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DNC Opens in Philadelphia | 148 comments (148 topical)

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If their goal is to show the entire country ... (5.00 / 2) (#5)
by Donald from Hawaii on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 02:55:58 PM EST
... that there is no us in them, then they're off to a really great start. The Achilles' Heel of the far left and the far right in this country is their chronic inability to play well with others in the political sandbox. Both factions claim to speak for the "Real America," yet both prove to care about only themselves and their own opinions.

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Perhaps they don't "play nice"... (5.00 / 1) (#10)
by kdog on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 03:42:44 PM EST
because it's a rigged game?  Hard to play well with others when those others expect you to eat sh*t and like it.

"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal"

- Emma Goldman, Did Not "Play Nice"

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Yeah,sure, it's a rigged game, kdog. (5.00 / 1) (#16)
by Donald from Hawaii on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 04:24:26 PM EST
Never mind that 4 million more Democrats voted for HRC than for Bernie.

Politics is a full-contact sport, and one which tends to not favor those who are content to sit in the bleachers and bi+ch about how the game's been juiced.

If you don't like the way the game's going, then get off your a$$, step onto the playing field and do something about it.

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It's very clear... (none / 0) (#41)
by kdog on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 05:32:12 PM EST
Democrats don't wanna play with me, why would I wanna play with them? So people like Debbie can talk shjt behind my back while pretending to be impartial and the big money donors get the spoils? Ill play a game, but I won't play the fool.

If I play at all it would be Emma's game...no tsar, no president, no king.  

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Oh, please (5.00 / 1) (#48)
by Yman on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 05:42:58 PM EST
The Bernie campaign was attacking the DNC for weeks/months before these emails were written.  Given all the crap they threw at the DNC, the responses were pretty mild.  Moreover, the DNC staff is human.  Some of them likely DID favor the candidate who was actually part of their party for several decades, as opposed to the newcomer who badmouthed the party for many years until he needed its infrastructure.

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But of course... (5.00 / 1) (#51)
by kdog on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 05:53:03 PM EST
Nobody needed a wiki email dump to know the establishment and money in the party wanted Bernie to fail...a preference is fine, partiality is not.

But its not me you need to worry about, only Bernie or Liz would make me even consider a D. It's the angry delegates and party members you need to worry about. Will they go Trump? No. But they might not go Clinton.    

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I'm not worried about either one (none / 0) (#57)
by Yman on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 06:06:21 PM EST
BTW - Did you just call them "party members"?

Heh.

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If there is hope... (none / 0) (#59)
by kdog on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 06:10:43 PM EST
It lies with the proles;)

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Given that you're not even ... (none / 0) (#68)
by Donald from Hawaii on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 06:43:40 PM EST
... a registered Democrat, kdog, please don't be telling us how our party ought to be run. The respective party hierarchies have had their thumbs on the scales since the day the Constitution was ratified and the Founding Fathers split into two opposing political camps under Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. And they're generally not fond of insurgent campaigns for obvious reasons. It's regrettable, but it's also to be expected if you're an insurgent who's worth his salt. And when you expect it, you plan for it in any event.

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You got that right.... (none / 0) (#73)
by kdog on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 07:04:59 PM EST
there's been a thumb on the scale since King Solomon, never mind George Washington.

Im glad you think it's regrettable. I say regrettable and unacceptable. That's not telling you how to run it, just telling you why some won't roll with it. Hence the DNC chair gets heckled from her own convention. That ain't me Babe, thems Dems booing their lungs out Man...not independents by default, but Democrats.

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And it seems the people . . . (none / 0) (#83)
by JanaM on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 07:30:03 PM EST
it wasn't only the "establishment and money" that wanted Bernie to fail. Did you forget all the voters who chose another candidate?

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That sentiment (none / 0) (#52)
by TrevorBolder on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 05:55:07 PM EST
Is widely felt in both parties right now

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Why do we have to play with you? (none / 0) (#126)
by Donald from Hawaii on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 08:58:07 PM EST
We've been around this matter time and again, so I'm not going to belabor it any further. Suffice to say that while you may talk game, you certainly don't got game. In fact, you couldn't even be bothered to vote in the primary for the Democratic candidate whose campaign you were regularly touting in these threads.

So, please don't flatter yourself by comparing yourself to Emma Goldman. She was committed heart and soul to her cause, and was willing to risk her freedom and even her life for it. You've made it quite clear that you're neither.

Whether or not you support Hillary Clinton this fall is entirely up to you. But quite frankly, since you've taught me to not depend on it, I'm not. My time is better spent elsewhere with people who are actually open to the possibilities, and thus willing to put their time and effort where their mouths are.

Aloha.

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Three paragraphs of not.... (5.00 / 2) (#130)
by kdog on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 09:03:21 PM EST
belaboring further;)

I would never compare myself to Emma...she was part of the solution, I am part of the problem. She was selfless, I am selfish.

