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    Sen. Warren Receives a Standing Ovation at California's 2015 Democratic Convention

    By trkingmomoe on Sun, 05/17/2015 - 3:40am |

    Saturday at the 2015 California Democratic Convention held in Anaheim, Sen. Elizabeth Warren was one of the speakers. She deliver a fiery speech "America is ready to stand with us" that brought down the house.  

    Sen. Elizabeth Warren delivered a tub-thumping speech to delegates at the California Democratic Party convention in Anaheim on Saturday, touching on the policy themes that have made her the increasingly popular champion of her party's liberal wing and bestowing conspicuous praise on state Atty. Gen. and U.S. Senate candidate Kamala Harris. (snip)

    "When we stand together, when we make it clear what we believe in, America is ready to stand with us," Warren told the rapt crowd at the Anaheim Convention Center. "This isn't just about politics. It's about values."

    Later, she added, "We don't win what we don't fight for."

     http://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-pc-elizabeth-warren-convention-20150516-story.html

    Besides going after corporations and TPP she took some shots at the Republicans that are running for President. 

    “Some of these guys took too many spins on the tea cup ride across the street,” she said, nodding in the direction of Disneyland.

    She then listed what she thinks is needed: greater accountability for corporations, more attention to climate change, a higher minimum wage, protection of unions’ collective bargaining rights, affordable college tuition, preservation of Social Security and Medicare, comprehensive immigration reform, same-sex marriage rights and abortion rights, and equal pay for women.

    “I know Washington is a tough place,” she said. “But we don’t win what we don’t fight for. We need people who believe that we can build a future. Not a future for some of our children but a future for all of our children. You are the heart and the soul and the living spirit of the Democratic Party. If we fight for our values will win. Are you ready to win?”

     http://www.ocregister.com/articles/warren-662044-sanchez-harris.html

    She is igniting a fire in the bellies of Democrats to get out and fight against a failed economic policies that have run the country since 1980. The country needs this kind of leadership to stump for the 2016 election that will help Democrats to win.  It is amazing to watch her speak because she understands what the party base is hungering for and wants from Washington. I hope Democratic candidates across the country follow her lead and run on these issues. 

     

     

    Comments

    "No I won't back down."  Great battle cry and theme.


    by trkingmomoe on Sun, 05/17/2015 - 4:08am

    Jeepers.   We don't win what we don't fight for ... and we won't back down. 

    (sigh)  If only.

    Nice piece, trking. 


     


    by MrSmith1 on Sun, 05/17/2015 - 5:55am

    Thanks, 


    by trkingmomoe on Sun, 05/17/2015 - 7:26am

    Thanks, Momoe. I'm surprised that Warren doesn't get more play at dag.

    While I like Warren and this speech, I'm taken aback by the lower-case-c-conservatism of the message--the nostalgic appeals to the mid-20th century America, when wages were higher, college was cheaper, unions were stronger, and the middle class was growing. Warren essentially wants to roll back 1980-2015 (except for gay rights). 

    There's nothing wrong with that in principle. Many things have gotten worse in the last 40 years, and we have lost the progressive ideas and momentum that made the country great. We need to fight to get them back.

    And yet, it's still a little sad. In the heyday of progressivism, the future was a faraway land that people dreamed about, but no one had ever seen. Now, the future is just a place we used to live--with some remodeling.

    Or to put it another way, it used to be that the left looked forwards and the right looked backwards. Now they both look backwards--just to different parts.


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 05/17/2015 - 10:30am

    But Michael if the economic policies that we pursued in the 50s worked, shouldn't Warren point that out?   In a highly integrated market-based economy, economic justice depends on very progressive income tax, truly affordable higher education, tariffs protecting American manufacturing, a unionized workforce, and sufficient spending on infrastructure.


    by HSG on Sun, 05/17/2015 - 11:55am

    Of course. But she's not just pointing out effective policies from the 50s. She's using nostalgic rhetoric to frame and promote her agenda. That's not a crime, but it is essentially conservative.

    Ultimately, this goes beyond Warren. The left has not had any revolutionary ideas in decades. Is 1950s-style capitalism the best we can do? I hope not.


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 05/18/2015 - 12:36am

    Just give me a day or two to write about the frame work and ideas that have been introduced in the last couple of weeks.  You know the lefties have think tanks too.  Maybe I can answer a few of your questions on how the Democrats will move us forward?  Since I am not the word smith so many of you are, there will be a video and pdf file to digest.  By the sounds of things, they are just getting started and there will be more to come as the campaign progresses. 


    by trkingmomoe on Mon, 05/18/2015 - 5:59am

    Cool, I look forward to it.


