At a recent appearance at an Obama Foundation Town Hall in Berlin, former US president Barack Obama expressed concerns that American progressives are too fixated on purity and too unwilling to work within the existing system to solve problems.
“One of the things I do worry about sometimes among progressives in the United States – maybe it’s true here as well – is a certain kind of rigidity where we say, ‘Uh, I’m sorry, this is how it’s going to be,’ and then we start sometimes creating what’s called a ‘circular firing squad,’ where you start shooting at your allies because one of them has strayed from purity on the issues. And when that happens, typically the overall effort and movement weakens,” Obama said.
Yes, the warmongering oligarch crony is deeply worried that people who aren’t warmongering oligarch cronies are too mean to warmongering oligarch cronies. As the Democratic Party presidential primary heats up we are hearing more and more people voicing deep, solemn concerns that the party’s progressive base doesn’t always obey the dictates of its leadership, and is in fact sometimes quite rude about it. Even Bernie Sanders has issued a stern, much-publicized warning to his followers that he condemns “bullying and harassment of any kind and in any space” toward supporters of his right-wing opponents.
Of course, this grave concern about rank-and-file progressives saying mean things about Joe Biden on the internet ignores the way the so-called “centrist” leadership of the party has been bullying and attacking its left wing for decades. Only through the lens of the most determined mental gymnastics can you look at the way the mainstream establishment dominates public narratives, rigs its own primaries, ignores and undermines dissidents, and bashes everyone who refuses to fall in line while strangling all Americans to death with exploitative neoliberalism, and conclude that it’s the “Bernie bros” who are the bullies.
Obama’s “circular firing squad” comment is the part of this speech that is drawing the most criticism, for understandable reasons, but it was actually part of a much longer and even more noxious appeal to the strategy of making compromises within the system to effect change. He cited his own efforts in the Paris climate accord as an example of what working within the system and making compromises can accomplish, fully acknowledging the fact that even if every country in the accord fully met its burden, it still wouldn’t be sufficient to avert cataclysmic climate disaster.
“When I helped get the Paris agreement on climate accomplished, I was the first one to say what we’ve done here is not adequate to meet the demands of climate science,” Obama said. “The measures that had been set, the targets that had been set by each country, even if they all met them, wouldn’t be sufficient to address the pace at which temperatures were rising and emissions were going into the atmosphere. But if I had held out for us getting to where we need to be in the science, we wouldn’t have gotten the accord.”
And we all know what happened there. Obama legitimized an accord which amounted to nothing more than a Sesame Street children’s band-aid on a sucking chest wound, collected all the political accolades as a champion of the environment while continuing to quietly bolster the fossil fuel industry, and then when the pendulum swung back to the other head of America’s two-headed one party system, the US government announced its intent to withdraw from the accord. So we’re left with a former president surrounded by a very attractive narrative of progressivism who actually accomplished nothing besides continuing and expanding Bush’s wars and Orwellian surveillance programs, absolving the crooks behind the Global Financial Crisis, and continuing the crushing neoliberal policies which led to the American people’s collective middle finger to the establishment in electing Donald Trump. That’s your legacy, Barack.
Obama: "Suddenly America is the largest oil producer, that was me people … say thank you." pic.twitter.com/VfQfX1SR0x
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) November 28, 2018
I don’t pretend to know exactly what’s in Obama’s heart, or what used to be. The money he’s been raking in for Wall Street speaking appearances certainly doesn’t paint the picture of a man who regrets doing the sleazy things he did while in office, but when he first entered politics it’s entirely possible that there was some intention mixed in with all the ambition to make some positive changes in people’s lives if possible. But his notion that you can work within the system to affect positive change has been soundly debunked by his own legacy, and by the disaffected populace that it created.
Trying to work within the system to effect positive change is like trying to dry your hair with rainwater. It’s never effective to use the system for solving problems, because the system is the problem.
Proponents of Obama’s approach describe an inaccurate picture of what’s going on. They describe the people as being over here, their problems being over there, and then the system that you can use to solve the problems as this other third thing somewhere else that exists separately. In an accurate picture, the people are over here, and the problems and the system are one inseparable thing sitting across from them.
