When it comes to this party, what is "trash talk" and what is legitimate critique and debate?

[Ken Burch]

It's getting to the point where any disagreement with not only policy decisions but tactics and strategy are being equated to "trash talk".

Let's get real-five months ago, we ended up on the wrong side of an election we should have been able to COUNT on winning in a landslide.

There were factors in that we couldn't control, but there were a lot that we COULD.

And there are things we will have to do differently next time if we are to win.

If we're going to do better, we need free speech within this party and we need to be able to speak honestly about what did and what did not work.

So there needs to be at least some ability to have a real discussion of the results in the fall without being accused of disloyalty and hidden agendas.

[brush]

1. That's fine, but when it comes to running in the primary, don't trash your own party

Trash the repugs, even criticism of your Dem opponent if done respectfully, but not the Democratic Party.

[Ken Burch]

2. What's the line between "trashing" and legitimate disagreement?

Is it "trashing", for example, to say that the party depends too much on corporate donations?

[bettyellen]

3. Broadbrushing everyone including Dems as corrupt was bullshit. A lie chosen to wound Dems.

[JCanete]

7. what about individually picking them out and questioning their financial connections? Contrast that,

what about singling them out because they offered up skepticism of our intelligence and justification for blowing up an airfield?

There is no actual principle that people are following here. There is only, "you don't like the people I like so you suck." Some people are fair game, some people are not.

[bettyellen]

8. Are you trying to defend Tulsi making excuses for Assad?

Or slamming HRC for getting donations from thousands of Wall Street workers who were her constituents for many years while she was in the senate. For fucks sake, just say it.

[JCanete]

10. wow, yes totally, exactly what I was doing there. Nice to go straight to making me an Assad

Last edited Wed Apr 12, 2017, 08:11 PM - Edit history (1)

sympathizer. For fucks sake. As to Gabbard, I don't care yet. I don't know her. I know that I think we should be skeptical of our military intelligence, and our use of force. I think its really fucking strange that here at DU we are all of a sudden so fucking trusting of our government, that brought us wonderful things like the Iraq War, but I have no question about whether or not Assad is a monster. If we could be certain that he would be replaced by a better leader, and not a vacuum that caused more violence, I would not have a problem with that. I'm not strictly a non-interventionalist. I just don't trust our government to do it right(or often enough for the right reasons), ever.

But my point was that there was no hemming or hawing about whether or not we can attack democrats when it came to Gabbard. It came swiftly without any trepidation. You want to make it something else, well that's pretty gross, but okay.

I call bullshit on the financial donations excuse. That's the legal way any campaign makes money from an institution. You are going to sit there and tell me that Republicans must not be corrupt...they're totally legit, because thats the way they do it too? Wow.

[FDRsGhost]

24. +1

[bettyellen]

41. I didn't make YOU an Assad sympathizer dammit. I said Tulsi was an apologist for him- which is the

Truth. As for the rest, several more leaps because you're reading into what you think I wrote- instead of what I wrote. Republicans aren't corrupt? Where do you come up with this crap- seriously? Just stop it- you're making shit up. I'm not defending crap I never even said, LOL

[JCanete]

50. On a re-read, I did overstate what you said regarding Assad.

You did say I was trying to defend Gabbard's defense of Assad, which was also inaccurate.

You didn't say Republicans aren't corrupt. I don't believe you think Republicans aren't corrupt. My point was an appeal. If their contributions are coming in from the same legal, "legitimate" process, does that then make them not corrupted? Does it say nothing about them and who they are working for? My point is, if we say democrats who take money this way are simply taking it from constituents, then the same must be true for Republicans. I don't buy that there isn't something fishy about this system.

[bettyellen]

61. You completely mistated what I said. I'm not going to buy the story that it's fair to broad brush

Every single politician who's benefitted from corporate contributions as corrupt- no. I think it's foolish and has nothing to do with letting Republicans off the hook.
I'm not a fan of the system- but I'm also not a fan of "overstating" things to the extent that they are not true at all. It would seem you are.

[JCanete]

70. That isn't what i said either. Apparently we're both mishearing each other. I said that your

reasoning for excusing donations didn't add up. I didn't say that it automatically meant that someone who took them was corrupt.

[Ken Burch]

75. There aren't many politicians that take corporate donations

who aren't wishy-washy on their support of labor law reform-EVERY Democrat should be expected to be working for the eventual repeal of Taft/Hartley-and on defending social services and the poor against right-wing attack.

[Eliot Rosewater]

126. Yes, HRC should have won by even more than she did win by but for NONSTOP

attacks on her from the right and progressives, it is amazing she did as well as she did.

You want pro union democrats? So do I.

But what I want even more than that is very simple; less republicans in office, more Democrats.

no matter what

I see progressives beginning to do the SAME thing they did to Hillary last year and if successful will result in the fascists picking up seats.

[FDRsGhost]

191. Some of those attacks were very legitimate however

No primary has ever been a sale for cupcakes, keep that in mind. I think what we need to do now is look forward and see what we have to do in order to gain back all the seats we've lost. That is vital.

What most aren't thinking about is the coming elections and how important they are than anything else. The Republicans have a chance at holding a constitutional convention and they are already beginning to call for it. This is why it's so incredibly important that we field candidates who speak to the people about what's happening and going on today, people want to hear about the issues which impact them daily. If not, we're royally screwed and anything you consider to be liberal will be dead for as long as we're alive.

[FDRsGhost]

96. C'mon, Tulsi isn't an apologist for Assad

Where has she said anywhere that Assad is in the right? She's not. Asking for proof he did the chemical attack doesn't equal "apologist" in any way, shape or form. After what we went we went through with Iraq and WMD's, it's nice to see someone apply what we've learned in the past to today.

Keep in mind that she is on the record saying that if Assad did the chemical attacks that she will call for his extradition and execution through the ICC. What apologist does that?

[bekkilyn]

113. Yes, Tulsi is an Iraq veteran who wants an investigation.

Seems to be a rational approach rather than jumping into yet another war over there. I'm kind of shocked that more Democrats aren't supporting her way of thinking and instead enthusiastically supporting 45. Also, what happens if we do get rid of Assad? Is something worse going to take his place? Does that matter to us? These are the types of things we really need to think about rather than just running into every conflict we absolutely can and justifying 45 wanting to increase military spending at the cost of crucial domestic programs.

[Ken Burch]

57. It wasn't "workers" on Wall Street making those donations.

It was CEO's, CFO's, investment bankers...not the folks who mop the NYSE floors each night and clean the restrooms.

We need to be a party that stands with the voices from below...the folks in the streets, not the suites.

[Ken Burch]

71. Working-class-of any and all identities-of all races, genders, ethnicities and religions

The poor. The dispossessed. The powerless.

None of the types of people I listed there are exclusively or even predominately white.

And you can't seriously argue that the wealthy on Wall Street are diverse.

[R B Garr]

53. Anyone who won't release their tax returns has no business

smearing others about transparency. That's just for starters. Talk about principle! Knowing people is not a reason to badmouth Democrats. These phony talking points have been way overplayed and ultimately rejected.

[JCanete]

55. ultimately rejected by whom? It's not a perfect world. Neither Clinton nor Sanders are perfect, and

if his tax returns ultimately show that he was hiding dirt, I've addressed this before, that it would be a disappointment. It would certainly mean that he is compromising his message. It would not change the value of his message.
You saying something is phony doesn't really do the trick, unless you're just speaking to the choir. Otherwise, show me what was phony.

[R B Garr]

58. It's phony on its face, but that's obvious, so why

go through a song and dance over obviousness. If someone is not transparent themselves, then obviously they have no credible business criticizing others over something they refuse to do themselves. Obvious.

And that's just for starters.

[bettyellen]

66. Ain't that the truth. Now I gotta hear slamming PP was okay

Because they didn't really mean it - it was just the primaries. What a bunch of phonies. I'm disgusted.

[R B Garr]

67. I hear you. Your posts here make total sense,

[bettyellen]

68. What's bizarre is all the weird readings- I'm being slimed as corrupt? I accused someone of

Defending Assad? And of course, I also accused someone of "being racist" .... It's interesting how these canned responses don't match what I posted at all. Really strange!

[betsuni]

69. This reading comprehension trouble -- can't tell if it's real or a technique.

You deserve a backrub and a treat. These "discussions" are like breaking rocks.

[JCanete]

74. So I copped to misreading your statement. That wasn't good enough for you?

you want to talk about it here and elsewhere? If it floats your boat. It doesn't change the fact that you did try to make what I was saying about defending Gabbard, which was your misread of my statement as well. But nothing from you owning that.

[JCanete]

72. there is nothing phony at all about big money having a huge influence on every aspect of our

government. I don't know what to say to the rest. You aren't saying a fucking thing anyway. Hell, if Trump himself came out and said that our system was broken and money was the major culprit, it wouldn't make it less true. You trying to undue that reality by attacking the messenger is worthless to me.

[kcr]

106. You're right in that the issue itself isn't phony. What is phony

is using that fact to smear a political opponent in a disingenuous fashion. I absolutely believe we should reform our political system and get corporate influence out of it. I do not believe that smearing Hillary as a symbol of the corruption was honest and fair, and did nothing but help get Trump elected. That will certainly do nothing to get big money out of our politics.

[JCanete]

149. I'm glad that we agree on the problem. I disagree that Clinton was smeared. I certainly don't think

she helped herself by refusing to release speeches made to Wall-Street. Assuming there was nothing to see, that was a soft-ball. So lets be generous, assuming there was nothing to see, why the hell did she stick so steadfastly to not releasing them? Why say she'll do so as soon as Republicans do so? This was a massive blunder for the sake of what principle? Certainly not a principle of transparency. And why would she for that matter, as some example of her most rigorous stance on Wall-Street corruption, repeat twice in her campaign..."I went to Wall Street, and basically told them to cut it out." How much weaker could a statement of intent to regulate Wall Street be, than, "I basically told them"?

I appreciate that Clinton decries Citizen's United and Dark Money, but her rhetoric on Wall-Street and big money has been consistently milk-toast. Her whole conceit that she was going to get into office and work WITH these institutions to change the system that was working for them, was absurd on its face. For what reason would they give an inch if they didn't get a mile? Either you get the American people to show the banks just how many pounds of flesh it wants back from them, and then take a look at their suddenly terrified counter-offer, or what are you really doing? Anything else is asking them to throw us a bone...to give us some show of compromise. We don't need a show of compromise. We don't need to ask them what they are prepared to give us so that we forget about what they're doing for a few more years.

I don't agree that Sanders helped to get Trump elected. Frankly, as anecdotal as I am, his insertion into the race, and the ultimate concessions to the left by Clinton and the DNC, gave me the confidence to vote for her.

[R B Garr]

153. Wow, you are really going full out now on the fake

allegations against her, not even trying to hide the irrational bias. This type of irrationality is what was rejected by millions. This is pure hypocritical bias and rewriting history. This is where fake news comes from. There's a reason a con man like Donald loved the mindless Hillary bashing.

Now look what we have.

[JCanete]

154. I'm talking about her and what she did and said. If you're going to just slime me be more specific

as to what I said that was not true. What did I say was fake? What did I say was a lie? I can hardly debate with you if you simply attack me in vague terms.

[R B Garr]

155. You do realize that her accuser never had proof of these

vague slimes against her.

[JCanete]

156. They were not vague slimes. Clinton has a history of not being overly aggressive with Wall Street.

She has a history of not being particularly populist when it comes to big money, and instead she prefers to work with it in ways that may in the short term benefit everybody, but tend to benefit the big guys 100-fold. That ultimately hurts us. Trade agreements are a great example.

Those weren't vague criticisms. They were questions about what she said, given her history...given her approach to governance, which is one of compromise and working with these industries. Presumably, she had the tools to dismantle the critique. Why didn't she use them?

[R B Garr]

157. They are unproven. It's obvious they are vague

because they are unproven. If there was any specific truth to them, then he surely would have offered proof. But he had no proof, which is in itself proof they were just vague insults meant for political advantage.

Having emotional attachments to a candidate's story such as you display (look at your statements about what you "believe" without requiring any proof), didn't do us any favors in the long run. Those empty attacks were just divisive and damaging.

Now look what we have.

[JCanete]

158. I have nothing to do with what we now have. We have an entirely different narrative about why we

now have what we do. In spite of me thinking democrats have been taking a losing path for a while, and personally disagreeing with our direction, very much because of that reason, I myself voted for Clinton. Most Sanders supporters voted for Clinton. It wasn't us. It wasn't Sanders, who also endorsed Clinton.

