Democratic Party: Civil War

[Rhea]

Ya, it seems an odd strategy. If he were to say "I will drop out and support your candidacy in exchange for X, Y and Z", he'd get X, Y and Z. .

Do you think he really truly believes he has a strong chance of winning still? Strong enough to be worth throwing away the power to get concessions? maybe that's it. He thinks his chances are so good at getting the nomination that being an asshole and burning bridges instead of continuing an upbeat campaign seems viable (even outside of conceding - just remaining polite...)

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Ya, it seems an odd strategy. If he were to say "I will drop out and support your candidacy in exchange for X, Y and Z", he'd get X, Y and Z. .

Do you think he really truly believes he has a strong chance of winning still? Strong enough to be worth throwing away the power to get concessions? maybe that's it. He thinks his chances are so good at getting the nomination that being an asshole and burning bridges instead of continuing an upbeat campaign seems viable (even outside of conceding - just remaining polite...)

Well, if he believes he has a chance of winning, that lack of intellectual ability should constitutionally disqualify him from running for President, but unfortunately, the Bush Amendment of 1999 nullified that rule.

I'm guessing he feels that running strong all the way until the end will put him in the best position to make whatever demands and concessions he feels are important to him. If that's his thinking, I figure he's wrong. I also figure that doing that will undercut his and everyone else's ability to get any of the positions he cares about implemented into law.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

DNC: Bernie - for the love of country, say something about this violence!
Bernie: this statement
Me: Wait, does any of this make chair throwing and death threats okay!?
(pause)
Me: Exactly. Then it didn't belong in this statement about chair throwing and death threats. There's your problem. That's why this statement is not a statement about violence from your supporters.

I think you're caught up in news du jour and need to think outside the box instead.

First, no one threw chairs, but instead one guy knocked over a chair. That's because thousands of people were pissed off. When you have thousands of people pissed off, odds are someone will do something like knock over a chair. The news media lied about the whole thing because they are sensationalistic and like to cover Bernie negatively. The original news media source eventually toned down quite a bit his original claims of what happened, but then there was no follow through by anyone else who had gotten the story from him. [Death threats really happened but were not serious or from people in Nevada and everyone knows that Bernie does not support murder, including his supporters.]

Second, those people were totally justified in being angry. They got scammed and screwed over because they were the actual majority at the convention by just 30 votes or so. Hillary supporters had a dictator come in and be a Decider. There was no transparency in removing 60 voters from Bernie's numbers. So why hasn't the DNC called for Hillary Clinton to speak about what her campaign supporters did at the convention instead of speaking about one guy knocking over a chair?

Third, there was a guy (Wendell Pierce) who attacked a Bernie supporter (not in Nevada). Where was the DNC in telling Hillary to speak about it? Where was Harry Reid? Did Bernie blame Hillary for it?

Fourth, this isn't tangible violence to persons, i.e. blood, guts, missing limbs, and death like what happened to innocent adults and children being bombed in Iraq or Libya. When will Hillary apologize for her support of bombing Iraq and on-the-ground troops? When will she apologize for death threats against the Iraqi people that someone else made with her support? When will Hillary apologize for her lack of a plan in Libya and all the needless death that occurred? Who will hold her to account, the DNC, the media? No, they will continue to go after Bernie and provide cover for Clinton, like they've been doing since his campaign began.

I will add that if Bernie responded with a whole litany of points the news media would take some small part out of context and there'd be headlines in all papers "Sanders admits his campaign supports extremist violence!"

Given the right information and the actual situation all parts considered, Bernie responded to the issue with the right amount of time and energy.

 

[Harry Bosch]

DNC: Bernie - for the love of country, say something about this violence!
Bernie: this statement
Me: Wait, does any of this make chair throwing and death threats okay!?
(pause)
Me: Exactly. Then it didn't belong in this statement about chair throwing and death threats. There's your problem. That's why this statement is not a statement about violence from your supporters.

I think you're caught up in news du jour and need to think outside the box instead.

First, no one threw chairs, but instead one guy knocked over a chair. That's because thousands of people were pissed off. When you have thousands of people pissed off, odds are someone will do something like knock over a chair. The news media lied about the whole thing because they are sensationalistic and like to cover Bernie negatively. The original news media source eventually toned down quite a bit his original claims of what happened, but then there was no follow through by anyone else who had gotten the story from him. [Death threats really happened but were not serious or from people in Nevada and everyone knows that Bernie does not support murder, including his supporters.]

