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[guillaumeb]

This message was self-deleted by its author (guillaumeb) on Sat Sep 23, 2017, 04:53 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.

[UglyGreed]

1. Third Way, New Democrats

who have sabotaged the Democratic Party.

[VulgarPoet]

94. This.

After this cycle, if the worst comes to pass, it's proof that the term "Democrat" has ben soiled beyond cleansing.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

2. D) Flamebait threads like this one. nt

[NNadir]

27. Actually, if the poll were legitimate, it would include answer D. The announced "incorrect..."

...shows that the poll is nothing more than a statement of opinion that shows zero interest in what actually people think.

As an advertising method, it's cheap and unworthy.

The appropriate path to winning control of a party involves winning an election, not a dictatorial fiat.

[onecaliberal]

4. C

[MohRokTah]

5. I reject the premise of your post.

D) Extreme Leftist Purists who cannot accept reality so they take their balls and go home.

[Lizzie Poppet]

6. Hey, you correctly identified the next member in the sequence!

I guess that's because they're letters and not numbers, huh?

[BillZBubb]

76. For him anyone to the left of romney is an Extreme Leftist Purist.

[BillZBubb]

79. Amazing isn't it? The party has moved so far to the right.

A New Dealer like me is now an Ultra Leftist Purist. Fifty years ago, I'd just be a solid Democrat--except in the South.

The DLC/Third Way has been very, very successful. They've moved the party into 1950's republican territory--exactly where Hillary feels comfortable.

[rhett o rick]

18. E) Clinton supporters that vote for Clinton even when shown that she will lose in the General. nm

[kenfrequed]

23. Amazing

The poster actually suggests that neither Bernie nor Hillary supporter are to blame and points to possible flaws in the system and you seek to go after the poster.

Frigging amazing. With such wonderful consensus building skills like this I cannot help but imagine how you will sway many lefties to your banner.

Seriously, you do more damage to your own candidate than a dozen angry Bernie people.

[Else You Are Mad]

9. I would go with Option D.

Option D: this need to make the person that supports the candidate the "Other" that does all these evil and harsh things.


I wish that both groups would get along better & not resort to insults. I understand that emotions get tense on both sides and there has been a lot of time and energy put into both campaigns but everything should remain civil. Both sides have to admit that either Bernie or Hillary would make a better president than a Trump or Cruz.

Here is no need to "other-ize" the other side with the Hillary Bot or the Bernie Bro label. That is just a primary campaign tactic -- used by both campaigns -- that does more harm than good and should be put to rest. Because that evil other that supported the opposing candidate in the primary becomes your strong ally post convention. Because if we are a divided party, we lose to the republicans.

[rhett o rick]

20. What we are seeing is the endgame of those trying to drive the progressives out

of our Party. The Conservative Dems that support Wall Street, American Exceptionalism, a strong NSA/CIA Security State, and think that fracking our environment for oil company profits, what to push us out of our Party.

As for the 99% we are close to the tipping point where we will never be able to reclaim our democracy.

This isn't just an election, we are fighting the heavy-handed dominance of the Big Money Ruling Class. The TPP will break the backs of the Working Class.

[NNadir]

42. It seems to me that so called "progressives" claim, unilaterally, "ethical exceptionalism."

These conversations come up every eight year or so.

No one asks self declared "progressives" to leave. They leave themselves, for themselves, because they can't tolerate any honest disagreement with anyone else.

My favorite example of "progressive exceptionalism" is the year 2000 claim that "Bush is the same as Gore."

Evidence for the moral outcome of this exceptional claim, may be taken from the piles of dead bodies that formed in New York City, and two West Asian nations.

I very much doubt that there would even be an ISIS were Gore, "the same as Bush" had been elected rather than "Bush, who is definitely Bush."

If you really are concerned with "democracy," the way people vote would matter. But you're not. You're concerned that everyone should agree with you absolutely because you insist that your way of seeing the world is the only way of seeing the world.

You assume that everyone is stupid, and that people only vote the way that money tells them. I note, with due contempt, that a huge amount of money was spent by Jeb! and Marco!

