iemanja
iemanja's JournalMy head is spinning
from the contradictory arguments I see around here. After being told that we need to display great understanding toward Trump-voting white men, I see many of those same people insisting Jews who object to Ellison as DNC chair should fuck off and leave the party. So why throw away the second most loyal Democratic voting block (after African Americans) while simultaneously insisting we need to expand the party? Could it be that winning elections is actually less important than following Bernie? Ellison is Bernie's pick, therefore anyone who objects to Ellison should leave the party. Bernie says the white working class is key, so we must cater to them. Or is it there some sort of preference for white male Christian voters above the rest, whether Jews who object to Ellison or disenfranchised voters of color, who have been all but ignored in the post-election analysis (except by Tom Perez).
My theory about Trump and Russia
He's badly in debt to Russian banks. Given his abysmal business credit rating (31), he was unable to get loans from US banks. He got them from Russia. Putin saw Trump's run for office as an opportunity and launched a covert operation to subvert the election in Trump's favor. Now that Trump has won, he's making one pro-Russian cabinet appointment after another and claiming the US intelligence agencies are lying about Russia's involvement in our elections.
It is possible that Trump's campaign or even Trump himself had active knowledge of Russian interference. It's hard to understand Trump's denials of US intel absent some involvement on his part.
There are reports about a server from Trump tower being in regular communication with a Russian bank. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/10/was_a_server_registered_to_the_trump_organization_communicating_with_russia.html
What was communicated through those servers? Were Trump aids on contact with the Russian government? Were they discussing the campaign, and did Russia give them information obtaining from hacking the Clinton campaign?
I don't know the answers to these questions, but my guess is that the impetus of the relationship between Trump and Putin is financial. He's badly in debt to Russia, and that gives Putin leverage over him. Putin may even have instructed the banks to give the loans in order to cultivate dependency.
That is why the investigation into the Russian covert action needs to be accompanied by a thorough review of Trump's finances to undercover vulnerabilities for our nation.
Strange Priorities
Intelligence agencies have proof that Russians interfered in our elections in order to put Trump in office. Putin is at this moment moving missiles into Eastern Europe. We have a fascist about to enter the White House who ran on plans to create a Muslim registry and since being elected has talked about how internment camps are okay since FDR did them. He's appointed five billionaires to his cabinet, a climate change denier to the EPA and a fast foot mogul who opposes any minimum wage to the head Department of Labor. Trump appeared on television today lying about the source of information about Russian interference in the election by falsely claiming it came from the Democratic party rather than intelligence agencies. We also have the rise of hate crimes and mainstreaming of Neo-Nazis and the Klu Klux Klan.
Yet despite all that, we have people on this site who have decided what really matters is that Hillary Clinton used the word deplorables and earned money giving speeches to Wall Street banks. That sin would appear to be greater than turning the Treasury Department over to a man who made billions from throwing people out of their homes or Trump's plans for enormous tax cuts for the wealthy. The enemy, it seems, is not Russia or Trump but the Democratic Party.
The country is going to hell, but the only thing they care about is making excuses for the Putin-Trump (at least attempted) coup. They insist Russia had no impact on the election, even as they continue to complain that a few DNC emails somehow compelled 3.8 million more voters to choose Clinton in the primary. So why the outrage over the DNC emails but not Russian interference in favor of Trump? The only thing I can figure out is they object to the outcome of the primary but not the general election. If that is the case, why do we have to suffer their lectures about the future direction of the Democratic Party, particularly when they show absolutely no concern about the future of the nation?
No You Cant : Why Im Still Crying Over Hillary Clintons Loss.
Many women feel this way about Hillary Clinton's defeat in the GE. The loss is not just political; it's personal.
Eirene Donohue
And here was the root of my pain. This wasn’t just about the disappointment that my candidate lost. Or the fear of what Trump will do to this country. It felt like my very soul hurt and I realized that it was because of what this election said to me as a woman. It said no.
No, woman, stay in your place. No, woman, you are not good enough. No, woman, no matter what you do, you will not win, you will not be the boss of me.
It crushed a part of my female core to realize that yes, the world at large really does hate women that much. And while there are other reasons to dislike Hilary Clinton and disagree with her policies, misogyny and sexism are the gas that fuels the fire they burned her with.
