DemocracyMouse
DemocracyMouse's Journal"Who can beat Trump" is the WRONG question
To create another Blue Wave we must ask a very different question:
"Who can excite the Democrats and independents to actually vote."
We have to stop worrying about impressing Trump's base. They won't vote for a Democrat even if he or she was Jesus reincarnated. They have even hooted and hollered about voting for a Russian over any Democrat.
We should sample ALL these impressive Democratic candidates and determine which communicates clearly enough a vision for renewal that will excite the Democrats and fence-sitters, NOT the Republicans. We should concern ourselves with whether WE like THEM, not what the moron brigade thinks.
The point is this:
Just as happened with FDR, JFK, Bill Clinton and Obama, it is OUR enthusiasm that matters, it's OUR enthusiasm that gets out the vote and builds a wave – a Blue Wave. Concerning ourselves with the enthusiasm of the 33% that adores a dictator wannabe is a recipe for disaster. Getting another goon like Trump, or something middling to split the difference, will DEFLATE the vote.
"A Crisis Even Bigger Than Climate Change"
I hope DU community takes this in. We need to formulate a vision for 2020 that comes to terms with so many things now: White Nationalist terrorists, police brutality, global warming, the decline of our schools.... and now this. But WE MUST BE VIGILANT and not defeatest. ("The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." )
A three-year UN-backed study from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform On Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services has grim implications for the future of humanity.
By John Vidal, Huffpost
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5c49e78ce4b06ba6d3bb2d44
Nature is in freefall and the planet’s support systems are so stretched that we face widespread species extinctions and mass human migration unless urgent action is taken. That’s the warning hundreds of scientists are preparing to give, and it’s stark.
The last year has seen a slew of brutal and terrifying warnings about the threat climate change poses to life. Far less talked about but just as dangerous, if not more so, is the rapid decline of the natural world. The felling of forests, the over-exploitation of seas and soils, and the pollution of air and water are together driving the living world to the brink, according to a huge three-year, U.N.-backed landmark study to be published in May.
The study from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform On Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), expected to run to over 8,000 pages, is being compiled by more than 500 experts in 50 countries. It is the greatest attempt yet to assess the state of life on Earth and will show how tens of thousands of species are at high risk of extinction, how countries are using nature at a rate that far exceeds its ability to renew itself, and how nature’s ability to contribute food and fresh water to a growing human population is being compromised in every region on earth.
How NOT to be a "propaganda loser" (PART 2)
Here's how the evolution of our planet's worst nightmare could be characterized when Democrats throw off the linguistic yoke of "radical" and place it on the new Republican Klown Kar where it belongs:
1) Burn oil and coal. (Radical)
2) Put soot in air. (Radical)
3) Burn more fossil fuels. (Radical)
4) Blanket planet in a thick layer of gases which traps heat, warms oceans, stirs up hurricanes and fires... (Extremely radical).
5) OIL COMPANIES AND THE 1% (the radically over-leveredged) BUY THEIR WAY INTO SHRINKING PLANETARY SAFE ZONES.
Then the pendulum swings back to our TRADITIONAL sanity and democratic priorities:
6) THE CITIZENS WAKE UP, STOP GLUING THEIR EYES 24/7 ON THE RADICAL CLOWN PRESIDENT, AND NOTICE THAT SCIENTISTS EXIST.
7) Citizens listen to these sensible, non-radical people and pressure ALL candidates to make "addressing global warming" a high priority.
8) Citizens press further and pressure ALL candidates to link investment in clean, cheap solar energy with a return to traditional tax rates and traditional levels of investment in civic infrastructure like education, public transportation and even civic architecture.
9) Democratic candidates use the 2020 election to disentangle citizens from Republican propaganda and educate them on how sensible – and even how traditional – their proposals are.
10) Democrats ride a second, even larger Blue Wave to victory and immediately start to clean up America and return to a leadership role on the world stage.
11) Greenhouse gases subside. Worst outcomes avoided.
Reducing greenhouse gases is sensible, scientific and doable. Empathetic stewardship of the Earth is even a tradition in all the world's religions.