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 05/18/2015 - 12:48pm

    It depends on your definition of conservative.  My evolving view, which owes much to the work of Brooklyn College Professor Corey Robin, is that "conservative political ideology is best understood as a reaction to threats to existing hierarchies of wealth and power."  http://halginsberg.com/what-explains-working-class-conservatives/  By summoning up rose-colored memories of a society less marked by wealth disparities, Warren is threatening existing hierarchies.  So, I see her as acting radically. 


    by HSG on Mon, 05/18/2015 - 8:39am

    In the 1950s, endorsement of the status quo would certainly not have been regarded as radical. So if endorsement of the economic/political structure of the 1950s is now considered radical, it suggests that we have radically reduced our expectations, no pun intended.


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 05/18/2015 - 1:00pm

    In many ways American economic structure in the 1940s and 50s was truly radical and led the way for Western countries.

    The workers of 1900--and even of 1913--received no pensions, no paid vacation, no overtime pay, no extra pay for Sunday or night work, no health or old-age insurance (except in Germany), no unemployment compensation (except, after 1911, in Britain); they had no job security whatever. Fifty years later, in the 1950s, industrial workers had become the largest single group in every developed country, and unionized industrial workers in mass-production industry (which was then dominant everywhere) had attained upper-middle-class income levels. They had extensive job security, pensions, long paid vacations, and comprehensive unemployment insurance or "lifetime employment." Above all, they had achieved political power. In Britain the labor unions were considered to be the "real government," with greater power than the Prime Minister and Parliament, and much the same was true elsewhere. In the United States, too--as in Germany, France, and Italy--the labor unions had emerged as the country's most powerful and best organized political force. And in Japan they had come close, in the Toyota and Nissan strikes of the late forties and early fifties, to overturning the system and taking power themselves.

    Thirty-five years later, in 1990, industrial workers and their unions were in retreat. They had become marginal in numbers. Whereas industrial workers who make or move things had accounted for two fifths of the American work force in the 1950s, they accounted for less than one fifth in the early 1990s--that is, for no more than they had accounted for in 1900, when their meteoric rise began. In the other developed free-market countries the decline was slower at first, but after 1980 it began to accelerate everywhere. By the year 2000 or 2010, in every developed free-market country, industrial workers will account for no more than an eighth of the work force. Union power has been declining just as fast.

    http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/95dec/chilearn/drucker.htm


    by HSG on Mon, 05/18/2015 - 2:55pm

    This look back at what was working has it's political merits.  Populism was the norm for the Democratic party in my youth. Today it still matters. 

    The classic definition of an “economic populist” is a person who feels that wealth is unfairly distributed in this country. Unsurprisingly, most Republicans don’t feel that way. According to surveys collected by PollingReport.com, more than a third of them agree that our economy’s distribution of wealth is unfair. That includes an overwhelming 80 percent of Democrats and 62 percent – nearly two-thirds – of “independents.”

    That means that a Democratic candidate who pushes populism has a chance of attracting two-thirds of independents and more than one-third of the opposition party’s voters.

    This enthusiasm translates into a desire for more government action, and the poll numbers become stronger as the questions get more specific. Of those polled by Pew, 53 percent thought that the government should be doing a lot to reduce poverty, for example, and 82 percent thought that it should do either “a lot” or “some” to help the poor.

    http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/02/03/populist-moment 

     


    by trkingmomoe on Fri, 05/22/2015 - 1:54am

    I remember when I was first married and was able to go to the doctor and pay for necessities that I needed.  I had bought a home in my very early 20's and now I have to save up for necessities.  Conservatives with a big C went down the wrong road because they wanted to punish this country when their apartheid was outlawed. Greedy corporations took advantage of this.  It all crashed and burned. That generation is almost gone.

    We have the task now to correct this and it will take a fight to get it going. Her leadership in the senate is pointing this out and that is a good thing.

    I don't dream about the past because it makes me feel bad and sad.  So I send Bernie Sanders $10 to help keep him in this election cycle. I want him out there beating this drum.  I am content with our presidential candidate bench and will vote for who ever makes the cut in the general. I am hoping that Allen Greyson runs for senate here in Florida.  I don't care how outrages he appears because he will beat this drum also. This is something we need in this state to remind these old coots what it was once like for them when they were young and what the young don't have today. 

