BADASS
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http://www.conversationcafe.org/
merri ok
TOOL MODEL?
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SEE RESIST POST MORT 11 24
RO K AND
After the 2012 election, the Republican National Committee famously commission an internal “growth and opportunity” report to chart a path forward. But even then, the GOP found electoral success only after Trump ignored the report’s recommendations to strengthen the party’s infrastructure and adopt a more welcoming and inclusive message.
After the 2016 election, Democrats also made changes to their party infrastructure and fundraising after a period of introspection as well.
Democratic strategist Faiz Shakir, who led Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, is worried that Democrats won’t do the introspection necessary after this devastating loss.
“A healthy party is challenging itself to do that kind of an autopsy and hear what we did wrong,” he said. “I don’t even know that there is going to be that kind of a process.”
Sanders himself was more blunt in his statement.
“Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?” he said. “Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not.”
Cappelletti reported from Detroit. Associated Press writers Dan Merica, Farnoush Amiri and Stephen Groves in Washington contributed.
fishkin delib polling see
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https://medium.com/@rushkoff
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/peopleshub-is-fostering-local-revolutions/
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Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds Paperback – April 18, 2017
by adrienne maree brown (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Emergent-Strategy-Shaping-Change-Changing/dp/1849352607
Inspired by Octavia Butler's explorations of our human relationship to change, Emergent Strategy is radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help designed to shape the futures we want to live. Change is constant. The world is in a continual state of flux. It is a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, this book invites us to feel, map, assess, and learn from the swirling patterns around us in order to better understand and influence them as they happen. This is a resolutely materialist “spirituality” based equally on science and science fiction, a visionary incantation to transform that which ultimately transforms us.
adrienne maree brown, co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements, is a social justice facilitator, healer, and doula living in Detroit.
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dave korten yes mag
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https://www.alternet.org/2019/02/heres-why-capitalism-vs-socialism-is-a-false-choice/
Economic power is—and always has been—the foundation of political power. Those who control the peoples’ means of living rule.
In a democracy, however, each person must have a voice in the control and management of the means of their living. That requires more than a vote expressing a preference for which establishment-vetted candidate will be in power for the next few years.
My previous column, “Confronting the Great American Myth,” distinguished true democracy from government by the wealthy, a plutocracy. Contrary to popular belief, the U.S. Constitution was written by representatives of the new nation’s wealthy class to keep people like themselves in power.
On Jan. 4, the newly elected Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced HR1, the For the People Act of 2019. Its aim is to make voting easier, reduce the influence of big money, and curtail gerrymandering. Even before it was introduced, the champions of having rich people rule were falsely characterizing it as an attack on the freedom of speech of ordinary Americans.
The provisions of HR1 represent an important step in a transition from the plutocracy we have to the democracy most Americans want. Unfortunately, political gridlock assures that HR1 has no chance of becoming law until at least after the 2020 election. Yet the popular yearning for democracy reflected in that bill makes this a propitious moment for a serious conversation about what a true democracy might look like and why it would be a good idea.
We stand at an epic choice point for our nation and for humanity. The plutocracy now in place has put us on a path to self-extinction—a future with no winners, rich or poor. We must now seek a path that restores the health of Earth’s regenerative systems while securing equity, material sufficiency, peace, and spiritual abundance for all—exactly the opposite of the plutocrats’ drive to secure the power, privilege, and material excess for themselves. This makes democracy far more than just a good idea; it is now an imperative.
The power of plutocracy depends on keeping the people divided against each other along gender, racial, religious, or other fault lines. The goal is to divert our attention from themselves so that they can maintain their power and continue to amass wealth.
Champions of plutocracy would also have us believe that we must choose between two options: capitalism (private ownership and management) or socialism (government ownership and management). They prefer we not notice that in their most familiar forms, both capitalism and socialism feature an undemocratic concentration of control over the means of living in the hands of the few. Democracy is essential for either to work effectively for the benefit of all.
