Ok... I'm Doubling Down... No Poll... Can We Just Admit That Bi-Partisanship Is Dead And Gone ???

[WillyT]

After the 47 Senators and Iran... after Indiana and Arkansas. et. al. ???

How many times does one have to get smacked in the face to get it ???

THEIR IS NO MORE BI-PARTISANSHIP !!!

[RKP5637]

1. IMO bi-partisanship is wishful thinking anymore. The republicans just keep hardening more and

more their callous unenlightened line of defense. I've never seen the US so divided, more and more like two countries. I don't know where it's going, but more and more I feel the separation growing. For years it seemed there was generally a middle ground wherein agreement was reached. Now, the middle spot seems quite elusive.

[appalachiablue]

12. Agree about GOP. Have never seen Dems. so inactive. To me this country seems extremely

divided and I don't know it anymore which is very concerning. Two countries, rich and poor; west coast has decent unity it seems; mid west ?; NE with Wall St. and Boston good; DC corrupt, big $; south, crazy, strange. What a change in my lifetime. California, the 8th largest economy is doing well and seems so different geographically, economically and culturally it could almost be a country.

[still_one]

2. I don't know, they might agree on congressional raises

[Dustlawyer]

18. And protecting Wall Street!

[woo me with science]

3. You've got to be kidding.

Mass spying on Americans? Both parties support it.
Trans-Pacific Job/Wage Killing Secret Agreement? Both parties support it.
TISA corporate overlord agreement? Both parties support it.
Drilling and fracking? Both parties support it.
Wars on medical marijuana instead of corrupt banks? Both parties support it.
Deregulation of the food industry? Both parties support it.
GMO's? Both parties support it.
Mass propaganda aimed at Americans? Both parties support it.
Austerity for the masses? Both parties support it.
Cutting social safety nets? Both parties support it.
Corporatists in the cabinet? Both parties support it.
Bank bailouts? Both parties support it.
Ignoring the trillions stashed overseas? Both parties support it.
Tolling our interstate highways? Both parties support it.
Corporate education policy? Both parties support it. Privatization of the TVA? Both parties support it.
Immunity for telecoms? Both parties support it.
"Looking forward" and letting war criminals off the hook? Both parties support it.
Deciding torturers are patriots? Both parties support it.
Militarized police and assaults on protesters? Both parties support it.
Indefinite detention? Both parties support it.
Drone wars and kill lists? Both parties support it.
Targeting of journalists and whistleblowers? Both parties support it.
Private prisons replacing public prisons? Both parties support it.
Unions? Both parties view them with contempt.
Trillion dollar increase in nuclear weapons. Both parties support it.
New war in Iraq. Both parties support it.
New war in Syria. Both parties support it.
Carpet bombing of captive population in Gaza. Both parties support it.
Selling off swaths of the Gulf of Mexico for drilling? Both parties support it.
Drilling along the Atlantic Coast? Both parties support it.
Arctic drilling for Shell Oil? Both parties support it.

We have united oligarchy, not divided democracy.

[WillyT]

6. I Agree woo... Have You Seen This:

Link: http://www.wolf-pac.com/

It's the ONLY way.

[woo me with science]

39. Thank you.

Bernie Sanders is correct. We need nothing less than political revolution.

[Bluenorthwest]

45. Wow. Wolf-pac is a bipartisan group, it favors the term 'cross partisan' heavily and uses lots of

'both Parties are the same' verbiage. The goal they have set is one that is by definition going to be bipartisan, it can not be accomplished without Republicans.
So your OP seems contradictory of the whole Wolf PAC ethos.

[WillyT]

49. Yeah... At The State Level... There Is Bi-Partisan Agreement On The Corruption At The Federal Level

And Wolf-PAC has 4 states already on the board, and 3 others half-way there...

All with bi-partisan STATE support.

They know what game is being played in D.C., and intend to END IT.

[corkhead]

8. Wow, what a list, deserving it's own OP imho

Right on the mark.

[840high]

10. Thank you.

[F4lconF16]

13. Damn straight.

And people wonder why we're going to hell in a handbasket.

Thanks, woo.

[Cheese Sandwich]

14. Yeah really. They agree on a lot of stuff.

It's more like a negotiation between different factions of the same corporate party.

There are serious differences on some important issues. But the area of agreement is also very big.

[zeemike]

25. The serious differences are always the things that money does not care about.

Like gay marriage, abortions, and intolerance in general...there is no money in that.
And by having these serious differences they know they can keep us fighting between left and right while they get what they want on things that do matter to them, like power, control and money.