We have a right and a responsibility to have our candidates debate stuff, and to decide between them who we prefer to be the face of our party. Both sides had unpleasant things to say about the other. Some of Clinton's critiques on Sanders were in my opinion, baseless, just as you think those from Sanders against Clinton were.

I'd say him asking her to release her speeches to Goldman Sax was risky. It was a huge-ass softball. Why didn't she knock it out of the park and prove those "vague allegations" to be entirely false? This doesn't say anything in and of itself. I'm not making her guilty because of it, but it is a criticism only levied because of her history already. It is a criticism levied only because of her fairly tepid rhetoric on regulation. And it is one that stuck because she tried to take the pitch as out of the strike-zone, instead of swinging away, over and over. It says nothing by itself but in the context, says too much, that she tried to deflect it, and tried to say that we should be asking the GOP to release their speeches, and when they do she will. That was setting a low ass bar for what we should expect from our politicians in our own party. Offering GOP level accountability is not inspiring.

And none of this is to say anything about Clinton herself as a person. I've said before and I mean it, Clinton and Obama are brilliant, well-meaning politicians. In Clinton's case in particular, she had to survive the 90's and the 2000's, and that came with some awful compromises. They were entirely, politically at least, understandable. For that matter, the internet was only just starting to be an alternative to the corporate news head-lock that we've all been in since the demise of the fairness doctrine. She had to make choices about what kind of stand to make on all kinds of issues. She wasn't from Vermont in a super safe seat(although I think she pretty much had that New York seat pretty sewn up) and at times she had to be expedient. But cut to post crash, post Wall Street bailout, post occupy, post Obama's run against Romney where he started to talk about the rich not doing their part, and add to that an era of social media, and there is less and less reason to continue to be so triangulating with the rhetoric and policy. Clinton's problem is that she build up a war-chest that relied on all of those compromises. She made promises. She let industries know that they'd be at the table.

She refused to move far enough away from them at a time when there is less and less satisfaction with Washington doing business as usual. She "basically" promised to do business as usual. She said that was how things get done. That coziness that we have with big business has been a problem for Sanders for some time. He doesn't believe it gets those results. It seems fair for him to call her out for it, just as it is fair to say that he's wrong, or naive about how sausage gets made, etc.

[R B Garr]

159. No one has a right or responsibility to smear people

with no proof. And this is how the fake news starts. Reality must be twisted to fit a favorite narrative at all costs. The ensuing divisiveness was exploited by Trump and now we see proven news that there was involvement by Russia. No more fake news, please.

[JCanete]

160. I don't know what reality you think has been twisted. I am not guilty of peddling fake news,

and you are hardly guilty of showing any evidence that anything I've said is a lie.

[R B Garr]

161. I've already outlined your statements that show you

have beliefs that are based on unproven allegations. They are your own words. I didn't make them up.

[JCanete]

164. I have concerns based upon Clinton's campaign rhetoric, previous rhetoric,

and voting history, coupled with those issues of Sachs speeches, etc. that she chose not to resolve. Those in-and-of-themselves are far less significant than the rest of it, but a question about the speeches is not an allegation of the content of the speeches. It isn't making shit up about what was in them. It isn't on the same level of "tell me how long have you beat your wife?" We don't know and aren't making up things about what Clinton said in those speeches. It was her own deflection that was the more harmful part of that story.


Just a quick pull of the kind of regulating we were doing of Wall Street, and Clinton's own involvement previously. I already stated that times were complicated. I can accept to some extent, that she was being politically safe in order to move into a position to run for President. But its not a winning position on Wall Street and regulation, even if it wasn't entirely damning.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2016/01/16/clinton-record-wall-street-laissez-faire/Z2a3iOsj40wryeRN2iT6qK/story.html

What else do you have?

[R B Garr]

167. That alone shows an emotional commitment to an

unproven narrative. The whole "speeches" flame torch was a contrived way to smear her. When asked for proof of those accusations, he had none. That's the point. Again.

[JCanete]

168. he didn't make a specific allegation about the speeches. He asked her to produce them. What was he

supposed to prove, that they weren't a matter of public record? The point is not that Clinton is corrupt, it is that her approach to politics is not harsh enough on these institutions. I hope she approaches them the way she does because she thinks that this is what you have to do to not only be situated to legislate, but to legislate. At this point I strongly disagree, but that doesn't have to come with an assumption that she's evil or that her principles are entirely bought. I don't think either of those things. If I did, I wouldn't have voted for her. I think she means to do good, but I think that her approach is compromising, not winning.

[R B Garr]

169. He most definitely did accuse her of pay for

play type allegations, simply because she is a respected public figure who is sought after, as most public figures are. So what if his life choice was to leave a populous state like New York, whereas she chose to go there. Knowing people and being popular doesn't mean anything nefarious.

The point, again, is that he was unable to provide proof of his allegations, but that didn't stop him from smearing her anyway.

[FDRsGhost]

194. +1 well said

[Ken Burch]

76. Bernie did release his returns and THAT campaign is over.

There's no good reason to still be campaigning against the guy.

[JCanete]

78. he did? Was there anything in them after all of that outrage? nt

[Ken Burch]

83. Nothing to be outraged about.

The worst thing you could say is they should maybe have hired an accountant.

[R B Garr]

103. That is factually incorrect. And nice try to insinuate

that we can't respond to hypocritical purity standards going forward. A bad idea is a bad idea.

Edit: note your thread title.

[kcr]

107. Wrong. He never released his returns.

And I just don't get how Stop Fighting the Campaigners won't acknowledge how the wound keeps getting re-opened. This isn't like campaign seasons of the past. It's like bullies on the playground who grab the victim's fist and hit them in their own face with it to taunt them, then run to the principal to get them in trouble. It's very blame the victim. I'm tired of hearing how bad Hillary campaigned and what a horrible Dem she was, and Bernie is just the best thing EVARRRR!!! and having to cope with Trump, but being told I have to keep my mouth shut. You come here with your What is Legit Critique? post. Then tell people the campaign is over get over it posts? Typical.

[FDRsGhost]

162. Incorrect, he released his tax returns

https://secure.politico.com/story/2016/04/bernie-sanders-tax-return-222041

That's pretty far from "never" I'd say.

[fun n serious]

182. One year?

Not nearly enough. Not by any means.

[FDRsGhost]

186. Apparently it's never enough in some people's eyes

[fun n serious]

187. One year? Seriously???

I want the years that him and Jane filed together. What about his last FEC? He never released it. He kept getting extensions.

[FDRsGhost]

188. Many of us want a lot of things from candidates

that never happened last election. Let's be honest, Bernie's tax returns were pretty much a no issue; what do you think you'd find in there? Some of sort of gotchya that doesn't exist? He isn't making bank and he sure as heck isn't wealthy when compared to his fellow senators or the others who were running in the race.

[fun n serious]

181. No he did not. He released 1 year and never released his last FEC nt

[FDRsGhost]

189. 1 year is still releasing taxes and isn't "never".

[fun n serious]

190. You might be OK with one year.

Most Lefties are not. My standard is 10.

[FDRsGhost]

192. For me, it's really a non issue

Most American's don't care about tax returns, they care about how they're going to feed their families

[fun n serious]

193. Not true.

Polls show most Americans care a lot about taxes and now even more than ever after this Trump era. If Bernie runs again, he not only has to appeal to you but he has to appeal to most of the democratic party and I do not see that happening. To me, it seems like he does not like US democrats. I won't vote for someone who doesn't like Dems.

[FDRsGhost]

195. Can you show me a link please that affirms your assertion?

I'd like to read it if you have it handy because I've heard otherwise. Trump I feel is a outliar, when it comes to him it involves a whole mess of crap. I believe him alone that the answer is "yes" most want to see his returns due to ties with Russia.

Bernie appeals to everybody, it's what makes him the most popular politician in America and if he does run, he'll probably win too. Where has Bernie said he doesn't like Democrats because that's nonsense. If he didn't, why would he take a position in leadership? The party isn't stupid, they know Bernie can drive people to the polls unlike anybody else. We saw this with how he motivated the under 30 vote during the primaries with bringing out more younger voters than anybody else in history.

This is something we can't ignore as a party. We only have 26% of the electorate right now and millions have left. We MUST fix this if we want any hope of regaining the seats we've lost. Bernie is part of that solution.

[fun n serious]

198. I don't see him as a solution at all. More of a divider.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/bills-require-presidential-candidates-release-tax-returns/

States are making changes to demand them, That tells me people want to see them.


Bernie does not appeal to everyone. Most of us are in bubbles and talk to people who are a lot like us. No one I know likes Bernie and I bet everyone you know does. BTW.. I am not a centrist. I am left of Center Portland OR dem. So... that myth about us being centrist is a lie.

[FDRsGhost]

200. That is a reaction to Trump not releasing his tax returns however

It doesn't say anything about the percentage of American's who consider this a vital issue. That tells me what politicians want to see, not the guy working the drive-thru at McDonald's.

Bernie doesn't appeal to everyone. Hillary doesn't appeal to everyone. Trump doesn't appeal to anyone. (in fact, at this point, is there anybody he appeals to? lol) No candidate will ever appeal to everyone. You're correct when you say that most of us are in bubbles but Bernie has cross over appeal and that is a biggie. Ask the Republicans in VYT who helped elect him or the coal miners in VA in the recent CNN town hall. That's what makes him a BIG factor in helping things.

Nobody you know like Bernie yet that is a minority voice and I'm sure you know this. He has the highest approval rating of any politican from a guy who had <2% name recognition at the start of the primaries.

That speaks volumes.

As far as centrist goes; do you support single payer, free college, legalizing pot, anti-war, basic income?

[fun n serious]

202. I support all those things.

I am in a pot legal state. Cops have mostly stopped t he illegal stop and frisk of our youth due to legalization and it had detoured the cartel. Policy wise... I think Medicare for all would work better than single payer but.. Yeah.. Democrats in my state support all those things and they are not named Bernie

[FDRsGhost]

204. However not all do

nationally and I wish they would. Medicare For All is fine with me.
I'm in the first state who legalized pot, Colorado, despite being a non user I fully support it. There's pot shops everywhere here. I do wish more got on board.

[fun n serious]

205. I think they will get on board eventually

It can't be stopped at this point. I do not smoke pot either but the decriminalization is important to me and taking money from the cartel is awesome too. I did try some Chocolate edibles a few weeks ago. it was ok. Not great.

[FDRsGhost]

207. Ya I've never tried anything

Cartel cash is a huge incentive. My other half lives on the border in Brownsville, TX. She says it would stop a lot from coming across the border. I tend to agree.

[fun n serious]

206. Also..

This notion about the Clinton's taking the party further right is not true either. It happened before the Clinton's. Remember Tipper Gore advocating to ban rock music?

[FDRsGhost]

208. *Shutter*

I lived through that. Thank God for Dee Snider!

[Ken Burch]

20. (on edit) why do you assume that there was wounding intent?

Last edited Thu Apr 13, 2017, 05:26 AM - Edit history (1)

Or even a lie?

And how do you know that what you reacted to wasn't simply an overstatement that wasn't actually aimed at you personally?

[bettyellen]

42. I didn't feel wounded by the "corrupt meme" as it was directed at candidates.

And yeah- it IS a lie. All politicians are NOT corrupt.

Why on the world would I be wounded- it's the party -and our candidates-that this false equivalency everyone's corrupt shit hurts. And honestly -if people who flung that can look at the WH right now and not feel like an asshole about this, I don't know what to say. I guess that's why they do t even want to talk about Russia. Jeeze.

[Ken Burch]

49. It sounded from your post as though you WERE personally wounded.

If you weren't, ok...it's just that that's how it sounded.

What I heard in the "corrupt meme" was a statement that the political system itself was and is corrupt, rather than a personal attack on individual politicians. Do you disagree with the claim that the system is corrupt? That type of corruption had a lot to do with President Obama's legislative proposals repeatedly being cut down to LESS than half a loaf, and in some cases-the ACA being a prime example-being cut down to less than a slice. What remained of the ACA compared to what was there in the first place was vaguely nice, but close to meaningless.

Dodd-Frank was cut down to near-triviality.

"Card check" for unionizing the workplace was lost (probably forever) leaving working people with next to no hope for gaining union representation if they don't currently have it.

You didn't want to see any of those things any more than I did-I assume you join me in seeing them as tragedies-yet the existing political culture made those results inevitable.

What would you call that if you wouldn't call it corruption?

You'd have to acknowledge a systemic problem here...if not corruption, what word would you use?

And what hope do we have if we leave that way of doing things unchallenged?