Plutocrats generally favor capitalism, because in the extreme form we now experience, it supports virtually unlimited concentrations of wealth and power.Its practitioners are also drawn by capitalism’s ideological claim that unregulated markets will assure that the presumed benefits of a growing economy will be shared by everyone, and so the rich need not bear any personal responsibility beyond maximizing their personal financial gain.
The critical economic and political question for humanity is not whether our means of living will be controlled by corporations or government, but whether control will be concentrated for the benefit of the few or dispersed, with benefits shared by everyone.
Support for the needed economic transition can come from many places. Just as people are not necessarily racist because they are White or misogynistic because they are male, people do not necessarily become plutocrats just because they are rich. Many wealthy people work actively for economic and political democracy and support radical wealth redistribution, including through support of progressive taxation and significant taxing of inherited wealth.
The political and economic democracy we seek cannot be easily characterized as either capitalist or socialist. It is a system of substantially self-reliant local economies composed of locally owned enterprises and community-secured safety nets with responsibilities shared by families, charities, and governments. Such a system facilitates self-organizing to create healthy, happy, and productive communities.
In our complex and interconnected world, this system will require national and global institutions responsive to the people’s will and well-being to support cooperation and sharing among communities, but the real power will be dispersed locally. There would be ample room for competition among local communities to be the most beautiful, healthy, democratic, creative, and generous. There is no place for colonizing the resources of others or for predatory corporations.
These communities will most likely feature cooperative and family ownership of businesses. They will also recognize the rights of nature and their shared responsibility to care for the commons and to share its gifts.
The rules of plutocracy evolved over thousands of years. We have far less time to come up with suitable rules for democratic alternatives. That search must quickly become a centerpiece of public discussion.
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https://www.alternet.org/heres-why-republican-party-has-abandoned-reality
no lnx vid
Here's Why the Republican Party Has Abandoned Reality
It's Trump's GOP now.
By David Akadjian / Daily Kos September 16, 2018, 7:58 AM GMT
This year, the Republican candidate for governor in Georgia was decided in a special runoff election between Brian Kemp and Casey Cagle, the top two finishers in the Republican primary. Before the runoff election, Casey Cagle was secretly recorded talking about the craziness of the Georgia Republican primary. He said:
The problem is in a primary—and you and I are just talking off-the-record frank—they don’t give a shit about those things. Okay. In the general election, they care about it. Okay. But they don’t care about it in a primary. This primary felt like it was who had the biggest gun, who had the biggest truck, and who could be the craziest.
Kemp quickly pounced on these remarks and used them to win the runoff by 40 points—which, ironically, validated Cagle’s remarks.
Here in Ohio, I saw the same thing in our race for governor. The entire race was about who was the most conservative. Mary Taylor called Mike DeWine a “liberal” and DeWine said Taylor was a criminal, so “lock her up.”
You’ve probably seen something similar in a race where you live. Conspiracy theorists are falling out of trees in Republican primaries.
So why is this going, on and what can we learn from it?
Politicians are cowards
Almost a year before the 2016 election, Devin Nunes spoke with The New Yorker about then-House Speaker John Boehner’s ouster.
Nunes told the author that one of the biggest changes he’s seen since his arrival in 2002 is the rise of online media outlets and for-profit groups that spread bad or even false information:
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I used to spend ninety per cent of my constituent response time on people who call, e-mail, or send a letter, such as, ‘I really like this bill, H.R. 123,’ and they really believe in it because they heard about it through one of the groups that they belong to, but their view was based on actual legislation.Ten per cent were about ‘Chemtrails from airplanes are poisoning me’ to every other conspiracy theory that’s out there. And that has essentially flipped on its head.
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Today, the calls and emails are 90 percent about the bad information and conspiracy theories, and only a small percentage are about things that are actually true.
Of course today, we know Nunes as the point man from the House Intelligence Committee who keeps trying to push the lie that it was Hillary Clinton who actually colluded with Russia. Nunes is also a global warming denier even as Fresno, the largest city in his California district, experienced a record consecutive days with highs that topped 100 degrees.
Nunes is now one of the leaders in disinformation.
Why?
