Who Stole The American Dream?

It's time for Indiana to head to the polls on May 3, 6 AM - 6 PM. Bring your state photo ID, Hoosiers, and vote for Bernie!  (This week on the blog we're featuring original artworks decorating the walls of the Fort Wayne campaign office.)

We're also speaking out about recent "voting irregularities" this week on the blog. (That's a nice way of saying voter suppression/election fraud scandals.) What or who is behind the rigging of our recent primary elections and the misleading delegate counts? Who or what is stealing our American Dream? How can we fight back? Could electing the only candidate truly qualified for the job of president--Bernie Sanders--revitalize our democracy?How do we play a part in the Political Revolution?

Our Election?
by Anon.

If Bernie Sanders was losing the primary election to another left-wing, progressive candidate, I could deal with this, but he is not losing to a real Democrat. He is losing to Hillary Clinton, one of the most corrupt, unpopular, neo-liberal candidates to ever crawl out of the power elite and slither her way into the presidential elections. Hillary the warmonger. Hillary the corporate crony. Hillary the polluter. Hillary the mass-incarcerator. Hillary the dynasty candidate and flip-flopper.

If Bernie Sanders was losing this election fair and square, I could still probably deal with it, but he is not. This election has been anything but fair--rigged caucuses and polling stations, rigged voting machines, rigged media coverage, rigged social media sites, rigged funding mechanisms and superdelegates. In many instances, blatant electioneering, visible to everyone. Worse yet, nothing is being done--not by the president (who I also voted for), not by Congress, not by the "Justice" Department or the courts, not by the state officials. It feels like I am living in Russia.

If Bernie Sanders would be willing to run as an independent or third party candidate, I could probably still have some hope for this country. But, apparently, he is not, which is really, really disappointing for me--mainly because I have donated approximately one hundred bucks of my family's hard-earned money so far. I've put a lot of time and effort into this social movement, only to see the DNC steal this election right before our eyes and most Americans passively accept this, including Bernie Sanders himself. So all of my money has essentially gone for nothing productive. Apparently it is okay to take my money and fill me with false hope, but then cave to the DNC and fold.

If anyone wants to challenge what I am saying here and throw some good news my way, go ahead. I am going to keep pushing for Bernie to win and crawling forward for the cause, but to be perfectly honest, at this point, it is simply because I have nowhere else to go, and I have run out of options. I am getting fed up with the American system, and I am tired of people feeding me uber-positive bullsh*t to cover up the steaming pile of bullsh*t that we call the United States of America. The delusional Kool-Aid served by Obama left a better taste in my mouth, but only because he was the first black president and he was so obstructed. Kool-Aid doesn't taste good anymore, though.

Sad part is, I know I am not alone. That is the scary part. Over half of our country lives in relative poverty; we have the largest prison system on earth; one-fifth of Americans are dosed up and more with mounds of student debt. Right-wingers so dysfunctional they are planning another civil war. Left-wingers marching for change. The American people are completely fed up, and no one is listening, and I fear that if the DNC doesn't get its act together or Sanders doesn't find a way to win in November the next decade is not going to be pretty. The US could end up looking a lot like the Middle East.

You'd think this would make Bernie reconsider that whole independent run thing, but we will see...

***

What happened to Bernie's votes in Sussex County Delaware? Note how the updated graphic shows him with almost 4000 less votes than the first.  Did the Washington Post "correct" the numbers with help from the DNC?

The Sane Progressive talks about how those who are trying to find out the truth but are being maligned: Washington Post Smears Election Integrity Activists as Conspiracy Theorists in Cover Up

Richard Charnin's Blog has up-to-date coverage of Democratic primary exit polls anomalies. The numbers don't lie--and they don't quite add up, either.  https://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/  

Find out more about recent voter suppression and election fraud at ElectionNightmares.com

How can we fight back? Here's a new movement taking positive action: https://brandnewcongress.org/ 
and remember, "We got the power!"

 

***

Do Superdelegates Ever Get Your Goat?
by Paul Wyman

In the past, I’ve never thought much about superdelegates, and it never bothered me.  I guess the superdelegates purpose was to “cement” the selection of the party’s anointed candidate.  This year it bothers me enormously because Hillary Clinton is not my choice. My choice is Bernie Sanders. 

If it weren’t for these superdelegates, Bernie would now be neck and neck or even ahead of Hillary Clinton.

This set me to thinking.  I’ve been noticing that the number of superdelegates varies per state, averaging about one-sixth of the total number of voting delegates.  The Republicans allow only three superdelegates per state (150 total out of 2472 Delegates), which is only 5% compared to the Democratic Convention of about 16.33%

Now let’s think about this for a moment...  Democracy means One Person – One Vote.  But in the so-called party of the “Democrats”, one third of the votes are reserved for the “dignitaries” (senators, congressmen, governors) and the hard working party faithful (the supervisors of all the phone bankers, reception organizers, hand-bill delivery people, etc.) 

Now I have no dispute with giving the party-organizers partial airfare help and hotel discounts, but it has no Constitutional right whatsoever to  violate the principle of One Person – One Vote.  Instead, they are now distributed as 467 Clinton, and 24 Sanders.  This in no way reflects the closeness of the state vote distributions.   It means the Democratic Party is more strongly controlled by “Party Hacks” than the Republican Party.  The number of Democratic superdelegates is about one-sixth (16.33%) of the total authorized convention voters.