The fact of the matter is that the entire US political system has been deliberately slanted to favor the plutocratic class, and the plutocratic class can only exist in an environment of inequality and oppression. A system where money translates directly to political influence necessarily creates an environment where those with money are able to rule as kings as long as they can keep all the money to themselves. Since money equals power and power is relative, those with the most money are naturally incentivized to keep money out of the hands of everyone else, because if everyone is king then there are no kings. The poorer they can keep everyone else, the more relative power they have. They’re able to use their wealth to buy up political and media influence, whereas the rest of Americans, most of whom would struggle to pay even a one thousand dollar emergency bill, are unable to do anything similar on anywhere near that scale.
This is why Americans have the problems that they have, and you see the same dynamic mirrored in other nations throughout the world. There are people who benefit from keeping the public poor, uninformed and powerless while reaping huge profits from ecocidal capitalism and war profiteering, which in turn gives them even more wealth and therefore even more power over the masses. This is the dynamic you must necessarily climb into and make your home in order to “work within the system”.
I try not to fall into Godwin’s law too often, but a perfect analogy for this would be if someone in Nazi Germany were trying to protect Jews by working overtly within the political power structures of the time. A German Obama would have said “Well I’m not getting anywhere trying to protect the Jews from extermination because I don’t have enough power, so let me integrate myself into the current power structure we have now and see if I can help reach some compromises.” At the end of his term he’d be saying “Well I wasn’t able to do anything to stop the whole Jew killing thing, turns out they’re really into that here. But I was able to get a climate deal going that makes me look like a really nice guy!”
I call Obama’s particular brand of establishment sycophancy Nice Guy Fascism. It’s just like regular fascism, enabling the brutal dominion of a few depraved and bloodthirsty tyrants, except you get to look like a nice guy while you’re participating in it. You claim you want to help people, but you put on the uniform of fascism and advance its pernicious ideology in order to do so. To “work within the system” you have to climb into the system, ingratiate yourself to the system, and keep the system sufficiently pleased with you so that it won’t reject you like a mismatched organ transplant. You’re covering yourself with feces and then running into the crowd trying to wipe the dirt off them with your hands.
So what can we do instead? Well, the dynamic I just described means that all the power has been stacked heavily in favor of status quo power structures, so it’s not an easy fix. It’s not as simple as starting a new political party or organizing more effectively, because the system is already deliberately stacked heavily against exactly those kinds of escape plans. What we’ve got to do is work way outside the system and weaken public trust in it, with the hope of awakening the masses from their MSM-induced coma and persuading them to use the power of their numbers to shrug off the plutocratic oppression machine that’s been squeezing them their entire lives.
The way to do that is with relentless acts of narrative sabotage at every opportunity, exposing the lies of the narrative matrix and reducing the public’s already low trust in the mass media to nil. We’ve got few things working to our advantage toward that end, but they are powerful. We’ve got the fact that we’ve got enthusiasm and creativity on our side, while establishment cronies are boring, artless, unfunny, permanently uninspired, and reliably several steps behind the zeitgeist. We’ve got our unprecedented ability to network and share information. And we’ve got our species’ capacity to awaken from its dreamlike relationship with mental narrative, which I believe could be the X factor hidden below the surface of the human experience which leads to the creation of a healthy world.
It’s not much, but it’s what we’ve got, and it’s a hell of a lot more effective than Obama’s recommendation of towel drying while submerged underwater.
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36 responses to “Trying To Change The System From Within Is Like Trying To Dry Your Hair With Rain”
You’re counter narratives inspire. You’re writing is brilliant. So I pick a fine time to pipe in only to offer a negative take (even as you yourself offered a modest but doable response to ‘the system’). My negative take comes in the form of a suggestion that there is no longer an ‘outside the system’ – that ‘the system’ can incorporate criticism and attacks and often enough it can even profit from them. You personally benefit from the system and your livelihood counts on the system. Not a jibe. It is only to bring home the point. (Meanwhile, wage slave here, what a dream job to make a living within the system attacking the system!) I’m not sure there is a way out of a system so seemingly agile at absorbing into itself all that aims to knock it down. Perhaps I need to expand my imagination. (Who doesn’t). I certainly need to take your final paragraph seriously and keep smacking out (or, in my case, sharing the smacks of the likes of you) those narratives that challenge the dominating propaganda machine. And I will! I’m just not sure it’s from a space outside the system.
“Your” not “You’re” – apologies.
