Segami
Segami's JournalI'll Tell You WHAT'S INEVITABLE
There’s a sign on the wall. There’s always a wall. There’s always a sign on it. The walls are owned by the wealthy and the politicians take turns posting the signs. Those signs tell us who's a "serious" candidate and who isn't, who should be heard and who should be ignored, who matters and who doesn't. As this rigged game goes on and on, as another "election" approaches, we're all expected to be grateful for the opportunity to vote for another Bush, for another Clinton, for more of the same wrapped up in a shiny new package. Bernie Sanders understands that the signs we need to see are not on those walls. They’re in the secret pages of the TPP, in the catastrophic consequences of Citizens United, in the ruin of the dying economies all around us, in the empty eyes of the riot police who surround anyone who dares to tell the truth. Those signs are everywhere, posted by Reality and written in pain. The earth itself is warning us, of fracking and fossil fuel addiction, of poisoned rivers and carbon emissions, of species extinction and polar cap melting, of plutocrat pipelines and the death of the oceans.
When I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving.
Because profit is all that matters in this "Christian" nation, because there's always another war on the way, because the truth has been sentenced to life in prison without parole. No meaningful action has been taken against catastrophic climate change or massive inequality because the people who control the "government" and corporate media machine of this pig circus of corruption that used to be America decide what gets attention and what doesn't, decide what is reported and what isn't, decide who is heard and who isn't. Well massive inequality has done some deciding too. It’s pounding on the doors of America, it’s pounding on the doors of Europe, it’s pounding on the doors of Asia, it’s standing on the doorstep of the world with centuries of oppression behind it and the fire of karma in its eyes, it is going to come calling with a very loud final word for the politicians before all the lights go out and all those walls come crashing down . . .
Those more and better Democrats I keep hearing about always tell us they just need a little more time to stop the exploitation and the poisoning and the drilling, but they've been given plenty of time, they've been given more than enough majorities to stop this savage corporate assault on working people, to put an end to this relentless abuse of the earth itself and the skies above it. The masters of corporate capitalism have been playing with fire, it's all those arsonists ever do, it's all they've ever done, and too many Democrats keep handing them the matches. We've seen their handiwork, we've seen the fires igniting, we've seen the rings of smoke drifting through the trees, but no one in power ever listens to progressives.
Or to songwriters.
In 1971, Robert Plant wrote a song about the threat of greed and materialism, about saving the environment, about a stairway to heaven. He knew it can’t be bought with gold, it can’t be purchased with corporate cash, it can’t be acquired by the highest bidder and privatized for profit. It’s not for sale.
And did you know?
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind.
cont'
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/08/1383235/-I-ll-Tell-You-What-s-Inevitable
Sanders Raises $3 Million In Four Days; Will He Split the Party?
My headline has two parts (you can see it above) but the second is, for me, the most important and the most interesting. I've been writing about the split — the chasm, really — between progressives and "progressives" in the Democratic Party for at least a year, and Howie has been documenting the sins of money-bought "Democrats" like the DCCC since forever. Some want that split to heal, and some want it to widen. Democrats who want it to heal are motivated by two main interests, it seems. One is the desire, understandable enough, to keep government out of the hands of Republicans, who really are the greater evil, if only by a little. The other interest, though, is more insidious and far less defensible. If the party pulls together, those whose careers are tied to the success of its money-soaked DLC wing will see those careers advanced — in some cases, spectacularly. The losers in all this? Unbailed-out mortgagees; students with crushing personal debt; the soon-to-explode bomb of poverty among soon-to-retire 401k-holders — the jobless; the poor; the barely-making-it in a Nike and Apple "made in Asia" economy. The bottom 80% who are going nowhere or going down. The traditional constituents, in other words, of the real Democratic Party as constituted in the pre–Bill Clinton years. Who wants the split in the Democratic Party to widen? Anyone who wants progressive change in America at a non-incremental pace. And everyone, voter or activist, who no longer wants to reward "professional Democrats" — self-serving, money-serving women and men — for their constant and regular betrayals.