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The fact of course being (none / 0) (#24)
by CaptHowdy on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 04:40:28 PM EST
Voting has been made illegal for many and there in renewed push to make it as difficult as possble.  There is a reason for that.  That quote is a stunningly ignorant and destructive thing to say.

What you would expect I guess from a anarchist and author of a book called "My Dissillusionment In Russia" in 1923.

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She went to Russia to see with (none / 0) (#45)
by jondee on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 05:41:22 PM EST
her own eyes what was going on there and came back and accurately reported what she saw, to the outrage of many on the left who had hung their hopes on the revolution.

What should she have done, gone on vacation with the Oscar de la Renta of the twenties?

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I had no idea who that even was (4.00 / 2) (#49)
by CaptHowdy on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 05:44:33 PM EST
I googled.  She sounds like a nut to me.  Anarchy is a bullsh!t fantasy.   Usually of bored rich people.

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A nut? (5.00 / 2) (#58)
by kdog on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 06:08:47 PM EST
Perhaps, thinking she could change the world and all...but the best kind of nut.  Working class hero nut. One of the great women of the 20th century.

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Did you see the movie "Reds"? (5.00 / 1) (#78)
by Donald from Hawaii on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 07:21:13 PM EST
CaptHowdy: "I had no idea who she even was. I googled.  She sounds like a nut to me. Anarchy is a bullsh!t fantasy. Usually of bored rich people."

Maureen Stapleton played Emma Goldman to Warren Beatty's John Reed and Diane Keaton's Louise Bryant, and won the 1981 Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for her work.

What Rosa Luxemburg was to Germany, Emma Goldman was to this country, as both were unflinching voices of the damned and downtrodden. Goldman was the daughter of Russian Jews, and emigrated to this country as a teenager with her half-sister Helena in the 1880s after her father's failed attempt to arrange a marriage for her at age 15.

She was politically radicalized by the injustice of Chicago's notorious "Haymarket Affair," in which eight well-known anarchists were arrested, tried and convicted for the murder of seven policemen and four civilians at a labor rally bombing. It was a crime which none of them likely committed, yet four of them were hanged for it.

Goldman first came to the attention of authorities during the Panic of 1893, when she advocated that the poor and unemployed take the fight to the rich and powerful. She was arrested and imprisoned for inciting a riot.

Eight years later, she was initially arrested in 1901 and charged with having planned the assassination of President William McKinley, a crime for which she had no involvement whatsoever. The attempts by authorities to shut her up and frame her only further radicalized her.

Emma Goldman was one of the Gilded Age's more colorful, passionate and fascinating characters. She was an uncompromising revolutionary who's worth getting to know better, if you have time.

Aloha.

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She wasn't rich (none / 0) (#56)
by jondee on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 06:05:38 PM EST
and she spent half her life in jail or in exile.

She also hired a ghost writer to pen her runaway bestseller It Takes A Shtetl.

Anarchy didn't mean the same thing back then that it means today. Conservatives back then managed to do with the word what they've done today to the word "liberal".

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I am a long time admirer of Emma (none / 0) (#80)
by caseyOR on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 07:23:21 PM EST
Goldman. She most definitely was not a nut. In today's political world she would be a liberal/progressive, not a member of the Black Bloc.

She came to this country to escape the Russian pogroms. She devoted her life to fighting for the rights of women and children, birth control, free speech and workers rights.

In 1919 Goldman and approximately 250 other "radical aliens" were deported to the Soviet Union under the 1918 Alien Act,a rather dubious law championed by young J. Edgar Hoover.

Anarchism was, in those days, a viable leftist political philosophy, not the nonsense spouted by the so-called "anarchists" who dress all in black and come to protests solely to instigate violence.

My guess if is if you read Goldman's writings, Howdy, you would find that you agree with Emma quite a bit.

I do think my friend kdog does Goldman a disservice when he cites her as a reason not to participate in the political process of today. 2016 is not 1916. While I do believe that she would be very much a member of the very left wing of the Democratic Party, I also believe, based on my extensive study of Goldman's writings, that she would do everything she could to see Trump defeated.

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I don't know Casey... (none / 0) (#85)
by kdog on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 07:36:44 PM EST
I can't see Emma getting down with this Shi+.

I think she'd be outside the Wells Fargo Center until she was chained and sent to Central Booking. Much has changed for the better, but much else has not changed at all.

Speaking of which... who's bright idea was to hold the convention in an arena named after a criminal enterprise?

Quicken Loans Arena and Well Fargo Center...that just says it all, doesn't it.

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You make her sound like (none / 0) (#89)
by CaptHowdy on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 07:40:43 PM EST
An interesting character.  I'll take your word for it.

