Quibbles and Bits, Down the Slope and Up The Creek Edition

Straight to the snacks...

--> T-Rump is pretty much performing as expected.   By this, I mean that his propensity for executive orders, his hostility to the press, and his closing of executive power around a few confidants confirm that we did not elect a president in November 2016: we elected an authoritarian strongman.

--> T-Rump's cabinet choices (Tillerson, Devos, etc.), many of whom taken straight from the ranks of Corporate America and the Banks, define his stripe as a fascist in the classic, Mussolini-concocted definition of the term:  the merger of Corporate and State interests.   These selections show that he is just removing the middle man from the transaction - Big Oil now has a direct line into Foreign Affairs through Rex Tillerson, charter school management companies have a direct line into the White House through Betsy Devos, and so forth. 

--> We will never know for sure what would have happened if Clinton fulfilled her bank-appointed destiny and claimed the Oval Office, but we can be fairly sure of a couple of things.  For one, the TPP, with a few cosmetic touch-ups, would have been passed, and also, we would be in a full-on shooting war with Russia.   It might be plausible that Trump's business connections in Russia, and the inevitable corruption that goes with them, might just be what is preventing an all-out war with Putin - as ironic and twisted as that might sound. 

--> There are a few new-ish "third party" political organizations/donation bundlers appearing on the scene, such as Justice Democrats.   Debbie Lusignan from Sane Progressive has done some digging into these organizations, and surprise-surprise, the Democratic Establishment has their hands in those cookie jars.   Howard Dean gave a shout-out to Justice Democrats recently, and they are getting heavy promotion from The Young Turks and Secular Talk.   My advice is the same as Debbie's: don't donate to these organizations without doing your homework, and at that, only give directly to the candidates themselves. 

--> Finally, regarding Justice Democrats, et. al.   Their stated mission is to elicit a takeover of the Democratic Party by "Berniecrats" and other, more progressive elements, and to root out the corruption endemic within the Party.   I see this as a fool's errand due to what I think is a simple line of logic.  To start with, money is a form of power.  Big Money (Banks and Corporations) donate billions to the DNC, thus, they have the clout as to what and who get promoted.  Power does not concede without a demand, neither will it concede willingly.   As an example: look what happened after HRC's coronation at the DNC Convention, and at what the mainstream media didn't show: it tore the party apart (Check out the Youtube videos made immediately after the coronation.   Josh Fox did a 2-minute panorama of the arena and showed hundreds of empty seats, and noting the lack of enthusiasm.   Others showed the delegates walking out of the arena and going into the press tent.   Does any of this sound like a united party to you?). The HRC campaign responded by gambling that the Berniecrats had nothing of value to offer the campaign, that she and her people had this in the bag, that the Berniecrats had no place else to go, and as such would naturally fall in line behind her.   Plus, her opponent was Donald Trump!  The Benito Cheeto! How could she possibly lose?

Yeah. 

Not to mention, Kshama Sawant's recent statement on Democracy Now which an increasing number of progressives are subscribing to: that the Democratic Party is the place where progressive ideas go to die.   There is no real home for true progressive ideas and leaders in this country, save for the scattered third parties and political interest organizations.  

What is needed, as I see it:

1. Propose a meeting between the leaderships of the major progressive third-party organizations:  Socialist Alternative, The Green Party, Peace and Freedom, etc.    Without suggesting any kind of merger, find out which issues they can agree on and work together on.   This might even be applicable to particular candidates - cross-endorsements might be a way to create cohesion toward achieving specific goals;
2. Build from the ground up.  Kshama Sawant had the right idea, of running for and winning a local seat rather than national.   The state and local seats are where a party's (or political movement's) power base is located, and the more local seats, the more influence over a larger realm or area.   The Republican Party figured this out after Goldwater's disastrous 1964 campaign, and look where they area now;
3.  Think long term.   The things we progressives seek may not be achievable in our individual lifetimes.   But this isn't about my Generation X, or the Boomers.  This is about future generations - so they will have a world better than the one we lived in and created.   We owe them this.  
4.  #DemExit.   Forget the Democratic Party as an organization.   Support Democratic politicians only if their progressive words match with their progressive actions (sorry Cory Booker).   Contribute only to those politicians, not to the DNC, the DCCC, or any of their other alphabet soup money clatches.   
As always, more later.