And welcome to DU.

[F4lconF16]

29. On the contrary: there is a ton of money in that.

They care about racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry very much. You said as much yourself.

"And by having these serious differences they know they can keep us fighting between left and right while they get what they want on things that do matter to them"

It has been a tactic of the American elite since its very beginning. Our political and economic system is uniquely designed to fracture the working class, to keep us from uniting. It's why laws were passed in the early 1800s forbidding interracial communications--the poor Irish and the slaves were beginning to cause worry. It's why whites and blacks have had their hatreds stoked by their literal and financial masters against one another for the last 200 years. It's why gay marriage isn't legal everywhere yet, despite a majority of people supporting it. It's why women are still discriminated against (though there is a far, far longer history to that than just our political system, and indeed, political systems at all). Our entire political history has been carefully balanced oppression stacked on top of and woven into more carefully balanced oppression. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. So far it's worked more than it hasn't.

It is absolutely critical to keep us divided amongst ourselves. The elite care more about those issues than you might think, because without them, the people will realize their own power as one. They will become a single working class, rather than blacks and whites, men and women, straight and gay. We are a dangerous mass of humanity that would roll over them like the ocean rolls over a few pebbles.

This is why these social issues are just as important as the economic ones, the power struggles. They are utterly critical to maintaining the illusion that there is no true working class, that we are separate, different from one another. The elite care very much about maintaining that illusion.

[zeemike]

32. Points well made

And well stated...I could not agree more.

[woo me with science]

38. Outstanding post.

Absolutely correct.

I commented on something like this re: Ferguson:

Which illustrates how cynical and empty and manipulative the Third Way propaganda claiming to care about "civil rights" really is
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6433911

The propaganda of Third Way Democrats *always* tries to incite anger and division about these issues (in the guise of raising "awareness&quot only up until the point where someone suggests actual policy solutions to inequality. Then the furious backtracking and ugly attack swarms are deployed.

It's textbook by corporate politicians, and it's very, very ugly. As is their record when it comes to women and minority groups:

Women Facing Globalization: The Impact Of Neo-liberal Globalization On The Economic, Social And Cultural Rights Of Women
http://www.awid.org/Library/Women-Facing-Globalization-The-impact-of-neo-liberal-globalization-on-the-economic-social-and-cultural-rights-of-women

Neoliberalism’s Deleterious Effects on Women
https://genderandsocs13.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/neoliberalisms-deleterious-effects-on-women/

NEOLIBERALISM THRHOUGH THE EYES OF WOMEN
http://focusweb.org/publications/2001/neoliberalism-through-the-eyes-of-women.html

Racial Aspects of Economy are Significant for White House to Address
http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/07/28/racial-aspects-of-economy-are-significant-for-white-house-to-address

The Astonishing Collapse of Black and Latino Household Wealth
http://www.alternet.org/economy/black-and-latino-household-wealth-has-collapsed

The Roots of the Widening Racial Wealth Gap: Explaining the Black-White Economic Divide
http://iasp.brandeis.edu/pdfs/Author/shapiro-thomas-m/racialwealthgapbrief.pdf

Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks and Hispanics
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2011/07/SDT-Wealth-Report_7-26-11_FINAL.pdf

Hillary's Right-Wing Honduran Coup and Its Devastating Effects on Women and Human Rights
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laura-carlsen/honduran-coup-violates-wo_b_348510.html?

Why the Honduran Children Flee North
https://consortiumnews.com/2014/07/12/why-the-honduran-children-flee-north/

Why women are less free 10 years after the invasion of Iraq
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/18/opinion/iraq-war-women-salbi/

Neoliberalism, Migrant Women, and the Commodification of Care
http://sfonline.barnard.edu/gender-justice-and-neoliberal-transformations/neoliberalism-migrant-women-and-the-commodification-of-care/

Henry A. Giroux: The Militarization of Racism and Neoliberal Violence
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/25660-the-militarization-of-racism-and-neoliberal-violence

Locked up: racism in the era of neoliberalism
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-03-19/locked-up-racism-in-the-era-of-neoliberalism/1077518

Race, Poverty, and the Neoliberal Agenda in the United States
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2008/bauzon130208.html

[Dont call me Shirley]

54. “if the American people knew what we have done, they would string us up from the lamp posts.”