[bettyellen]

63. Ironically I seem to be having a parallel conversation with someone else who had similar confusion

And I really should just drop this here because it's covering the same ground, over and over again.



https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=8925821

[jackssonjack]

9. The problem with that kind of line is that

it implies that anyone who has ever worked for a corporation and is wealthy is inherently bad. It leaves out a lot of good people. Its trash talk imo on many good Democrats Hillary Clinton? Mark Cuban? Warren Buffet? Michael Bloomberg? George Soros? That is a false premise to start with so I don't see a generalization like that as a 'legitimate disagreement'.

How does that help attract people to the Party? Not only is it wrong to dismiss a group of people like that, we need wealthy people to get Progressives elected and initiate change. That is real world. We can't get to the optimal solutions to our problems unless we are honest about things like this. We must step back from our emotions and biases and try to get to the roots of our disagreements. Then we can work on compromises until, through trial and error, the ability to admit areas of failure, and the ceasing of berating people for their missteps and failures we come together to elect serious politicians to initiate Progressive policies and show skeptical Americans we have better ideas and really do care about them.

[bettyellen]

11. Exactly - and then the demonization extended to groups like Planned Parenthood and that offended the

Hell out of me. What the hell?

[Ken Burch]

54. Nobody has an issue with Planned Parenthood now.

That was in the primaries-and while PP was spoken of harshly then, the organization's leaders brought some of that on themselves by implying that the ONLY pro-choice vote for the Democratic nomination was a vote for HRC-a demagogic thing to say, since there was little if any difference between HRC and Sanders on that issue.

Look-we're not in the primaries now. We need to move forward. How can we do that if the line is "nothing can be questioned, nothing can be changed"?

[bettyellen]

64. That's a really shitty answer- the attacks were just politically convenient?!?! How does one

Sleep at night knowing that?

[Ken Burch]

73. No, not politically convenient. But understandable when you consider

that there was no reason for Planned Parenthood to take sides between the two candidates.

You'd have had an equally pro-choice administration with either of them.

There were no differences between HRC and Sanders on choice.

[JCanete]

77. I can't speak to everyone on planned parenthood. There are political realities, and I

can expect organizations that have done a lot of work to make those inroads with the most politically powerful, to support those candidates. I was disappointed in the decision, but not surprised. Sanders hardly dressed Planned Parenthood down for the decision. He said basically what I just said, or at least its what I took from what he said...that planned parenthood was part of the establishment. In as much as that is where it has invested its time and energy...getting these well connected politicians to hear them and to back them...that is absolutely the case.

Anybody who made them the bad guy should not have. I never did, and planned parenthood counts today as one of the few organizations I've personally given money to. But no "attack" came from Sanders, unless there's something I don't know about.

[Demsrule86]

21. I agree with what you are saying...

when we had the majority, we had big Dem donors...and driving them out of the party is foolish and wrong...what are we now refusing people who don't meet our standards of income and purity?

[JCanete]

25. trying to set a new standard? The past is the past. People can change and come around, but our

current approach that is financially dependent on corporate money, is not a winning one, as is evidenced in our last 20 years of politics. I grant you, we got Obama. Just nothing else, and because we got nothing else, and because Obama's hands were tied, not JUST by the Republicans, we couldn't really do the work we needed to do.

I think attempting that strategy was reasonable. I think as Barney Frank put it..."you don't want us to take about 20 percent of what the republicans take, and instead to lose every election going forward...(paraphrased)" was a fair argument for a different era, but the results continue to come in. It isn't working. It is watering down our message, making us less populist and less able to turn the frustrations and anger of people towards the targets where that frustration is justified. We don't come across as the fighters they need. That has nothing to do with how bad the Republicans are. The Republicans are selling a total bullshit narrative with a paper thin veil over their actual intentions to fuck their voters over, but since these people don't trust government anyway, and since we don't make clear and uncompromising our position on big business and corporate influence, they choose the surface message that resonates with their own confused sensibilities.

It is possible these days to get groundswell support. I don't know if its enough. Funding one candidate this way versus a whole party is clearly a different ballgame, but we just can't do it the way we've been doing it and win. We've got to try something else.

[jackssonjack]

30. A new standard? by including people who agree on policy regardless oif income?

How is that a new standard? A new standard would be throwing them out due to wealth. Which is exactly what many here keep proposing. I will not have any part in that.


"current approach that is financially dependent on corporate money, is not a winning one, as is evidenced in our last 20 years of politics. I grant you, we got Obama. Just nothing else

That's simply not true. Why ignore all that progress and pretend Democrats weren't fighting? We had both the house and the Senate. We started taking those back seats in the 2006 election. They had simple majorities for the 110th Congress being the most productive congress since the 1960s. Then Progressives decided punishing democrats was a wise thing to do in 2010 , a census year, because they didn't get instant gratification with the health care bill. Your argument also ignores the voter suppression, and Russian hacking and the adoration of Trump by the MSM.

The Democrats don't need new principles They've been the exact same principles since before senator Sanders started his Revolution. Nor should we throw out senior leaders that many keep blaming for all the ills in the party. I find that ungrateful.

What we need is Progressives who get out and vote, who understand team work and quit dividing the team demanding their idea of the perfect candidate be nominated or else.

The perfect is the enemy of the good this, imo, is what is dividing the party right now.

[blue neen]

31. Amen.

[Kentonio]

33. No-one is talking about wealthy people being thrown out of the party

What we do have a major issue with though is super rich people making huge contributions which then let them influence party policy or strategy.

[jackssonjack]

37. Then why do aso many keep pushing the no more wealthy corporate Democrats

without proof they are pandering to corporate interests? Why the need to get rid of "corporate money"? We get speculation and innuendo.

I can show you the article and probably still the video of John Boehner admitting to handing out checks to Republicans on the house floor.
Now show me which Democrats have received checks from companies and then crafted legislation or voted against their prior views as pay back.

Just making an assertion means nothing. That's how the GOP has rolled for ears with the help of the major news networks.

[JCanete]

52. for the simple reason that money has the tendency to corrupt. The bigger that component from any

source, the more potential influence on policy that source has. What is controversial about that? that's just the reality of money. I think I pointed out that I understand the inclination, but the reality still stands, no we are not winning as a nation because the party of the people is letting the big money impact our message and our policies, and at this point, it isn't even a recipe for holding onto seats.

Voting against prior views does happen, but probably not nearly as much as certain ideological alignment with big corporations garnering the support in the first place. It really doesn't matter if a politician is corrupt or if his ideals just aren't that problematic for an industry, either way that industry likes that person for a reason. That industry is going to help this person get elected, or else, ensure somebody they don't like loses. That is a fucking problem. How can you tell me that isn't a problem?

But we agree, the major news networks have been helping the GOP for years. And for that honor, our Democrats refuse to call out corporations and corporate media as the sickness in this country. We refuse to stop suckling at their teat, even though we know they're going to abandon us. How is this sane that we pretend the media is legit and that big-money just needs a good talking to?

[skylucy]

60. +1000!!!

[Demsrule86]

115. We have no choice in the age of United.

And there is nothing wrong with Democrats getting money from pacs. As you know corporations can contribute directly. I am more interested in winning elections than reforming anything right now.

[JCanete]

143. but my point was, other philosophical arguments as to whether or not this is the way to push our

nation forward aside, that we aren't winning elections this way. That's the crux. It isn't working because we're only getting enough support to keep this a two-party game, so that the other team, juiced with our corrupt as fuck media can knock us out in the ninth round.

[Ken Burch]

59. We had a massive financial advantage in 2016-if all that bought us was 232 electoral votes

and a GOP Congress, what good do the donors do us?

Why not try something else? Something like offering a program that speaks to the real needs of the voters and then going out every day in the fall and making a case for that program?

Why not actually try to win by winning the argument?

[Ken Burch]

51. Not true. It's about the vast majority of CEO's and CFO's, other than the ones you mentioned,

the ones who are reactionary on the majority of the issues-antiunion, opposed to strong environmental and consumer protection laws, insistent on perpetual tax cuts for their class even though those tax cuts that will always end up forcing further cuts in the pathetic remnants of our social service system-and think they can still call themselves progressives just because they're pro-choice and mildly pro-LGBTQ(in an era when neither stance requires any risk on their part).

BTW, Bloomburg as mayor of NYC made huge cuts in municipal social services, forced concessionary contracts on municipal unions, and refused to support a living wage law-why defend him?

There are a handful of good rich people. But we're supposed to be the party of the non-rich majority. We're supposed to stand with those below, not those above.

[yurbud]

116. When very wealthy get involve, we need be sure they are acting in the public interest, not primarily

their own.

I have more respect in a certain sense for businesses that openly seek advantage for themselves than those that pretend they are demanding policies that are in the public interest when they are really just looking to divert money to their own or their cronies pockets.

Most of the wealthy involved in Wall Street-driven education "reform" fall squarely in the second camp.

[jackssonjack]

118. FDR was very wealthy

Obama's are very wealthy
The Clinton's are very wealthy

All have done a ton of work for people who are not wealthy. Their policies favored the not wealthy. That's precisely why the Republicans hate them with such a fervor. Same as have non politicians like George Soros, Gordon Moore, Warren Buffett, Richard Branson.

Generalizing about the wealthy isn't any better than generalizing about the poor.

[yurbud]

131. the Clintons and Obama are not FDR. They were better than Republicans

But they tried to figure out how to "help" us without harming the very wealthy and if possible, to make them even richer in the process like Obamacare, which did help.

In some cases, like Obama and corporate-driven education reform, he did real harm that couldn't be blamed on Republican coercion.

He could have put up a real educator as education secretary who would have tried to strengthen public education based on the best research and successful practices. Instead, he appointed to privatization advocates.

[jackssonjack]

133. You have posted many accusations

while also neatly decided to add your own negative intentions behind them.
Could it be there are a couple of million people currently employed by those private insurers? There are a lot of families that would be negatively affected by simply switching to Medicare for all. That's just the beginning of the problems in transitioning.

Why do you want to harm the wealthy?
What is 'corporate driven education reform exactly?

It appears there are no excuses. That being the case, please then, explain why Senator Sanders voted for the '94 Crime Bill and for the Omnibus bill in 1999 deregulating Wall Street . Corporations and WS investors certainly got richer due to those votes.
How is Senator Sanders any better than either the Obama's, the Clinton's or any Democrat?

[yurbud]

136. A lot of people work for tobacco companies, made asbestos, napalm, and nuclear weapons too

I would be glad to see the employees of those companies get jobs administering a public health insurance program.

I doubt that those low and mid level jobs are what keep politicians from enacting the most cost effective and least corrupt policy though.

I don't want to harm any wealthy people that don't harm the rest of us. I would like to see the rule of law apply to them the same as it does to an average schmuck who steals, runs a scam, or runs over and kills a kid when when he's drunk. Except those with a lot of money steal and harm others in orders of magnitude larger scale than you or I or even a competent terrorist group could ever hope to.

Corporate driven education reform is letting Wall Street dictate public education policy to divert taxpayer dollars into their own pockets through privatized charter schools, education management companies, repetitive standardized testing, and common core curriculum designed by and for vendors.

I have respect for rich people who get rich building a better mousetrap or something like that, but not those who do so by buying politicians to stack the deck in their favor or to privatize public services and give them the contracts, which they in turn can recycle to the politician as campaign contributions.

[jackssonjack]

147. None of those industries has been instantly shut down to provide a cheaper

government program that cuts the living wages of 2 million people. (That's assuming the expansion in Medcare-for-all would need 500,000 employees). The economy could easily absorb the numbers of unemployed looking for work and there are still people employed in each of those areas.Plus many are just improvements from the last product. like weapons manufacturing. They still need employees to manufacture the newest weapons.

I don't agree with diverting taxpayer dollars into the pockets of the wealthy through privatized charter schools either.
Common Core was developed by educators, governors and businesses to discuss what skills are needed and how much so children can attain better jobs for better pay and so on. Interestingly enough Conservatives demonize it because it's "government control of our education" and Progressives hate it because "its corporate control of lour education systems"

Common Core and standardized testing are a necessary tool. It was initiated in Kentucky and when they found that it produced great results the governors, educators of each state and the business community discussed spreading their success throughout the country. Do you not think there should be a level of reading /writing/math skills to be performed at certain ages? Could the fact a child doesn't meet that standard possibly mean there may be something a child needs to help them excel to the best of their ability? How do we discover this without testing?
Common Core doesn't prevent teachers from being creative either. A complaint made by a teacher a couple of years ago who up and quit all dramatically for whatever reason. Teachers can apply whatever creative method they believe will help their students understand, just get them to at least the common core level of skill for each subject.