Let's stop wasting time on the Great Clown (The House, Mueller and the NY District Attorney are doing a fine job of investigating him) and begin the campaign to elect ANY of the Democratic candidates – everyone of which has put forward sensible, even traditional, proposals for national renewal.
How NOT to be a "propaganda loser" (PART 1)
Saving the planet is not "radical." Killing it is radical. The Republican anti-regulation platform is radical. Tax breaks to encourage more drilling is radical.
Democrats must stop being "propaganda losers" by accepting the label "radical" or even "leftist." The only label we should accept is "sensible" or "rational" or even "traditional pragmatist." Call out EVERY Republican and lazy journalist who tries to pin the term "radical" on every sensible Democratic proposal. We certainly shouldn't use it on each other.
The Green New Deal and other planet-friendly and people-friendly ideas are actually a RETURN to mid-20th century pragmatism. Our economy BOOMED when the New Deal was launched. Our skies and waterways CLEARED UP when the Environmental Protection Agency (launched under a more pragmatic, and less ideological, Republican administration) began overseeing the regulation of polluting industries in the 1970s. Our citizens had a fighting chance at advancement when we invested properly in public education.
ALL THOSE THINGS ARE TRADITIONAL, SENSIBLE POLICIES. They are not friggin' "radical" and we should call out everyone, including fellow Democrats, who lazily throws the term at us. Remind them that's it's the Republicans who have abandoned longstanding American traditions. THEY are the dangerous radicals.
And keep repeating it.
Saving the planet is not radical. Killing it is radical.
Stop being a "propaganda loser" and calling every sensible Democratic proposal "radical." The Green New Deal and other planet-friendly and people-friendly ideas are actually a RETURN to mid-20th century pragmatism. Our economy BOOMED when the New Deal was launched. Our skies and waterways CLEARED when the Environmental Protection Agency (launched under a Republican administration) began regulating industry. Our citizens had a fighting chance at advancement when we invested properly in public education. ALL THOSE THINGS ARE TRADITIONAL, SENSIBLE POLICIES.
Here's how a traditional approach to the planet's worst nightmare plays out:
1) Burn oil and coal.
2) Put soot in air.
3) Burn more fossil fuels.
4) Blanket planet in a thick layer of gases which traps heat, warms oceans, stirs up hurricanes...
5) OIL COMPANIES AND THE 1% (the radically over-leveredged) BUY THEIR WAY INTO SHRINKING PLANETARY SAFE ZONES.
Then the pendulum swings back to sanity:
6) CITIZENS WAKE UP, STOP WATCHING FOOTBALL AND RADICAL CLOWN PRESIDENTS, AND NOTICE THAT SCIENTISTS EXIST.
7) Citizens listen to these sensible, non-radical people and pressure ALL candidates to make "addressing global warming" a high priority.
8) Better yet, citizens pressure ALL candidates to link investment in clean, cheap solar energy with a return to traditional tax rates and traditional levels of investment in civic infrastructure like education, public transportation and even civic architecture.
9) Greenhouse gases subside. Worst outcomes avoided.
We may not return to a pastoral 18th century, but the worst outcomes are avoided and our grandchildren will thank us. (Assuming we listen to the sensible scientists, not the radical clowns).
Reducing greenhouse gases is sensible, scientific and doable. Empathetic stewardship of the Earth is even a tradition in all the world's religions.
Let's stop wasting time on the Great Clown and get this traditional priority back in the saddle.
Hey DU community! I love you, but nobody seems interested in...
the future of the planet!
There's a worldwide student protest against humanity's oil dependency (which causes global warming).
Here's what I posted earlier (sorry I didn't mention Trump, the entertainer-in-chief?)
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016228541
"Warning! Soon our planet will be as hot as Channing Tatum."
While Trump and his violent, hate-filled minions create more mayhem in New Zealand, we are being distracted by something far more productive and important:
By Harmeet Kaur and Madison Park, CNN
Posted at 12:41 AM ET, Fri March 15, 2019
https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/03/15/world/climate-strike-students/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F
It's the Global Climate Strike and students are walking out of classrooms in over 100 countries to protest climate inaction.
They say their governments have failed future generations by not cutting emissions and curbing global warming
.....