-George H.W. Bush

- See more at: http://wikiprotest.com/blog/if-the-american-people-knew-what-we-have-done-they-would-string-us-up-from-the-lamp-posts-george-hw-bush/#sthash.Y2ZcKKdV.dpuf

[Bluenorthwest]

33. How is it that spousal benefits can be extended to millions of LGBT people by government and by

business costs no one any money? Are you under the impression that the decades of unfair taxation and denial of benefits did not cost LGBT people anything? You are hugely mistaken. Your straight majority has been fleecing us, mugging us, ripping us off, stealing from us and taking it for yourselves for generations. Don't think for a moment that is going to be forgotten.

[F4lconF16]

35. People on this site tend to view things from a very white, straight, middle class perspective.

We forget just how many oppressed people have been suffering underneath these regimes. This is why FDR is hailed as a hero of the liberals, despite the fact that he was a part of the elite that used tactics designed to minimize social change in a time of massive social upheaval. He reined in the socialist movements and blunted much of their effectiveness in affecting change. There is a reason many on this site refer to the 60s and 70s as an incredible time, because it was: if you were straight and white and male. Even straight, white, and female to some extent. Life was drastically different for those who were different: it was not easy to be black in the 50s and 60s, and it still isn't today. It wasn't a great place to be if you were gay. You were pretty much fucked if you were a black lesbian. Things have gotten better, but we forget that most of what was so "incredible" about the economic booms after world war ii only applied to a relatively small chunk of the population. Everyone else was too busy dealing with being attacked, being desperately poor, dying from a cureless disease, etc., to really enjoy the prosperity and middle class boom.

Yeah, it won't be forgotten by those who experienced it. I only hope that the rest of us can remember it.

[Bluenorthwest]

44. They are self damaging.

No one is going to join you just to be bullied. LGBT people will simply not join some movement that says 'civil rights don't matter, both Parties are the same, only money counts'. That's not progressive, no matter how man straight white men stomp their feet and insist that it is.
As a person raised in the Franklin and Eleanor tradition and watching the 60's movement, when I came of age and found that the progressives, the American left, simply did not come to the AIDS battle grounds to join the fight I was very disappointed. There were no elder leaders from the movement, none of the famous organizers came to help out, none of the big organizations rallied for the cause, no. LGBT had to build it all, do it all. Nearly 30,000 Americans died while the President said nothing, and the 'left' did not rise up. Gay people occupied Wall St, got arrested demonstrating at Phram companies and Insurance companies. Where were the rest of you?

It stuns me that people who did not bother to help us when we needed them assume they can preach at us when it looks like they might need us.

[zeemike]

36. Well I think you missed the point altogether.

They love to have you as victims and do their best to make you that, because they then have conflict which keeps us busy fighting it so they can continue raking in the money unopposed.

That is why the law in Indeana...that is why the attack on reproductive rights, and why cops beat and kill black people...they want us to fight.
Conflict is the strategy.

[Bluenorthwest]

43. You did not address any of my refutations of your so called point. Your verbiage is insulting.

Your response the classic dismissal of the privileged white straight man. You claimed LGBT equality is not costing anyone any money, when the lack of equality cost us dearly and the creation of equality will in fact cost business and government a great deal of money. What you claimed was bullshit and it still lies there stinking up the place and drawing flies.

[zeemike]

47. Well I find your all out assault on me insulting too

So let's call the whole thing off.

[blkmusclmachine]

20. The 14 Defining Characteristics Of Fascism (http://www.rense.com/general37/fascism.htm):

The 14 Defining Characteristics Of Fascism

http://www.rense.com/general37/fascism.htm

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause

4. Supremacy of the Military

5. Rampant Sexism and Homophobia

6. Controlled Mass Media

7. Obsession with National Security

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined

9. Corporate Power is Protected

10. Labor Power is Suppressed

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption

14. Fraudulent Elections

[BrotherIvan]

28. ^^This!^^

[woo me with science]

40. We are there. It's way past time to stop using euphemisms

like "centrist" or "moderate" or even "Republican " or "Third Way Democrat" for politicians who are aggressively dismantling democracy and implementing secret government, "Kill Lists," mass surveillance, and corporate subversion of our democratic system.

They are fascists.

[RiverLover]

31. DU Rec

We need to DO something.

Like this~

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12775392

https://movetoamend.org/

http://www.wolf-pac.com/the_plan

[99Forever]

37. Exactly. K&R

[ND-Dem]

5. oh come on; d's & r's quickly got together to save the banksters from their own folly.

what do you mean, no bipartisanship.

you just need big $$$$$$$$$$$$$

[PeteSelman]

7. Eliminating earmarks really fucked the system up.

There's no real reason to compromise when there's nothing to haggle over.

