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Pener Kropoopkin posted:there needs to be an organized campaign of disruption in the Democratic Party and all of its functions. 1968 WILL COMMENCE AGAIN if dems think they can keep doing this bipartisan horseshit and slide to the right. 1968 needs to commence again before it will happen. Too many folks want to throw bombs from the outside instead of squatting feculently in the heart of the party and forcing out anyone who goes right. The tea party provided the blueprint: 1. Get local folks elected who are solidly left, particularly in heavily Democratic areas. No reason for a centrist in a +30 Dem area, particularly for local races. 2. Threaten a primary for any incumbent in a solid Dem seat that tries to be centrist. 3. Actually primary someone to put some fear in the rest. 4. loving pack the rafters for local party poo poo, particularly right after the election. Learn the rules and how to get people elected party officers. 5. Keep showing up, and show up in big numbers. Make any centrist leaders afraid to lose people if they do stupid poo poo. 6. Don't be afraid to call yourself a Democrat while saying how you support single payer, UBI, criminal justice reform, etc.
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Oct 10, 2018 22:16
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Raskolnikov38 posted:please don't actually recreate 1968 down the letter, nothing was more counterproductive than loving everything the goddamn yippies did Well yeah, we can't just do poo poo to "own the chuds", look at how that's working out for the other side right now. My point is that the only way to drag the Democratic Party left is by getting in there and fighting for it. Not gonna change anything from the outside.
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Oct 10, 2018 22:26
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MizPiz posted:The whole "getting in there" is an all too massive hurdle. Sometimes it's better to just let dying parties die. Just lol if you think the Dems will ever die on their own. Being a party out of power is the straight ticket to bilking donations and doing nothing while racking up consulting fees. Only way to change poo poo is to barge in and say "this is mine now" and then fight whoever tries to take it back.
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Oct 10, 2018 22:49
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Wraith of J.O.I. posted:scroll down for endless succ.... who the gently caress is pining for klobuchar? she has barely any charisma and next to no national presence As a Minnesotan, she's the centrist dream candidate. In a state that nearly went Trump, the GOP isn't even bothering to challenge her seriously. She carefully manages her reputation as a competent, bipartisan legislator.
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Oct 10, 2018 22:50
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Wraith of J.O.I. posted:don’t have a good handle on house leadership, is there any chance nancy could lose her leadership in 2019, because FFFFFuck this Really depends on how the election goes. Nobody is even making a peep about challenging her now because her SuperPAC is flush with cash and spending on competitive districts, and no one wants to kill the goose laying golden eggs. Gonna get interesting after the election though, particularly if some new folks want to show their "independent" bonafides.
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Oct 10, 2018 23:06
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Magres posted:In the 2010 midterms, 129 Tea Partiers ran for the House, and 9 for the Senate. They mostly lost, and yet here we are in 2018. The establishment GOP loving hated them, now they ARE the establishment GOP. Exactly. After 2010, they didn't go away. They out hustled the establishment in primary after primary, and now you've got "RINOs" like Collins from blue areas voting for Kavanaugh.
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Oct 10, 2018 23:09
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anime was right posted:also if a lot of candidates sense they have a better chance winning WITHOUT her money... Out here every GOP candidate is gonna attack every Dem as tied to Pelosi, even if they've never met and the candidate gets no money from Pelosi or her SuperPAC, and no matter what the candidate does it's all about how they're an ULTRALIBERAL like Pelosi (lol) even if they're the most centrist of centrist. No one's turning down her money, because the GOP attacks them whether or not they get any.
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Oct 10, 2018 23:18
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Magres posted:Way to ignore the important part of the post you dingdong. Ding ding ding ding ding If I got a centrist Dem, they might vote correct a bunch of the time without prompting. We can badger them on the rest and probably bring that up, but only if they fear a primary more than the general. How often is anyone in the GOP voting how I want? How often can they be badgered into voting correctly? The next primary, get them the gently caress out if they don't shape up and move left.
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Oct 10, 2018 23:25
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The problem is not picking the right battles. AOC is a great example, heavy blue district had no business having a poo poo centrist in there, Feinstein and Menendez should go, they're both way right of their constituents. Manchin, Heitkamp, Donnelly, don't waste resources fighting them when there's far better targets. If you can get them, mores the better, if not oh well. We can and should be able to build a durable governing base without needing to elect Dems in loving North Dakota or West Virginia, the reddest of red areas.
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Oct 10, 2018 23:37
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Magres posted:Who said threaten them with primarying, like literally Part 1 of the Tea Party getting rolling was actually primarying establishment GOP en masse. Yep, and that isn't something that happens in one election cycle, gotta build up infrastructure to keep coming back.