"Governments of the world have to wake up"
Thousands of young people have [also] gathered in Luxembourg City, singing, dancing and listening to speeches.
“We strike to express our dissatisfaction with current large-scale inaction on climate change,” says Zelie Guisset, from Youth for Climate Luxembourg.
“To show we are gravely concerned about the world we will live our future lives in. To demand that treating the climate crisis as the crisis it is. Hoping that our strike will urge and pressure politicians or other people in power to take the urgent action needed to solve this climate crisis.
“Thirty years of ‘small individual acts’ and ‘everyone does their bit’ has not worked. Governments of the world have to wake up."
Students strike for climate change, defying calls to stay in school ABC News
Source: ABC News
Playing hooky to save the climate: why students are striking on March 15
Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old climate activist from Sweden, has inspired kids in more than 112 countries to skip school.
There's this article at Vox too:
https://www.vox.com/2019/2/21/18233206/march-15-climate-strike
Read more: https://m.
Many adults can't conceptualize that there is more going on than political horse races and football. Well these students want to wake us up because THERE'S AN ENTIRE PLANET THAT IS DYING. So three cheers for the students!!!!
AND they're protesting all over the world.
UPDATE: Turns out the New Zealand Mosque shooting just now was horrifyingly magnified because dozens of students were assembled in the area to draw attention to global warming.
BREAKING IN FEB: Brexit was flipped by Putin and Mueller is now investigating
Me and a dozen others screamed and hollered about US vote suppression for years and the media only caught up when Georgia Republicans stole votes AGAIN last November.....
Why does it take the media so FRIGGIN LONG to connect both Trump's stolen election and Brexit back to Putin?! Or maybe Britain is discussing this and the US media is just slow and stupid and distracted by football and other dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb shit (and while you're reading all that dumb, throw in a concussion and depressed footballers).
SEE THE GUARDIAN BELOW:
Mueller questions Cambridge Analytica director Brittany Kaiser
Second former employee of controversial data firm to be questioned by special counsel’s inquiry into Russia collusion
Carole Cadwalladr for the Guardian
Sun 17 Feb 2019
A director of the controversial data company Cambridge Analytica, who appeared with Arron Banks at the launch of the Leave.EU campaign, has been subpoenaed by the US investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
A spokesman for Brittany Kaiser, former business development director for Cambridge Analytica – which collapsed after the Observer revealed details of its misuse of Facebook data – confirmed that she had been subpoenaed by special counsel Robert Mueller, and was cooperating fully with his investigation.
Damian Collins, chairman of parliament’s inquiry into fake news, said it was “no surprise” that Kaiser was under scrutiny by Mueller because “her work connected her to WikiLeaks, Cambridge Analytica and [its parent company] SCL, the Trump campaign, Leave.EU and Arron Banks”.
He said it was now vital Britain had its own inquiry into foreign interference: “We should not be leaving this to the Americans.”
Why doesn't the $&@#%!!! media mention Russia's DECISIVE influence on Brexit
There was a smattering of mentions here and there in the past, but on the whole, US journalists have FLUNKED again. It's all about Theresa May and Parliament.
There's this from January.... then radio silence:
Scott Simon, NPR, January 19, 2019 7:01 AM ET
Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/19/686830510/senate-finds-russian-bots-bucks-helped-push-brexit-vote-through
A recent report on Russian influence operations overseas detailed large amounts of money and effort spent to influence the referendum. Scott Simon talks with The New Yorker's Jane Mayer.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Two democracies who share so much are in political turmoil at the same time this weekend - the U.S., in the midst of the longest government shutdown in its history, and the United Kingdom, stuck between a referendum in which people voted to leave the European Union and the reality of having no plan to do that with the deadline just two months away.
But what about the role of a third country that may benefit from the chaos? Russia has been accused of meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections and the 2016 Brexit referendum. We're joined now by Jane Mayer, staff writer at The New Yorker, who's been covering the issue. Thanks so much for being with us.
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Name: Mouse de la SoulGender: Do not display
Hometown: New Jersey
Home country: USA
Member since: Sat Dec 9, 2017, 01:41 PM
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