We are supposed to stay quiet and not ask for much. Stay in our place and say please and thank you and don’t challenge anyone. We must be perfect, ten times more perfect than the man beside us. And then we must wait for them to give us permission to follow their orders.
"substantive proposals"
We were waiting the entire primary to hear about those. Funny he didn't release them then. The NY Daily News in particular wanted Bernie to explain his "substantive proposals" on Wall Street reform but he never did. He instead said he shouldn't be expected to know how banks would be split up since he didn't run Citigroup.
Sanders: I'm not running JPMorgan Chase or Citibank.
Daily News: No. But you'd be breaking it up.
Sanders: That's right. And that is their decision as to what they want to do and how they want to reconfigure themselves. That's not my decision. All I am saying is that I do not want to see this country be in a position where it was in 2008, where we have to bail them out. And, in addition, I oppose that kind of concentration of ownership entirely.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/transcript-bernie-sanders-meets-news-editorial-board-article-1.2588306
He continued to repeated his core beliefs, which are indeed heartfelt, but he never developed substantive policy proposals of HOW he was going to execute what he talked about. Nor did he have any idea of how he as president would gain the authority to enact his goals.
Daily News: Okay. Well, let's assume that you're correct on that point. How do you go about doing it?
Sanders: How you go about doing it is having legislation passed, or giving the authority to the secretary of treasury to determine, under Dodd-Frank, that these banks are a danger to the economy over the problem of too-big-to-fail.
Daily News: But do you think that the Fed, now, has that authority?
TRANSCRIPT: JOHN KASICH MEETS WITH NEWS EDITORIAL BOARD
Sanders: Well, I don't know if the Fed has it. But I think the administration can have it.
Daily News: How? How does a President turn to JPMorgan Chase, or have the Treasury turn to any of those banks and say, "Now you must do X, Y and Z?"
Sanders: Well, you do have authority under the Dodd-Frank legislation to do that, make that determination.
You might recall that in the debates he was very critical of Clinton for saying that Dodd-Frank enabled the government to identity banks that were too big to fail. He insisted only reinstating Glass-Steagal would do. Yet in that interview he said he would rely on Dodd-Frank, though he was unsure about what authority it provided or how that mechanism worked.
These are ideas he has talked about for years, yet he gave little thought to how to implement them. The same with prosecuting bankers. He could not speak to the legal basis under which they would be prosecuted. He just said they should be. I found it astounding that in all the years he's been talking about locking up bankers, he didn't once think to look into the legal provisions that would make that possible.
Substantive proposals are not something he developed during his campaign. I remain doubtful that he has since done so.
I don't in any way disagree with his overall goals or his outrage at the financial sector, but a president's job is to make those goals happen and that requires serious thought and detailed policy about the precise governmental and legal mechanisms necessary.
Clinton's loss in the GE was all her fault
personally and had nothing to do with racism or sexism, yet Bernie's loss in the primary was entirely due to the DNC and the media. He bears no responsibility at all for it.
Clinton was a "flawed" candidate, too weak to win, but Bernie isn't at all flawed, despite losing to the hopelessly weak candidate by 3.75 million votes.
Is that supposed to be logical or remotely convincing?
(This isn't basing either candidate but rather pointing out a contradictory argument).
I've noticed some "progressives" seem to think Hillary owes them something
After their prolonged absence during the general election, they've appeared to attack her for not speaking out on this or that. Hillary owes you nothing. She put up her candidacy for president and lost. She was defeated, which is exactly what her detractors wanted. Not content with seeing her defeated in the GE, they stick the knife in and twist it. It would seem that decades long habit of directing their wrath toward one woman is difficult to break.
Here's the deal. She is now a private citizen. It's not her job, nor is it particularly appropriate, for her to speak out on any issue. She will never be president. She can spend the rest of her life walking her dog if she wants to. Her life is her own. She no longer has to be subject to the hatred and vitriol that the alt-"progressives" have directed at her non-stop since the GOP first told them what to think. The Trump wing of the "progressive" movement can direct their outrage toward the man they helped put in office. Maybe they can stop making excuses for fascism and ask about what he intends to do about Standing Rock, fracking, campaign financing, single payer, tuition-free education, or the other issues they claimed to care about until they decided issues really weren't important enough to keep them from supporting, either directly or through a third party vote, a fascist for president.
You vanquished the beast. Humanity has been saved from the scourge of her potential presidency. Move on to your next target while you keep making excuses for Rococo Hitler. You don't own Hillary, and she owes you exactly nothing.
