—–People take on and become an –ism WAY more than an –ism becomes a piece of them (Vegan-ism in this example). People become ego identified with their -ism and due to this it seeks out and looks for division and opportunities to spread the agenda and to judge negatively if agreement doesn’t adhere to said –ism. Most of the time, it directly leads to quick division and forces sides to be taken and more conveniently puts people in boxes that really are far from defining them. It leaves bystanders feeling attacked when someone from that –ism starts to express themselves. When people feel attacked, they feel defensive, and when people feel defensive they don’t want to look at those issues. This is a lose lose situation as we are social apes and opportunities that are lost that relate to influencing and being influenced is a big losing venture for all.
In a very real sense, every –ism is a form of authoritarian-ism. If we really want people to come around to our –ism it needs to come from a place of freedom, dialogue, reciprocal communication about values and experiences, etc. And we also need to be honestly open to that our –ism may be wrong! We can’t be offended and grotesque feeling if people don’t agree with us. That will just lead to us spending more time within our echo chamber groups and our echo chamber heads. This usually does not pan out well for people and gives people a distorted view of reality…
2/17…Resist: The U.S. Feminist Equality Movement of 2017
—-Kindness is an asset. Just like everything else, it can be abused and used. But the genuine ability to be kind and to feel other’s hearts and want to make them shine is an asset. And I want to raise up people who are trying to do that. And I want to shove away all the hate in the world, coming from the right and left. I want to exist with a working desire to change myself along with the world, but I do not want to degrade myself into an unhappy person for the sake of something I cannot change alone.
2/17…Fighting Despair with Defiance, Embracing Radicalism, and Living in a Post Fact Age
—-Take on Trump, take on government and community corruption. Turn being pissed into being a radical resistor and resort to action based on your natural gifts and passions. These are the best gifts to any resistance movement. Give all those around you strength and positive purpose to be a radical resistor. We all need to prescribe to what makes us tic naturally and having authentic, sustainable energy to take on hard things makes us win and creates a culture of resistance and solidarity and brings about the change we want to see in the world.
Stop being a boring ass liberal. Don’t take the common liberal stance of changing hearts and minds one person at a time. Liberals need to stop asking permission for protesting properly or getting permits. We need to ACT and do what’s right regardless of the supposed process involved that we’ve been told to cater to. Facts don’t mean anything anymore because anyone can find any alternative facts on the internet that speaks to their opinion of how they see the world. Trump realizes that facts don’t matter and only your ability to manipulate does. People being educated or concerned or aware of an injustice doesn’t by itself do jack shit most of the time. These things do nothing and will continue to give us people like Trump who do not prescribe to such things. Awareness needs to be translated into political resistance movements that have very strategic actions that can powerfully manipulate without asking for permission.
Frederick Douglass was quoted as saying that “power concedes nothing without a demand.” Trump and Co. only react to demands from actions that make their plans unviable and unpractical. Trumps team and corrupt authority will only reconsider when they are given no other option. That’s how cut throat assholes work. They need to be strong armed with some form of powerful demand that they can’t ignore…
—-Re-posted from right after the DNC. Seems very appropriate now and defines where the progressive movement, the left wing, normal positive people, and the Democrat Party needs to focus. I am thrilled at the movement that I see starting to already occur! People are waking up and starting to care and know that they need to act if they in fact want to live in a world without Trump and Trumpism and corporate rule.
…If we vote for Clinton we will be complicit in the election fraud and corporate rule over our lives. It will feed Trumpism, and the elections of 2018 and 2020 will be much of the same as more far right wing populous presidential and political opponents will emerge against Clinton and establishment Dems. Trumpism will be validated and an electrified base will vote her out. If Trump wins, progressives, democrats, most independents and some republicans will be united in making sure he’s a lame duck who gets impeached. If he does make it to 2018 or 2020 there will be massive movement uprisings and candidates like Bernie and Jill Stein will be recognized as correct pathways and what could have done away with Trump and Trumpism. If Stein were to win, or come close, the same would happen with empowering the mass liberal left movement. With the loss, the DNC would actually have to implement its “most progressive platform” in history rather than fighting tooth and nail against it as they’ve done against the Bernie movement. They would actually have to listen to and fight for people and being a large, united left wing they would actually cater to our individual freedoms vs corporate rule and have dramatically positive results like Bernie was showcasing. Opponents running against the interests of the people and standing for corporate rule would lose out in a heartbeat. The left wing populous movement will cut further into the center and right than the right wing populous movement going in the other direction, especially once the Democrats stop pinning themselves to corporate welfare which is the reason the right wing is having a populous movement at all. Bernie Sanders would have won this election hands down in a landslide against Donald Trump.