    I will certainly keep bringing this up in blogs.  I like pointing out the ladies that are throwing punches. 


    by trkingmomoe on Sun, 05/17/2015 - 3:44pm

    Liberals sure need to fight, I agree with her about that. But what are we fighting for? Student debt relief? Banking regulation? A marginally higher minimum wage? These are important issues, and Warren's proposed policies are good ones, but it's hard to imagine people going to the barricades for them.


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 05/18/2015 - 12:41am

    Sen. Warren isn't running for the Whitehouse. Her job is to do the push back and be the attack dog.  There is a group of voters that want to see some fight in the party and not roll over to the Republicans.  Sanders will gather up all the young and old hippies.  Clinton will pull off a flawless campaign. Sanders is not going to do any negative campaigning so the person that gets nominated won't be beat up. 


    by trkingmomoe on Mon, 05/18/2015 - 6:12am

    This sums up the problem for me. The left is hungry for someone to fight Republicans, and Warren has positioned herself to satisfy that urge. But what we should be hungry for is progress. Fighting is just a means to that end.


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 05/18/2015 - 1:06pm

    There has to be some theatrics in politics to empress the people who don't think things out.  Republicans have been very good at that since Reagan.  The criticism has been that the Democratic party is a bunch of technocrats and talk over the heads of the public. Warren is very good at explaining what has caused this mess we are in and expressing anger that many feel right now.

    I see her like a modern La Follette. He was pretty fiery too with his speeches.  I have found three speeches in the last 2 weeks she as made. Plus she has gone head to head with the President over TPP on the Senate floor.  She is very much part of the progress that is needed.  


    by trkingmomoe on Mon, 05/18/2015 - 4:37pm

    Reagan rode that nostalgia to victory. Clinton/Gore had the bridge to 21st century. It was nice when someone talked about forward looking technologies and the impact they can make - now its the 3rd rail. When Gore started running against himself and back to 50's liberal populism, it was over. I do think we should preach growth, productivity and wealth transfer, and figure out that jobs thing. The new economy may simply not give a lot of jobs other than makeshift, but if it supports healthy services and survival, we move on. Where's our health/productivity/new energy bonus? And yes, it gets tiring that we use the exceptional postwar period as our standard. If all my competitors were under 5 feet of rubble, I'd be competitive and pay top rates too. Especially if there were still a cheap continent beneath me to exploit for cheap groceries.

    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 05/18/2015 - 12:28am

    Ah yes, I remember when the 21st century was something exciting to look forward to. The Internet! The New World Order!

    Now we have Twitter, ISIS, and yet another Republican majority. Even the new technologies, like drones, robotics, and big data, inspire more dread than enthusiasm


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 05/18/2015 - 12:47am

    Green energy.  There is a energy evolution that is in progress. 


    by trkingmomoe on Mon, 05/18/2015 - 6:17am

    LOL...Yup Walker had several rides in the tea cups. What a word salad talking points this morning on Face the Nation. He thinks his visiting 6 foreign countries gives him foreign policy chops. He is real proud of beating up on unions with his statement about air traffic controllers in 1980's.  His mouth moves very fast through his talking points. He is going to announce his run in June after he finishes shafting Wisconsin. 

     

     

     


    by trkingmomoe on Sun, 05/17/2015 - 7:02pm

    I hate to say this, but I agree with Michael W, listening to Warren's speech was, for me, like watching a reprise of old socialist theater - you sit there thinking 'what would it have been like to live back then, when people actually got ignited around the idea of being part of a collective?'  No, I'm afraid Walker sounds slicker.  <Ewwwww>  He appears to be getting more comfortable with his lies and his personal narrative, the whole thing where he plots his adolescence against key points in Reagan's hagiography.  Of course it helps if you don't remember anything about that time, or conveniently find a way to misremember it.  Ominously missing in anything Walker says is the word 'we,' except in the sense of America as a nation of goobers led by a strong leader.  I wish someone would figure out how to resurrect a use of 'we' that didn't sound clunky and sexless.


    by arc (not verified) on Mon, 05/18/2015 - 10:39am

    I think Rubio must of fallen out of the tea cups after riding.  He is really rattled on Fox news today.


    by trkingmomoe on Sun, 05/17/2015 - 8:21pm