The only things they will agree on now are the things that fuck us all. Wall Street crap, "free" trade, spying and the like.


There, their and they're. Brush up.

[jeff47]

42. Yep. Earmarks were the grease that kept things moving.

Without them, there's little benefit to compromising - a Republican's only concern is a teabagger in the primary.

[LiberalElite]

9. There isn't any now -

doesn't mean there never will be any in the future. Just my opinion.

[appalachiablue]

11. Buy-Partisan where there's $. When it comes to people, the environment & the US, not so much.

[rhett o rick]

15. Yes it's dead, but it's more complicated. We now live in a country where the two parties

consist of a crazy-assed idiot party vs. a Conservative Party. Progressive have been marginalized completely. So bi-partisanship doesn't really mean anything. This was no accident. It was a conspiracy of the Powers That Be to run the Republicon party off the rails and coopt the Democratic Party. Now are choices are wacko-Cruze or Clinton-Sachs. Win-win for the Oligarchy.

[hifiguy]

48. Yep. The two wings of The Money Party. nt

[Thespian2]

16. K & R

Yep.

[blkmusclmachine]

17. "Bi-partisanship" is just the cover Democrats use to explain why they "HAVE" to go Right.

It's as phony as a 3-legged duck.

[liberal_at_heart]

22. +1

[Chan790]

19. No. It is but we can't admit it.

Admitting it would necessitate the Democratic party to acknowledge that it's "electable" flank isn't actually achieving anything and there is no point to nominating DLCers, Third-Wayers, Clintonites or Corporatists since they can't work across the aisle any better than liberals and merely represent capitulation of core Democratic value positions for no purpose.

You don't actually expect that to happen, do you?

[JEB]

21. We do not negotiate with terrorists.

And that should include our own home grown bought and paid for christo/corporate fascists.

[Man from Pickens]

23. Good!

"Bipartisan usually means that a larger-than-usual deception is being carried out." - George Carlin

[zeemike]

24. No it is more like tri-partisanship.

Tri as in triangulation.
And we never seem to get it and our leaders just play along...there is nothing we can do because what the GOP wants is so much worse.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

26. The Beltway's idea of "bipartisan" was when Liebermann stood with McCain....

They now look back on that as "the good old days".

[Joe Turner]

27. Bi-Partisianship is dead on social issues

And alive and well when matters concern on the economy where both parties are beholden to business interests that just can't offshore enough jobs and give enough breaks to wall street and the ultra rich.

[RandiFan1290]

30. Everyone knows the Gov runs better

When the 'publicons are in charge and the Democrats are weak and subservient!

[stillwaiting]

34. There shouldn't be, but there will be.

When the Democratic Party keeps on clamoring for bipartisanship, the Republican Party is VALIDATED to the masses of tuned out people in this country.

Instead of calling them out for being extremists, the Democratic Party enables them.

It really needs to stop.

[HereSince1628]

41. I've noticed this...the 3rd way and progressives cant' get together anymore

Bipartisanship has completely broken down...

[MineralMan]

46. Yah, well, here's the problem with what you're saying.

Right now, Congress has Republican majorities in both houses. Everyone in Congress got elected to office.

Unless we can manage to regain majority control of Congress and elect a Democratic President, we won't have to worry about bi-partisanship. If Republicans gain control of all three branches of the federal government, we'll have zip-all that we can do.

Unless Democrats start turning out for EVERY election, the Republicans will soon be in power. There won't be a question, then, about bi-partisanship. They'll just roll right over everything.

Don't think it can happen? Think again. 2014 was a message. 2010 was a message. What message will 2016 send? It's sort of up to all of us. Talking about the end of bi-partisanship is a luxury we don't have right now. If we blow it in 2016, the Republicans will make the decisions. I guarantee they're not interested in bi-partisanship.

If we can't win, we will simply be the losers. I don't want that to happen. Nobody here on DU should want that to happen, but it seems clear that many can't see that it's already happening. Will we wake up in time to fix it? If not, we won't have to worry about bi-partisanship. It will be gone, and the Republicans will be in charge.

[Blue_In_AK]

50. You got that right.

Even down to the state level.

[malokvale77]

51. Agree...

and being old and not giving a damn anymore, I'm about to be the smacker instead of the smacked.

Thank you WillyT.

[WillyT]

52. You Are Quite Welcome !!!

[malokvale77]

53. You are one of a handfull...

I still come to DU for.