—-The last eight years have taught us some real lessons regarding the symbols of African Americans and feminist politicians coming to power in politics. We can now criticize bourgeois feminism and bourgeois African Americanism, neoliberal feminism and neoliberal African Americanism, imperial feminism and imperial African Americanism, militaristic or authoritative feminism and militaristic or authoritative African Americanism. As we move forward and critically engage in these conversations it will be very clear what we are talking about. We no longer have to be self-hating women or self-hating African Americans. We’re critical women, and critical African Americans and critical people who want socialist feminism, socialist black empowerment and authentic socialist empowerment for most people. The silver lining has presented itself.
8/16…The Democratic Party is Not What it Seems
—-The Democratic party is where progressive politics go to die. Supporters of Bernie Sanders got a first-hand lesson in this. The views of Sanders were progressive because many of his ideas were taken right out of the Green Party Platform. Yes, Trump is scary but not enough to be distracted from what must happen which is to break up the two-party system for good. The erosion of the parties is happening and a true democracy is forming built upon the foundations of racial, economic, gender and social justice. A democracy that values humanity over profits. So far the only thing this election cycle has taught us is that we must keep organizing and vote for the future we want, not against the one we fear.
A key difference between Hillary and Donald Trump is that despite Trump’s rhetoric, Hillary has strong and deep ties to the corporate and military industrial complex. She has a skilled propaganda machine and has the funders and tools of war and economic suppression at her disposal.
It is only because the Republican Party is the “white man’s party” that the Democrats can be seen as more open and diverse. The American people cannot and should not expect adequate political representation from a party that was not created by them but only exists to assure that we have nowhere else to go. The Democratic Party has mastered this image, using people of color for their vote and then ultimately enacting policies that harm them.
Bill Clinton was known as America’s “first black President” but he moved the Democrats back to the center right, and he did it off the backs of African-American and Latino men and women in 1994 when he signed into law the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. In 1996, he signed into law welfare reform that gutted the safety net for poor and working families. He deregulated Wall Street, passed NAFTA and ushered in a modern era of free trade that has had disastrous results for countries and people all over the world.
By his side was Hillary Clinton who was also helping usher in rising mass incarceration rates under the Democratic president. Hillary was a trusted advisor as her labeling of black and brown people as “super predators” helped support these people getting racially profiled and locked up, and until recently, she was still taking money in donations from the same private prison corporations that benefitted from the incarceration of an entire generation of black and brown people in the first place. Barack Obama continued these legacies as well with endless war in drone use, a crackdown on whistle blowers, the failure to close Guantanamo Bay, an Affordable Care Act that still leaves millions of Americans without any form of healthcare as well as ushering in the most deportations of any president in American history. The Black lives matter movement spurred up as well due to his inaction of police brutality against people of color.
#demexit
#jillstein
#greenparty
—-Is it more important to keep from fascism occurring or to lay the foundation to keep from fascism occurring? Both Republican and Democrats cater to forms of fascism. It is easy for us to point fingers at WWII movies and history textbooks and claim to know what fascism is. This is the kind of picture book fascism that we possibly label with a Trump candidate at first sight, however, it goes much deeper than that. Fascism is a form of authoritarian nationalism and authoritarian nationalism is defined by absolute obedience to authority at the expense of individual freedoms. Most of us are giving our absolute obedience to the Republicans and Democrats. Individual freedoms are being dramatically torn apart in direct and indirect ways by the two major political parties. Individual freedoms are quickly on the decline while corporate freedoms are on the rise. Corporate freedoms entail the massive incarceration of people in the “War on Drugs” and supporting for profit prisons. Individual freedoms are compromised by not supporting a livable minimum wage of $15 an hour. Corporate freedoms don’t support universal healthcare. Individual freedoms are compromised by supporting the TPP trade deal that makes it against the law to write laws that interfere with corporations and their profits and allows them to sue governments in secret tribunals if a government does anything to interfere with their ability to make money. Corporate freedoms don’t want to pass a constitutional amendment to overturn citizens united to get money out of politics. Individual freedoms are compromised by bailing out Wall Street while not bailing out students in the pending student debt crisis or making college affordable. Corporate freedoms don’t want green energy policies or a ban on fracking as they are not concerned about destruction to the environment. Individual freedoms are compromised when our local police are excessively militarized and when the money in our country largely goes to blowing up other countries with rampant drone warfare, racist imperialism and the military industrial complex that creates extremism like ISIS. Each one of these issues is immense in itself and the consistency is that corporations get what they want and people’s rights and freedoms are compromised. This disproportionately and negatively affects minorities and working and lower class people, which is pretty much all of us. Why are we so supportive of a political structure that is not catering to our interests and actually working against us and our individual freedoms? Do we want to be blindly obedient to political parties and a government that is blindly obedient to corporations, or do we want a party and government that stands for the environment and the 99%?