This means that the superdelegates, one person each, are claimed by the Democratic Party to have and equal worth and equal impact on selecting the candidate as 100,000 individual human voters in their respective states.
 

No where in the US Constitution is this arrangement of chicanery sanctioned in any way whatsoever.  In fact, the Republican Party pollutes their convention with only 5% of total delegates compares to the Democratic Party’s 16.33%.  In this respect (but this respect only), the Republican Party proves itself to be more truly democratic than the Democratic Party.

And no, I won’t call them the Democratic Party anymore because the obscenity of superdelegates in the party means that the party is distinctly not democratic.

If Bernie is done in by superdelegates, I urge all Bernie delegates to pledge to eliminate superdelegates at the convention as well as in all future conventions, if only to become more democratic than the Republican Party. 

Bernie speaks about the superdelegates and how they should reflect the will of the voters in their state in his  May Day press conference.

 ***

This Woman is Bernie Strong!
a weekly feature written by a female Bernie supporter

 

Sanders, Sanders, Berning Bright
a poem by Irene Hsu

Sanders, Sanders, Berning bright

In this presidential fight

What fat wallet or Wall Street fee

Could fund thy fearful enemy?

In what distant place or time

Burnt the fire of Birdie's eyes?

On what wings of determination,

What great hand dare seize the nation?

And what speech and what art

Could make a country change its heart?

And when thy arms begin to wave

What economy can this man save?

What great hashtags, what droll names

What a gust of fresh air was thy campaign

What injustice to the working class

Dare your passions neatly grasp?

And when the protestors threw down their spears

And showered rallies with their tears

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who felt the Bern burn thee?

Sander, Sanders, Berning bright

In this time of fear and fright

What great love shall we set free

To thwart thy fearful enemy?

Bio: Irene Hsu is a practicing attorney, writer, and animal lover. She supports Bernie for President because she believes income inequality must be addressed immediately and he has the passion, energy, and heart to help us become better as a country.

 ***

Who Stole The American Dream?
by Bill MacKilligan

I am retired and living in Southern Maine. The recent discussion regarding the dwindling of the middle class seemed nothing more to me than a large segment of the baby boomers were finally retiring. In most cases, when an individual retires, his or her income will decrease. So to me it seemed like a natural form of attrition. Boy, was I wrong. Certainly the decrease in income for the retiring baby boomers will contribute to a diminishing  of the middle class, but there are other factors to consider. Bernie has considered them and his platform seems to surround these factors.

I am currently reading a book by Hedrick Smith called Who Stole The American Dream. It is a very difficult book to read. It's like watching a train wreck--only our country is the train. I will not make a lengthy description of  the book, but suffice it to say that it all started in the 1960s and 1970s when big business got smart and started to see the advantage of becoming politically active and hired lobbyists to do their bidding for them. Things haven't changed much since then. Some CEOs earn 900 times the salary of their average workers! For some businesses CEO performance doesn't seem to matter. They still do well even when their businesses lose money. Remember the 2008 recession?

At one time pensions and life time health care was the norm. Then 401K programs became vogue. Companies did not have to fund their employees' retirement plans alone. It became the employee's job to develop the portfolio and act as his or her own financial adviser.  That life time health care program, that the company paid for, became a joint contribution health care plan between the business and the employee with the employee funding the lion's share of the contributions. Wages for the rank and file worker stagnated, but not for the CEOs. Wall Street took over Main Street and here we are--most of us just scraping to get by. 

The government now has us working so hard to pay our taxes (the taxes that CEOs don't have to pay) and to put food on the table that we don't have time to be politically active--let alone have time to vote. That is just where our elected officials want us. If we don't vote, they don't care. In fact, if we are not politically active they can pretty much do what ever they want, which at this time is pretty much nothing.

When labor unions were strong and employees were treated fairly by union shops or by family run businesses that understood how important their employees were to their success--I don't believed we called that Socialism back then. I'm not even sure I would call giving the worker a fair shake Socialism but, if that's what Bernie wants to call it, I am on board. 

The pendulum has to start swinging the other way. Vote for Bernie Sanders for President of the United States of America.  It will be hard to start that pendulum moving in the opposite direction, but if Bernie gets a mandate our elected officials will have to sit up and take notice.

***

Some last thoughts...

Poor people don't vote. Because, by definition, poor people are disenfranchised on so many levels. Bernie's stretching his hand out. He's trying to bring all people into the process including the poor, the uneducated, the homeless. What's there for him to explain? But there's a bigger picture -- insiders and outsiders. Right now the insiders have the power. They vote for themselves. When we win this election with the disenfranchised -- all of us together not the poor alone but all of us together -- when we win this thing we will be the People's Party. And the poor will know that together, all of us, we can win. A vote is worth fighting for. Outsiders no more.--Barb McMillen, co-founder of The Bernie Blog

Off to the polls--or it's off with the oligarchs' heads! Ballots not bullets! Be the Political Revolution! Vote for progressive candidates and causes.

Feel the Bern. Not Me Us. Make History.