An Uneasy Truce
So far, we've seen something of a truce between the two groups, with skirmishes. The DCCC-minded crowd has been losing elections for progressives as fast as it can while still advancing some progressive causes, even if forced and grudgingly. And pro-progressive activists have been taking them on via incremental assaults on their numbers. In the meantime, the Democratic Party as a whole has been losing its brand, and arguably losing elections as a result (most recently, 2014). There's absolutely no question that progressive and populist economic policies are wildly popular with voters, even Republican ones. 87% of Republicans want TPP to fail, along with large numbers of Democrats. Yet party leaders — Democratic party leaders —are hell-bent to pass it, and don't mind being seen by voters as hell-bent to pass it. Even Hillary Clinton, I'm almost certain, wants TPP to pass, but doesn't want to say so. Consider this:
... At a closed-door gathering of wealthy progressive donors in April, Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta was asked how the campaign would deal with the [TPP] issue. "Can you make it go away?" Podesta replied jokingly, according to sources in the room at the time.
This isn't how a TPP opponent talks. This is how a friend-of-money talks when her campaign needs to hide her views. How else can you read this?
Now Comes Bernie Sanders, Making Progressives Choose
But this is not about Hillary Clinton, Robert Rubin or Barack Obama. It's about Democratic voters and the infrastructure of the Democratic Party, its official organs and its allied support groups. Bernie Sanders is calling them all out — "You say you believe in fixing the economy; prove it." And he's doing it as a candidate for the presidency, in direct opposition to the "inevitable" Hillary Clinton. This is not about polls that can be ignored. Sanders is asking for votes. Now look at the first part of my headline: "Sanders Raises $3 Million in Four Days." He's apparently got the popular wind at his back, at least for now:
cont'
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com
Politico ADMITS Media Is 'PRIMED TO TAKE DOWN Hillary Clinton'
The biggest threat to Hillary Clinton winning the presidency, Politico's Dylan Byers writes, is a scandal. A real one, about something voters care about. And Byers thinks it's a possibility that can't be ignored because:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/the-medias-real-role-in-206766.html#.VUu8IJeh7AJ.twitter
~snip~
You don't have to be a genius to see this—many reporters and newspapers (see: New York Times) have been fairly open about it. But when it's glaring enough that reporters at hacky Beltway publications are talking openly about it as an established fact, the desire to take Clinton down has gone supernova. Clinton's campaign is less than a month old and already we've seen sustained efforts to create two separate scandals (one of those efforts predating her campaign announcement). As much as the Republican candidates are obsessed with running against Clinton, the media may be more so. Which you'd think might prompt some soul-searching from the traditionally respectable outlets, but unfortunately, they seem to be too busy trying to manufacture the next scandal.
cont'
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/08/1383349/-Politico-admits-media-is-primed-to-take-down-Hillary-Clinton
Watch Bernie Sanders Explain In 30 Seconds Why ELITES LOVE VOTER APATHY
In the 2006 film American Blackout, which chronciled voter suppression, then-Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) explained how high turnout was a “nightmare” for the elites who rule America:
American voter turnout has long lagged behind that of most countries. A new Pew survey released this month found that among developed countries the United States had higher voter turnout in the last national election than only Japan, Chile, and Switzerland: This lower voter turnout has consequences – it is a well-established fact that the groups of people that do not vote tend to have more progressive views. Thus lower voter turnout tends to benefit conservative political parties.
In 1991, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said he's “not particularly disturbed by lower voter turnout” and said it was healthy if less people participated in the political process. Sufficit to say, McConnell represents the elites that Sanders describes above.
http://www.alternet.org/watch-bernie-sanders-explain-30-seconds-why-elites-love-voter-apathy
Hillary Clinton GREETED BY PROTESTERS At LA Fundraiser
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Brotherly Love: A TOUCHING INTERVIEW With Bernie Sanders
Foreign Policy: Clinton Is More Of A HAWK Than Sanders — And MOST OTHER DEMOCRATS
On foreign policy issues involving the use of American force abroad, it's actually Clinton, not Sanders, who's most out of step with the Democratic Party. And since the president has broad authority to conduct foreign policy without Congressional oversight, this matters quite a bit. "It's very clear that a President Clinton would bring far more hawkish instincts to bear on global problems than the current president — or, for that matter, your average Democratic voter," Zack Beauchamp wrote last month.