#demexit
#jillstein
#greenparty
7/16…DNC Post #6: Bernie Delegate Walkouts, Radicalism Discussions
—-Democrats are already pointing fingers at Bernie supporters if Trump wins and Bernie supporters are already saying how Bernie could have steamrolled Trump based on the polls and that the Dems now have their own battle to fight. Right now the mass populous movement on the left is uniting against Trump and Hillary. They will not cater to extremism. They will not cater to not being talked to and they believe Hillary Clinton and Dems are above the system. Their vote will not be held hostage by a party that’s just assuming they will vote for them when, on paper, it is easy to see how they’ve actually worked against the interests of these same people on the left. A vote is an important thing and will only be throw to a candidate that speaks to people. If that vote isn’t catered to then that vote will not go to the presumed leftish candidate. Nobody is entitled to anybody’s vote. It is simple for what Hillary Clinton needs to do. She needs to come and meet her left base where they are at. She needs to speak genuinely to them and repair the awful relationship that has occurred up till this point. There is a sense that the Democratic political class is privileged and has no care for the common voter on the left. This is similar to white privilege. Why would Black people go along with what white culture wants them to do when they don’t have their interests at heart or authenticity to rely on? Privilege is privilege whether it’s political or racial. If nothing is done, millions upon millions of people on the left will not vote for Hillary Clinton.
The first step in repairing this relationship is that Hillary Clinton and establishment liberal democrats need to admit openly that there is a major problem to the current system. That the current system will not be the solution. That Bernie Sanders really started us on a pathway that we have no choice but to follow; an alarm that was sounded for things to more aggressively come if we don’t step up to the plate now to deal with the issues. The solutions are to go back to the basics of positive human interaction. We need to invest in each other authentically and we need to listen to each other. Electoral politics can be done authentically. All of us on the left need to move one step farther to the left than we already are. Moderates need to become liberals/Democrats, liberals/Democrats need to become progressives, progressives need to become revolutionaries, and we all need to work to undermine the whole world of the right. Pertaining to the left and common people and the working and poor and minority classes, what works for everybody is what works for everybody. Intersectionality needs to be a major emphasis. We all need to support each other’s movements and absolutely become more involved in movement work as we are only as strong as them. We need to lift up people who are responsible for social justice movements. If we don’t do this and give our vote to the status quo, corporations win, militarization wins, racism wins, fascism wins, the capitalist cliff gets closer. We have to direct our efforts instead to people power and we have to do it instantly. There are but a few months left for the Democratic Party to not be labeled as completely part of the problem. The ball is in their court.
#novoicenounity
#dncexit
#dnc
7/16…DNC Post #5: Blacks Lives Matter, Hillary’s Imperialism as Racism
—-The racially oppressed live behind a veil of confusion. They are made to believe that their government is working for them. They are made to believe that because Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party have Black Lives Matter guest speakers at the convention then everything is getting better. The illusion is that Hillary and Democrats are working for them, that they are not being jailed at a rate four times as much as whites, that they are not getting harassed and murdered in repulsive numbers. Democrats and Clintons have largely been at the helm while all this has happened to their communities over the decades. There is outrage by Black people about white people resorting to white privileged mindsets for assuming that the black vote will automatically just go towards the left. White privileged neo-liberals are right about that. They know that minorities don’t truly have representation and voting Republican is not really an option. The Black and minority communities are being held hostage by the Democratic Party due to the fact that racism exists. The most vulnerable of all social issues is being used as a political weapon to communities most in need. But vote blue, we need to unify.
The racist problem in America is the struggle against establishment neoconservative and neoliberal politics. Both Republican and Democrat parties believe is absolute truths and values for implementing American imperialism, regime change, and aggressive militarism. We use massive resources in our country to implement racism and xenophobia around the world. How can a government so in love with its own military industrial complex actually do something about their own imperialist and militarization industrial complex at home? The “War on Drugs” is a racist domestic war against minorities. The militarization of police is giving that war tools to aggressively assert itself. The policy of America is to mass incarcerate blacks and to implement aggressive regime change in these impoverished communities. If we are to truly combat and confront our problems with racism, we need to acknowledge that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both will implement massive imperialism abroad and domestic racism at home. They both have the power to be the most dangerous political people on the planet. Combating racism at home is in direct correlation to combatting racism abroad. But vote blue, we need to unify.