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Oct 10, 2018 23:38
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WampaLord posted:But they have giant war chests because they're good at the only thing our political system actually cares about, fundraising You're ascribing a lot of competence to folks whose actual competence varies wildly. Not saying every shitlib is vulnerable, but it doesn't take a lot of actual victories to put the fear in a bunch of empty shirts and, at a minimum, push them left.
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Oct 10, 2018 23:45
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DOLLA DOLLA BILL Y'ALL
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anime was right posted:no the point is taking pac money would be poison Don't gotta take PAC money to have a PAC run an attack campaign against your opponent. But yeah, taking actual PAC money officially would be poison.
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Oct 10, 2018 23:47
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D.Ork Bimboolean posted:It takes a lot of time and willingness to suffer setbacks and defeats, especially when you're not astroturfed three ways from Sunday and have a half century of propaganda coming into every pore all around you from diverse sources of media. Dems have been hanging on for dear life since 2009, trying to prevent the worst from happening, and now that they finally lost a good amount, some bad stuff is happening. Not gonna turn that around in one cycle, but keeping control of the House by any means necessary through 2020 to get districts redrawn and prevent something worse from happening is a good first step. Lots of other poo poo needs to happen simultaneously though, and none of it at the polls.
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Oct 10, 2018 23:58
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D.Ork Bimboolean posted:This is true but also we're already at a state of fascist and corruption normalization, that even a 'nice' democratic victory now and even in 2020 isn't going to hit the pause button. It will just let them regroup, blame all the ills they created on the weak liberals who will waffle and vasselate and compromise on anything they can, continuing the trend of sacrificing the left to hold off defeat until its too late again and we get another round of this. I view voting as a necessary condition to stopping and reversing the creeping fascism we're seeing now, but it is by no means sufficient to stop it. Voting themselves in is just one vector for fascism, and that particular vector must absolutely be countered with voting for folks who will stop fascism's legal spread. At a minimum, every election must be viewed as a chance to at least slow it down. The real work of stopping fascism cannot be left to politicians or even be done by them alone, but they can help and they can hurt, so we at least gotta engage in that part of the fight.
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Oct 11, 2018 00:10
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King of Solomon posted:You need state legislatures to redraw the congressional maps in your favor, not the federal house. Sorry, you're right, but I think my overall point stands. Control of the House can and will stop some loving supervillain laws from coming down. Now that Kavanaugh is confirmed, if Roe gets overturned and we don't get control of the House back, they will absolutely ban abortion nationwide if not stopped. States will still do it individually, but that can be reversed if we win in 2020.
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Oct 11, 2018 00:14
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anime was right posted:the democrats controlled the house for an enormous amount of the entire country's lifespan and even in their control things have gotten significantly worse economically Democrats have been lovely for a while, but unlike the GOP, have a chance to be not lovely.
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Oct 11, 2018 00:23
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:love to think the political horizon is just reflexively defending the established law from decades ago. q poo poo, not saying we shouldn't get better, but with Trump's veto pen, good luck getting anything meaningful through. Fixing this poo poo is a multi year project and the first step when you're falling down a mountain is to arrest your slide, not stand back up and try to march upwards.
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Oct 11, 2018 00:26
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Taintrunner posted:You could stop here because you make it pretty obvious you haven't thought beyond 2016. Yes, we can't fix everything in one magic election, better consign ourselves to never improving and just give up. Much better that way.
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Oct 11, 2018 00:28
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:hokey analogies aren't going to make your position any more compelling. you can't even really run on protecting the law when Nancy Pelosi is already ruling out impeaching Kavanaugh. Democrats are just rolling over and showing their belly, and if you think this can be changed through the party process then you're insanely naive. Okay, then what's the strategy to keep Republicans from rolling the gently caress on for the next decade while the Dems truly implode?
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Oct 11, 2018 01:05
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:If the opposition is not even willing to entertain notions of campaigning for necessary reform, then the only option left is The Terror. A bunch of these senators just got re-elected. They have nothing to fear but the terror. Yeah, just lol if you don't think the fastest way to get our own version of the Enabling Act passed is exactly that plan. If the choices are between "violent insurrection that gets crushed by the unholy combination of the police state and the military industrial complex" and "vote and work for social change", I think I'll try for the latter thanks.
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Oct 11, 2018 01:13
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THS posted:hows the latter been going anyway about as good as the former ever went, really. i mean, if violent revolution was any more effective, there surely would be a worker's paradise somewhere around the world, wouldn't there? it couldn't be that violent revolution has always failed to bring about meaningful change, right?