Here we see the problem with a scapegoat. When she is gone, the people so invested in demonizing her are left without an outlet for the inner rage, and they find themselves flailing to cover up that emptiness.
that people continue to believe Bernie should not have been criticized or vetted
shows how unprepared they were to face a general election, given they continue to harbor animosity toward criticism made months ago during the primary that paled in comparison to what the GOP would have done or what they themselves threw at Clinton. That double standard, the notion that Bernie was too superior to be criticized by lowly citizens whereas Clinton was insulted with misogynist slurs and propaganda fed by the GOP and Russians, points precisely to the double standard Sheshe's references.
By March 15, it was clear Sanders could not win. His own staff knew it. Any other candidate would have dropped out at that point, except since he wasn't a Democrat he wasn't concerned about the well being of the party or its prospects in the GE, and he had massive amounts of money at his disposal. That unprecedented cash haul and record-breaking spending on advertising allowed him to stay in a race long after he had no chance of winning. He misled his supporters about his chances and ginned up false claims of rigged elections to keep his donations flowing. Sanders lost the primary by 3.75 million votes out of less than 26 million votes. In contrast, Trump's win in the key states combined is about 55,000 out of 125 million votes. Clinton's popular vote lead is over 2 million out of 125 million. Bernie came nowhere close to winning, which is why Clinton never used any opposition research on him. She didn't have to. While he did better than many anticipated, his principal success lay in fundraising, not votes.
Some of Sanders successes had do with the extremely restrictive caucus system, which keeps turnout low and is particularly prohibitive for the poor and minority voters who were Clinton's biggest supporters. His rhetoric about large turnout was not only precisely the opposite of his actual performance but the opposite of his campaign strategy, which Tad Devine articulated in early Jan of 2015 as being to focus on caucus states with lower turnout and less diverse populations. That is exactly what they did.
I could not disagree more strongly that more Independents should run for the Dem nomination for president. I don't want the party become Trump lite or less committed to equal rights in order to court the GOP white male voters some have decided are so much more valuable than the Democratic base. I don't want to go back to "the gold old days" or "make America great again, and I will never support anyone who engages in that kind of rhetoric. To move backward is not progressive or liberal; it is regressive by its very definition. It is at the best ahistorical and at worst exclusionary. I would like to see the party develop a better approach to the economy, class, and outreach, but those ideas need to be forward looking.
As for resentment from the primary, many of us who didn't support Sanders were insulted on a daily basis, and those insults were personal. Everyday I see posts from people who treated me like shit throughout the primary. I've decided to forget about many of them, or simply not respond to the ones who were particularly vicious. I even see on this site people who voted third party or for Trump, according to their declarations on another site, and I don't say anything to them about it--unless they deliberately provoke me (as one, who has since been PPR'd, did last week). Everyone has to swallow shit. That Sheshe posted some OPs critical of Sanders is the least of what transpired in the primary. People can damn well get over it or put her on ignore.
"Owning Our Shit" (warning, lots of salty language).
An epic rant with lots to be offended by. So don't read it if you can't handle criticism.
I’ve got one major thing to say to you. HILLARY CLINTON DID NOT FAIL US, WE FAILED HILLARY CLINTON. Now I know, I know, she won the popular vote by almost two million votes, and I know that a lot of you were a part of that so yay go ahead and pat yourselves on the back. You done? Okay. You say she was flawed? Y’all motherfuckers didn’t DESERVE the candidate you got, and every day I watched as progressives posted on Facebook about how much they hated corrupt Clinton, talked about how imperfect she was as a candidate, posted articles that were flat out lies, or wrote things like #ImWithHerIGuess. Your enthusiasm for the former First Lady, Senator of New York, Secretary of State and first ever possible female President was shameful when you compare it to the enthusiasm the other side had for their “flawed” (racist homophobic tax evading possible rapist who has to make his undocumented Mexican maids wash the orange out of his bedsheets every fucking morning) candidate. If you would have just swallowed your pride and given Hillary half of the love you gave Obama, then we might not have woken up on November 9th worrying about families being torn apart, marriage licenses being taken way, guns getting into the wrong hands and women having to stay pregnant after getting raped. Does that sound too harsh? Too bad! This reality show is now our reality and we need to accept it and own our shit. We stepped in it and now its going to take at least four years to clean it off.