That said I stand by what I said about that quote about voting.  It's a stupid thing to say.   I really hate anarchists.  And you are correct I really am only acquainted with the modern version.  Which in my experience invariably turns out to be a spoiled rich kid that doesn't either understand the role the state needs to play with the disadvantaged or really give a shIt.

That my experience with anarchists.   I rank them below Moonies.

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Goldman also spoke out vehemently (none / 0) (#133)
by jondee on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 09:08:28 PM EST
in favor of women's reproductive rights, women's suffrage and "free love"

She probably caught at least as much flack for that as she did for her radical political stance.

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Emma Goldman was arrested and imprisoned ... (none / 0) (#144)
by Donald from Hawaii on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 09:42:44 PM EST
... in 1905 for publicly advocating birth control, which was then illegal.

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Or is voting... (none / 0) (#47)
by kdog on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 05:42:37 PM EST
corrupt lesser evil over and over perhaps more destructive?  The slow death of a dream.  

Disenfranchisement is just a Republican tool to maintain money and power, not to halt progress. Same as franchisement is a Democratic tool to maintain power and money, not to aid progress. If minorities and ex-cons tended to vote R you bet your arse the tables would be turned.  

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Only about themselves.. (none / 0) (#12)
by jondee on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 04:15:42 PM EST
One thing's for sure: in the future the DWS's of the world should think about communicating with invisible ink and secret handshakes the way the Freemasons used to do.

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At the end of the day, it's all about the votes. (5.00 / 1) (#22)
by Donald from Hawaii on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 04:38:34 PM EST
And Hillary Clinton received 4 million more of them than did Bernie Sanders.

You want a place at the political table, then you need to muscle up, be willing to throw a few sharp elbows and also take a few shots in return. If you're just going to whine about how unfair everything is, you're going to find yourself shoved aside without so much as a second glance or thought.

Sad to say, but political change doesn't spontaneously burst forth from the goodness of people's hearts. They'll care enough to do something about it, only if you are substantial enough to command their attention and make them care.

Aloha.

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Who was it, Joe Hill? (none / 0) (#29)
by jondee on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 04:53:28 PM EST
who said "Don't mourn, organize"?

The problem around these precincts seems to be that if people organize too well, they may run the risk of outraging the dignity of the personality cults that mysteriously congeal around certain career politicians who somehow have gotten confused with people's early childhood memories of mommy and daddy.

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Spoken like someone who's ... (none / 0) (#142)
by Donald from Hawaii on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 09:39:09 PM EST
... never done any organizing whatsoever. You obviously know nothing about party organization, so please don't even go there. I'd lay better than even money that -- and be honest here -- you probably don't even know how many precincts there are in your own district.

And therein lies the likely problem. If you feel this strongly about things, then please stop complaining, get out there and get involved on a local level. Take the time to educate yourself about the politics of your own community, and you'll likely find that there are others of similar mindsets who'd be more than willing to make common cause with you, if you but seized the initiative and made the effort.

And who knows, by doing so, you might find -- as I did when I started 25 years ago -- that the Democratic precincts and districts in your region or state are so loosely organized as to be ripe for the plucking. I'll even show you how to assess the prospects and do it, if so asked. Because in order to get things accomplished politically, you have to start by working to maneuver yourself into a position where the powers-that-be ignore you at their own peril.

In my old east Honolulu region, I worked like hell at organizing my four districts. I'm proud to say that by the time I moved to Hilo last year, that six-mile stretch of Oahu's southern coastline from Diamond Head to Makapuu Point is where one out of every eight card-carrying members of the Democratic Party in the entire State of Hawaii presently resides -- including our State Party Chair and two Democratic National Committeemembers.

And our capacity to turn out the Democratic vote in that region is substantial. When Gov. Ige was elected in 2014, more than 40% of his margin of victory was derived in east Honolulu.

That's called clout. How you attain it is by organizing, organizing, organizing. There is no easy short cut.

Aloha.

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Perhaps they don't play nice (none / 0) (#15)
by sallywally on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 04:20:45 PM EST
Because they lack insight, judgment, perception, self-awareness and humility.

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Of course claiming those qualities (none / 0) (#18)
by jondee on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 04:32:17 PM EST
exclusively for your particular favored faction is a sure sign of humility.

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Oh, many factions have those qualities. (none / 0) (#50)
by sallywally on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 05:48:42 PM EST
Just not those who will turn even on their hero if he asks them to think beyond their faction, something they really shouldn't need to be told.

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Maybe he was never... (5.00 / 2) (#135)
by kdog on Mon Jul 25, 2016 at 09:13:29 PM EST
a hero or an idol...and a sizeable segment of our country wasn't walking behind him, but walking with him?

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DNC Opens in Philadelphia | 148 comments (148 topical)

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