This isn't just about Clinton's long-ago vote for the Iraq War (which Sanders mentioned in his press conference Thursday). Throughout Clinton's service in the Obama administration, she consistently took a more hawkish line than the president. In 2009, she pushed hard for a surge of troops to Afghanistan, as Obama remained undecided for months. In 2011, she strongly advocated for action against Qaddafi's regime in Libya, and Obama eventually came to agree. And in 2012, she wanted to arm the rebels against Assad's regime in Syria, but Obama turned down her entreaties.
As for Sanders, while he voted against the Iraq War and wants cuts in defense spending, he isn't a total far-left peacenik on foreign policy. He voices sympathy with Israel's security concerns and warns of the dangers of ISIS — positions that have sometimes led to awkward confrontations with his more radical constituents. But unlike Clinton, he's an instinctive critic of most large-scale military interventions abroad, saying they are frequently expensive and counterproductive. "ISIS is a brutal, awful, dangerous army and they have got to be defeated," he said last year. And yet, he added, "this is not just an American problem," and called on Arab nations to take the lead in the fight.
http://www.vox.com/2015/5/1/8530439/bernie-sanders-hillary-differences
The Clintons and Their BANKER FRIENDS: The Wall Street Connection (1992 to 2016)
~snip~
"..When Hillary Clinton" target="_blank"> video-announced her bid for the Oval Office, she claimed she wanted to be a "champion" for the American people. Since then, she has attempted to recast herself as a populist and distance herself from some of the policies of her husband. But Bill Clinton did not become president without sharing the friendships, associations, and ideologies of the elite banking sect, nor will Hillary Clinton. Such relationships run too deep and are too longstanding. To grasp the dangers that the Big Six banks (JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley) presently pose to the financial stability of our nation and the world, you need to understand their history in Washington, starting with the Clinton years of the 1990s. Alliances established then (not exclusively with Democrats, since bankers are bipartisan by nature) enabled these firms to become as politically powerful as they are today and to exert that power over an unprecedented amount of capital. Rest assured of one thing: their past and present CEOs will prove as critical in backing a Hillary Clinton presidency as they were in enabling her husband's years in office.In return, today's titans of finance and their hordes of lobbyists, more than half of whom held prior positions in the government, exact certain requirements from Washington. They need to know that a safety net or bailout will always be available in times of emergency and that the regulatory road will be open to whatever practices they deem most profitable.
~snip~
Clinton, like every good Democrat, campaigned publicly against the bankers: "It's time to end the greed that consumed Wall Street and ruined our S&Ls [Savings and Loans] in the last decade," he said. But equally, he had no qualms about taking money from the financial sector. In the early months of his campaign, BusinessWeek estimated that he received $2 million of his initial $8.5 million in contributions from New York, under the care of Ken Brody. "If I had a Ken Brody working for me in every state, I'd be like the Maytag man with nothing to do," said Rahm Emanuel, who ran Clinton's nationwide fundraising committee and later became Barack Obama's chief of staff. Wealthy donors and prospective fundraisers were invited to a select series of intimate meetings with Clinton at the plush Manhattan office of the prestigious private equity firm Blackstone. Robert Rubin Comes to Washington. Clinton knew that embracing the bankers would help him get things done in Washington, and what he wanted to get done dovetailed nicely with their desires anyway. To facilitate his policies and maintain ties to Wall Street, he selected a man who had been instrumental to his campaign, Robert Rubin, as his economic adviser.
~snip~
The Glass-Steagall repeal led to unfettered derivatives growth and unstable balance sheets at commercial banks that merged with investment banks and at investment banks that preferred to remain solo but engaged in dodgier practices to remain "competitive." In conjunction with the tight political-financial alignment and associated collaboration that began with Bush and increased under Clinton, bankers channeled the 1920s, only with more power over an immense and growing pile of global financial assets and increasingly "open" markets. In the process, accountability would evaporate. Every bank accelerated its hunt for acquisitions and deposits to amass global influence while creating, trading, and distributing increasingly convoluted securities and derivatives. These practices would foster the kind of shaky, interconnected, and opaque financial environment that provided the backdrop and conditions leading up to the financial meltdown of 2008.
