Please forgive my simpleminded question

[Jackpine Radical]

(it's the best my simple mind can come up with), but how you can fight Big Money with Big Money?

It seems that Big Money wins either way, because the only candidates who can win in this model are the ones whose policies are sufficiently acceptable to Big Money.

Here is Tweedle Dee, who supports TPP, Keystone, corporate and bank deregulation, Middle Eastern wars, gay rights, gun control, and right to choice.

Mr. Dee is running against Mr. Tweedle Dum, who supports TPP, Keystone, corporate and bank deregulation, DOMA, MIddle Eastern wars, concealed carry of howitzers, and Right to Life (from conception to birth, anyway.)

Big Money doesn't give a shit about gay rights, abortion, or, for the most part, gun control. Both candidates support the positions they do care about--positions that will ultimately lead to ruin.

[randys1]

1. Remember what one of the smartest men of the 20th century said, proves you right BTW

[daleanime]

2. K&R.....

[F4lconF16]

16. Does your username come from QC? nt

[Cheese Sandwich]

3. Here's one answer...

Need a political revolution. Corporate aristocracy vs. grassroots uprising ... everybody pick a side.

[F4lconF16]

5. I vote for a real revolution.

I'd be interested to see where Sanders stood on that.

[F4lconF16]

4. Disagree (and VERY strongly, at that)

They very much give a shit about things like abortion rights and gay rights. Both are fundamental to our understanding of gender equality, and capitalism depends on the oppression of women and sharply defined gender rolls.

A post of mine from a while back:

They care about racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry very much. You said as much yourself.

"And by having these serious differences they know they can keep us fighting between left and right while they get what they want on things that do matter to them"

It has been a tactic of the American elite since its very beginning. Our political and economic system is uniquely designed to fracture the working class, to keep us from uniting. It's why laws were passed in the early 1800s forbidding interracial communications--the poor Irish and the slaves were beginning to cause worry. It's why whites and blacks have had their hatreds stoked by their literal and financial masters against one another for the last 200 years. It's why gay marriage isn't legal everywhere yet, despite a majority of people supporting it. It's why women are still discriminated against (though there is a far, far longer history to that than just our political system, and indeed, political systems at all). Our entire political history has been carefully balanced oppression stacked on top of and woven into more carefully balanced oppression. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. So far it's worked more than it hasn't.

It is absolutely critical to keep us divided amongst ourselves. The elite care more about those issues than you might think, because without them, the people will realize their own power as one. They will become a single working class, rather than blacks and whites, men and women, straight and gay. We are a dangerous mass of humanity that would roll over them like the ocean rolls over a few pebbles.

This is why these social issues are just as important as the economic ones, the power struggles. They are utterly critical to maintaining the illusion that there is no true working class, that we are separate, different from one another. The elite care very much about maintaining that illusion.

The reason we see a split is because our two-party system has to have some differences, and equality is a rather popular demand. By having one party concede to those issues, the elite can "address" these inequalities without fundamentally changing anything. It is a deradicalizing tactic.

[MisterP]

13. the differences are there mostly to keep us voting for the similarities

[sabrina 1]

20. I doubt most of them give much thought to those issues. For them it's about

class and money. IF you're part of THEIR very small group, and you're Gay, it won't matter to them. Or Black, or a Woman.

But I do agree with your second sentence:

"And by having these serious differences they know they can keep us fighting between left and right while they get what they want on things that do matter to them"

Absolutely, they have to keep the illusion of democracy going so that the people don't notice that both parties will make sure to support THEM on the issues that really do matter to them.

So, they 'allow' their employees in the Dem Party to support minority rights, even get a bill or so to the floor, maybe even passed.

For their Repub emploees in Congress, they get the anti-minority rights issues and as you said, we the people keep fighting over those issues while they are passing, as Clinton did, legislation that benefits THEM.

It didn't dawn on me how the game was played until I began to notice that each time a bill we wanted to pass came up, Repubs naturally would vote against it, and always, just enough Dems to help it get passed.

