I'm pooped

[dreamnightwind]

77. We have to learn to defeat corporate-funded candidates

with candidates who are willing to run using only small clean public donations. That's not an excuse, that''s the reality. Everything else is just a diversion. The first victories will be the most difficult, then momentum will buld.

What you describe is the existing model, where issues aren't what matter. Corporate-funded ad buys, slick mailers, bogus policy positions and wedge politics. It gets us nowhere even when we win.

Honest, genuine and plain-spoken truth-telling about what Americans are up against, how we are being used by the powers that be, and what the candidate will work to do about it, coupled with grass-roots funding and activism, is the way out of this.

Enough people are sick and tired of the old politics, and hurting in their own lives, plus we have issues driving abandonment of the old ways, such as climate change and perpetual resource wars, police and surveillance states with massive prison populations, people retiring into poverty, kids in huge debt out of college, the times have changed to bring about conditions for doing things the right way, and to win by doing so. Social media and a less consolidated information backbone on the internet enable people-based campaigns to compete.

Now what we have to do is convince people who are still entrenched in the old ways of machine politics to get on board. Hence these emails.

Sanders is a good example, but we need a lot of candidates like him, at all levels of government. It's a process where we have to literally learn to win elections this way. I sincerely believe that the conditions presently exist to allow this to happen, and it's imperative that it does happen.