First, these standards weren’t some burdensome federal mandate. The states collaborated on new benchmarks—third-graders should be able to work with fractions, for example—and they were meant to promote best practices for how to teach English and math.

The business community, and business-minded nonprofits, loved it. They had been fretting for decades about American education. The American Federation of Teachers gave it qualified support. The result? School districts are adopting the standards, and they appear to be working. Test scores are up slightly, and up slightly more in states that embraced Common Core enthusiastically.
http://www.newsweek.com/2015/10/09/how-republicans-turned-common-core-377346.html

Which Democrats have been bought by which companies to "stack the deck in their favor or to privatize public services and give them the contracts, which they in turn can recycle to the politician as campaign contributions."?
The Clinton's have been accused of being "corporatists" and shills for WS , same with Obama.. so any example showing either of them would be great. any example of any Democrat would be nice. The last Democrats I knew were bought were on the US defense committee buying tanks that were outdated and not used. General Dynamics contributed to their campaigns. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/toprecips.php?id=D000000165&type=&sort=&cycle=2016


I too am tired of the arbitrary law enforcement and sentences applied to wealthy criminals. I would love to see the Ethan Couches and Donald Trumps of the world get their just desserts too. But we won't change that by demonizing all wealthy people or execs at corporations. Details matter. The truth matters.

[yurbud]

152. some people could lose their jobs or some could be ruined financially and/or die

preventing the latter is more important.

And again, I doubt many politicians are worried about the low end insurance workers.

[bekkilyn]

119. Ah yes all those education "deforms" in the name of reform

I could go on a serious rant about all of those.

[Demsrule86]

15. Yes it is 'trashing' to say that...and also

corporate Democrat is an insulting term and should not be used...support your party...this is after all Democratic Underground.

[Ken Burch]

17. Why is it trashing to say that?

There are many issues on which corporate funding pushes the party away from progressive positions. We all know that. So how is it trashing to acknowledge it?

If a Democratic politician takes corporate donations and then votes, for example, against the "public option" on healthcare or against "card-check" on union organization in the workplace and for a large war budget, should we say nothing about that?

[Demsrule86]

19. It is divisive and creates a reason for people not to vote for us...we need money

and until United is repealed that won't change...so trashing the party by calling it corporate hurts our election efforts by encouraging people not to vote for us. We want a majority...we need a big tent party and money.

[bekkilyn]

28. Not saying it (when it's true) also creates a reason for people not to vote for us.

Especially for those times when the shoe fits. We may need money, but we don't need dirty money.

[Demsrule86]

109. It is not true and never was...we are big tent party ...something some

refuse to understand... We can't win without a diverse electorate if we want to take the majority and that is how it really is.

[bekkilyn]

112. Big tent doesn't automatically mean taking dirty money from big corporations

Turns a lot of voters off and gets almost no one excited to vote for our moderate = mediocre candidates, so they stay home or vote for the real Republican.

We've lost the U.S. house, U.S. Senate, most state governor seats, a huge amount of state and local seats, and now the U.S. President. We've tried it your way for years now and it's not working and citizens united has made it much, much worse. Time to try different things. It's insanity to keep doing the same thing over and over and hope it will different this time around.

President Obama was an exception and not the rule, but most candidates don't have his intellect, personality, charm, and ability to craft great speeches.

We desperately need more principled candidates who are enthusiastic, inspiring, and stand strong for Democratic values and support progressive policies that the majority of the people in this country want, including in red states. We aren't going to win by setting up middle-of-the-road mediocre candidates and then trying to convince people that they are for them when they are not. And everyone knows they are not. Many people in red states already consider Democrats to be untrustworthy and to have betrayed the little guy. We don't need to keep reinforcing those views by proving Republicans right.

[Demsrule86]

114. You don't get to decide that.

We need money to win...and all the insults you heap on the Democrats won't change that...and one wonders why you want to cause harm to the only party that can stop Donald Trump.

[bekkilyn]

117. Actually I do get to decide as a voter

And so does every other citizen of this country, you included.

Yet I am not heaping insults on Democrats by stating truth. We *have* lost all of those seats and we will continue to lose more if we keep using the same strategies that lost us those seats over the years. Sure, there may be some wins by people wanting to retaliate against 45 for a while (though he really hasn't lost a lot of popularity with his base as of yet), but if we don't change the strategy for winning long-term and keeping those wins, it will just go back to the way it was before 45.

Stopping 45 is important, but is not our only goal. If we had a huge amount of control locally and in congress, he would be a lot less effective (or even not effective at all) even if he were still president.

This not just about 45 or Bernie or Hillary or any other single person. It's about what we want to be and who we want to really support, and not just in words and speeches but in actual deeds as well.

I really wish you would't consider everyone who disagrees with your point of view as trashing the Democratic party. I do want the party to win, but I also hold very strong views that the end doesn't justify the means of getting there so it needs to be done in an ethical way.

[Demsrule86]

139. You can vote for the Democrat or not that is the choice you make. That is it.

There are many different opinions in the Dem Party...and that is how it will have to be if we are to win elections.

[bekkilyn]

145. We can also choose to support particular Dem candidates and not others

Voting in primaries for some Dems and not others.
Campaigning for some Dems and not others.
Donating money directly to candidates we like so that it isn't used for candidates we don't support.
Becoming county/state delegates and voting for precinct officers who support the type of candidates we like.

Lots of different things we can do long before other parties even come into the picture.

We don't have to just blindly accept someone, no matter how good or how crappy, just because they randomly decide to put a D next to their name.

[Demsrule86]

140. Define dirty money...and I don't think we need a purity test for our

candidates. I want to win everything you suggest spells LOSE.

[bekkilyn]

144. Winning at all costs isn't winning if your very soul is destroyed in the process.

I support so-called purity tests if they help keep us ethical and honest. That's what attracts me as a voter and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that way of thinking.

Not that the Dems have been winning for the past few years (decades) though. Our party is currently about as wiped out as it can get right now and that's truth, and it wasn't progressive policies that got us into this situation.

[Demsrule86]

174. Which makes me think we need to wins...and my soul would be very very happy

if we win the Senate and the House or either in 18 and the presidency in 20.

[bekkilyn]

175. Then give people reasons to vote for the D instead of the R and maybe we will.

(And I mean policy reasons that we *unapologetically* stand for.)

People need to be enthusiastic about our candidates. If they're not (or our candidates are only slightly less crappy than the Republicans), people won't bother to show up and vote.

[jackssonjack]

32. Yes you should say something about those individual Democrats

All Democrats do not fit in the same progressive box.

I haven't seen anyone show such proof. People just make claims with no proof. What we get then is complete fabrications about Democrats such as Hillary Clinton is a corporate shill. There's no truth to that what so ever. I can't think of a single thing Hillary voted on that showed favors to corporations.

On the other hand her opponent ,and the man everyone wants to lead the Democratic party, has actually voted for deregulations for Wall Street and his previous campaigns were funded by corporate money and not a word. I smell a huge hypocrisy.

[betsuni]

43. +1

[JCanete]

79. are you talking about deregulation in an omnibus bill? Tell me you're talking about something else.

Money exists in politics and has. Promoting a popular message that it shouldn't, and running on those principles doesn't change the way his previous campaigns were funded, but it doesn't change what he's doing now either. If Clinton had disavowed corporate money in this 2016, I have no idea what Sanders would have said about it, but I would have been perfectly willing to support her change of heart, and I wouldn't be trying to paint her as a hypocrite for it.

[jackssonjack]

129. Yes thats' what I'm talking about. The omninbus bill.

Is there some valid reason Bernie shouldn't have that albatross hung around his neck while hypocritically berating Democrats for being beholden to Wall Street?

Hillary did disavow. She was loudly against Citizens United.
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/campaign-finance-reform/



What's more, Bernie only disavowed in words himself. He asked to run as a Democrat using the Democratic Party's infrastructure built by the very people he berates. He did it because he didn't have enough money to and build an infrastructure to run himself. That infrastructure was paid for by wealthy people who work for corporations, some in the top executive positions, again the very people he demonizes every day.

[JCanete]

135. that structure is the system that has been set up. The two parties are really all we have.

There isn't really another viable way to run, and had Sanders run as an independent, that would have been a vote splitting move, which nobody here who is mad at Bernie for running as a Democrat would have approved of. He ran initially to attempt to push Clinton to the left...to promote a more progressive message for the Democratic voters and to get them to push the party left. I don't see a problem with using the system to rail against the system. That isn't hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is suddenly liking the system when it works for you.

As to the omnibus bill, the CFMA was tacked onto a "must pass" government funding bill. It was a blackmailing measure that would have shut down parts of government had it not gone through, and apparently, the bill as it stood was a compromise made by Bill Clinton and the GOP to make sure that didn't happen. In this instance Sanders should have made the perfect the enemy of the good...or more accurately the good, the enemy of the less catastrophic?

Here is Truth-Out's take.

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/34497-the-most-disingenuous-attack-on-bernie-yet

and here is Wapo's.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/01/18/hillary-clinton-attacked-bernie-sanders-for-voting-for-a-bill-her-husband-signed-into-law/?utm_term=.f23192218834

[Jim Lane]

85. Because you value proof so highly, perhaps you could provide some.

You write, "I haven't seen anyone show such proof." Let's apply that standard to your smear of Bernie Sanders, namely that "his previous campaigns were funded by corporate money ...." Corporate contributions to the campaigns of federal candidates are prohibited by law. Are you charging that Bernie broke the law, or are you alluding to a Super PAC that attracted corporate money but that only you know about?

As for Clinton and corporate interests, her record is mixed. In 2005 she said: "During my tenure as senator, I have voted for every trade agreement that has come before the Senate...." (Source: "Hillary Clinton’s position on free trade? It’s (very) complicated.") As that article notes, however, she thereafter voted against CAFTA. She supported some Wall Street reforms but opposed reinstating Glass-Steagall. As Secretary of State she promoted fracking and the TPP.

[jackssonjack]

125. Good. Clinton's record should be mixed.

She was a senator for all New Yorkers not just the working class or WS.
What has she done specifically that has been a pay back for Wall Street?
Bernie voted for Wall Street deregulation and yet I don't ear anyone saying he's a shill for WS.

As that article notes, however, she thereafter voted against CAFTA. She supported some Wall Street reforms but opposed reinstating Glass-Steagall.

Hillary is right. Reinstating Glass Steagall won't solve the problem. Clinton is correct when she says we need to target specific securities as they are created.
This same problem occurred in the mid 90s At that time Summers, Republicans, and bankers chastised Brooksley Borne for pointing out the huge problem. Greenspan, Rubin, and Summers were involved in stopping the fall. But the bankers wanted Borne out. PBS Front Line has a documentary on it called 'The Warning'

Corporate contributions to the campaigns of federal candidates are prohibited by law. Are you charging that Bernie broke the law, or are you alluding to a Super PAC that attracted corporate money but that only you know about?

https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cycle=Career&type=I&cid=N00000528&newMem=N

Microsoft Corp $180,822 $180,822
Boeing Co $114,926 $114,926
Apple Inc $153,279 $153,279


It's his supporters on here who refer to money received by corporate interests as "corporate money" the very same way the Democrats get corporate money through individual donations which includes funding through the PACs.
Bernie Sanders received PAC money as well.

https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cid=N00000528&cycle=1998
https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/pacs.php?cid=N00000528&cycle=Career

But again. Why care? Wealthy people back the Progressives. This is a wonderful thing.

In 2005 she said: "During my tenure as senator, I have voted for every trade agreement that has come before the Senate...." (Source: "Hillary Clinton’s position on free trade? It’s (very) complicated.&quot

Good for her. Because it is very complicated. Without these trade agreements Americans would be paid even less and labor around the world exploited even more. There are all kinds of trade agreements we've signed that don't get the attention these few that are constantly listed on here. Now that Trump trashed the TPP which may not have been perfect but really was the best we were going to get, American labor can now be easily out bid by all those little countries that have no leverage. China has all the leverage.

Yes, she promoted fracking and then discovered it wasn't as clean as she thought and changed her mind. I guess we should simply stick to doing things that are bad regardless of what we learn? At least she has the strength to admit she makes mistakes and tries to correct them. Things change, people learn and evolve. Why is this a bad thing?

[Jim Lane]

130. So we're agreed that she did things that benefited corporate interests

You're right that that fact, by itself, doesn't prove that her acts were wrong. Some people think fracking is a good idea. Some people agree with her decision to press for the TPP while she was in office. Some people oppose reinstating Glass-Steagall. (You say it "won't solve the problem" without specifying what problem. It won't solve all problems but will improve the financial system.) What Clinton's record does prove is that no one can reasonably say she never did anything that showed favors to corporations.

