Protesters descend on D.C.
Nate Gowdy
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I good friend of mine traveled cross country for the D.C. Womxn's March. At least I could make the local one in Bellingham, Washington.
We must continue to resist. Viva la Revolution!
Gallup has been polling US citizens regarding their feelings towards the press for many years. If you can stand it, please follow this link:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/185927/americ…
If you do so and read, you'll find that in 2015 (Obama still in office, remember) American's trust in the media had sunk to a new low, but also tied with lows in 2012 and 2014 - both years under Obama's administration. Smart people haven't trusted the media in years - don't be swayed by the bias of these two authors. Journalists haven't been trusted for a while now - where have you been?
@3: the stranger has never pretended to objectivity. every article has a subjective voice. if you don't like it, fuck off and don't read it.
@5: your soul is crippled and shrunken. women, do not fuck this troll.
but yet, the rubes trusted in the bullshit they heard from *, in their fact-free media bubble, and on FB.
A democratic society can survive and overcome corrupt government, religion, educational etc institutiuons if it has an Objective Fair Press.
Without such a press, however, it is unable to objectively evaluate it's problems, discuss options and choose prudent courses of action.
A Fair Objective Press is the heart whose beat keeps democracy alive.
Sadly the press in this society has become partisan and biased,
but worse,
blind and/or indifferent to it's partisan bias.
Respect for the press is at historic lows as huge segments of the population recognize the press as enemies to the values that made America Exceptional.
Voters who voted for Trump were voting against Hillary and the Democrats;
also against mainstream Republican office holders (who are quickly falling in line...),
but also against the press; CNN, MSNBC, NYTimes;
a majority of Americans recognize that these institutions are actively promoting the Far Left agenda under the guise of objective journalism.
"Fuck it. I tuck my press credentials into my jacket and link arms with my sister....."
No; Fuck You, Miss; and your biased hatemongering that you try to parade as 'journalism'.
America is on to you.
You should be ashamed.
Michael Moore is one of the more high-profile names on the left who has been trying to bring attention to the negative aspects of American policy for the last 20+ years. I personally don't care for his cavalier attitude toward facts, but I can see how CNN would call him to be a guest to talk about one of the most important political events in a generation. It makes for poor optics, but it's certainly not the first example we've seen out of the media in this election cycle. At least CNN was discussing it at all. FOX and its sister sycophants hardly acknowledged the Women's March, if at all.
I can't see anything unethical about stating something like "Among the things I heard on my time in DC was that…"
Such a statement is so far removed from any one individual that I can't see the harm.
Sippose some individual had sent something like "I'm planning to bomb a church and then a synagogue", thrn I assume you would immediately call the appropriate legal authorities.
maybe you can explain these ground rules on "off the record". My understanding is that such ground rules are negotiated between the speaker and the reporter. There's nothing official, no local zoning rule.
So?
I was struck by how sedate the crowd was. I could not get a chant going in line at New Carrollton. I and my friend sang Solidarity Forever on the train as we were moving, and although the train was mostly full, everyone else remained entirely silent.
We disembarked at Capitol South and walked toward the crowd. Upon joining them, I was again met with mostly silence. Nobody was chanting anything. I tried a few basic chants (This is what democracy looks like, etc) and a few people turned to look at me, chuckling. Nobody joined in.
It was so packed I couldn't march in any meaningful sense. It felt more like floating on a sea of bodies, being pulled in one direction or another by the undertow. As we moved along, more people did start joining the chants, however it was still sparse. There was no anger to this crowd, no palpable sense of outrage. On the one hand this was good. After passing under an overpass by L'Emfant Plaza, I spotted a small cluster of white robed men, some in peaked hoods. Despite their attempts to spark a violent exchange, none was forthcoming. Perhaps also, the crowd's relative bradycardia might contribute to the overall stamina of what I hope will evolve into a movement. Many times, these events merely serve as a means to vent one's spleen the way many did at Occupy, shortly before returning to their everyday lives and forgetting about it.
If however one is to channel energy, there must first be energy to channel. The moderate, mild middle- championed by many guests on this week's Blabbermouth - doesn't inspire passion in anyone. The absurd image of Eli standing on the corner holding a sign that reads "Be Reasonable!" hardly matches up to the more confrontational struggles for Worker's Rights in the early 20th Century.
In the week since I have seen most of the opposition to Trump repeat the blunders of the 2016 electoral cycle. His ascent is ascribed entirely to Putin. It is stated flatly that the emails stolen from John Podesta were only bad because Sanders supporters saw them and opted out of the Hillary project at the last moment. No mentionable is made of the content of this emails. The lack of introspection, the complete absence of any sense that the content of those emails itself- details of attempts to undermine Sanders through unethical and possibly illegal means- could itself be the problem. Barring the overthrow of the Electoral College system before 2016, those opposed to Trump will require the votes of people not dwelling on the coastlines. Rather than asking ourselves, "What do these people want, and how can we present our side that we can deliver it to them better than he can" we simply write the off as crazy, stupid racists. To hear Rachel Maddow tell it you'd think what the Democratic Party really needs to win in 2020 is to show even more disdain and contempt for the very people they need to vote for them.