Hillary Clinton is, of course, not her husband. But her access to his past banker alliances, amplified by the ones that she has formed herself, makes her more of a friend than an adversary to the banking industry. In her brief 2008 candidacy, all four of the New York-based Big Six banks ranked among her top 10 corporate donors. They have also contributed to the Clinton Foundation. She needs them to win, just as both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton did. No matter what spin is used for campaigning purposes, the idea that a critical distance can be maintained between the White House and Wall Street is naïve given the multiple channels of money and favors that flow between the two. It is even more improbable, given the history of connections that Hillary Clinton has established through her associations with key bank leaders in the early 1990s, during her time as a senator from New York, and given their contributions to the Clinton foundation while she was secretary of state. At some level, the situation couldn't be less complicated: her path aligns with that of the country's most powerful bankers. If she becomes president, that will remain the case.
cont'
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/30668-the-clintons-and-their-banker-friends-the-wall-street-connection-1992-to-2016
MoveOn Should BACK BERNIE
from DailyKos:
On May 1 I started a petition urging MoveOn to back Bernie Sanders. Some of you have signed it, many haven't. However, to date 811 people have signed it. That's more than I ever expected since my resources are meager. I have stayed up nights wracking my brain about how to promote this petition. I have sent emails to friends and family and influential people who I thought might sign it and promote it. You may have seen my comments in diaries about Bernie Sanders where I have plugged the petition. Maybe you have seen it on Facebook, where I have promoted it in the comments on relevant articles. I have done this on Bernie’s own pages and a number of others. Some good soul promoted it on Thom Hartman’s forums. It may even be somewhere on Twitter and Reddit. I mention these different ways to promote the petition to help stimulate you to come up with your own good ideas. Bernie can use your creativity right now. Maybe, like me, you have volunteered for his campaign. Well, so have about 175,000 others, so it might be a while before the campaign contacts you and asks you to do something. Bernie can use your help right now, and this is a good way to jump into his campaign.
Some of you who haven't signed the petition might wonder why I bother. Well, I first heard about Bernie Sanders while he was mayor of Burlington, VT. He seemed to be a very unusual politician. First, he called himself a socialist in a conservative rural state. More importantly, he has consistently stood up for the interests of working and middle class people throughout his 35 years in politics. When he ran for Congress and the Senate, I began donating to his campaigns, although I couldn't vote for him. I have made a first contribution to his presidential campaign and have signed up as a volunteer. I think that most of you are probably in agreement with most of what he proposes, but are convinced that he could never get elected, so why bother? You might be right, except for one very important factor. Many Americans have reached a stage where they are "as mad as hell and not going to take it anymore." That's what the Tea Party is mostly about. That's what Occupy is about. Many voters, and non-voters too, are rapidly moving to the "left." That's why you keep hearing about "progressive" politicians. That's why so many middle-of-the-road Democratic politicians are suddenly proclaiming how "progressive" they are. You have probably noticed that Hillary Clinton, whose entire political career has been smack in the middle of the road, is running as fast as she can to the left, trying to keep up with the electorate. There is something of a traffic jam on the Road to Damascus. Many people are looking for Sanders' pragmatic, progressive solutions to their problems. I think that there is a small but significant chance that Bernie Sanders can win the presidency. He can attract many regular voters from both parties, including working class white men, whom the Democratic Party abandoned long ago.
~snip~
Nearly half the eligible voters don't even bother to vote because neither party addresses their concerns. When they hear from Sanders, though, they could very well decide that voting is worthwhile. Together, these groups may be large enough to put Sanders in office. I think the chances of this are good enough to make an effort to get him elected. Also, Sanders has consistently confounded the pundits who claimed that he couldn't get elected because he ran as an independent, because he's a socialist or too radical. The pundits have been wrong twenty times. That's why I'm asking you to sign the petition and to pass it along to others. If MoveOn puts its talent and energy at Bernie Sanders' disposal, instead of continuing the futile effort to draft Elizabeth Warren, we could increase dramatically Sanders' chance of winning. The earlier MoveOn moves on, the greater will be their impact. On Sunday, at the point that I had about 200 petition signers, MoveOn contacted me and said, "We're thinking about highlighting your petition on our website or maybe even emailing it to some of our other members." I think that means that perhaps they are beginning to realize that the Warren effort has run its course and that they may be ready to switch to Sanders. If that is so, your help on this petition drive could be critical.
MoveOn Should Back Bernie Sanders Petition
cont'
http://dailykos.com/story/2015/05/06/1382954/-MoveOn-should-back-Bernie
Chris Hayes: Sen. Bernie Sanders vs. Hillary Campaign Interview
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