Perhaps you meant "favors" in the very narrow sense of "pay back for Wall Street", i.e., "Give me a million dollars and I'll vote for that bankruptcy bill you like." I can't prove that that happened. In fact, I think it overwhelmingly likely that it did not happen, but even if it had, no one would be able to prove it.

The point of yours that I challenged was your claim that a double standard was being applied to Clinton and Sanders, with your implication that they're both pretty much the same (or maybe Sanders is even worse). That's a false equivalence.

* You cite contributions to Sanders from Microsoft et al. As you appear to recognize, but as many readers of your posts won't notice, those are actually contributions from employees of Microsoft, not from corporate funds.

* You say that "Bernie Sanders received PAC money as well" but that's also money from individuals, channeled through a PAC.

* I expressly pointed out that I was talking about a Super PAC, which is significantly different. Unlike a regular PAC, a Super PAC can receive corporate money. There was more than one Super PAC supporting the Clinton campaign. In fact, one of them carried corporate support of a campaign to new levels by claiming a right to coordinate directly with the campaign, which many authorities considered to be illegal. See this article for the details. That article also points out that Bernie did not have a Super PAC.

* Clinton, acting quite legally, received six-figure sums, presumably paid from corporate funds, for giving speeches to the likes of Goldman Sachs. Bernie did not.

Based on this false equivalence, your charge is:

{Bernie's} previous campaigns were funded by corporate money and not a word. I smell a huge hypocrisy.

So, no, it's not hypocrisy. The facts are that Bernie did not receive corporate funding, directly or indirectly, and Clinton did. That doesn't mean she broke the rules. Under our lax system of campaign finance regulation, the ways in which she went beyond Bernie were clearly legal, except for that coordination thing, and even there she at least has an argument. My point is not the silliness of "Lock her up" but rather that there were clear differences between the two, and it's not hypocrisy or a double standard to point them out.

[jackssonjack]

134. Senator Sanders career was propelled on corporate money and money from wealthy Democrats.

Parsing words doesn't change those facts.

The facts are that Bernie did not receive corporate funding, directly or indirectly, and Clinton did.

Now you're just being dishonest. You do realize anyone else can see those links open them and read where his funding comes from , correct? The facts are he most certainly did receive corporate funding and I proved it.
Further it was the Clinton who helped raise his first campaign funds How is receiving funds from Microsoft Apple and PACs and using the corporate individual dollars that makes up the Democratic Party and their platform he used to launch his campaign. Not to mention The monies I linked from Open secrets.

Clinton denounced CU and secretive funding, but understands that you can't run a campaign today without corporate funding Bernie was just dishonest. He did not run a grass roots campaign with no corporate funding. His career depended on wealthy , corporate people's money.



Another source for you:


"He got a hand from the party in 1996, when Rob Engel, then the political director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, pushed a Democratic contender out of the race for the House seat Sanders held as an independent.
In 2006, when Sanders ran for the Senate, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee pumped $37,300 into his race and included him in fundraising efforts for the party's Senate candidates.
The party also spent $60,000 on ads for Sanders, and contributed $100,000 to the Vermont Democratic Party -- which was behind Sanders even as he ran as an independent.
Among the DSCC's top contributors that year: Goldman Sachs at $685,000, Citigroup at $326,000, Morgan Stanley at $260,000 and JPMorgan Chase & Co. at $207,000.
During that 2006 campaign, Sanders attended a fundraiser at the Cambridge, Massachusetts home of Abby Rockefeller -- a member of the same family whose wealth he had once proposed confiscating.


http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/05/politics/sanders-democratic-fundraisers/


I am still waiting for anyone to point to Hillary, or other Democrats demeaned so much here, who have taken corporate funding and then voted to help that company or its stock.

[Jim Lane]

151. Your response is disingenuous.

Of course Bernie, like Clinton and like other candidates, received donations from wealthy individuals. No one ever said otherwise.

Your charge was that Bernie and Clinton were similarly situated but were being treated differently, and that there was therefore hypocrisy. Yes, both got
contributions from individuals who work for Microsoft and the like, which is what's shown by those links you tout. Clinton, unlike Bernie, had a Super PAC that could and did receive corporate contributions. Clinton, unlike Bernie, received substantial corporate funds for Wall Street speeches.

You're entitled to think that Clinton's conduct was perfectly OK, but you went beyond that to level a charge of hypocrisy against those who criticized her. To my mind, that implies that the two candidates are similarly situated and that no reasonable person could think otherwise, and hence a different treatment must arise from hypocrisy. That dismissal of other people's opinions isn't justified where there are clear differences between the two cases. People can differ about the significance of those differences, but you should respect that reasonable people can disagree with you without being hypocrites.

[jackssonjack]

172. You said

"Clinton, unlike Bernie, had a Super PAC that could and did receive corporate contributions. Clinton, unlike Bernie, received substantial corporate funds for Wall Street speeches. "

Bernie received substantial funds from Goldman Sachs , if they aren't the poster child for Wall Street tell me who is.
Bernie had Super Pacs. We do not know where this money came from, could be Russia for all we know. Can we just put that fable to rest, please?

Progressive Kick Pro-Sanders SuperPAC $476,437
Feel Bern Pro-Sanders SuperPAC $393,984
Progressive Voters of America Pro-Sanders Leadership PAC $23,671
New York Capital Region for BERNIE Pro-Sanders SuperPAC $9,799
Las Cruces for Bernie Pro-Sanders SuperPAC $9,497
Collective Actions PAC Pro-Sanders SuperPAC $8,795
Buffalo for Bernie Sanders Pro-Sanders SuperPAC $3,089
ProgressGJ Pro-Sanders SuperPAC $1,311
Lorain County Forward Pro-Sanders SuperPAC $202

https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate.php?id=N00000528


Clinton giving speeches is not the same as being beholden to Wall Street. What specifically has she done for Goldman Sachs as pay back? What bill did she vote for or contracts did they receive? She voted for WS reform not deregulation. Bernie, on the other hand, voted for Wall Street deregulation and you still point fingers at Clinton. I'm curious as to why? How did you come to the conclusion Clinton is bought by Wall Street?

Speaking events are one way she raises awareness of issues that are affecting people around the world to people who have the means to do something about it. Also she speaks to raise funds for The Clinton Foundation and other charities. The foundations gives 90% of the money they raise for projects and have helped hundreds of millions of poor and middle class people around the world.
I will not besmirch the reputation of people whose actions are the exact opposite from the narrative so many keep providing. Hillary Clinton is a great person who has spent her life helping other, not so fortunate people.

[Jim Lane]

173. I'm afraid we're just talking past each other

Last edited Sat Apr 15, 2017, 05:58 PM - Edit history (1)

You're keen to defend Hillary Clinton against charges that I'm not making.

The issue I am trying to address is your charge of hypocrisy against anyone who sees a significant difference between her and Bernie Sanders. To the extent that you defend that charge, you point vaguely to any kind of corporate connection you can find, conflate them all, and imply that therefore there's no significant difference. Come on, if someone's barbecuing hamburgers across the street from a building that's burning down, there's fire in both places, but that doesn't mean you can lump them together.

Just in case anyone who cares about facts is reading this, I'll make one last foray into the details. Here's the tl;dr version:

When you blow away the obfuscatory smoke, there are significant differences between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton in terms of their support from corporate funds.

Please note that the tl;dr version doesn't include the charge that Hillary Clinton is a totally corrupt corporate shill. I haven't said that. If you want to refute someone else's charge, you should reply to the post in which that charge is made.

You write:

Bernie received substantial funds from Goldman Sachs....

AFAIK none of Bernie's campaign committees have received one dime from Goldman Sachs, because it would be illegal. It's not illegal for GS corporate funds to be used to pay a politician a six-figure sum for a single speech, but the firm has not made any such payment to Bernie, though it has to Clinton. I think that, to some extent, GS corporate funds can go to party committees -- I'm not sound on the legalities here -- and if so some of that committee money (coming from GS and a zillion other sources) can go to Bernie's campaign and to Clinton's campaign. That last point is a similarity between the two but it doesn't negate the existence of the differences.

You write:

Bernie had Super Pacs.

As Bill Clinton might say, it depends on what the meaning of "had" is. Let's look into two factors, the connection to the candidate and the importance of the entity.

First, let's look at the connection, or lack thereof, to the candidate. If I start a Super PAC called "Misandrists for Hillary Clinton" it doesn't prove that she "had" such an entity or that she hates men. All it proves is that she can't stop me from starting the Super PAC.

I previously cited this article in the Washington Post. The author, who was general counsel of the Federal Election Commission from 1987 to 2000, says that Bernie didn't have a SuperPAC, which is a true statement even if some people in Ohio started the Lorain County Forward Pro-Sanders SuperPAC and raised all of $202. The author of the Post article is using the common English-language meaning of the term. Bernie didn't "have" a SuperPAC just because some people used his name. Similarly, as to the first entry on your list, Progressive Kick Pro-Sanders SuperPAC, a quick search turns up this article in Time, which states:

Progressive Kick is now the second super PAC to spend money to support Sanders — something the Vermont Senator has repeatedly said he does not want. “We don’t have a super PAC,” Sanders says often.

. . . .

Progressive Kick's effort is also different from other super PACs in that it's not being run by a close confidant of Sanders. Clinton's campaign chair has helped raise money for her supporting super PACs, and Jeb Bush frequently attended fundraisers for his super PAC, Right to Rise. Those super PACs are largely run by confidants familiar with the candidates’ thinking, even if they do not coordinate directly. Sanders, by contrast, has no history with Grossman’s group. {emphasis added}

Thus, Sanders has said, "I do not have a super PAC, I’ve never raised a nickel for a super PAC, I don’t want a super PAC."

By contrast, Clinton is tied to her Super PACs. When you were on the Open Secrets website, did you check out her as well as Bernie? The Open Secrets breakdown for Clinton (AFAICT this lumps together the primary and the general election) shows that the top two Super PACs supporting her were Priorities USA Action and Correct the Record. According to FactCheck, "Priorities USA Action is led by Guy Cecil, who was political director of Clinton’s 2008 campaign, and now serves as chief strategist and co-chair of the super PAC’s board of directors." FactCheck goes on to note that Priorities USA Action set up a joint fundraising committee with Correct the Record. Correct the Record is the David Brock Super PAC that openly admitted to coordinating directly with the Clinton campaign -- an evasion of campaign-finance laws that the former Federal Election Commission general counsel, in the Post article, flatly opines is illegal.

Second, let's look at the numbers. According to the Open Secrets page you cite, the breakdown of the pro-Bernie fundraising was: Bernie's own campaign, $228,164,501; outside organizations (including all the Super PACs you list), $934,933. The pro-Bernie Super PACs were 0.4% of the total. For Clinton, just the third-largest Super PAC, Ready PAC, raised $3,621,815 -- more than three times as much as all the Super PACs supporting Bernie, combined. Clinton's fundraising totals were: campaign committee, $563,756,928; outside organizations, $206,055,296. Her Super PACs were 26.8% of the total.

A regular PAC, unlike a Super PAC, can contribute directly to a campaign. It can't accept corporate funds, but it's typical for a PAC to be controlled by a corporation. (The PAC receives contributions from the corporation's employees. The officers of the PAC, who decide where to contribute the PAC's funds, are also officers of the corporation.) Those Open Secrets pages don't show the breakdown of the regular PACs, so I can't tell (without more effort) which of them were such corporate PACs. What's readily available is each campaign's receipts from all regular PACs: Clinton, $1,785,190; Sanders, $5,621.

To summarize, the point is not that anyone has produced an email in which Clinton offers to cast a particular vote in exchange for a contribution. The point is, instead, that with respect to corporate financial support, there are significant differences between Sanders and Clinton, so it isn't hypocrisy for people to have different reactions to these two candidates' financing.

[fun n serious]

183. What about the NRA nt

[Jim Lane]

214. I'm sorry, I'm not following your question. Would you elaborate?

Your question may be answered in my previous posts. Bear in mind that the context here is not to refight the primary. The context is: (1) the charge by jackssonjack in #32 that there is "huge hypocrisy" in criticizing Clinton but not Sanders on the subject of corporate financial support, and (2) my response that there were significant differences between the two, and that reasonable people could therefore, without being hypocrites, decide to assess these two candidates differently.

The NRA is a corporation. Therefore, it cannot and presumably did not donate any corporate funds to any Presidential campaign.

The NRA has a PAC. I don't know whether any of that money went to the Sanders campaign, but, considering that his NRA rating in his 2012 re-election bid was a D-minus, I'll hazard a guess that he wasn't funded this time around. In any event, as I pointed out in #173, the Sanders 2016 campaign received total contributions from all PACs, combined, of $5,621. Clinton received more than $1.7 million.