7/16…DNC Post #4: Militarism and Political Privilege
—-The Democratic Party thinks it knows what’s best for people and is riddled with entitled and elitist leaders. They’d rather cater to the right than to their base which is the whole liberal left wing. People on the left will not stand for this. They will not continue to support a candidate who represents a system that commits militarized atrocities throughout the world using basically an unlimited military budget and drone warfare and is obsessed with regime change to support their own corporate partners. When Sarah Silverman who is invited to speak at the DNC comes out with a message to ‘Bernie or Bust’ supporters with a condescending “You’re being ridiculous” it actually makes Bernie people dig in deeper and think, “No, you’re being ridiculous!” She earlier claimed that her heart makes her vote for Bernie but her mind makes her vote for Clinton. So being a militarized war monger is a trait associated with thinking with your head. Again, seems like the opposite.
We’ve lost the ability to talk to one another. Everyone thinks they’re right and speaks to each other in condescending tones. When I catch glimpses of the DNC on TV I can’t help but think that our Democratic leaders are in a high school classroom trying to bully and manipulate and talk down to one another. This happens with all perspectives but the only major flaw I especially see in the Hillary camp is that these are people that are very much entrenched in their own system. They don’t get outside their box. They’ve been so comfortable in their places of power that they’ve lost the ability to empathize with the common person. Being out in the streets with people and their causes it is about a 9 to 1 ratio of Bernie to Hillary supporters. Within the confines of the walls of Democratic Party headquarters that ratio is flipped. There is a massive communication breakdown and the inside group has most of the power and is ignoring the other. The establishment Democrats will go down in their own flames before they allow themselves to be convinced that they’re wrong, and the sad part about it is that the common people will experience the brunt of the pain when this happens. Establishment Dems will continue leading their comfortable lives. It is ‘political privilege’ at its worst. When there’s no real motivation or consequence for those in privileged positions to do anything different or to do the right thing they will never deliver and do anything different.
How would the event be if Bernie was the nominee? The fiercest protests at the DNC were people standing up against the racist ‘War on Drugs’, the TPP, ICE and deportation and immigration treatment, climate change and environmentalism inaction, lack of transparency and accountability in government, corruption, corporate welfare, police brutality and racism and unequal treatment for minorities and black lives matter issues, rampant militarism and drone warfare, mass incarceration, money in politics, among many other things. Improving these issues represent real progressive cause and real people empowerment. Not that all of these things would be magically fixed if Bernie was the nominee but there would be a raw and awesome power attached to these issues. There would be people power behind these issues. We would feel a grand unity and an accomplishment that the
7/16…DNC Post #3: Ignoring Your Parties Corruption is Condoning It
—-During the Bernie march the good news was delivered that Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned. She would be finishing out the convention and then hired on Hillary’s own political team and given an “honorary” titled position. That’s not shady or anything but, hey, got to take your victories when you get them, even if it is mostly symbolic. One corrupt official has been removed from public office and that hopefully means one less corrupt official overall. Now Hillary’s election team has one more corrupt employee on it. The Hillary and Democratic strategy continues to show its true colors. To a true progressive, these situations keep adding fuel to the corrupt fire and perfectly sums up why we need to keep fighting. Politics is becoming exposed for its corrupt ways and when it gets recognized as such, that official just gets moved to the entourage of the candidate and given an honorary title, falling in the end, not too far from the influence of the original tree. No wonder Hillary activists don’t show up to progressive political rallies. How can they honestly believe in Hillary’s vision or the Democratic Party’s actions? That level of corruption is being noticed. Ignoring your party’s corruption is condoning it.
Do we want a democracy of people who don’t show up to events? Do we want a political structure that doesn’t cater to people or care to experience and know what they’re going through? Do we want a political party that doesn’t cater to grassroots organization? There is a massive amount of people doing organizational work here who are excellent at it. With very limited resources and no media attention they are threatening one of the most powerful political parties in the world? There are physical numbers here. You don’t need a poll to tell you what’s going on. You just go outside and see it. There is will and desire and power. Hillary Clinton represents a strategy in politics that unfortunately doesn’t want human participation. Very convenient for people already running things. However, it is not good enough and our political parties are growing inefficient in their approach to organization, governing, and are not catering to modern and quicker ways to enact positive change, and really win. Transparency and accountability are also something not highly practiced by the current establishment Democrats. Will the Democratic Party just keep losing? They have gotten the reputation over the years for blowing it time and time again. Are they the Chicago Cubs of politics? There is another way and it is slapping the party in the face. How many slaps will it take? The energy seems inevitable because the new grassroots, progressive Bernie Sanders energy is authentic. Authenticity natural sells itself and wins. It will win out in the end because it is a powerful and convenient approach. It’s the wave of real progressive politics that is on the horizon and demanding attention.