Because Fox News and other right-wing conspiracy media outlets have made him famous. His fame has brought in $7.4 million in campaign donations, the most of any California Republican. This is also three to seven times any previous amount he’s raised.
So … conspiracy away!
In three years Nunes went from Freedom Party critic to one of the lead conspiracy theorists in Congress. Along the way, he threw out every principle he once might have had.
He’s not a leader. He’s a Fox News puppet.
[vid]
Devin Nunes calls his own paper, The Sacramento Bee, ‘fake news’
It’s important to understand that this is not just true for Nunes, but for most politicians
It’s easy for liberals to see this with Devin Nunes because he’s a lying conspiracy theorist Republican.
The mistake we often make, however, is seeing Democratic politicians differently. They’re not conspiracy theorists like Nunes. But they also don’t tend to be leaders like we want them to be. They have to get elected, too. So they will do what it takes to get elected.They will champion causes that are hot-button issues in the media. They will talk about what they think they can talk about in order to win. If an issue is going to hurt them politically, they may avoid it.
The simple model for what they’re doing looks like this:
Social change -> political change -> policy change
Social change is cultural change. It is what is popular in the public mind. Political change is winning elections. And policy change is when politicians write legislation.
Politicians will do what those who get them elected want.
If we look at someone saying this on the Democratic side, it looks like Barack Obama in 2009 talking about health care. Obama took a page out of President Franklin Roosevelt’s playbook. FDR once met with a group of activists who wanted support for new, bold legislation. After listening to their arguments, he then said, “You’ve convinced me. Now go out and make me do it.”
What he meant by “make me do it” was to accomplish the social change necessary to keep representatives in power long enough to effect the policy change.
If you want something done in our country, you have to have representatives in government to do it. To accomplish this, you have to change social norms.
This process is the same whether you want to get the money out of politics or whether you believe in some big government conspiracy.
Why the Republican Party has abandoned reality
The things corporate special interests want are not popular in America.
They want to
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Pay people less and get them to work more
Eliminate benefits like health care
Keep all the profits for themselves(privatize the profit)
Shift any of the costs and risks onto everyone else (socialize the risks)
They don’t care at all about whether or not people lead decent lives. All that matters are the returns they can deliver in quarterly reports.
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If they have to buy government to do this, so be it.
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If what they want isn’t popular, they’re going to look for ways to get politicians elected without having to talk about these issues. Toward this end, they have purchased media bullhorns and they’ve developed a story about good and evil to tell people.
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We all know this story.
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If you are a conservative, you are a good defender of capitalism. If you are a liberal, you are an evil socialist who is trying to destroy the country.
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Whether or not this is true does not matter to them. What matters is whether they can get politicians elected.
This is why the Republican Party has detached from reality. Corporate special interest legislation is not popular with people, so corporate special interests have to create a different reality: one in which corruption is good (today we call it “business friendly” or “free” markets) and one in which democracy is bad (people should not interfere with corruption).
What this means for your conversations
Many people I know don’t like to hear that politicians are cowards. They want politicians to be activists who are leading the push for change.
I find it comforting to understand politicians because if we understand politicians, we have a better chance of actually creating change.
If we expect politicians to be activists, we will always be disappointed. Why? Because by and large they can’t lead the activist charge. If they do, they get unelected.
Keep in mind, this doesn’t mean we don’t need activists. We absolutely need people creating social change. We need to make it possible for politicians to support something and stay elected.
We need both movements and politicians.
If you do this right, you can even get politicians to support conspiracy theories
That’s a joke. I don’t want them to support conspiracy theories.
The point I’m trying to make is that if people get involved and push and vote, things will change.
It will happen.
What this means practically
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It means that you and I have to do certain things repeatedly.
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When elections aren’t happening, we must:
Work to change our culture
Push for better ideas
Put as much pressure as you can on your elected politicians (no matter what party they’re in)
Get involved with an activist group
Reach out to people, especially people who might be different from you, and find out what interests them
Make as many connections as possible—build your networks
During primaries:
Vote for the most liberal politician who can win (this might not be who makes you feel good)
Support candidates
Contribute to their campaigns
Get involved in party politics
Encourage others to vote and get involved
Do this up and down the ticket
Help people understand how politics works and how change happens
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During general elections
Repeat the same steps as for the primaries
Corporate special interests are going to try to convince you that change isn’t possible. They will try to discourage you. They will spread fear and they will do whatever they can to keep people from voting.