Some people who are keen to disparage Bernie Sanders talk a lot about the NRA's support for his campaign for a House seat in 1990. If you choose to emphasize that (while ignoring his more recent D-minus rating, and also ignoring the oceans of Wall Street cash that Clinton collected in her 2000 and 2006 Senate runs), that's your choice -- but you should at least respect that the DUers who were attacked by jackssonjack were addressing the 2016 Presidential campaigns and had reasons for treating the two candidates differently.

[FDRsGhost]

5. Is there a magical line drawn?

The ONLY way we're going to kick ass is to be honest & be open about things. "Trash talk" to me would be if Bernie is out there literally saying word for word "Democrats suck!"

He isn't & in fact when he's critical he's also saying WHAT has to change.

Some dislike his "no punches pulled, giving it to you straight" style but most do & that style is one reason why he's the most popular politician in America.

In a day & age when being a politician is as popular as being a used car salesman, Bernie is trusted. Think about that for a minute. Why is it so many relate to his message? Why is it he's so popular?

This is something we could learn from as a party.

[jackssonjack]

34. I don't trust Bernie.

Many, many people I know do not trust Bernie., I know many people on here don't trust Bernie. He's not saying what needs to change he's picked out a group of people to make the enemy and decided blaming them for all our ills as part of his "solution". That's divisive not uniting.

"If a Democratic politician takes corporate donations and then votes, for example, against the "public option" on healthcare or against "card-check" on union organization in the workplace and for a large war budget, should we say nothing about that?"

Why is it so many relate to his message? Why is it he's so popular?

He's repeating the Democratic message literally the same message from 2007 when they took the majority in the house and the Democratic platform gave him the infrastructure provided by corporate money to get his name out.

If he was so great at building parties on his own he wouldn't have needed the Democratic Party's help.

[FDRsGhost]

38. Many however do trust Bernie

And many I know trust Bernie and the fact is, more trust him than don't. No, you're incorrect, you're parsing his words and and he has said many what exactly needs to be changed.

What is wrong with this?


http://origin-nyi.thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/bernie-sanders-how-democrats-can-defeat-donald-trump

"If a Democratic politician takes corporate donations and then votes, for example, against the "public option" on healthcare or against "card-check" on union organization in the workplace and for a large war budget, should we say nothing about that?"

I have no problem with that at all, zero and I feel money in politics is a huge problem. We can build an aircraft carrier yet the ACA doesn't have a public option because why again? Oh that. Why isn't everybody on board with Medicare For All when the majority wants it? This is why we can't have nice things.

Bernie isn't repeating the Democrats message from 2007. The issue of free college never came up, the fight for 15 wasn't an issue and either was paid maternity leave or single payer.

The fact remains, he has raised more cashola than anybody from small donations in history, he brought out more young voters ever before in history of the primaries and he's the most popular politician in America.

You know what that's called?

A winning message.

[bekkilyn]

40. +1 (nt)

[nocalflea]

4. All of us need to do a little soul-searching.

Ours is a big , diverse tent. We wouldn't be on this site , if we weren't passionate about our beliefs. It's not easy to separate our emotions from the discouse.We all need to work on this. Too often we take criticism of an intellectual argument as a personal attack.This leads to an ad hominem attack in response and the conversation spirals out of control .This gets us absolutely nowhere.
We need to learn to put our egos aside . Until we do , there will be no real exchange of ideas . What a loss for all of us.

[Demsrule86]

12. It is not really hard...don't trash the party and don't trash other Democrats...

talk about issues.

[Ken Burch]

16. But what is "trashing" and what is simply critique?

"Trashing" is such an amorphous term.

I agree that personal denigration-such as all the threads in the primaries whose titles referred to Bernie as a "Socialist Jew" or falsely accused him and his supporters of actual indifference on anti-oppression issues, or any post or thread that actually opposed the nomination of HRC solely due to her gender or that spoke to HRC supporters in personally or demographically offensive terms-should not be acceptable, but we need to be able to talk about how badly the fall campaign was run on the level of strategy and tactics and to discuss whether changes in the platform or in the way the party communicated with Sanders supporters during the fall if we're ever to do better than this in the future.

[Demsrule86]

18. We know...calling the party corporate....

trashing other Dems as not pure enough...we know it when we see...here is a handy way to look at it...if it discourages people from voting for Democrats...it's trashing.

[Demsrule86]

14. Here is the issue for me... I am a yellow dog Democrat...hence my user name.

I like this site because we work to elect Democrats...so I am not OK with discourse that trashes Democrats...there are plenty of sites one can do that on...but this site is not and should not be one of them. We have TOS and for those who don't know the ins and outs of what is permissible ...read it carefully. Also, if you have questions...ask the Administrators is a good place to discuss them.

[Demsrule86]

108. That is not true...you people who want to pretend that some how

Bill Clinton waged a war against progressives were not around in 1992 or have not studied their ;political history. About a year before the election, George Bush I pushed Iraq out of Kuwait...he had approval ratings nearing 100%. Few Democrats wanted to challenge a president who was sure to win the presidential election easily. Enter Bill Clinton and Al Gore...now this was a time when America embraced the right...the few liberals who had run before Reagan had been crushed (McGovern, Humphrey). Thanks to Watergate a moderate Democrat had been elected in 1976-Jimmy Carter. And Ted Kennedy whom I respect for his later activities in Congress did his best to destroy Carter paving the way for Reagan...I have a friend who worked for Kennedy in his later years and she said that was one of his biggest regrets. But I digress. The country had tilted right. Reagan was credited with saving the economy and bringing down Russia He and the Republicans were popular. It was during this time that 'liberal' became a bad thing...When Bill Clinton arrived on the scene the GOP had held the presidency for 12 years. In other words, we were facing yet another defeat...and then a miracle...Ross Perot appeared on the scene. He split the GOP vote and allowed Clinton to win an electoral college victory. Clinton never had a majority...not in 92 or 96...he ran to the middle which was the only place any Democrat who wanted to win could go. And Clinton saved the courts. Ginsberg and Breyer were Clinton appointees. And you all complain about Bill Clinton and what he did...but what would Bush II have done in his second term...or how about the next Republican ? Bill Clinton basically saved us from that and does not deserve the vitriol heaped upon his head by those who fail to understand political reality. You all complained about him...but he tried for single payer healthcare and his base abandoned him during the midterms. You want a liberal president than vote in every election and give Democratic public figure and was a fine president.

[R B Garr]

120. This is truly bogus and dramatic, laughable even. nt

[FDRsGhost]

98. The problem that I have with this...

specifically this ;

I like this site because we work to elect Democrats...so I am not OK with discourse that trashes Democrats...there are plenty of sites one can do that on...but this site is not and should not be one of them

is that it prevents discourse and that discourse is needed very badly and is happening and a hot topic within the party itself right now. We as a party are trying to figure out where we are headed in the future and how we'll get there. It won't be pretty, the conversation we need to have but it has to be had otherwise if we're going to make a difference, why censor discussion? This is why I think maybe a subforum is needed where people in that forum specifically are able to speak their mind without fear or repercussion. It's an awfully important topic and one which we all should all be talking about. Doing it like adults however may be a little difficult.

[Demsrule86]

104. We are not a party trying to figure out where we are headed...

and that is code for trashing the party...we don't have time to remake the Democrat party ...we have elections to win...and you can do all the stuff you want to remake the party (criticize) and discuss purity and how everything the DCC and the DNC does is wrong on another site. This is Democratic Underground and no we don't need a special forum just for trashing Democrats and the Democratic Party...there are tons of sites that do that...we support Democrats on Democratic underground.

[FDRsGhost]

124. Actually we ARE a party trying to figure out where we are headed

And this is very important discussion which is taking place now. One only needs to see the recent debates for the DNC chair in which they all echoed this. It isn't code for trashing the party when the very heads of the party are saying the same thing.


http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/325335-perez-ellison-start-multistate-turnaround-tour-for-dems

A "turnaround tour"? That says it all.

If you know of other sites then please feel free to link me to them. Again, this is a very important issue for the party and one which is taking place. This isn't trashing anything, it's about how to regain all the seats & states we've lost. Why is looking inward with introspection considered "trashing the party"? We can't go without it. Yes, this is Democratic Underground and we support Democrats, issues which matter to the party should be discussed, correct?

[Demsrule86]

137. We are a party that needs to start planning for the next election...we have no

time for navel gazing...we are Democrats...big tent...diverse idea.That is it...now lets field candidates that can win in 50 states.

[FDRsGhost]

165. Start planning includes the subject at hand

[nocalflea]

179. Sub-forum . Hear ! Hear!

Freewheeling discourse & all that that implies. The easily wounded need not apply . Adult discussion, no babysitters. (Obviously , no ad hominem attacks on fellow posters).
I have no problem with criticism of either policy or individual candidates . "Hashing things out " is healthy and promotes growth.
I have never voted for a republican in my life. Criticism(s) of my fellow dems & party policy is not going to turn me away from the party .

[Cary]

178. Vote Democratic

Close book, end of story.

[FDRsGhost]

6. I'd like to know this along with

What constitues re-fighting the primaries. Are there specific rules? Because I see lits if posts from people disparaging Bernie but if someone said the same things about Hillary it would probably be alerted on.

So what's up? Perhaps solid rules need to be put in place because it's really open for interpretation. Of course I may be completely wrong and they're posted nut I've not seen them. If that's the case, please throw me a link.

[Demsrule86]

13. There is a rule in place...but like all rules

it is open to interpretation...and if you are wandering into grey territory...than you may get a hide...I am trying very hard not to reopen wounds leftover from the election and the primary.

[FDRsGhost]

23. Thanks

I just wonder what constitutes the "gray area", I think it needs to be put in stone because right now, a conversation needs to be had about how to forward as a party and it's one of the most important conversations we'll ever have. I'm apprehensive however because I don't want to get in trouble. Maybe a sub-forum is needed where things can be said? I don't know. I only know it's like walking on glass.

[Jim Lane]

44. You are absolutely correct that the rules are not applied neutrally. (n/t)

[Demsrule86]

110. Juries are random...thus a jury could have almost any

makeup...which is a good thing...if on the rare occasion, you feel you did not deserve a hide...then appeal it. I don't think you should trash this site...and everyone always feels they are somehow persecuted...trust me I know.

[Jim Lane]

128. Juries are a more-or-less random sample of the people who are still here.

If a significant number of DUers allow their biases to affect their jury service, and if their biases tend strongly in one direction, then the result will be that the rules are not applied neutrally. In the current state of DU, a jury "could" have a majority of people who supported Bernie. Last October, a properly randomized national poll could have happened to pick a sample that was half Gary Johnson supporters. It's possible -- just not very likely.

You will doubtless recall the incessant trashing of this site during the primary campaign. Most people here supported Bernie. The Clinton partisans complained that the jury system was not operating neutrally.

Nor is the problem cured by the technical availability of an appeal. I've appealed more than one post removal here, and none of my appeals has ever even been answered, let alone upheld.

FDRsGhost, who has many fewer posts than you and I do, raised a question. On the basis of my experience, I gave my answer. I stand by it.

[Demsrule86]

138. I was here during the primaries and I can tell you...Hillary supporters were

stalked with an intent to get them tossed off the website...this new system may not be perfect, but is way better...the fact that people with all different views complains about it shows it is working.

[Jim Lane]

150. There's less discord because of the homogenization of opinions, not because of a different system

You refer to an allegedly better system but the system hasn't been significantly changed. Jurors no longer see the full jury report, because the admins decided that was causing too much drama, but the basics are the same: randomly select online users and submit the post to a majority vote.

The biggest difference is that the primaries are over. That means that one major cause for disagreement has been removed.

The other big change is that so many of the people who supported Bernie have left completely or have cut way down on their posting. DU has become much more of an echo chamber than it was during the primaries.

You write, "the fact that people with all different views complains about it shows it is working." I'm always intensely suspicious of that argument. It leads to gaming the refs. Put another way, it rewards extremism. It's like saying that the AHCA must be a good idea because it's criticized from both sides. The Democrats didn't like throwing 24 million people off their health insurance, and the Freedom Caucus didn't like it that any government help for the poor was retained, so both sides complain and it's therefore reasonable.

Beyond that, I don't accept the factual premise. I don't spend as much time here as I used to, so I'm not completely up on the conversation, but I haven't seen posts from people who complain that their denunciations of Bernie Sanders were removed. Under the ToS, Bernie is expressly accorded the same protection as the other members of the Democratic Caucus, but my opinion is that that particular provision is not enforced neutrally.