If Sanders were to win the nomination, I would hold my nose and vote for him, even though his record on the issue that is most important to me, the environment, is rote to the point of stupid.

I honestly believe that his programs on climate change would be the equivalent of doing nothing, or perhaps even considerable harm. But I would hope that he could be educated.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, Trump could do to become educated on anything. I know he doesn't give a rat's ass about climate change, and were Sanders to oppose him, I would at least have the knowledge that he at least cares.

Unfortunately, there are many self declared "progressives" who also hear only what they want to hear, and refuse anything like tolerance. They aren't very good at being educated at all.

Have a nice evening.

[rhett o rick]

43. I have asked the "non-progressives" to discuss those issues that they disagree with.

I've never gotten a response. Pick an issue like fracking. Do you support Clinton's current position on fracking?

I am glad you brought up 2000 because it looks like the corp run Democratic Party leaders will make the same mistake. No progressive said that both parties are same. What they did say is that both parties are run by the same group of big money players.

In 2000 the progressives told the corp-owned, DLC that the country was tired of the failed policies of the DLC/Clinton/Gore Admin. Run a progressive against Bush not more of the same DLC shit. But the hubris of the corp-owned Party leadership didn't care. As Goldman-Sachs made clear earlier this year, the oligarchy doesn't care if it's Clinton or a Republicon. That should be a warning but it falls on the deaf ears of the blindly loyal.

Progressives want to help the Lower Classes while the Non-progressives want to continue the looting of the Lower Classes by the wealthy 1%.

[riderinthestorm]

47. Agreed. They refuse to discuss her support for cluster bombs

Or her climate change proposals.

Or her support of the death penalty.

Or her proposal for a no fly zone in Syria.

Etc etc.

Great OP. Thanks.

[NNadir]

66. I have taken the opportunity several times to explain my views on dangerous fossil fuels to...

...Sanders supporters who are unfamiliar with me and my work.

I have consistently, for more than a decade opposed every single dangerous fossil fuel there is. The vast majority of my work on the internet is focused on climate change.

I do not now, nor have I at any time in the last 15 or 20 years regarded dangerous natural gas, fracked or obtained in any other way as a clean and safe fuel.

This said, I'm not some trivializing airhead blaming the climate crisis - and 2015 was the worst year ever recorded for increases in dangerous fossil fuel waste concentrations in the atmosphere - on boogey men or boogey women. Everyone who uses dangerous fossil fuels is responsible.

That would include the citizens of Vermont. For several recent decades, Vermont enjoyed the unique distinction of being the only state in the Union - if this is a Union anymore - that did not burn dangerous fossil fuels to generate electricity.

The only one. Unfortunately, while spewing a bunch of happy horseshit about so called "renewable energy" Vermont has, for the first time in decades begun to dump dangerous fossil fuel waste to generate electricity, and that waste comes from so called "natural gas" mined and shipped from Northeastern states, in particular, Pennsylvania. While the citizens of Vermont, including its Senator, were carrying on mindlessly about a few atoms of volatile tritium from a nuclear plant that saved human lives that might have been among the seven million people worldwide who died in 2015 from air pollution, flowback water laden with more radium and other uranium decay products were being dumped from flowback water from hydraulic fracturing operations in Pennsylvania, in many cases with total activity far exceeding the concentrations off of Fukushima. You know what Fukushima was don't you?

I'll tell you what it was, in my opinion. It was a golden opportunity for people who have no experience opening a science or engineering book to engage in selective attention, using electricity largely generated by oil, coal and gas, to prattle on stupidly to be sure that future generations will have very little habitat left and that air pollution deaths continue at a rate of one World War II every seven years.

As usual, we have the same sloganeering lightweights who refuse to accept their very real responsibility for what happened to this planet between 2000 and 2008 issuing more tired slogans.

I don't sloganeer. I don't have time for that. I have spent thousands of hours in the last two decades long into the nights, picking through the primary scientific literature to formulate my ideas about energy, thousands of hours.

