This message was self-deleted by its author

[Ken Burch]

This message was self-deleted by its author (Ken Burch) on Wed Mar 1, 2017, 02:36 PM. When the original post in a discussion thread is self-deleted, the entire discussion thread is automatically locked so new replies cannot be posted.

[JNelson6563]

1. What people post reveals

the extent of their knowledge of politics out in reality. Or lack thereof.

I can tell you this though, another telltale sign is if one is here 24/7. Real world politics takes time.

[Gothmog]

2. Agreed

You can tell who has actually block walked and participated in the real world.

[Ken Burch]

5. You don't know what other people have and haven't done.

Canvassing and block-walking at the same thing-going door to door, for hours at a time, either talking to people or leaving literature if they aren't home.

Everyone on DU has participated in the real world. Participating in the real world doesn't have to mean believing that bland, timid centrism is the only way to win elections.

[Gothmog]

6. You can tell a great deal about one's real life experiences from these posts.

Ken the insistence that the platform was the key to winning is simply wrong. The real world is very different from an internet board. You can post all you want but do not expect anyone to take your posts seriously unless you show some understanding of the real world. I have been volunteering for a long time and the running joke that it only took my 15 or so years of hard work to be elected as a delegate to the National Convention. There is a lady from another district who was complaining that it took her 25 years to make it.

A week from tonight we will have a meeting of the governing group of my county's Indivisible group. There was an initial meeting last week that had over 100 people at it. Have you been to a meeting on an Indivisible group yet??? It is not hard to find a group near you. https://www.indivisibleguide.com/groups-nav Why don't you attend one and ask if the platform mattered? At the last meeting that I attended, a dozen or more people were very worried about losing their health care if the ACA is gutted by trump but not one person talked about single payer.

There is a great deal of energy on the ground in the real world. This energy is directed at Trump and not on platform proposals that were not popular enough to bring any new voters to the Democratic Party. I will attend these meetings and help get the Indivisible and the Pants Suit Nation groups organized and qualified as PACs under applicable law. I will not waste my time talking about single payer health care or free college. The people attending these groups are afraid of what is happening to our country and do not care about platform planks.

I find it is more productive to focus on issues that are important in the real world to people on the ground. Again, in the real world you need to focus on issues that people on the ground care about.

[Ken Burch]

7. I focus on issues in the real world. I'm in the real world as much as you do.

I've done as much bread-and-butter politics as you have.

Being in the real world doesn't have to mean accepting your hopeless, defeatist version of politics.

You live in Texas.

In Texas, the state party basically gave up when Dubya won the governor's race. Since then, the state leadership there hasn't even tried to win.

In Alaska, with Sanders people, the kind you say don't live in the real world, now in charge of the state party, Democrats just managed to form a coalition to take control of the state House for the first time since 1994. I was part of that before I moved.

I spent thirty-three years up there...sometimes going door-to-door in zero degree weather in early November.

Don't ever lecture me on living in the real world.

I live in it just as much as you do.

And it's possible to work on real day-to-day issues WITHOUT giving up on transformation. People do that all over the country and all over the world.

Indivisible isn't the only valid group to be involved in. I'm going to go door-to-door as part of the Knock On Every Door Group. I'm also involved in antiracist activism on a continual basis.

[George II]

3. What's your point? I don't think anyone here ever said it's an "either/or" situation.

I've run for office six times, won twice, and campaigned every year since the 1990s. I post here.

[NurseJackie]

4. What an odd post. There must be more to this. What's the context? I get the feeling...

I get the feeling that we're seeing just one side of a conversation gone bad (perhaps a hidden thread or deleted post?)

Is this a cryptic and detail-free question just a way of seeking approval and agreement by overly simplifying things and removing all context? Something's not right.

It sounds to me like someone is trying to have the "last word", and to get others to agree, (strength in numbers perhaps?) to an hypothetical point that lacks the details of what's actually being argued as well as lacking any points that may have been made by some other party (parties?)

Or was some other public argument abruptly ended before you had a chance to land your "knock-out blow" or to make your final "winning" argument?

Ken... sometimes, the person who manages to get in the "last word" isn't always the winner of an argument. There aren't "bonus points" for obsessively getting-in the last word. (But, in some cases, hasty attempts to get the all-important all-powerful last-word actually end up looking pretty lame and probably deserve to be assessed a penalty and a "loss of points".)

Carrying-on lost arguments by proxy (under the guise of the theoretical) is a sign of weakness. It's not a very mature way to handle disagreements. Those who do such things aren't doing themselves, or their pet-causes, any favors.

Sometimes, Ken, it's best to just let things go and move on.


#BeLikeKeith