You took the words right out of my mouth. I was going to write about the flawed cartoon graphic of people and system being separate from one another. Of course if you remove the people then there is obviously no system. The system doesn’t exist as an entity apart from the people. The people are the system. I think that Caitlin imagines a system controlled by a small number of primarily evil minded people with the masses on the outside but still completely controlled by the system. I disagree! I don’t believe in conspiracy theory although there is no doubt that sometimes people conspire to do “bad” things. I like Terrence McKenna’s idea that the global, cultural monster is beyond control. A runaway, driverless train going downhill. Even the string pullers at the top of the social pile are the fruit of their conditioning. Donald Trump was conditioned from birth by that part of the system that he found himself in, to be a money and power loving psychopath. He could hardly be any other way and as such he is also a victim of the system. All the people are in the system and nobody has even one hand on the steering wheel. Of course the system is in constant metamorphose and anything is possible. Even a brave new world of love and peace. But the caterpillar will have to disintegrate before the butterfly can dry it’s wings and fly.
Why do underground miners continue, day after day after day, to risk their lives going deep underground and mining whatever? Money. That’s how they “make a living”. They’ll do absolutely anything to keep their jobs.
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Why do mercenaries risk their lives, day after day after day, killing and killing and killing whomever? Money. That’s how they “make a living”. They’ll do absolutely anything to keep their jobs.
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Why do people employed in the cigarette industry, from tobacco farmers to factory workers to retail stores, continue to “market” a cancer-causing substance that will kill millions of people all over the world, year after year after year? Money. That’s how they “make a living”. They’ll do absolutely anything to keep their jobs.
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Why do people employed in the military-security-congressional-industrial complex, from TSA/FBI/NSA/DHS/CIA/JSOC/USMC/USN/BIW etc. ad infinitum continue to do, day after day after day, what they do? Money. That’s how they “make a living”. They’ll do absolutely anything to keep their jobs.
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Why do people employed in the whaling industry continue to risk their lives at sea, day after day after day, killing mammals that live in the oceans of the world? Money. That’s how they “make a living”. They’ll do absolutely anything to keep their jobs.
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Why do people employed in the fossil fuel industry continue explore for fossil fuel on land and at sea, day after day after day when they know in their heart of hearts that what they are doing is poisoning their Mother Earth’s biosphere to the point where Mother Earth will no longer support human life? Money. That’s how they “make a living”. They’ll do absolutely anything to keep their jobs.
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What specific behavior does “doing absolutely anything to keep their jobs” consist of? What are all of these people going to do if they feel that their livelihoods are being threatened (they’re going to become “unemployed”) by candidates for political offices who have control over foreign (war) policy, energy policy, fishing policy, tobacco/asbestos/GM food/GHG policies? Specifically, which candidates for political office are they going to vote for?
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THIS is EXACTLY why “things” are they way they are in the world today. WE are the problem, not THEM. WE have to figure out a better “system” (way of life), not THEM.
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So instead of pointing fingers, let us, each and every one of us, start figuring out the specific details of that better way of life. On a day to day basis, just exactly WHAT does that better world “look like”? How does it “operate”? If humanity is going to survive, imagining and giving birth to this at-first-only-imagined better world is exactly what WE, not THEM, not SOMEONE ELSE, and definitely not the Elite, are going to have to do.
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First off, each of us should try to “come up with a system” in which each and every person employed in the ways of life I’ve described above is satisfied that they’ll be able to “make a living” should that new system come into being. In other words, they’ll vote for it. That’s your challenge. Humanity’s survival depends upon your ability to “think outside the box”. (BTW, after all is said and done, whether you hate it or not, change will only come from the ballot box. It’s either that or violent revolution that, even if it is “successful”, will be chaotic to the extreme.)
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What will the “foundation stone” of YOUR system be?
Inner change my friend! That’s my foundation stone. It’s everyone’s foundation stone. There is no other form of change that has any durable stability. Inner revolution! That’s what I preach! Preacherman!
The foundation stone of a system that will successfully replace the present one is as follows.
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Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.
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If you can not understand why that MUST be the foundation stone, it is because of what you have been “exposed to” since Day 1 or your life.
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It’s very easy to see why this must be the foundation stone of a relationship between family members and “expanding that out to” immediate neighbors. It’s the one and the only solid basis of a good relationship.
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The perhaps insurmountable problem is acting on that foundation OUTSIDE of that small area — for example to business relationships and even inter-national relationships. It is perhpas insurmountable because those relationships are presently based upon competitiion and, for lack of a better expression, “getting the upper hand” by “whatever it takes” — AKA “all options are on the table”.