Then the next time such a bill comes, different Dems get to vote for it to help the Repubs get it through.

I realized finally what a game it is, while we remain divided and NOT talking about the stuff they are pushing through.

One perfect example of this was Gays in the Military. I thought that would pass in Jan 2009 because we had a majority for one thing, and most Americans were in favor of it. I was shocked when Obama's DOJ fought the court ruling saying it was unconstitutional for Gays to be denied that right.

It made no sense. At the same time, the Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy was coming up for renewal. I thought they would end, everyone did.

Instead, all of a sudden they are talking about Gays in the Military, but 'he had to extend the Bush tax cuts or it wouldn't have passed'.

So I realized they intended to extend the Bush Tax Cuts but knew it would be very controversial, By holding up the Gays in the Military issue until it could be used as a bargaining chip, it lessened the outrage over the extension of the Bush tax cuts.

It's all a game to them. We are not even players, just spectators, and only to what they allow us to see.

[Bluenorthwest]

6. What a privilege soaked and elitist point of view.

Message received loud and clear however.

[Jackpine Radical]

12. I guess that's just because I'm a privilege-soaked and elitist sort of person.

Like, I really think we need more women and minorities among the ship's officers, but I'm not able to attend the meeting on the topic just now because I happened to notice that the ship is headed for an iceberg and maybe we need to do something about that.

Any candidate I would prefer to vote for would be strong on the "social issues" as well as the economic ones. And, when it comes down to it, I'll no doubt drag my privilege-soaked and elitist butt down and vote for the Democrat in November 2016, as I fully imagine just about everyone on this board will do.

[F4lconF16]

14. Damn, Jackpine, that was condescending as hell.

Like, I really think we need more women and minorities among the ship's officers, but I'm not able to attend the meeting on the topic just now because I happened to notice that the ship is headed for an iceberg and maybe we need to do something about that.

Wow.

Man, if there's one thing I've learned since becoming a socialist, it's that you can't avoid the iceberg without the cooperation of the women and minorities who are stuck in the crappy, non-officer jobs. You forget that this isn't a ship controlled by the officers--it may be directed by them, but it sure as heck doesn't run because of them. To change course, you're going to need just about everyone but the officers, actually, because the officers are the ones aiming for the iceberg.

Now, I know you support social change. Most people here do. And I know that whatever candidate you vote for will as well. So it's really unfortunate that you are relegating these critical issues to a "meeting" in the ship, when in reality it's the entire rest of the ship except for the officer's room. I've read enough of your pieces to know that you have an excellent control of language. That you diminish the reality of the problems women and minorities face through your language says something, and it's not a good thing. "Their issues" are our issues, and our white, privilege-soaked butts would do well to remember that.

[Jackpine Radical]

19. Wow, did I cobble up a lousy metaphor, one that totally mis-communicates my intention.

I understand the necessity for social justice and equality, and believe I have always worked for those ends. The notion of voting for a politician who doesn't share my views in this arena would never cross my mind. I have seen a lot of the underside of society, and am quite aware of what life is like for those on the bottom.

The social issues are of great importance to me. However, being on the "right side" (by which I mean left side) of those issues is not sufficient.

Unless our species wakes up really fast, we are about to destroy ourselves, and take most of the biosphere with us. Fighting for a more socially just society is part of the picture, of course. But by itself it is not sufficient to save us.

[Warpy]

7. Social issues are all we've got left

and these are of vital importance to women, sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers of girls. They're also important to LGBT people, who are finally starting to achieve civil equality.

Other than that, we've got a choice between banksters and oil barons. The major difference between the two is that the oil barons want more wars. The banksters only want to keep beggaring everybody as they weave a web of trade deals it will probably take a world war or world wide depression to wipe out.

The system is unsustainable and will collapse under the weight at the top, this is inevitable. The only real question is who will look out for any of us at the top. With Democrats being correct on social issues, I'll vote for them.

[KoKo]

8. Interesting.....

Big Money doesn't give a shit about gay rights, abortion, or, for the most part, gun control. Both candidates support the positions they do care about--positions that will ultimately lead to ruin.