There are many candidates for whom I have voted - happily voted - with whom I disagree on many fundamental issues, the most important issue for me being climate change and the environment at large. There are zero Presidential candidates who have a clue on this topic, least of all Senator Sanders - zero candidates whose energy policies are consistent with my own. But I'm not some bullshitting puerile loudmouth standing on a soapbox complaining that whoever will be President must toe my line or be cursed out.

My position is that dangerous fossil fuels need to be phased out on a immediate basis, not in some fanciful future that will be the responsibility of future generations, but by the people living now. On this score, Vermont, and its Senator are reactionaries, and their self definition as being "progressives" - the word is supposed to evoke progress, not reactionary actions - is on this score purely absurd.

Let me know when you find a candidate who knows a damn thing about how to do phase out dangerous fossil fuels. Sanders ain't him.

I recently remarked, in this space, on a commentary in one of the world's premier scientific journals on precisely this issue:

Nature: "Current models of climate economics assume that lives in the future are less important...

The number of Bernie Sanders supporters who turned up in that largely ignored post was, um, zero.

You seem to think that Hillary Clinton is solely responsible for fracking. It seems like the citizens of Vermont would like to pretend they're not involved, just like the airheads who based Gore in order to stick a puerile vicious beast in the White House want to deny their very real responsibility for the loss of hundreds of thousands of human lives in the Middle East in the last 15 years. This intellectual laziness is reprehensible, even more so than the proposal to build a new gas plant in Vermont, powered by, um, fracked gas.

Vernon discusses gas plant to replace Vermont Yankee

I spend every night and every day of my dwindling life thinking, in horror, about what my generation is leaving behind for future generations, and this post is one of many I've written that touches on the issue.

Vermont is a part of the world

My most comprehensive view of this topic, with a decent number of references to the primary scientific literature, is written here:

Current World Energy Demand, Ethical World Energy Demand, Depleted Uranium and the Centuries to Come

I think you don't really want to discuss energy and fracking, and I'm not sure that engaging you on the topic would prove to be a useful endeavor on my part. In my opinion, you seem not to know very much about the topic at all.

Have a nice day tomorrow.

[rhett o rick]

67. Wow. So do you support fracking or not?

[NNadir]

71. I think I made that clear. One would need to be pretty dense to not have understood...

Last edited Fri Mar 18, 2016, 07:03 AM - Edit history (1)

...what I clearly said. I oppose all dangerous fossil fuels and all dangerous fossil fuel mining.

It is very, very, very, very, very, very clear that Bernie Sanders may say he opposes fracking, but his actions say otherwise. Vermont has just started burning dangerous natural gas to produce electricity. What part of that do you not understand?

Never mind, I really don't want to know...

Anyone who can't garner that much from what I wrote really isn't worth any more time.

I'm glad Sanders is losing the nomination, because, as I explained above, his energy "ideas" - which are not ideas at all, but are in fact regurgitation of disastrous slogans - appall me.

Have a nice lifetime.

[Tarc]

10. D) Those who pledge to go home in a huff if their preferred candidate is not the nominee

Sensible Democrats see the long game, and the consequences of a Trump administration.

Sensible Democrats of privilege know that those who are not as well off will suffer under a Trump administration.

When the general election rolls in, the number of Sanders supporters who stay home will be about the same amount as the 2008 P.U.M.A.s that sat home and did not vote for Obama. They exist, but in an amount so small as to be statistically irrelevant.

I have faith that the bulk of Sanders supporters are sensible.

[Tarc]

16. Well, I kinda agree with the Libyan intervention, so...

Khadafi had been supporting terrorism for decades.

[rhett o rick]

40. American Exceptionalism uber alles. nm

[rhett o rick]

48. Sensible Democrats recognize that the Rich and Powerful have tripled their wealth in the

last 30 years while those in the lower 99% have suffered. Poverty rates have increased directly with the profit rates of corporations like Goldman-Sachs. When Goldman-Sachs gives Clinton money it's not to encourage her to help the poor, or vets or our seniors, it's to deregulate so they can make more billions. She has been a proponent of deregulation of corporations. To the detriment of the middle and working classes. And free trade has almost killed our work force. The TPP may break the camel's back.
Sensible Democrats recognize that a vote for Clinton is a vote to continue the capitalistic assualt on the lower classes. We can not survive more of the same.

