I'm damn tired of rich people with ulterior motives trying to hijack the Democratic platform.

[Kathy M]

20. Then you must be okay with neoliberalism ideology

"But in the 1970s, when Keynesian policies began to fall apart and economic crises struck on both sides of the Atlantic, neoliberal ideas began to enter the mainstream. As Friedman remarked, “when the time came that you had to change ... there was an alternative ready there to be picked up”. With the help of sympathetic journalists and political advisers, elements of neoliberalism, especially its prescriptions for monetary policy, were adopted by Jimmy Carter’s administration in the US and Jim Callaghan’s government in Britain"

"After Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan took power, the rest of the package soon followed: massive tax cuts for the rich, the crushing of trade unions, deregulation, privatisation, outsourcing and competition in public services. Through the IMF, the World Bank, the Maastricht treaty and the World Trade Organisation, neoliberal policies were imposed – often without democratic consent – on much of the world. Most remarkable was its adoption among parties that once belonged to the left: Labour and the Democrats, for example. As Stedman Jones notes, “it is hard to think of another utopia to have been as fully realised.”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot

"This has held true in recent decades. After taking office in 1992, Bill Clinton worked to align the Democratic Party with corporate elites and to appeal to white voters at the expense of poor black people. The result was NAFTA, the expansion of mass incarceration, and the destruction of welfare as we knew it. I have nothing nice to say about this policy disaster, or about Hillary Clinton’s participation in it. But what’s also true is that in the late 1990s, the left, after years of defeat and disarray amid post-communist neoliberal triumph, began to put itself back together in the movement against corporate globalization."

"On the electoral front, the Obama years fostered not a milquetoast challenger like Dean but democratic socialist Bernie Sanders’ historic campaign. The anti-war movement is still nowhere in sight. But on so many other issues, Americans on the left are mobilized like never before and winning new people over to the cause."

"One can no more wish third party candidates out of existence than they can close their eyes and make the two-party system go away. Both are longstanding features of American electoral politics"

http://www.salon.com/2016/10/04/the-lefts-best-bet-hillary-clinton-not-trump-in-the-white-house-will-prove-the-necessity-for-a-progressive-agenda/