[aspirant]

9. When you have convinced people that money

is the supreme power, then it becomes just that. It is the ultimate security to the Big Money people.

When the people realize that unity, equality, sharing and love for one another is in reality the supreme power, it becomes just that. GO BERNIE.

[djean111]

10. And some people never grasp that Big Money does not care about the social issues, because the social

issues do not cost Big Money anything. Big Money has actually gotten people to believe that they can only have social issues at the expense of economic issues.

Well played, Big Money!

[F4lconF16]

15. See Post 4.

Big Money cares very much. Those social issues are of utmost importance to them. Gay rights, for instance, upsets the gender norms, family construction, and women's oppression that capitalism depends so heavily on. Granting those rights is another crack in the structure of the system, and it's why, despite huge majorities in support of them, those rights have not been granted at a federal level.

It also shows a big part of the problem is with the Democratic party. They have steadfastly refused to fight for minority rights without qualification, and I will have no part of that. I want all rights for all people, and I want them now. I will continue to agitate until that happens.

I do agree with this:

Big Money has actually gotten people to believe that they can only have social issues at the expense of economic issues.

[djean111]

17. Oh, I agree that the rich care about those issues as a way of keeping us divided.

Do rich people and corporations actually care if gay people can get married? Except for the religious ones, nope. Gay marriage just keeps us squabbling and distracted. AND THAT IS NOT TO SAY GAY MARRIAGE IS TRIVIAL. The rich have trivialized gay marriage in order to use it as a shiny object.

[F4lconF16]

18. Thanks for clarifying.

I agree with what you said here. I guess my problem with the phrasing "the rich don't care about social issues" is that it then implies that we should primarily be focused on economic ones. This OP is a good example, and only serves to alienate people we desparately need on our side. Their issues are just as important as the economic ones, if not more so, because it has never once been the oppressing class that made a drastic change in society--only the oppressed.

[whereisjustice]

11. Think of Clinton Global Initiative like... Monsanto's genetically modified crops

Monsanto will claim they are saving the world with their crops. When it turns out the side effects are making weeds resistant to herbicides, they'll sell you stronger, more poisonous herbicides. The new problems are worse than the original problems, and they require you to buy more of their products because only Monsanto has the formula for combating the weeds & disease they helped make. Making things worse, the genetically modified crops require more water and are less robust, in general. Monsanto doesn't give a shit about people, farmers, towns, health, etc.

The Clinton Global Initiative argues that to solve difficult social problems created by corporations you can sell corporations legislative access in return for cash to the Clintons, who then promise spend it in ways "helping" that are not 100% transparent.

Of course the laws benefit corporations exclusively, giving them rights and entitlements that only serve to make our social problems (poverty, joblessness, wage suppression, human rights, lack of health care and education) worse. Take a look at Exxon in Nigeria, it has been a disaster for the environment and human rights. Exxon can greenwash their culpability with a modest investment in the Clinton Initiative and in return gain critical political influence. That's just one of many, many examples. And the cycle continues.

If you think for one second that Hillary, Bill and Chelsea have any interest in eliminating the causes of our slow steady national decline, you are in denial. NAFTA, cruel welfare reform, banking deregulation, aggressive blood soaked foreign policy, believe it or not, you can trace these to the Clinton Philosophy, aka the 3rd way, which is just a media friendly word for a different kind of fascism.

Millions of lost jobs (and ruined lives here in the US) don't make up for slick videos shown to billionaires at an exclusive Morroccan resort.

Oh, and I almost forgot the answer to your question - corporations don't invest big money to solve social problems. They invest big money to gain legislative access for laws and regulations that will earn them a sizable return in profit, regardless of the human costs.

[merrily]

21. Rest, dear, wise, fun friend. Pinned for today in tribute as memorial service is today in Wisconsin.

K & R too.

[demwing]

22. Thank you

for this most excellent pin

[merrily]

23. You were simple-minded like a fox, my friend, only with a

far better gift for clever puns.