Second, those people were totally justified in being angry. They got scammed and screwed over because they were the actual majority at the convention by just 30 votes or so. Hillary campaign had a dictator come in and be a Decider. There was no transparency in removing 60 voters from Bernie's numbers. So why hasn't the DNC called for Hillary Clinton to speak about what her campaign supporters did at the convention instead of speaking about one guy knocking over a chair?

Third, there was a guy (Wendell Pierce) who attacked a Bernie supporter (not in Nevada). Where was the DNC in telling Hillary to speak about it? Where was Harry Reid? Did Bernie blame Hillary for it?

Fourth, this isn't tangible violence to persons, i.e. blood, guts, missing limbs, and death like what happened to innocent adults and children being bombed in Iraq or Libya. When will Hillary apologize for her support of bombing Iraq and on-the-ground troops? When will she apologize for death threats against the Iraqi people that someone else made with her support? When will Hillary apologize for her lack of a plan in Libya and all the needless death that occurred? Who will hold her to account, the DNC, the media? No, they will continue to go after Bernie and provide cover for Clinton, like they've been doing since his campaign began.

I don't know much about what happened in Neveda, but the uncomfortable truth is that HRC has beaten Bernie. The ironic aspect here is that the Bernster can only win if all the super delegates change to Bernie. Little known fact that HRC is far more popular votes (more than 3 million) and more pledged delegates. Bernie is also trying to "steal" the election by coercing the super dudes to switch their allegiance. Bernie is no savior. He's using whatever tactic that he can to try to win also.

 

[Rhea]

I do not think those people are justified in being angry.

I acknowledge that the thrown chair is probably not accurate. The death threats are, and ALWAYS serious. I'm surprised you would say they are not. They sound horrifying. "We know where your grandchildren are"!?! You're brushing that off?

But there IS NO JUSTIFICATION FOR THOSE THINGS. Full stop. No amount of political error justifies death threats. (!!)

Also, the Sanders campaign has not been kind to us, by making these statements about "60 delegates removed,"
Come on. 54 of them DID NOT SHOW UP. You can't seat someone who is not there. And the fact that you are repeating it to justify death threats shows the campaign's culpability in letting this get this far.
Only TWO were turned away for lack of eligibility - they did not become Demoncrats in time.
Two.
And he lost by 30.



He made a perfectly legal bid to overturn the will of the voters.
He rounded up delegates and secured more than Clinton. Well done, using the rules.
... I don't actually like those rules, but they were the rules.
Then he didn't get them to register or show up.
NOT the DNC's fault.


So not ONLY are death threats OF COURSE not justified,
Anger isn't justified, either.
Shouting slurs at the chair isn't justified.
Shouting down speakers isn't justified.

And Sanders' people could have saved us all the anguish and anger by being clear about what they did and were doing.
They fell down on the job.

And all of this poor behavior is driving people away from the campaign, damnit!
Lots of Americans don'tt want to pal around with thugs.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I do not think those people are justified in being angry.

I acknowledge that the thrown chair is probably not accurate. The death threats are, and ALWAYS serious. I'm surprised you would say they are not. They sound horrifying. "We know where your grandchildren are"!?! You're brushing that off?

But there IS NO JUSTIFICATION FOR THOSE THINGS. Full stop. No amount of political error justifies death threats. (!!)

I wrote "serious" as in no one was going to go kill someone. The actual threat was not serious.

But to add, Bernie did not make those threats.

Also, the Sanders campaign has not been kind to us, by making these statements about "60 delegates removed,"
Come on. 54 of them DID NOT SHOW UP. You can't seat someone who is not there. And the fact that you are repeating it to justify death threats shows the campaign's culpability in letting this get this far.

I did not justify death threats. I did not excuse them. I wrote that when you have that many people who are pissed off, you're going to have some few people who go and do something stupid in reaction.

Only TWO were turned away for lack of eligibility - they did not become Demoncrats in time.
Two.
And he lost by 30.

He made a perfectly legal bid to overturn the will of the voters.
He rounded up delegates and secured more than Clinton. Well done, using the rules.
... I don't actually like those rules, but they were the rules.
Then he didn't get them to register or show up.
NOT the DNC's fault.

So not ONLY are death threats OF COURSE not justified,
Anger isn't justified, either.
Shouting slurs at the chair isn't justified.
Shouting down speakers isn't justified.

And Sanders' people could have saved us all the anguish and anger by being clear about what they did and were doing.
They fell down on the job.

And all of this poor behavior is driving people away from the campaign, damnit!
Lots of Americans don'tt want to pal around with thugs.

Please source your information.

I see that you did not respond to other points there in my post and I'd like to know why.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Please source your information.

Every source I've read had Bernie ~30 ahead and then ~60 got eliminated so that Hillary went ahead. The people making those decisions were Hillary supporters.

