impression that racial hatred is running rampant all across the country. That keeps the American working class angry, frustrated, and divided, and if we don't wake up to that fact we're all doomed.

     

    Eric L. Wattree's photo.

    The Earth is a giant cube of salt. On this salt cube, God has spread ketchup. In a thin layer.

    Into which, he inserted ICBMs.

    And onto the back of each ICBM, he duct-taped a Republican.

    And the warhead on these ICBMs? 

    Well, they're little Dutch children, each wearing their own pair of God-made wooden shoes.

    What? My critics think these words are garbage? Why. I'm offended. I'm a writer.  My job is to disseminate information and knowledge, and since there's no such thing as BAD knowledge, I don't pick and choose what knowledge I disseminate. I write to relate knowledge, not hide it. 

    The little Dutch ICBM children. 

    It's knowledge.


    I've received a lot of flak from Hillary Clinton supporters over pointing out that she worked for Republican, Barry Goldwater, and at wellesley College she was the president of the "Young Republicans."  Hillary supporters went berserk over my bringing that out.  But I've long since recognized that people generally attack a position not so much because they think they're right, but because the facts, or a given truth being revealed, challenges their preferred view of reality.  But that's what writing is about, isn't it - challenging comfortable assumptions. 
    .
    All of the arguments put forward in opposition to my position are either weak, invalid, or based on gross and unwarranted assumptions. For example, the argument that when Hillary Clinton was campaigning for Barry Goldwater at 17, or when she was in college and became the president of the "Young Republicans," she was too young to have developed a fundamental political philosophy.  What evidence do they have of that?  When I was 14 I held the very same political philosophy - and attitudes - that I have today. 
    .
    So the argument that Hillary's tender age at the time she was engaging in these activities should indeed be taken into account, but contrary to the position of my critics, her age should be argued to bolster the other side of the equation. It should be used as an indicator of her fundamental predisposition. Politics is like religion. As we age we may modify and fine tune our beliefs, but most people take their fundamental belief system to the grave.
    .
    And the argument that Hillary's mentor, Saul Alinsky, was a liberal is also meaningless.  If Hillary's motive for spinning on a dime was a cynical decision based on ambition and a recognition of which way the wind was blowing, the very first thing she would want to do would be to start building her new liberal credentials, and what better way to do that than to establish an association with someone like Saul Alinsky?  In addition, he would be invaluable in helping her to understand the progressive mindset and how to speak the language of a liberal. And further, everything she's done since could have been in pursuit of building her liberal credentials. And just because Alinsky was her political mentor doesn't necessarily mean that she embraced his political philosophy.  Perhaps what she wanted most from him was his strategic thinking, i.g., "True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism. They cut their hair, put on suits, and infiltrate the system from within."  That could be exactly what she's doing.
    .
    Now, I'm not saying that everything I've said above represent the facts, but they are issues that should be pondered, because efficient thought doesn't elevate ANYTHING above question. In fact, to think, IS to question. So if you're not questioning, and you tend to take certain issues for granted, you're not a thinker; you're a feeler - and one of the biggest problems that we have in this country today is we have far too many feelers, and far too few thinkers.
    .
    And by the way, if Hillary Clinton is chosen as the Democratic nominee for president, I will support her enthusiastically.  But again, I don't completely trust her, and I've explained why.


    "America has the most generous socialist government that has ever existed in human history, but it only applies to millionaires."

     

    http://www.salon.com/2015/07/20/why_libertarians_should_love_bernie_sanders/


    Interesting link. Thx


    Yeah, I can double down on that!


    "It’s important to note that we in Hawaii can tell you with confidence that this presidential primary is not about race. It’s about class."

     

    http://www.civilbeat.com/2015/07/bernie-sanders-shifts-the-2016-presidential-paradigm/


    I fully agree, Sync.

    RACISM AND THE CORPORATE-REPUBLICAN ALLIANCE
    .
    We are now knee-deep in a class war. The 1%ers don't care any more about White lives than they do Black lives. Clear evidence of that is the fact that they're currently clamoring to go to war instead of seeking a negotiated peace in Iran - and these are people like Dick Cheney who got FIVE (count 'em - FIVE) deferments to avoid having to place his own life on the line during the Vietnam War.  Thus, the 1%ers are more interested in the profits in war than they are American lives - Black or White.  We saw an example of that when Bush and Cheney were so anxious to rush American troops into Iraq that they sent them to war without the necessary body armor to protect their lives.  
    .
    Now, they're using race as a weapon of their class war.  They're using race, and other forms of bigotry, to maintain power in spite of their toxic agenda and a rapidly changing demographic. They're using the media to keep a handful of the most vicious racists, and the most horrendous racist atrocities, on the front burner to give the impression that racial hatred is running rampant all across the country. That keeps the American working class angry, frustrated, and divided, and if we don't wake up to that fact we're all doomed.

    .

     


    WTF - how many times are you gonna cut-and-paste the exact same content on this blog? Same fucking cartoons, images, text. Now even in the same diary thread. Are you mad or just self-obsessed?

    RM, 
    .
    The comment by PP is what I meant in my comment on your article about swimming.  I love his comment, because it betrays a fury, a preoccupation with me, and a gross sense of inadequacy. His mind is in such a flux that he thinks his comment should upset me, but actually, it's quite satisfying, and even flattering, because his frustration speaks volumes:
    .

    RM, you said,
    .
    "For years, racists have had a field day using bogus studies to describe changes in bone density and buoyancy in blacks to explain the differences in swimming ability. Racists need something to latch onto to feel superior."
    .

    And you're absolutely right. If you'll notice, the fanatical preoccupation with the abilities of Black people is a fixation that seems to be exclusively dwelled upon by bigots.  There's a very simple reason for that, and you touched on it in your article. They're insecure, and when they come across the many Black people who are superior to themselves in life's various endeavors, they see it as a direct assault on their personal self-esteem.  That's why I asked you not to intervene on my behalf with the trolls on my wall.  Soaking up the agony of their insecurities is one of  the great joys of my life, and when you refocus their thinking in a way that forces them to try to justify their ridiculous propositions, it dilutes the purity of their agony, and thus, my joy, because it sends them into deception mode.  
    .
    I enjoy feeling the full furry of their angst, because I know that for a bigot, suffering a sense of intellectual inadequacy in the face of a Black man is more painful than if I shot him.  In addition, he's denied the luxury of death. It's something that he has to live with for the rest of his life.  So as a direct result of their racist need to feel superior, they've created their own Hell, and I enjoy every second of watching them having to wallow in its burning pit.

    .

    Racists tend to be the mediocrity of White society, so they try to use the fact that they were born White to define themselves and to compensate for their lack of personal value. Their entire sense of self-esteem is based more upon group association than individual value and accomplishment, and their entire claim to personal significance is, "Well, at least I'm better than them." 

    .
    That's what's driving radical conservatives so crazy about President Obama - he's walking, breathing, evidence that they cannot claim superiority by virtue of the color T-shirt they were born in, and that simple fact alone is causing them to suffer a severe attack of cognitive dissonance before the eyes of the entire world. That's also why they're so determined not to allow President Obama to be successful, even if it means destroying the country - and international corporatists are using the social division inherent in those sentiments to lower the standard of living of the American middle class.  
    .
    Thus, this entire nation, and the future of our children, is being threatened by the desperate attempt of a handful of insecure bigots to maintain their delusions of superiority, and as far as they’re concerned, if the country has to be sacrificed for that cause, so be it.

     


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