We are in a fight for survival of the lower classes and Sanders is willing to go all the way. Clinton is beholden to the Wealthy 1%.

[Tarc]

64. Sensible Democrats know that you just lied

in every one of those cut n pasted talking points.

[rhett o rick]

68. Not a very convincing post. If I lied it would be easy to prove. Give it your best shot. nm

[tokenlib]

11. "C" The Third Way/New Dem Wall Street corporatist coddlers..n/t

[Dem2]

12. Nice asked and answered logical fallacy

[LWolf]

13. C. Neoliberals corrupting the party from the inside. nt

[Lucinda]

19. I'm going to go with "people who create tension between those on the same side, and

create hostile environments for those who are wanting real discussion."

[guillaumeb]

21. Part of that tension IS argument among people who really believe in what they say.

And that is expressed well here at DU by partisans for Clinton and Sanders.

But I agree that hostility toward supporters of either should be avoided. I do not feel that Clinton supporters are evil or corrupt, or blind to the truth, whatever that may be. I personally prefer Sanders' positions because they are closest to my own on many issues.

[PufPuf23]

22. C) has destroyed the Democratic Party

The current Democratic Party is the historic Democratic Party in name only.

A minority of Democrats in name only conspired to take over from within the Democratic Party of my youth.

In 1968 the Democratic Party splintered into four groups:

1. Hubert H. Humphrey, Johnson's Vice-President, gained the support of labor unions and big-city party bosses (such as Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley), who had been the Democratic Party's primary power base since the days of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was also believed that President Johnson himself was covertly supporting Humphrey, despite public claims of neutrality.


2. McCarthy rallied students and intellectuals who had been the early activists against the war in Vietnam;

3. Kennedy gained the support of Catholics, African-Americans, and other racial and ethnic minorities;

4. Conservative white Southern Democrats, or "Dixiecrats," their influence declining swiftly in the national party, tended to support either Vice-President Humphrey or George C. Wallace and the Alabama governor's third-party campaign in the general election.

The 1968 POTUS cycle included assassinations (RFK and MLK) and riots. The disgraced Nixon won the 1968 POTUS election and extended the Vietnam War. Racist, corrupt, and "owned" Nixon slowed Democratic progress in civil rights, peace, and economic justice until forced to resign in 1974.

The 1972 POTUS cycle included McGovern, Lindsay, George Wallace, Humphrey, and a range of other potential nominees. George Wallace started fast winning Florida and being generally competitive until a failed assassination attempt that gravely wounded Wallace.
McGovern, a Vietnam War peace candidate, lost in an extreme landslide.

Jimmy Carter replaced Ford as POTUS in the 1976 election. We forget and Carter has become a beloved Democratic figure but was considered a conservative Dixiecrat at the time of his election. He is considered a weak and ineffective POTUS. The GOP broke the Borland Amendment and provided arms to the Contras in Nicaragua financed by sale of arms to Iran during the Iran Hostage crisis and the hostages were released when Regan sworn in to office.

The next three POTUS election cycles were Reagan/Bush, Reagan Bush, and Reagan.

A new wind rose within the Democratic Party as traditional Democratic values continued to founder and neoliberalism became the guiding economic philosophy of both the Democrats and GOP.

Neo-liberals within the Democratic Party organized the DLC and championed Bill Clinton who won over the tired and corrupted GOP in the 1992 POTUS election. None of the four splinters of the 1968 Democratic Party brought the Democrats back into power. The New Democrats adopted many of the economic and empire stances of the GOP and married them to the social liberalism and diversity of the remaining FDR/JFK/LBJ Democrats. The New Democrats, Third Way is another label, are "C)" that willfully infected and have gained control at the upper levels and in public discourse of the Democratic Party. The New Democrats are kin to Rockefeller GOP, Reagan followers spread into what were traditionally under represented minority groups, former Dixiecrats, and higher income and professional class Democrats.