[Demsrule86]

184. I think it is a better system...

and there is no doubt the jury system was abused and good DU members...on both sides were targeted. I like the new system and consider it fair. The thing about Bernie is not true...it is in fact enforced. I have seen it happen. DU is not nor ever will be an 'echo' chamber. And plenty of folks are back. There is plenty of good discussion . I believe many of the posters you talk about ...not the old timers... but others were in fact Russian or GOP trolls. This is Democratic underground not third party underground . We support Democrats...and I well remember the way Obama was trashed on this site which I thought was wrong at the time. There are plenty of place where people of all political persuasions can tear Democrats to pieces...this site supports Democrats and should not be one of them. As a Democrat, I appreciate a place like this that supports Democrats.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

170. Indeed we were

Our only refuge was the HRC group. Even so jury complaints were made against us for the most innocuous reasons .

The change in jury system where everything is made anonymous is a result of this.

[FDRsGhost]

180. That happened on both sides from what I read

at the time. It was one of the factors that actually kept me formally joining the site to post.

[Demsrule86]

185. It did happen on both sides.

[FDRsGhost]

196. Primaries are never pretty are they?

[R B Garr]

56. Did you see the "fights" in the primary?

[FDRsGhost]

95. Yes somewhat

I've read the site for some time but sort of stayed out of that discussion forum a lot, it seemed like angry kids throwing rocks a lot of the times.

[DemocraticSocialist8]

22. Yea the tit for tat has to stop

I've seen it coming from both camps. The Bernie camp and the Clinton camp and it's petty regardless of who is doing it.

[Demsrule86]

111. Stop...there is not Bernie and Clinton Camp.

The primary is over...let it go.

[DemocraticSocialist8]

163. I HAVE let it go lol...I voted for Clinton in the General after supporting Sanders in the primary

I have nothing against Clinton, but there are two groups in the Dem party right now. Competing ideologies on how to move forward...you can't deny that. That is the main thing fueling the bickering.

[guillaumeb]

26. Recommended.

The line is indeed very fine. And we need to remember that criticism of strategy and positions is not the same as criticizing a candidate.

[LAS14]

27. I completely agree. We need to encourage differences of opinion.

Perhaps we should just apply the rule to candidates that we apply to other posters. There's a difference between calling candidates names and saying something he/she said or did was not a good thing.

[JHan]

29. Nothing is wrong with criticism

Constructive criticism.

The problem is the "criticism" I so often see is ill-informed at best, and just dumb at worst.

[jackssonjack]

35. +1000

[Kentonio]

36. If someone is ill-informed, then inform them

But all too often people are just accusing people of being right wing shills or agitators for nothing more than having a different opinion. That gets old really quickly.

[JHan]

46. True....

Discussions are more fruitful that way.

The DNC deserves criticism if its focus isn't broad enough. Keith Ellison was bang on when he talked about Dems being the party of local government again. We've focused too much on the Presidency. It's useless to have a Dem President whose policies won't be supported by governors and congress.

Philosophy and governance style are tricky areas. We've always been a big tent party - and we've been strongest when our coalition sticks together. A 50 state strategy means there will be Dems who will lean more to the center and Dems who can move more to the left. We have ample evidence that when Dems are in control, they do a good job - just look at California and Kansas. California has a growth surge, Kansas is a mess. If ever there was an example of the difference between efficacy of Democrats at all levels and incompetence of Republicans those two States tell the tale. So our policies do work, as of right now, in a State where Dems lead.

Every Democrat I am aware of wants Citizen's United reversed yet the Democratic party is the corporatist party? By linking "Corporatist" to the "Liberal elite" that has shaped washington politics and responsible for policy positions in various agencies of government from the EPA to education, republicans have managed to demonize Government as a whole. They riff on that same theme when they rattle on about the evils of regulation. You never hear them seriously talk about regulatory reform, but deregulation and while regulatory capture exists, they use that pony trick to demonize all Government oversight. That the party of corporations successfully defined the party of government as "corporatist" is bad enough, when leftists parrot the same talking points it's 100x worse and it's 1000x worse when democrats are demonized because they use velvet glove strategies to push for reform.

The other bone of contention in the criticism is the thorniness of "compromise"

Instead of understanding why a Democrat - from a purely pragmatic stance - may vote a certain way or compromise, they're smeared right out of the gate to shouts of "shill" and "corporatist" . I have rarely come across substantive discussions about a politician's voting record. And no one has the perfect voting record. To get anything done requires compromise.

Look at what happened in California recently:

In one of the biggest legislative victories of his storied political career, Gov. Jerry Brown pushed through an ambitious plan last week that will increase gas taxes and vehicle fees to raise $52 billion over the next decade for the repair of California’s system of crumbling roads, highways and bridges.

But the win didn’t come cheaply — Brown and legislative dealers promised nearly $1 billion for the pet projects of lawmakers who had been sitting on the fence before they were persuaded to vote for the bill.

The funding “arrangements,” as Brown called them, helped the governor and legislators break a two-year Sacramento stalemate on transportation funding.

Some legislators said the horse-trading taints the legislative process, but Brown defended the deals as justified, a moderate investment compared with the payoff from a bill that will generate $5.2 billion annually in the first 10 years for road repairs, and billions more in future years.

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_popover_share.aspx?guid=37f7e576-0627-4916-b348-019f51d0fba2

Pragmatic politics, not perfect, but the overall agenda was passed * and California will benefit in the long run - because Dems have control.

So criticism is fine, but it doesn't help us and it doesn't help our reps, if our criticism is mindless and incoherent.

[JCanete]

80. California is a mixed bag though, and a really good example of some things being effed up

in-spite of a Democratic majority. Why are our schools here so underfunded? Why in a democratic state can't we do better on education? Why in such a rich state(cost of living being a factor of course), does California have the highest poverty rate in the nation? This has to call into question at least some of the priorities of even Democratic politicians.

[JHan]

82. Some things effed up:

Like Housing prices. A while ago I read some studies looking at the cost of housing and the cause for the spikes - one study cited zoning and regulations. Taking it with a grain of salt but I haven't read enough about it to speak on it with confidence.

[Caliman73]

122. California

Schools are underfunded because the funding structure is dictated by the constitution. The Democratic party does finally hold the super majority it has needed to push through certain budgetary legislation, however, they cannot change the State Constitution, which dictates how things are funded. A change in the constitution is required to take school funding away from depending on local property taxes and changing it to something that can be applied more equitably. As progressive as we may think California is, you tell someone from Beverly Hills or Mendecino that their property taxes are going to be used to fund a school in Watts or Vallejo, you are not going to get a good response. The work around has been "special funding initiatives" and certain "fees" to bolster poor schools, but that does not change the systemic issue of the funding scheme. Even if every assembly person or state senator was a Democrat, they could not just simply sign a new law changing the funding structure. They would be sued and lose.

[JCanete]

141. thanks for that info! That is exactly the thing about rich progressivism though. It's a far less

sociopathic breed of rich, but its still people who don't want "what's theirs" being taken away to fund things that need to be funded. They'd rather do it at a sub-par level via charity. Seems to me that kind of money could push for a constitutional amendment, and I know not all of it is in the hands of Democrats, but enough is.

[Kentonio]

94. I actually agree 100% on the need for pragmatic politics that embraces compromise

One of my issues however, and I think its an issue many have, is when large ideological issues (such as reform of corporate finance of politics) are held up as rallying cries but which in practise are just embraced. It isn't enough to just say 'every Democrat wants Citizen's United reversed' unless as a party we're actually working towards getting it reversed, and more than that working towards reform of issues of lobbying. We're clearly not 'the' corporate party, but it certainly feels like we've become 'a' corporate party.

Now achieving those goals may well require compromise. We won't get what we want straight away and in full, and we'll have to be pragmatic about getting where we want to be, but we have to have faith that it is something we're genuinely trying to achieve, and that faith becomes more difficult to hold on to the more we accept huge donations and the more super rich people play important roles in the party.

If we're running candidates who are multi-millionaires, who previously worked for financial institutions and vast corporations and whose friends and social networks are formed from those same organizations, its not easy to take them at their word when they tell us they will not allow money to influence the party.

[JHan]

121. The best way to get it reversed is to change the dynamic of the Supreme Court.

This is why Obama and Clinton stressed this so strongly during the election and many were like "uh.. meh".

Buckley v. Valeo, Citizen's United, FEC vs McCutcheon - all need to be reversed. I think the Supreme Court will once again be in play in 2020, so liberals and progressives are going to have to be focused on the objectives at hand - changing the flavor of this Roberts led Supreme Court. Until we on the left understand the long game played here by Conservatives, we'll be outplayed.

The philosophical underpinning of the Democratic view vs the Republican view is critical else the discussion devolves into inane "republicans and democrats are both the same" fallacies. Some democrats may find themselves in a position where they accept big donations, and even donations from specific industries ( Nothing wrong with this per se ) Booker got excoriated for not voting on a flawed amendment, progressives shouted shill - but a closer inspection shows that his pharma donations are not surprising given his state and are actually an aggregate. You wouldn't think so reading the hysteria surrounding the Klobuchar/sanders amendment though.

And while we are caught up excoriating our own for such reasons, the true party of corporate hegemony continue to enjoy their orgy of revanchism. In other words, our priorities are skewed and our outrage misdirected when we don't focus on who is really to blame here - the libertarian think tanks, the conservative mindset that believes in "corporate personhood". It is very easy for me to vote democratic right down the line to ensure that Dems are in a powerful position to implement the changes I want. Until such time, we'll have to deal with the imperfect.

The sister argument to all of this is of course lobbying - Corporate lobbyists enjoy the most influence in washington. They've overtaken Unions. Instead of bashing lobbying, the critics never ask about why there is such an imbalance or how to diminish corporate influence. For all the talk about "big lobbyists" and corporate money- what is the democratic stance on the corporate tax and capital gains tax? what has been the dem stance on taxes on the rich? what is the dem stance on regulation? .. on closing corporate welfare loopholes ( dem positions on this has shifted more to the left over the past decade or so to my mind) . So this is why I get confused, and why these "corporate" arguments don't stand up to scrutiny.

[uponit7771]

86. I'd say right wing talking points at worst

[Ken Burch]

90. OK. And that's not what I'm talking about.

It's not a right-wing talking point, for example, to say that it was a mistake for the fall campaign to focus so heavily on negative ads rather than mainly use them to make a positive case for the our nominee and our platform.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

171. Well said

[William769]

39. It's like pornoghphy. You'll know it when you see it. nt

[Jim Lane]

45. Thanks for starting a very enlightening thread.

My personal preference has always been in accord with Justice William Brennan's formulation:

Debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide-open and that...may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.

The proprietors of private websites can try to limit the unpleasantness. They'll never completely succeed, though. Participants in the discussion should just recognize in advance that some people will get a little too vehement.

Of course, for most people, whether a particular statement exceeds the bounds of civility depends in great part on whether they agree with it. Several of the responses in this thread confirm that general observation.

[WomenRising2017]

47. So what are you suggesting?

Why did you expect to count on winning the election in a landslide?

What factors could you control?

What do you wish to do differently?

[Ken Burch]

81. 1)We came out of the convention twelve points ahead.

And we had a platform of popular and engaging ideas that would only have gained us votes if we'd made that platform, rather than endless attack ads on the other party's nominee, the focus of the fall campaign

2)The most important factors our party DID have control over were:

a) Our strategy and our priorities;

b) The way the campaign communicated with voters to its left;

c) Our awareness of the situation in the battleground states.

A) Instead of a strategy based on making a positive case FOR our extremely-qualified nominee and the exceptional platform her campaign and the Sanders campaign created together in Philadelphia, the decision was made to base most of the fall campaign on attack ads on the other party's nominee-even though history has taught us that negative ads never work for OUR party against the GOP.

Instead of prioritizing preserving our leads in the battleground states, the campaign wasted huge amounts of time and money in red states it knew all along it couldn't carry(Georgia and Arizona) or states it knew had slipped hopelessly out of reach in the last two weeks(Ohio), rather than states that were crucial(the Upper Midwest states) or that WERE winnable (like North Carolina)

B) Instead of actively reaching out to former Sanders supporters by reminding them that their efforts had resulted in major positive changes to the platform, or by praising the historic, heroic efforts the Sanders campaign had made to reshape the party and the country for the good of all, instead of making it clear that THIS party would be a place where Sanders people would be welcome to go on working for the causes they support, the party and the surrogates of the Clinton-Kaine campaign insisted on characterizing the Sanders phenomenon as an absolute failure, proclaimed that the party hadn't just chosen not to nominate Bernie but had categorically rejected everything his campaign stood for, and then followed this up by simply DEMANDING support from former Sanders people.