The people who didn't show up were a different pool (again according to the sources I read).

For example, Bernie had something like 2100 marked as delegates but only around 1700 showed up. While Clinton had around 1700 marked as delegates and 98% (around 1700) showed up. It was out of those who SHOWED UP who were refused seats, 64 refused seats for Sanders and 8 for Clinton.

 

[untermensche]

This isn't democracy.

 

[Deepak]

What CNN would have you think it looked like:

What it actually looked like:

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOwxA69bQMk[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Tristan Scott]

A few other items from the Nevada convention. After the first count was announced it was obvious that there were a substantial number of delegates that did not show up from both camps, and that the number of Alternate delegates from both camps were not even going to be enough to make up the short fall. At that point it was announced that all the alternates were going to be seated.

Look, you have to show up to the convention. For the weeks leading up to the convention I volunteered making phone calls to delegates and alternates to make sure they were going to be to the convention, and at what times they were to be there, when they had to register on line, etc. I was surprised at how few people would even answer their phones and how few would return calls. I have no doubt that Sanders people were doing the same thing.

When I was giving people their credentials the morning of the convention, there were very few that didn't do their pre-registering, but with over 3000 delegates there were some problems.

And yeah, this is democracy. It's only going to work if everyone shows up. IOW, the results are proportional to the effort

You think there was a conspiracy of some sort? Thats complete and utter bullshit. The people who never volunteer for anything believe that shit and they get what they get. Fuck 'em.

 

[Rhea]

Please source your information.

I was going from memory of articles that I read. I'm not going to look it all up again, I'm afraid. I am looking to be positive and that means not getting in an argument about details that I'm already satisfied with. What I do know from a quick effort to find those exact articles again for you is this: the people who were not accepted were not democrats. They knew the rules of this event. They should have been well-coached by the Sanders campaign. I would HOPE Sanders' people would work hard at this, wouldn't you?

They were not registered for the convention as Democrats.

I applauded Sanders for applying to run as a Dem. He said it was because he had a better chance using Dem rules/systems than using his own independent system. He said in September that it was because he wanted the left united behind his ideas and did not want to risk a GOP win. So he ran with the Dems to make one unified left position. He felt he had a chance to be that winner.

I agreed with him. I thought he did have a chance. I personally felt I couldn't lose because if he got the nomination, great, and if he didn't, his campaign would move whoever did win to the left.
He had that going for a while and now he is fucking that up. Alas. He decided, it seems, to "go for broke;" meaning he wants the win only and is willing to risk losing ALL the socialist momentum in pursuing it. I'm not that much of a risk-taker when the stakes are this high. And at the beginning of the campaign, he said he was not, either.

Meanwhile, none of the rules that he signed on for have changed since the day he CHOSE to use this method.
And so many of his supporters are now ANGRY over the rules he chose to sign up for. He should correct them and remind them why he CHOSE to run as a Dem within the Dem rules.


If there were no Superdelegates, we don't know that Bernie would have done well. Others might have run - maybe even Trump as a Dem. It's what happened to the GOP. They got someone that NO one in the party likes.

I see that you did not respond to other points there in my post and I'd like to know why.

Because it's a morass of directionless rage. That's YOUR way of doing politics, not mine. Have fun at it, I don't wish to play. People have been making wildly stupid comments about those of us who _supported_ Sanders and now that we are saying, "hey, I'm not thinking the current direction will work!" y'all are flinging poop and saying we love Hillary and her supporters are just as bad, blah blah blah.

And I don't want to play a game where I say A and you claim I said B. I'm discussing things, calmly, enjoying my coffee and you appear to be spewing froth. So have fun with that, I don't need to answer.

Bottom line for me:
Sanders signed up to play this game with these people. So shut up and play. He has good ideas that need the Dem party to get anywhere. So let's do that.
He's harming what I supported by this whingeing against the Dem party instead of just staying on message and remembering that the GOP is the real concern. Advancing his ideas instead of himself. He ideas could have won, and would definitely have changed the Dem direction. Now I'm not so sure he can.
There are no "buts" about those death threats and I'm disappointed that he did not condemn them thoroughly and without hedging. That's not who I thought he was.
You wanna come and join the Dem System without joining the Dem party? Sounds like you don't want to be seated as a delegate to the Dem convention, sounds like you don't want the Dem nomination.
Which makes me mad because I wanted these ideas in it as adult ideas, not have them driven off for being childish.

 

[Rhea]

A few other items from the Nevada convention. After the first count was announced it was obvious that there were a substantial number of delegates that did not show up from both camps, and that the number of Alternate delegates from both camps were not even going to be enough to make up the short fall. At that point it was announced that all the alternates were going to be seated.