Demographics are changing in favor of the Democratic Party. On issue after issue, the Democratic Party is on the side of the American people.
All we have to do is make enough politicians pay the price for abandoning reality.
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Dan Gillmor, professor of practice at the Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University, tweeted:
Fox "News" serving in its chosen role as propaganda arm of the Trump regime. By definition at this point, no journalists of integrity work there. https://t.co/v3lIWNqCc3
— Dan Gillmor (@dangillmor) July 18, 2018
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lustig sugar kpfa endsw/ scotus 3x CU above my pay grade.
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On Monday night, we were fortunate to welcome our friends from Cinema Club as they presented a collaborative event with the County of Santa Clara to introduce DARK MONEY, a new film by Kimberly Reed, to Silicon Valley two weeks prior to its opening. The event was introduced by KQED's Silicon Valley Arts, Culture & Tech Reporter Rachael Myrow and featured a panel discussion moderated by Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez. Ann Ravel, former Democratic Commissioner on the Federal Election Commission; John S. Adams, the investigative journalist featured in the documentary; and Dan Morain, former Los Angeles Times journalist, Sacramento Bee editorial page editor and current CALmatters columnist shared their incredible insight as they answered questions and spoke about content of the film, often eliciting gasps from the sold-out crowd.
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Durst? court jester, comic relief (inject joke video segment like zoo babies in eco doom talk?)
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roy scranton
New book we’re doomed , now what?
We’re Doomed. Now What? addresses the crisis that is our time through a series of brilliant, moving, and original essays on climate change, war, literature, and loss, from one of the most provocative and iconoclastic minds of his generation. Whether writing about sailing through the melting Arctic, preparing for Houston’s next big storm, watching Star Wars, or going back to the streets of Baghdad he once patrolled as a soldier, Roy Scranton handles his subjects with the same electric, philosophical, demotic touch that he brought to his groundbreaking New York Times essay, “Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene.”audio interview 7/18.
make meaning collectively is our superpower. we need a new story? capitalism?
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e remarks came during a live town hall event about economic inequality that was organized by 2016 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. The event, which was live-streamed on Monday night, was viewed by more than 1.7 million viewers, according to the Huffington Post.
"You turn on the TV, and it’s 'Russia, Russia, Russia!'" Moore said. Sanders chimed in, "And don’t forget Stormy Daniels!"
"These are all shiny keys to distract us," Moore continued. "We should know about the West Virginia strike. What an inspiration that would be. But they don’t show this, Bernie, because, what would happen if they did?"
This sentiment from progressives has often been interpreted as a lack of care or concern for all things Russia-related. But they made it clear on Monday that wasn't the case, and perhaps, offered a more sober perspective that looks further than just Trump.
"What I would say to our friends in the corporate media: Start paying attention to the reality of how many people in our country are struggling economically every single day, and talk about it," Sanders advised. "In recent years, we have seen incredible growth in the number of billionaires, while 40 million Americans continue to live in poverty and we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on earth."
Sanders continued: "We have to fight Trump every day. But we have to not lose our vision as to where we want to go as a country. We can talk about the disastrous role Russia has played in trying to undermine American democracy. That is enormously important. But we also have to talk about the fact that we have the highest rate of child poverty in any major economy of the world."
The two also made it clear whom the culprit for such a vast wealth gap may be. The nation's three wealthiest men, Jeff Bezos Bill Gates and Warren Buffet were "singled out as contributing to the widening wealth gap," the Guardian noted. Also named was the influential lobbyist group the American Legislative Exchange Council, and longtime major GOP donors Charles and David Koch, known as the Koch brothers.
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http://www.monbiot.com/2017/08/01/out-of-the-wreckage-2/
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