7/16…DNC Post #2: Democrats Catering to Walls, Police, Trump
—-Philadelphia is littered with cops in militarized fashion and the stadium where the convention is being held is barricaded with a million maze like high fences and walls. Citizens have to walk through a literal maze of fences and barricades to move what would otherwise be about twenty feet in a forward direction. The park that is hosting the movement’s campers, which is right next to the convention stadium is completely quarantined off. There are hordes of cops throughout the park and helicopters are flying above at all times. Huge gangs of cops on horses and motorcycles, in bushes, etc. constantly assert their presence.
It is unfortunate that Trump’s mindset and strategy to “make America safe again” is centered around walls and police, and Democrats seem to be taking a lesson from his campaign. The Trump effect is infiltrating its way into and becoming part of the demise of the Democratic Party. The police are already instigating confrontation overall. It’s amazing how much the oppressed has to hold its composure in the face of corrupt police who are baiting you to break a law. Once a law is broken or even walked up to a cop can do whatever they want. Who is watching the cops? Oh yeah, I almost forgot, nobody.
With the current Democrat Party and Hillary at the helm we are seeing what a Democratic police state looks like vs that of the Republicans. It will still be extremely oppressive, it will still put up walls for people, it will still be corrupt and intimidate and easily resort to incarceration. It might not be the Republican, ignorant witch hunt, which definitely does count for something, but it still will be a system centered around oppression and instigating and perpetuating the divisiveness of the have and have nots. Is it truly the lesser of evils? Yes, technically, but it is still part of the overall evil that lurks in our country, that is running and ruining our country.
7/16…DNC Post #1: Journey for Bernie, Philly Ghettos, Energy Epicenter
—-The Bernie movement is showing up to Philadelphia in an organized event to protest the benefits few always receive in the face of and vs the needs of the masses. They are protesting a political system and the Democratic party within that doesn’t stand for most people. They are protesting a system that gives corporate handouts to people who benefit from the suffering of the masses. They are protesting a system that profits off of student debt. They are protesting a system that profits off of incarcerated individuals and the racist ‘War on Drugs.’ They are protesting a system that doesn’t stand for minorities and the epidemic of police brutality on black lives. They are protesting a system that brings about more military destruction to the world and to our own communities by militarizing the police than any institution or government on earth. They are protesting a system that goes against union representation. They are protesting a system that doesn’t stand for practical environmentalism or actually taking firm action against climate change. They are protesting a system that treats corporations as people. They are protesting a system that allows unlimited money in politics and hence gives unlimited power to a small amount of wealthy individuals over massive people representation. They are protesting not being given a livable minimum wage. They are protesting a system that doesn’t bail out its citizens, it’s students, and the unemployed/underpaid but instead will bail out banks and shareholders and not hold them responsible or put them in jail for their actions. They are protesting the Democratic political party that would actually make amends and compromises to the corporatist and racist and sexist radical far right, appealing to the mirage that they’re centrist rather than appealing to their base or progressive, people centered values overall. They are protesting the Democratic political party that is putting its own power and rigged election process ahead of the power, will, and unity of the people.
Most importantly people are showing up to Philadelphia to protest the Democratic Party and the fact that they are pushing us closer and closer to having a Trump in the white house. Hillary Clinton is a weak leader and divides the left. There have been months of polling and primaries where it has been shown time and time again that Bernie Sanders is a leader from the Democratic Party that can unite all the energy on the left. It could very easily be a sweeping victory for Democrats where a massive populous movement on the left would steamroll Trump and Conservatism. We have the opportunity to really push for liberal values in this election and win without a doubt. Hillary Clinton will not be that leader. People in large amounts will not vote or fight for her. With Hillary Clinton you have an apathetic base only supported by the establishment. If we’ve figured out anything from this election, it’s that it’s not the year of the establishment candidate. Will the Democrats really ignore what will ignite their base? Will they ignore a whole new generation of voters that are there for the taking? Will they really take the chance that apathy and disunity on their side really will overcome a populous movement on the right with Trump? Seems like high stakes gambling to me where the brunt of the pain will be felt by the American people. In a way, seems very appropriate to what our country and political parties have become. The movement and protest in Philadelphia is a last ditch effort by people to try and save the national Democratic Party from itself.
The Avid Fan 