Look, you have to show up to the convention. For the weeks leading up to the convention I volunteered making phone calls to delegates and alternates to make sure they were going to be to the convention, and at what times they were to be there, when they had to register on line, etc. I was surprised at how few people would even answer their phones and how few would return calls. I have no doubt that Sanders people were doing the same thing.

When I was giving people their credentials the morning of the convention, there were very few that didn't do their pre-registering, but with over 3000 delegates there were some problems.

And yeah, this is democracy. It's only going to work if everyone shows up. IOW, the results are proportional to the effort

You think there was a conspiracy of some sort? Thats complete and utter bullshit. The people who never volunteer for anything believe that shit and they get what they get. Fuck 'em.

And this is the other important point for Sanders' camp self-reflection:
If he lost by 30, and he had something like FOUR HUNDRED WHO DID NOT SHOW UP and another 60 who didn't bother registering as Dems, you sound like idiots whingeing about the 30.
Damnit, can we get back to income inequality and breaking up banks and universal health care and stop blaming others for our failure to get 400 people to event they were supposed to be dedicated to attending!?

 

[Tristan Scott]

Second, those people were totally justified in being angry. They got scammed and screwed over because they were the actual majority at the convention by just 30 votes or so. Hillary supporters had a dictator come in and be a Decider. There was no transparency in removing 60 voters from Bernie's numbers. So why hasn't the DNC called for Hillary Clinton to speak about what her campaign supporters did at the convention instead of speaking about one guy knocking over a chair?

This is not what happened. They were initially angry over the early rules vote. They didn't get scammed or screwed of anything. The time for the rules vote was well publicized if they were reading their emails or answering their phone in the weeks leading up to the convention. After the Sanders supporters made their feelings known, the chair gave in and suspended the rules. After this point much of the ruckus was being caused by a relatively small number of Sanders supporters making a lot of noise up by the podium. Then after about a half an hour they calmed down. They were pissing a lot of people off because the front rows were reserved for people with disabilities and the rowdies were invading their space. Anyway, the media has overstated the problems as usual. They have a vested interest in there being as much discord and controversy as possible.

None of the vote announcements had Sanders leading. The first preliminary announcement had him down by about 60 votes and the second by about 35. That was because about 20-25 of those delegates that weren't initially on the Master List had proof of registration on them and were given credentials. The others did not have proof that they were delegates or alternates.

The ruckus towards the end of the convention was mostly due to the way they organized the delegate voting which was a total cluster fuck. District three, which is Clark county and included about 3/4 of the delegates stayed in the main hall for their voting. At this point it seemed that the organizers were just making it up as they went along. It became apparent that the method they were using was going to take all night so they finally had everyone just fill out a ballot and hand them in with out any controls-it was really a joke, but there was no foul play, just totally disorganized.

The leadership recognized these problems and announced on several occasions that they felt big changes were needed, I agree, but also there needs to be more participation by people who join the party. If hundreds of thousands of people join the party in the state only to vote for one candidate, with no other involvement this is what is going to happen because there aren't enough volunteers to handle the number of people participating.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Hillary supporter present ripped up his ballot and left because he was so disgusted at what was happening to democracy in Nevada:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kss5f9EbHc

A Hillary supporter, Erin Bilbrary's father.

Robert's Rules of Order are the most well-known rules, but the minority voted for dictatorship and got it.

Then, this minority did not follow the charter by-laws.

 

[Rhea]

Don - you do realize that Tristan, posting just above you, WAS THERE, right? Just so you can understand what you're hearing here?
He received all of the same e-mails and calls and knew what was happening. All the delegates had this opportunity.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Don - you do realize that Tristan, posting just above you, WAS THERE, right? Just so you can understand what you're hearing here?
He received all of the same e-mails and calls and knew what was happening. All the delegates had this opportunity.

Yes, I know he was there. So were a number of other people who made videos about the terrible things that happened. Should we discount everyone but Tristan?

Besides that, it is well covered in news media what happened with the counts. Bernie did indeed have ~30 more people but ~64 were not allowed to be seated.

 

[arkirk]

Don - you do realize that Tristan, posting just above you, WAS THERE, right? Just so you can understand what you're hearing here?
He received all of the same e-mails and calls and knew what was happening. All the delegates had this opportunity.

Yes, I know he was there. So were a number of other people who made videos about the terrible things that happened. Should we discount everyone but Tristan?

Besides that, it is well covered in news media what happened with the counts. Bernie did indeed have ~30 more people but ~64 were not allowed to be seated.