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The microscopic percentage of the population that owns or controls the vast majority of wealth and LARGE SCALE capital equipment is going to do everything in its power to keep the present arrangement EXACTLY as it is. “All options are on the table” to maintain it , even arresting people who tell the truth while rewarding liars, murderers and torturers.
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Unless we can elect politicians who in one way or another elucidate the Golden Rule as their fundamental political platform, the human race will cease to exist. Why? Because the present arrangement requires perpetual growth of the population in order to generate profit for the Elite AND, in the case of the US economy, manufacturing perpetual enemies and perpetual war in order to justify the perpetual, perpetually expanding, “defense” budget.
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Although it seems to be impossible that the mainland US could be seriously damaged by anybody else on the planet, the other nuclear powered nations of the world who are being increasingly victimized and cornered by the US are going to strike back. That is not only possible; it is inevitable should the present arrangement continue.
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Again, there is only one foundation stone that can save humanity. That foudation stone is not a mere concept o idea. It is a way of life. It is a way of BEHAVING toward the other people of the world.
Bravo!!
We could sooner kick Satan out of Hell and turn it into a ski resort, than we could kick the Corporate war mongers out of the Democrat Party and turn it Progressive.
Brava, Caitlin, for trenchant analysis. As for the so-called “X Factor,” I’m not sure that label helps balance the universe—since the letter “X” has such a huge feminine significance in genetics. I would prefer “V Factor,” with violet sometimes having the diochromatic aspect of combining the colors red (yin, or female) with blue (yang, or male).
What is it about lunch with G.W.Bush? Back when Nancy Pelosi took over Speaker, it was all we’re going to impeach G.W. Then G. W. Bush invites her over for lunch, and next day Nancy is all “Impeachment is off the table.” Then as G.W. Bush in neck deep in the financial blow up, he has President elect Obama over for lunch, then instead of jailing all the Bank and other financial crooks, it’s “We need to get a Trillion bucks together and bail the poor boys out.” And speaking of Mr. Joe Biden, I consider him a DINO, Democrat in name only, I would suggest a read of March, 2019 Harper’s magazine (No Joe) for a realistic picture of Mr. Biden’s tenure in the Senate and as Vice P. It takes an obscene amount of $$$ to run for any Federal level office, Presidential Elections are the worst, with almost 5 billion spent on the last one; this for a job that pays $450,000 a year and only lasts 4 years before it has to be done all over again. We need to bury the Electoral College, install term limits on the house and senate, and use only public funding for elections. And people need to get up off their sorry asses and make the trip to the voting booth. Then they need to stop the shopping, especially on Amazon. The real American debt amount, with student debt, mortgage debt, and credit card debt included adds up to :$71,545,812,087,411.00 The interest paid on that debt amounts to: $3,026,149,166,550.00 Figures from the National Debt Clock 11/13/18. The clock is amazing to watch, the first 9 digits spin so fast you cannot keep up with them. So people, every time you insert your Credit Card into that slot, you are adding to the problem…..Try saving up and paying CASH…..Think on WHO collects all that interest, Look to the Forbes 400 List for the answers……I am being rained out here!
And BTW Caitlin, my prayers are addressed to the Unknown. You could say that I am praying to my own ignorance.
If you trust the system enough to work within it to change it, you are a fool brainwashed by that system, which has only one goal – to enslave you and use you for it’s evil purposes. Don’t be like Kafka’s Joseph K, seeking justice from a system dedicated to injustice. The Castle is to be destroyed, not worked within!
A prayer for Julian Assange, is a prayer for all humanity.
Caitlin’s article explains why I say don’t vote – if you do vote it’s an endorsement of the phony system used to enslave you, and make you think you are free.
If you are committed not to vote for the duopoly then vote Green just to fuck it.
Mr. Assange has been taken into custody!! The ” powers that be ” will soon transport him to ” Gitmo ” in Cuba where he will be tortured 24/7 for the rest of his life!!
The system… I am from a poor and small country and we couldn’t get rid of our mafia. I am not really sure that we tried to fight it though. Maybe we tried at the beginning. Maybe several times we protested in large numbers. But a lot of people just died without a fight. They died from poverty, despair, alcoholism, violence, loneliness. Many emigrated.
Weren’t you Australian? Australians couldn’t protect your own people. Why?
https://www.rt.com/news/456212-julian-assange-embassy-eviction/
As usual. Awesome post! But I still wish and always will that I didn’t have to fill in a form to make a positive comment.