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Oct 11, 2018 01:18
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docbeard posted:I feel like maybe we could do more than one thing. Yeah, I am absolutely not saying that voting alone will change things and that we can just vote and trust politicians to do the right thing. I'm saying that there is value in voting and that there are better or worse outcomes.
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Oct 11, 2018 01:21
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Taintrunner posted:holy poo poo you're a loving moron So, what's the plan then? I'm still waiting for anyone to bring up a plan that doesn't involve "yelling noisily while waiting for death".
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Oct 11, 2018 01:23
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:I referred to the terror to be illustrative, not that we should literally chop off all their heads. Although, if you don't think violent revolution ever worked then what country do you think you're living in? I'm being actually serious here. If you're talking about an actual plan to make them fear "the people", then explain to me how the police state will not absolutely stamp the poo poo out of that.
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Oct 11, 2018 01:26
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Haha yeah, good luck with turning local antifa action into something that doesn't get literally crushed by the police state. I'm sure you'll feel very superior as we descend further into poo poo because you weren't a part of the problem by voting. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Oct 11, 2018 01:33
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MizPiz posted:"Violent revolution has never achieved anything!"
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Oct 11, 2018 01:37
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THS posted:i vote too, but i also understand that everything people like you believe in, and what you dont believe in, has led to where we are now, and thats why youre a bad person
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Oct 11, 2018 01:39
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THS posted:you literally have to believe in magic to conclude Making The Democrats Better is going to somehow save us from catastrophic ecological ruin Still waiting to hear something that isn't equally magical for how to stop it "make their lives a living hell" is as far as anyone's gotten, and that's just as magical if you think that they won't use the police state to crush that poo poo right down.
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Oct 11, 2018 01:40
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:Hey, say what you will about the Symbionese Liberation Army, but they proved that brainwashing is viable. Still waiting on what your idea is to prevent a slide into fascism beyond "shitpost and hope for the best"
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Oct 11, 2018 01:41
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Cadaver_Maclaine posted:What possible reason would the Dem establishment have to do anything other than deck chair re-arrangement in the absence of something they fear more than the wrath of their donors?
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Oct 11, 2018 01:43
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THS posted:so youre admitting that your small horizon of possibility is magical thinking when faced with the actual challenges humanity is confronting I don't? The tea party has given us a viable plan to push the party way the gently caress left, and they've done it in spite of their donor base, who would no doubt prefer Jeb! to whatever the gently caress is happening right now. Use it to make Bernie a centrist in the Democratic party the way that McConnell is a centrist in the GOP right now. That's a loving plan right there, and it's worked in the last few years.
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Oct 11, 2018 01:45
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Son of Thunderbeast posted:What's your plan, beyond "vote and hope for the best," you sealioning gently caress I've pretty much laid it out, the exact tea party plan, but for the left. Or you can just sit back and hope for the best, maybe go to a march or two, y'know if you're not busy.
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Oct 11, 2018 01:48
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THS posted:lol if you think the democratic party will allow a hostile takeover. the difference between the tea party taking of the republican party and leftists taking over the democratic party, is that the tea party was not threatening at all to private property and the general tax-cut and looting of the nation by rich people. leftists taking over the democratic party is fundamentally dangerous on an entirely different level. youre talking about aesthetics, not actual changes to political power and more importantly economic power
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Oct 11, 2018 01:49
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Magres posted:wait you actually think vote then sit on your hands between elections is going to do anything good Where the gently caress are you getting that? Voting is one small part of actually affecting change.
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Oct 11, 2018 01:51
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Anyways, consider me vanquished, you can continue to dunk on me at your leisure, I apologize in advance for interrupting your ... whatever the gently caress it is you all do in here. Carry on then.
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Oct 11, 2018 01:52
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Cadaver_Maclaine posted:All right I was just going to probate you for being an insufferable rear end and dodging questions like they were constituents outside a Democrat's office, but this last-shot nonsense had convinced me it's time for a Yeah, I'll give it a run. How long are you looking for?