It really is a matter of a party that is run by the filthy rich screwing the public and calling itself somehow better than a Republican screw job. The Democratic party has already screwed itself with all the closed primaries when the country contains so many people who decline to define themselves as belonging to one party or the other. Those PISSED OFF VOTERS...you really don't have any answers for them and they may just vote for Trump or stay home...and Hillary can go down in flames and take the rest of the country with her. There are countless reasons why Hillary should drop out....but to her narcissistic view (similar to Trumps) she does not recognize how much the people of this country revile her for her lies, her betrayals, her cheating, etc. Nevada is just the tip of the iceberg...and there was NO VIOLENCE DONE THERE BY SANDERS SUPPORTERS. There were no arrests, no chairs thrown, and there was no danger to Boxer either. These gals will do or say about anything to obtain the presidency for their imitation Margaret Thatcher war loving candidate.

 

[untermensche]

The thing is after Hillary loses because she is as corrupt as the Democratic Party she will make more for her worthless speeches.

A political system where money rules is an insane political system at the mercy of the most corruptible.

 

[Tristan Scott]

Don - you do realize that Tristan, posting just above you, WAS THERE, right? Just so you can understand what you're hearing here?
He received all of the same e-mails and calls and knew what was happening. All the delegates had this opportunity.

Yes, I know he was there. So were a number of other people who made videos about the terrible things that happened. Should we discount everyone but Tristan?

Besides that, it is well covered in news media what happened with the counts. Bernie did indeed have ~30 more people but ~64 were not allowed to be seated.

So, this is the same news media that said chairs were thrown and all the other bullshit that didn't happen. So now we'll just cherry pick what we want to believe. Sanders was represented in all the counts, were those representatives interviewed? Did they say that there were fixes going on? Sanders was represented in all of the committees, just as Clinton was. The only complaints I heard from those representatives had to do with the rules, but like I said, after the intense protest the rules were suspended. That was announced but the fuckers were still booing so loud they probably didn't hear it.

I might point out that the reason for the rules was because after the Clark County convention where the rowdy Sanders delegates were making it so no-one could even hear what was happening on the podium and because people who weren't scheduled to speak (not Sanders people, but small local politicians) were grabbing the microphone with and making self promoting speeches, the whole thing was a fiasco, they made stringent rules that the Sanders people didn't like.

Voice voting was another problem, many of the Sanders supporters were younger while many Clinton supporters were elderly. So my question is that democracy should not be reliant as to who is the loudest. They need to change that as well, but changes in a party have to come from within. You can't expect to change a party's rules or their philosophy without getting involved in the party. A vas majority of Sanders supporters don't get that.

 

[arkirk]

Yes, I know he was there. So were a number of other people who made videos about the terrible things that happened. Should we discount everyone but Tristan?

Besides that, it is well covered in news media what happened with the counts. Bernie did indeed have ~30 more people but ~64 were not allowed to be seated.

So, this is the same news media that said chairs were thrown and all the other bullshit that didn't happen. So now we'll just cherry pick what we want to believe. Sanders was represented in all the counts, were those representatives interviewed? Did they say that there were fixes going on? Sanders was represented in all of the committees, just as Clinton was. The only complaints I heard from those representatives had to do with the rules, but like I said, after the intense protest the rules were suspended. That was announced but the fuckers were still booing so loud they probably didn't hear it.

I might point out that the reason for the rules was because after the Clark County convention where the rowdy Sanders delegates were making it so no-one could even hear what was happening on the podium and because people who weren't scheduled to speak (not Sanders people, but small local politicians) were grabbing the microphone with and making self promoting speeches, the whole thing was a fiasco, they made stringent rules that the Sanders people didn't like.

Voice voting was another problem, many of the Sanders supporters were younger while many Clinton supporters were elderly. So my question is that democracy should not be reliant as to who is the loudest. They need to change that as well, but changes in a party have to come from within. You can't expect to change a party's rules or their philosophy without getting involved in the party. A vas majority of Sanders supporters don't get that.

I think you are missing the boat, buddy.... The Democratic Party has its headquarters and true leadership in a back office at Goldman Sachs. These people will make sure that those interested in true democracy do not have a chance in their party. They reduce democracy to dollars spent. That philosophy often does not win in small races...and sometimes big ones as well. The Sanders supporters have never been allowed in the party to much of a degree and they are always kept at the outer edges. The proof is just watching Hillary. She will not woo the very people who will either stay home of vote for Trump in November...and then she will have to woo Trump himself. (Something I could actually see her doing, just like she befriends Kissinger. With friends like that, do you think the gives a shit about a hotel worker or bus driver or school teacher...hardly!