When did peaceful movements or resistance or enlightened majority of population and leaders changed corrupt fascist tyrannies,entrenched with mighty corrupt military/police/ technology and surveillance powers?!Even if that change might seems that it happened,was it superficial or radical? The British,French,Spanish,Dutch and other empires collapsed and became past history,did those events shifted the dominant power from the very few elites and their interests, to the majority of people and their common interests?Even the french revolution(1789-1799)ended with Napoleon’s dictatorship.
When people don’t identify the only power,and that’s the sole unique power,that control and own the heart and blood of every organ of a society,the power that can revive after setbacks, and come back more powerful and egregious,powerful,to reverse the revolutionary change, and hijack it to it’s private benefits,this only power is certainly the financial power,the energy and life and health of everything, this is the only power that can corrupt everything to it’s advantage,the politicians,the military,media and academia,and this is happening all over the world,rich countries and poor,of whatever race,religion or economy system.This is the power of the finance,and whoever control it,he controls everything,no matter what parties,politicians,economical & social system is in place.
I repeat,if the people doesn’t identify this power,break it down to small local fragments, without central consolidated management, and most important,is to keep it under continuous, vigilant, magnified lens inspection & observation all the time, thing will go the same forever,and there will be no valid hope for humanity for peace,happiness and guaranteed future for future generations.
p.s. for the reader: Just check who are the most powerful,dominant and controllers of the world financial and banking system !
Ah the Buddha Caitlin speaks the truth again!!! The ” powers that be ” loved Barack Obama because he lulled the ” masses to sleep ” with hope and change while those really in charge continued their killing, stealing, pillaging, etc!!! This charlatan even got a ” peace prize ” while carrying out his dirty wars and drone killings!!
One thing that we can thank Donald Trump for is the fact that he is a sleazy knave and he does not hide it!!
The U.S.A. has a sleazy government the same as Trump; there is no hiding it anymore!!! Hopefully the whole thing will implode on itself, and destroy itself completely!! Another great article Ms Johnstone!! Great!!
Glad to see Obama – the knight errant of austerity/privatization/neoliberalism – put partially
into context.
He saved the .01%: pretended to care about the 9.9% who service the oligarchy, and wholly
abandoned to their crapitalist fate the 90% – working class basis of any democratic form of
governance.
His murderous drone assassination reign will be long remembered – except by insouciant
American image addicts who have a 5 second flicker frame consciousness.
Thanks for the passionate writing.
I say If you are not angry, you are not paying attention.
Well done!! Now enough people will need to get reacquainted with their brains; get over their trump fixation; see that the System has been in place, virtually unchanged, for decades; decide crumbs are not enough.
Barack Obama expressed concerns? Really?
Since the end of world war II the USA and their presidents have continuously brought demockcrassy and mayhem to sovereign countries, throwing over elected governments, installing puppets of kosher political correctness, trained in anti-Semitic art and undercover warfare and killed around 20 million civilians around the world through military action and religious divide and conquer terrorism while unleashing herds of evangelicals crusading into the third world saving souls from heretic religions while changing countries and politics, drug and weapons trade from within while floating in innocent blood and US$$$$$$$ that seem to disappear while the average American gets mentally wasted and the middle class is wiped out.
What are Obombas concerns again? That he and all other Potus’ses before him CHANGE(d) the world as we used to know it and that the leaders are all the same but different?
If Obama, Trump or any other American “show pony” just could see parallels of the blood letting of the collapsed Sowiet Union in the 90ties – coming to the US very soon – they would be concerned for the outstanding jobs they have done to their own country and the rest of the world.
BDS is not the best way. it’s the only way.
at the same time, we need to organize our own, people’s election.
let’s get the hell out of their system and build our own system!
one brick at a time. what have we got to lose????
Fuck the U.S. and others. If Gabbard and Sanders do not say this is wrong, they from the Obama school of Pigs. Free Assange, Free Manning
You, are a treasure.
You make an excellent point. I was active in the Libertarian Party for over 13 years and saw first hand how the Democrats and Republican keep the minor parties from getting any kind of a foothold in national politics. In my home state for example, it used to be that if you were running for statewide office and you were a member of a “major” party you only needed 750 signatures to get on the ballot but a “minor” party candidate needed about 30,000!