Now Liberals and FDR/JFK/LBJ Democrats are mocked and minimalized within what was "our" own Party which has become a Party of wealth and empire; and, thanks be to electronics, ready bread and circuses.

[PufPuf23]

25. Thanks and I agree with you.

If my mind was fully functioning and my will to type stronger, my post would have made all your most excellent points.

Just once in my life I would like to have had a POTUS I actually supported rather than, at best, a POTUS I did not want who got one more vote because I had no other choice.

[PufPuf23]

31. Good attitude and story of my life alas. nt

[SamKnause]

34. ...

[Art_from_Ark]

69. I agree with most of your analysis, but

I would not call Jimmy Carter a "Dixiecrat". Dixiecrats were earlier Southern Democrats like Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, Orval Faubus, Lester Maddox and Ross Barnett who were segregationists, first and foremost, and Carter was not like them. He was considered a conservative Democrat, particularly because of his religious beliefs, but he was not a segregationist and did not seek to distance the Southern Democrats from the Northern Democrats.

[Broward]

28. The corporate Dems and it's not even close.

[upaloopa]

29. People who don't vote cause the most harm. That's because they let the repubs take over fed, state

and local governments who set us back for years and years.

You can have all the high ideals you want but if you don't vote your are enabling the vary problems you complain about.

[giftedgirl77]

30. I would say the assholes that think our Den Reps

are anything close to Rethugs & advocate not voting, voting for Trump or Green.

[Jefferson23]

32. No one pushed for Libya like Clinton. Answer: C ( Neoliberals )

A good read is the Obama Doctrine, and ask yourself if Clinton is the heir to his legacy.

I no longer believe Obama believes that is good for the country despite his political
unofficial endorsements. TPP and WS they would agree, but not much else.

[Jefferson23]

38. I do believe it gives more clarity than some may want to credit him with.

Imperialism was our foreign policies before he was born, but that doesn't tell his entire story.

[Jefferson23]

35. Interesting the responses that refuse to pick from the 3 choices. n/t

[Jefferson23]

39. Yea, pretty much....people can rationalize anything. n/t

[Maedhros]

41. D: Rank-and-file Democrats who do not hold politicians accountable for 'C',

and keep electing conservatives who claim to be liberal.

[azurnoir]

44. oh most decidedly C what fascinates is those who know this full well yet delude themselves

into believing

[pdsimdars]

49. I agree with your analysis. . . . they damage the party, people lose trust in the party.

[Baobab]

52. Many of us are too young to remember the last time we truly had a Democratic President

n/t

[peacebird]

53. C. DLC/ThirdWay/Dinos

[bigwillq]

54. C (nt)

[bravenak]

55. I'll fucking break it the fuck down

What hurts the party most is when members decide they are so pure that it is perfectly fine to harass the black (or female, or other minorities, or those located in southern regions) members of the party and call them ignorant stockholm syndrome victims and race baiters day after day, when they attack black civil rights legnds and call them house nwords and sell outs. When they marginalize the monorities in their party for the sake of 'revolution'. That hurts the most and the fact that they fucking act like they have goddamn amnesia or try to pretend that it's the Democratic party that is the fucking Villian is why they won't ever get a fucking chance to win.

If they took a damn minute to reflect and feel one fucking bit bad, they'd stop blaming the fucking party and apologize for their nasty ass behaviour.

[John Poet]

56. Guillaumeb, I'll take "C" for $500!

What? No money?

Damn.


NO MORE Republican Lite.

[bravenak]

57. By the way?

I'm pissed that you are playing this game. All you blind people piss me the fuck off.

[bravenak]

63. I never said they were going t save us

I unlike most, do not love either one.