Thate evening, I completed a round of Margaritas with my fellow travelers at a small restaurant we'd spied from the road on the way back to Baltimore. The conversation ranged from anime to peer-to-peer culture. I came home and collapsed in a heap on the bed. The following morning, I nursed my hangover whilst listening to Democracy Now!'s coverage of the day's events. I glanced at video feed online, and saw silent faces on that stage I had hoped not to see again- Debbie Wasserman Shultz. Chuck Schumer. I had a nagging sense that nothing's going to change. We're stuck with the same losing strategies, committed by the same losing people. I reflected on how old our leaders are. Bernie's pushing 80. Hillary's going to be in her 70's when the next round of elections come. Where are the bright young energetic people who typically lead revolutions?
Maybe this isn't a revolution. Maybe we're in for more of the same.
I attended a Unitarian service later that day. The officiant called for a meeting of activists in the church attic after the service. There, we did a round robin, where I heard many women complain that the March was not inclusive, because no attempt was made to compromise with the anti-abortion Republicans who might otherwise support an anti-Trump movement. A little part of me died watching these women argue that they should give away their rights freely, for fear of alienating the GOP. Rather that looking for the commonalities that exist- a concern for the economic wellbeing of the Midwest, a desire for good jobs with good wages extended to everyone- they were instead ready to sell out their civil rights.
The Right offers passionate intensity to rurals who are scared of losing their jobs. Their solutions are extreme and deeply rooted in bigotry. The Left offers the rurals nothing but scorn. And I sit here looking at both with abject horror.
One thing that I think democrats get wrong in their post-election analysis is thinking that the problem is that we didn't reach out to rural whites, specifically men. This group is not a reliable democratic voter. And the last time we did that, we wound up with centrist Bill Clinton who is responsible for the crime bill and welfare reform, both of which appealed to white voters and hurt our most reliable base of black voters. What we did need was someone to motivate our loyal base (non-white Americans) to actually get out and vote. Neither Clinton nor Sanders were able to do that. Clinton was seen as Bill 2.0 and Sanders was criticized for being tone deaf on identity bias as it relates to economic inequality (Michael Eric Dyson calls him the Trump of the left).
Look at the top ten groups that reliably vote democrat or republican and you'll see that our odds of winning these white groups over were pretty slim. We would have had to overcome at least 20% margin in order to get these groups to vote for a democrat, and in order to do so, we would likely have had to make some Bill Clinton era concessions (i.e., not addressing identity issues). It is possible that given Trump's unpopularity and Sanders' non-traditional democratic status, he might have succeeded, but the odds were against these white men voting for a democrat in the first place:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-…
Many people have compared the two men. MED is hardly the first to do so.
I knocked on doors across MI, IN, IL and KY for Bernie this past year. It certainly wasn't easy. I have had the word "Commie" shouted at me by a deranged Trump supporter in Whiting, IN (no comment on the town's name), and I have had Grand Rapids Clintonistas inform me that we had zero chance of winning that state. However, we were immensely successful in all those state primaries. A barnstorming event in Griffith, IN posted to the web two days before drew several hundred people. Though the USW's leadership scorned us, I stood outside the gates of an Arcelor Mittal plant and spoke to workers who would later come to phone banks at my friend's house by the dozen. The response was as heartwarming as it was overwhelming.
The major concerns had to do with jobs lost as a result of free trade. Gary, IN residents wanted to know who would reopen the US Steel Plants that had closed in the 1980's. They wanted alternatives to the proposed Geo prison/detention center. They wanted someone who would pressure IUN into hiring locals and not out of state workers. In Grand Rapids, they wanted me to talk about how we could make GRMI the kind of place where young people would want to stay in instead of flee from. in Chicago, they wanted to hear about how we were going to close Hohman Square. In KY, they listened as I talked to them about how the farm bills passed every year favored large corporate owned farms to the disadvantage of the smaller family owned plots they were gobbling up. Louisville residents complained to me about how people who couldnt find work just gave up looking after a while and went on disability. In their boredom and crushing poverty (SSI provides the most basic of living standards, and in areas where that's the main source of income for most people, there is nothing to sustain an economy), some became addicted to meth. Many had their doctors prescribe opiates, got hooked, and discoevered that heroin is cheaper. Now there are large patches of rural Midwest with an HIV epidemic created by the downstream effects of Midwestern economic collapse. These people wanted us to fix it.
The answers I gave them were based in empowering communities to organize themselves. I offered them ideas on how we could simplify workplace democracy, such as the EFCA. I talked with them about how relieving student loan debt could persuade young people to stay rather than flee for better job opportunities in the big cities. I talked with them about encouraging small businesses over large corporations. I discussed how we could rewrite the farm bill to support people and not corporations.
They listened. And we won the Midwest.
However, the DNC did not listen. Democrats on both coasts have replied to cries for help from this region with derision. This leaves the pope;ations there feeling isolated, angry, and afraid.
You could not accept socialism. So, Trump offered them national socialism instead. It was one or the other. Neoliberalism, however popular with the coastal cities, was (correctly) seen as The Problem by the Midwest.
Next time, don't fuck this up.
Oh. I'm so sorry, I apologize. I had not realized that your efforts led to the successful election of President Hillary Clinton. Clearly, your strategy was superior, since Donald Trump is not int he White House.
Allow me to congratulate you.
The truth will set you free, Karen. But first, it will piss you off.
And you probably could have written the phrase "women, do not fuck this troll" WITHOUT the comma.