Add to that the television stations and newspapers normally ignore your people and if you even do get noticed they frequently just add a few “Caveats” into the mix, pointing out you low numbers, or your candidates “lack of experience” in dealing in government.
Oh my freaking Gawd, Caitlin – I do believe you have given us the message that we can pass on to friends and family, and anyone capable of receiving it in the context of their individual and our collective experience, to read it and say, “Oh my freaking Gawd, Caitlin – you’ve nailed it.” Would that each of us passed it on to others with a plea to expand our collective contacts/consciousness/recognition of the obvious past and way forward. Thank you for being pissed off (and thoughtful) enough to feel it/think it/share it.
A timely essay CJ.
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The Constitutional lawyer, Obama, is the ‘ ‘beloved’ ‘ smiley face, (used-car) salesman for the empire.
At least with TV personality Trump, the curtain has been pulled back, and the real, ugly face of global empire is on display for all to see.
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As many already know, human civilization will not survive the climate destruction. So while fighting the capitalist rulers to the bitter end, having a Plan-B to endure the ensuing societal chaos would be wise.
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For example, joining or forming an intentional community, to make the best of the end times, would be one realistic option for Plan-B.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intentional_communities
One should be reminded that whatever future step will be taken the ones who came up with the rape, loot and pillage plan of the human world are already there. Sovereignty will not be born from the same foul smelling “international” brew that holds all of us imprisoned and infected.
Those of us who worked and voted for Nader for President in 2000 got an earful of this ‘change the system from within’ nonsense. So, lets look back, and list all the successes of the loyal progressives who voted Democrat and tried to change the system from within. They got nothing. Those loyal democrats got pushed aside. They got the scorn of the machine Democrats as the machine lined up to vote for Bush tax cuts and Bush’s wars. They didn’t accomplish a dang thing. But wait, that was during Bush, but what about the era of Camelot after Obama took command of the Oval Office? That was when ‘single-payer’ (or national health insurance or medicare-for-all) got taken right out of the discussion for Obama’s health care plans. Wasn’t even mentioned officially as an option, not after the leading health insurance the HMO’s got a private meeting with Obama that set the course for Obamacare and profits for the health care industry. The only people who mentioned single-payer health care in congressional hearings were the protesters who were then arrested and taken out of the hearing rooms in handcuffs. The reason the DNC was all setup are ready to screw the Sanders campaign in 2016 was because that’s what they had been doing to every attempt to challenge corporate power in the Democratic party since Nader. We know the history of this. Working within the Democrats (which is the only option in the two-party system) leads nowhere, as at every turn corporate Democrats and corporate money will work to make dang sure you accomplish nothing. I wish Tulsi Gabbard well in her campaign, and I’m one of the 65k who’ve donated and got her into the debates, but I don’t for an instant think that there has been any revival of honesty and decency and fairness in the Democratic party. And anyone who knows anything about Chicago politics should laugh at a Chicago politician like Obama trying to work within a rigged and crooked system trying to get any real change or real hope.
Yes! Exactly! I’m 1000% in alignment with Caitlin’s vision for social change. As Audre Lorde famously said, “The master’s tools can never dismantle the master’s house.”
On another note, one of Caitlin’s examples shows she clearly has never heard of the Transfer Agreement.
Thanks for re posting the Princeton cartoon. I love it every time I see it! Every candidate worth a shit should post it.
People? The bad new is that “we” Usians are 2 species. It has been declared the Law by the USian Supreme Court in the Citizens United decision that gave birth to a new species and it is every bit as legitimate as . . . the Dred Scot decision. The “good” news is we are are evaluated by the same, fundamental benchmark: Individual wealth! Heads they win. Tails we loose.
But just as humans are an evolved species separate and distinct from apes, corporations are an evolved, separate species from humans. Or so they say. Of course that is an outright lie. Pure bullshit. Terminate all apes from the surface of Earth and humans would continue to thrive . . . as well as fruit flies in a bell jar. Kill all humans and corporations cease to exist instantaneously. The truth is that corporations were created to dominate us and exist solely within the invisible dimension of the individual human mind. Humans consist of physical matter and corporations consist of human fantasy and imagination. They are make believe. They are also our masters. Why pick on corporations? The DNC is a corporation and what they claim to stand for is as real as the tooth fairy.
The powers that be condemn Democratic Socialism. So how about Democratic Capitalism? Democracy could be the universal glue that unites socialism with capitalism and we can all live happily ever after.
Sorry. This was supposed to be a reply to CJ.