But, when folks get to the point where they start attacking members who want the same shit as them in the name of ideological purity and revolution, that hurts the party most. We are not a fa pr left party. Even back at the most progressive times in our party, blacks were still marginalized. Many want to go back to that time and have taken steps in marginalizing us even more.
That hurt the party much more than a rightward drift (which is false, we have gotten more liberal on race and lgbt issues and much more). To them the epitome of liberalism is all economics, and they are willing to tear it all down in the name of THEIR PERSONAL IDEOLIGICAL PURITY. They give no fucks what the rest of us want. They give no fucks how much it will harm US BLACKS to just hand it over to repubs. They even threatened to not vote and let us deal with trump (us blacks) if we don't do what they want and vote bernie.
That is the division. The went to war against the most reliable block of democrats, blacks and women. And I want Bernie to fucking notice they are treating us like shit and to do something. But he will never notice. Because his thing is economics and he is a rigid ideological warrior. I want a bunch of recognition and some damn apologies so they know he is not impressed.

[dubyadiprecession]

59. Nothing causes more harm to the democratic party than low voter turnout...

There have been elections that i knew on election day our candidate wouldn't win. I voted anyway. The old saying is "The worst democrat is always better than the best republican". I never vote republican, its a straight ticket for me!

[NNadir]

72. President Obama appointed Senator Clinton Secretary of State.

Anyone who hates Ms. Clinton for specious reasons needs to stop pretending to be inspired by the President of the United States.

I was, and remain, an admirer of the President. But unlike caviling hero worshiping fools on the far left of our party, I never expected him to be perfect, I only expected him to do his best to move the country in the right direction, something he has tirelessly struggled to do.

We all fall short of our goals, and the President is no exception.

We are "way better" than the GOP, and have been so since the 1930's, with the year 2016 setting a new record for the discrepancy.

The problem is not the Democratic Party as a whole, but rather erstwhile sometime members of the party who insist that their own ideas are perfection and the ideas of the primary voters in the party are stupid.

These people, in my view, are intellectual and moral weaklings in my view.

[Vattel]

62. Clinton is dangerously hawkish, that is for sure.

Any background check on her would show that she should not command a military.

[Vattel]

80. There is nothing wrong with legitimate uses of military force.

But wars like the invasion of Iraq or the Vietnam War, to cite two obvious examples, ought to be avoided.

[mmonk]

70. The greed, dishonesty, and corruption is what hurts the party

I don't think the party will last without the reforms it rejects.

[Scuba]

73. C. They've abandoned the party principles and are destroying the party.

[alarimer]

75. Blind loyalty is dangerous.

It's dangerous when the Republicans do it and it's dangerous when the Democrats do it. To hell with political parties and to hell with lockstep "my way or the highway" bullshit.

I don't give a rat's ass about the party. But the answer is "C". Too much neoliberal nonsense for me to stomach lockstep party voting anymore.

[One of the 99]

82. So are ideological litmus tests.

[One of the 99]

81. Losing elections is what causes the most harm

[sorechasm]

84. Apathy (low voter turnout) loses most elections for Democrats.

Corruption (perceived or true) breeds apathy in the process.

Enthusiasm (whether by hatred, or the love of ideals) wins every time. ("Got Hope?&quot

This is why Hillary will have a difficult time defeating Trump, and why Bernie would defeat Trump easily because he brings new enthusiasm to the party from voters who trust him.

Has Hillary ever addressed the perceived corruption? It seems to me she only doubles down by labeling the perception as 'Right Wing Attacks'. When repeatedly asked about her lack of trustworthiness in debates, she completely ignored the question.

[One of the 99]

86. So does ideological litmus tests by some

who refuse to get off their ideological high horses forcing candidates to run to the center and take more moderate or conservative stances on issues.

[One of the 99]

90. Depends on where in the country you're talking about

[One of the 99]

92. Unfortunately

That won't sell is some parts of the country.

[Autumn Colors]

83. Party officials who support one candidate above others

when they are supposed to be unbiased.

[pampango]

85. Like Social Demcrats and Communists in 1932 Germany who blamed each other rather than the Nazi party

and refused to work together in opposing the fascists, I blame other Democrats for our country's problems.

The people whom I agree with 50+% of the time are much more aggravating than those with whom I agree 0% of the time. The latter are fascists with whom we know we have nothing in common, while the 50+% folks are more reasonable people who should see the error of their ways and agree with me. I suspect the Social Democrats, Communists and other German political parties of the day said the same thing - until they could not say anything.

[gollygee]

93. A and B. N/t