And to you people out there saying “Don’t blame me, I voted for Bernie”- suck a dick. Oh noooo- I’m so sorry you didn’t “like” Hillary. That’s so saaaad! I guess that’s worth this result. Your “I told you so” is so worth the millions of people who will suffer because of selfishness and pride. We all act like our nominee has to be the perfect representation of us regardless of how many years they’ve spent working tirelessly for the people. I didn’t give a shit about John Kerry, but I voted for the rest of my country. Every candidate has an email/Swift boat Veteran/Born in Kenya/Benghazi/Reverend Wright/Gennifer Flowers bullshit scandal that gets played over and over again, and for some reason we thought Hillary’s private email server (WTF is even a server?) was more damaging than Trump ADMITTING TO SEXUAL ASSAULT AND CALLING MEXICANS RAPISTS. Who’s talking about those damn emails now? NO ONE. Think about how the world must perceive us.
Who the fuck said you had to LIKE your nominee anyway? Guess what? There has always been and will always be at least half the people in the country who hate a Presidential nominee! This kind of thinking started with the whole “who would you want to get a beer with” bullshit from the Bush/Gore era and now it’s just gotten out of control. We didn’t always have primaries. Our parties used to pick our nominees for us. We had to deal with our choices. Now we get angry and picky if someone doesn’t meet every single criterion that we have created or if we don’t trust them because their positions evolved in a more progressive way over the years. If I had to talk to one more gay person about how Hillary wasn’t always for same sex marriage I was going to start having sex with women. Oh really? She wasn’t for gay marriage? WHY WERE YOU SO SUPPORTIVE OF OBAMA IF THAT WAS YOUR MAIN REASON FOR NOT LIKING HER??? AHHHHHH! Is it because she’s a woman and it reminded you of your own mother when she didn’t fully accept you as gay? We found a way to forgive our mothers who raised us, but we couldn’t find it in our hearts to forgive someone of no relation who evolved in their beliefs and ended up speaking on behalf of the LGBT and providing AIDS medication to people all over the world? I swear I saw more gay people posting about Hillary hating LGBT than articles about Mike Pence believing in electro shock gay conversion therapy for children, or the fact that in Indiana you can get put in jail and fined 10,000 just for applying for a marriage license if you weren’t a man and a woman. So what did we do? We’ve given a billionaire who hasn’t paid taxes the most power of ANY PRESIDENT SINCE THE 40’s. It’s like we’ve given a plumber permission to do open heart surgery on our kids. It’s because of us that one of the best Presidents this country has ever seen actually had to shake the hand of a man who was blatantly racist towards him and tried to get him out of office. Shame on us.
To the protest voters (whether you voted or not) I hope you are proud of yourself for being “right” while others continue to struggle and lose their rights and healthcare. We are in such a place of privilege to pick and choose what we like in a candidate when people died just to have the right to vote. I’m so over all the self righteousness. Bernie himself begged his followers to do the right thing, but we were too selfish to come out and support our nominee. Did you know that 11,000 people wrote in “Harambe” for President? Does that make you angry? It should. It should also make you angry that progressives voted for candidates like Jill Stein and Gary Johnson WHO DID NOT HAVE THE PROGRESSIVE POSITIONS THAT BERNIE HAD. These people weren’t able to put themselves in the shoes of a mother who lost her Black child to a bad cop, or the shoes of someone who lost their best friend in Orlando. How quickly we forget.
And to those of you that say Bernie would have won? Suck two dicks. We look back and say that the Democrats should have focused their campaign on the white middle class and criticize Hillary for focusing on racial and gender equality. FUCK YOU!!! I am sick and tired of people making the white middle class the biggest victims in this election. Oh the Caucacity of it all! The real victims are the Black and Latino kids out there living in a trailer park eating canned food for the 4th day in a week. That was me. I know how it feels. I’m sorry, Becky, for hurting your white feelings and for being upset by your privilege, but your pain and guilt are a small price to pay for the millions out there who are struggling in this country. And we are thankful to you for trying to help- that goes without saying. White people lost limbs and lives fighting against slavery, but they knew it was caused by them and probably didn’t complain when they received criticism. If they can accept that, I’m sure you can handle when people point out inequality and racism amongst white people in general.
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Gender: Do not displayMember since: Sat Sep 15, 2012, 01:49 PM
Number of posts: 53,432