Was the platform worthy of such support? Yes.

Was the candidate? Obviously.

But the arrogant tone used to insist on that support was off-putting and self-sabotaging. More to the point, it was unnecessary.

If our campaign in the fall had treated former Sanders people with respect-not fawned on them, not groveled, just treated them with respect and admitted that what they had done had mattered-had it emphasized the platform-none of which was unpopular with the electorate, btw, had it taken any tone towards these people OTHER than "you lost-know your place-do what we damn well tell you", we could have probably have taken half the Stein vote and brought another one or two million out to the polls from the large group that simply stayed home-and done all of that without losing us any of the votes we did get. It was just a question of connecting, respecting and ASKING for votes-which works-instead of dismissing and disrespecting people while DEMANDING their votes-which has never worked in any election we've ever used it in.


C) The refusal of the Clinton-Kaine to use daily tracking polls in the battleground states did devastating harm, because it meant the campaign was not aware of the swing to Trump in the Upper Midwest. Had the campaign used daily tracking polls in those states, the nominee and busloads of volunteers could have been heavily deployed to campaign in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, probably saving us from Electoral College defeat and flipping at least two Senate races our way.

Those are the things the campaign

[JHan]

84. Some fair points but,,,

Are you going to acknowledge busterisms? The left fracturing itself? The buying wholesale into propaganda and misinformation which spread like wildfire? This BS started way before Fall last year.

And respect goes both ways Ken. I wish there wasn't this determination to rewrite history and the divisive memes that emerged which created a false dichotomy between the prog wing and the establishment wing and you want to know why this matters? Because if there's a repeat of it in a few years time 2016 will repeat itself..... Again.

[Ken Burch]

88. I never had any use for the 'buster types. I spent most of the fall fighting them(rhetorically).

And there was propaganda and pandering to ugliness all over during the primaries. Remember all the threads here, on a supposedly progressive talkboard, in which Bernie was called (in the thread title) a "socialist Jew"? When he was falsely accused here of being a secret Communist?

As to false dichotomies, I don't want those either-We need to be rid of the false dichotomy of a massive gulf between the "economic justice" and "social justice" movements, and of the disgusting claim that people in the economic justice movement were all white men in their twenties who didn't care about the need to fight institutional and grassroots social oppression, while social justice activists supposedly didn't see corporate control of politics, the economy and life as being of any importance to their work-as opposed to the real world, in which activists from each movement agreed with the other movement about 95% of the time and in which both justice struggles, while distinct, do have some significant connections and intersections.

We both want to move forward-but it needs to be about making everyone on the Left welcome, not pushing people away over the past.

[JHan]

91. I wasn't here last year during the primaries

But I saw the ugliness play out. I'm a millennial. I saw the demonization of the Democratic Party itself, of the eventual candidate, it affected enthusiasm. I saw the way people who did not endorse Bernie were treated. I saw the sexism too.

And who was sidelined? Yes hubris afflicted the Clinton campaign, but the platform itself reflected a shift in the party and still that wasn't good enough because of stupid purity tests.

And don't get me started on the social justice business. After a year of media narratives explaining away trump I now have to mentally edit out the cynical pandering by liberals to court the trump vote and the queasiness in tackling the genesis of the toxic politics that gave Trump the WH.

[Foamfollower]

48. I think the difference between the two is quite distinct.

In fact, I'd call in unmistakable.

[uponit7771]

87. ++++++++++++ NO RIGHT WING TALKING POINTS !!! +++++++++++++++

[Ken Burch]

89. You're right, I've used no right-wing talking points.

It's not a right-wing talking point to say the fall campaign made mistakes.

We have to talk about that if we're ever going to win.

[uponit7771]

92. We agree, it is a RWTP if "made mistakes" is used to place onus on the fall campaign for the loss

... seeing Russia, Comey and voter suppression played ANY part in who got elected.

I can see after Dao that victim blaming, a smart persons burden for a myriad of reasons, is something the left does ... A LOT

[Ken Burch]

93. Russia, Comey, and voter suppression played a major role.

Last edited Thu Apr 13, 2017, 07:06 PM - Edit history (1)

Those were the things we could not control.

There were things the campaign did have control over, however, and those are what need to be addressed.

[JustAnotherGen]

97. Not possible

So there needs to be at least some ability to have a real discussion of the results in the fall without being accused of disloyalty and hidden agendas

.

Not the focus at DU. You can only have a discussion like that in other venues.

BTW- Wisniewski is getting trounced by Murphy in NJ. So - if I gloat about that - and show how one message really did NOT work and will NOT work in certain states and districts - that'a bigly bad and sad.

There is - in certain quarters at DU - a belief that there can only be ONE message and ONE set of concerns.


Truthfully though - the concerns of former machine shop workers in Michigan don't resonate with a banker and a big pharma worker in Central NJ who are buried under property taxes and an increased gas tax, still paying off their own MBA's, and struggling to save for their kids to go to university let alone their retirement.


If there is only ONE message we are allowed to tout at DU - then it's not for some of us on the ground and knocking on doors on a key state in 2017.

Seriously - no outsider opinions or MESSAGING because it will not work.

[Blue_true]

148. You hit the nail on it's head.

The reality for a Democrat in Alabama is vastly different from that of one in Massachusetts. But if both favor the party over their respective republican alternative, really which is the better Democrat? The Alabama Democrat is surely going to be more right than the Massachusetts Democrat, but do we throw away his or her votes with us most of the time due to that? This reality is what make me screaming mad at people that consistently apply purity tests.

[Vinca]

99. I totally agree with you. We can't be a bunch of tender flowers and expect to win.

Sometimes the truth is not nice and sometimes it hurts. Most recently I'm pissed at the party for deciding the Kansas House seat wasn't worth spending a dime on. Apparently, the keepers of the cash were afraid if they threw some money at the race the big, bad Republicans would run negative ads against the Democrats and be mean. Boo hoo. Bankrupt Kansas - thanks to the GOP - is a gold mine for ads for Democrats. If we're going to stay hidden under the bed we don't deserve to win.

[alarimer]

100. To some, any criticism of any Democrat is trashing, no matter the substance.

I'm reading "Listen, Liberal" by Thomas Frank and I think he has many valuable things to say that the party can learn from.

But of course his is not the only voice.

I do agree that personal attacks are wrong. Using slurs, that type of thing. But the Democrat Party HAS become a corporate party. This is history. It always was friendly to some areas of business, but that really accelerated during the 80s and 90s.

It's not that they are indistinguishable from Republicans; it's that they abandoned unions, helped to start the war on drugs (resulting in mass incarceration), "reformed" welfare (damaging lots of people in the process), etc.

[FDRsGhost]

197. I need to pick up a copy of that book, thanks!

[NCTraveler]

101. The agenda of some isn't as hidden as you act.

"So there needs to be at least some ability to have a real discussion of the results in the fall without being accused of disloyalty and hidden agendas."

There have been some excellent discussions here about the General loss. Excellent.

[vi5]

102. It's whatever the sensible, pragmatic centrists say it is.....

At least that's what I gather based on this board and the attitudes of a lot of the Democratic party over the past 10 years or so.

[AngryAmish]

105. If I agree with it then it is entirely legitimate.

If I disagree it is hate speech.

Easy, black and white standard.

[Caliman73]

123. True. It's like tragedy/comedy

As Mel Brooks said, Tragedy is when I cut my finger, comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.

[SecularMotion]

127. There is always room to discuss improving DU and the Democratic Party

but members who harp on flaws and divisions become toxic to the community.

[MineralMan]

132. It's like porn, Ken. We know it when we see it.

It's pretty simple, really.

[Blue_true]

146. I have been around DU since 2010, but of late find it easier

just to visit regular news sources when I need news. This is my first time on DU is about a week. There isn't debate here, but there do seem to be people stalking anyone that disagrees with them.

[GulfCoast66]

166. As someone only here a year or so and someone who was not in love with either candidate...

Here is what I see. There were lots of people here are were at the end of the day ideologues. If you did not agree with everything they wanted they trashed you. And for the last 6 months of the primary we also started seeing a real cult of personality.

Fortunately, most of that type have moved on to other sites. Or have rejoined here in new guise as might be seen in all of the divisive post we have been seeing.

I joined this site because it is the Democratic Underground. I would not have joined if it were Single Payer Underground or Democratic Socialist Underground, because I am not sure I support single payer and I am sure not a socialist. And that statement right there makes me questionable to some people here now and many who have left.

I am a Social Democrat who believes there is no system that can beat capitalism to raise people out of poverty, but ONLY if it is ridden hard by a strong government.

I am glad the Jimmy Carter deregulated the airlines because when I was a kid my class could not afford to fly. I am glad we deregulated the phone company because I am happy not to be using a black dial up phone.

But I am a true blue Democrat and there are some red lines for me. Mainly involving personal and civil rights along with capitol punishment and insure that our poorest have a certain minimum standard of living.

I did not take me long to realize that was not good enough for some here. And I really do not care.

So if you see people like me as a problem for the party, then I consider you a trash talker.

[FDRsGhost]

199. Okay I'm confused

I'm confused you're a social Democrat which is a party affiliation BTW and yet don't support single payer? I'd like to hear why you don't support single payer and what you think is the best system.

Also you're glad Carter deregulated the airlines and phone companies? Do you mean breaking up monopolies by chance because deregulation over time has caused there to be a LOT less competition and that drives up prices. Case in point; cost internet and airplane tickets never go down in price. If anything; they've gotten a lot worse. Baggage fees, etc.

[GulfCoast66]

215. I am on my phone so can't expound

I am for insuring all Americans have good health care and there are many ways to do so. It is easy to tout single payer but the devil is in the detail. That is why I did not say I oppose single payer but am not sure.

And adjusted for inflation plane flights are half the price they were prior to deregulation. Airlines were forced to serve unprofitable routes to gain the rights to fly profitable ones. Ted Kennedy pushed it and Carter signed it. When I was young people in my class only flew for very special occasions. Enough so we dressed up for it.

When we still had Ma Bell, a heavily regulated monopoly we had almost no innovation for 40 years.

But I really chose those examples to make a point, perhaps poorly, that some in the left have endless litmus test you must pass to be considered a friend rather than an opponent.

Have a nice day.

[guillaumeb]

176. Trash talk is what I disagree with.

Legitimate critique is my opinion.

[Cary]

177. Which part.of vote Democratic don't you understsnd?

[betsuni]

201. "we need free speech within this party"

[lies]

209. why is that funny?

There's obviously very clear things which are censored and forbidden to discuss.

[betsuni]

210. Censored, forbidden -- by whom?

Teh government? THEM? Or ... wait! Maybe this is a privately owned forum for Democrats who don't hate Democrats.

[lies]

211. There you go

You assume criticism is hate.

Frankly that's paranoid.

Criticism is not always an attack, and the vast number of people who are silenced here are basically ideological allies. But they're made into enemies by censoring criticism etc.

Many folks want to vent about issues they see but find that they're labeled traitors, or secret Republicans, or they get blamed for Trump.

How any of that is meant to unite the party - something people claim to want to do - is beyond me.

Why make enemies when you could be friends?

People around here routinely claim that Democrats are much more intelligent than Republicans... But burning bridges - endlessly - with the left end of the party is the opposite of clever. IMO.

[betsuni]

212. Criticism has to be based on fact. Do that and problem solved.

Who said anything about hate? Only you. It's not about me and you can insult me all you want. I don't care. Have fun!

[lies]

213. utterly false

I have had factual posts deleted and myself banned from even defending them.

I'm not the only one. In fact it's a well known thing about DU.

I can easily with a few words quoted from a mainstream media source, which aren't in any way controversial - except on DU - have my post deleted.

[lies]

203. As far as I can tell

Truth is not a justification for anything someone might view as negative being discussed.

So just because something is true doesn't make it ok to talk about.

You can say, "hey we're great, but maybe we'd be better if [something anodyne]" But if you say, "I don't like X that Dem party or pol did" you can easy get into trouble.

IMO this is wrong, as it's just self-delusional censorship, but I know that by even questioning it will probably get this post deleted and me banned from the thread.

[LWolf]

216. There's more than one answer to that question.

At DU, anything that suggests that Democrats might be wrong, or have done the wrong thing, is "trash talk."

In the real world, Democrats are free to critique, debate, and fight for necessary changes. Thankfully, it's happening outside of DU.

I'd love to see more open critique and debate here; I agree that it's necessary if we are to move forward as an online community. I don't hold out a lot of hope, and that's a disappointment.