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Oct 11, 2018 02:31
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MOD CHALLENGE
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Cadaver_Maclaine posted:All right I was just going to probate you for being an insufferable rear end and dodging questions like they were constituents outside a Democrat's office, but this last-shot nonsense had convinced me it's time for a Tell me, great muse, of that industrious worker, who campaigned far and wide after he challenged the mighty legislator of Western Springs. Many union halls did he visit, and many were the potlucks whose casseroles he did consume. Moreover, he suffered much by indigestion while trying to grab a quick bite between house parties while trying to bring victory to his fellow travellers down ticket, but do what he might, he could not bring them victory in their own primaries, for they perished through their own sheer folly in quoting the saged wisdom of the worker-god Marx, so the establishment prevented them from winning by calling them "reds" and "communists". Tell me, too, about all these things O daughter of Kovno, from whatosever source you may know them. So now all who escaped defeat in debate or by intemperate social media post had gone on to raise the necessary signatures to get on the primary ballot, except Odie, and he, though he was determined to have his name on the ballot against the hated Daniel, he was detained by his local DSA chapter's monthly meeting, who had gotten into a debate over whether police organizers are truly comrades and threatened to derail the whole organization. But, as the hours went by, there came a time when the debate was settled, and it was determined that the should all go out to Burbank and finish gathering the necessary signatures to place Odie on the ballot; even then, however, when he was among his own people, his troubles were not yet over; neverthless all the organizers had now begun to support him except the mustachioed Daniel, who still shouted at him without ceasing and would not let him adjourn the meeting. Now, Daniel had gone off to the Cleatuses for dinner, who are at the district's end, and politic in two halves, one on the left and the other on the right. He had gone there to accept an in-kind contribution of donuts and gasolene, and was enjoying himself at the dinner, but the other organizers met at the house of Carl, one of the the steering committee members, and it is this sage who spoke first. At that moment, he was thinking of Eugene Debs, who had been jailed by President Grover Cleveland, so he said to the other members of the steering committee: "See now, how comrades lay blame upon us steering committee members for what is after all nothing but their own folly. Look at Debs; he must needs fight for the worker righteonsly and then resist the draft, though he knew it would be the jail for him; for I sent him a letter to warn him not to do these things, inasmuch as Wilson would be sure to take his revenge. The letter told him this in all good will but he would not listen, and now he has paid for everything in full." Then Frederick said, "Carl, son of Henry, first among equals, it served Debs right, and so it would any one else who does as he did, but Debs is neither here nor there; it is for Odie that my heart bleeds, when I think of his sufferings in that gerrymandered district, on the campaign trail, poor man, away from all his friends. It is a district covered with liberals, in the very middle of the suburbs, and an organizer lives there, son of the union president, who looks after the very depths of the police state, and maintains the very inequality that keeps white supremacy the law. This son of the union president has begun debating poor unhappy Odie, and keeps trying by every kind of blandistment to make him forget his principles, so that he is tired of campaigning, and thinks of nothing but how he may once more see the study of his own well-stocked library. You, sir, take no heed of this, and yet when Odie was considering a run for office, did he not partake with you many a burnt sacrifice? Why then should you keep on being so angry with him?" And Carl said, "My comrade, what are you talking about? How can I forget Odie than whom there is no more capable candidate on earth, no more tireless a fighter for his fellow worker? Bear in mind, however, that Daniel is still furious with Odie for having authored a resolution to begin the proceedings to take a vote of no confidence in Daniel's leadership. Daniel is son to the union president by the venerable Doris, daughter to the treasurer of the pension fund; therefore he will not denounce Odie outright, he torments him by preventing him from ending debate and going out to collect signatures to get on the ballot. Still, let us lay our heads together and see how we can help him to get on the ballot, then the union president will be pacified, for if we are all of a mind he can hardly stand out against us." And Frederick said, "My comrade, son of Henry, first among equals, if, then, the gods now mean that Odie should get the signatures to get on the ballot, we should first send Leonard to the Kinkos in Romeoville to print the necessary forms that we can complete to get on the ballot. In the meantime, I will go to Hodgkins, to put heart into Odie's comrades at the DSA; I will embolden them to organize a canvassing event, and speak to the citizens of their district, who persist in supporting such a terrible person; I will also conduct them to Lockport and to Crest Hill, to talk with undecided primary voters- for this will make people speak well of him." So saying that he railed on about how police officers are truly the very embodiment of the working class, indispensible, with which they can reform the carcerial state; he grasped at his instagram account, wherewith he posts thin blue line memes and quells the ranks of his comrades with talk of solidarity, and down from the podium of the union hall, whereon forthwith he was in debate, at the gateway of the door to the kitchen, disguided as a comrade, Gerald, vice chair of the pipefitters's union, held a poorly copied leaflet in his hand. There he found the assembled comrades seated on chairs of steel which they had set up from the storage closet, and discussing the results of the last football game. Organizers and campaign workers were bustling about to talk with them, some imploring them to support their candidates, some handing out business cards, some trying to organize a fundraiser, and some trying to check their fantasy football teams on their phones. Joey saw him long before anyone else did. He was sitting moodily among the lanyard wearing workers, thinking about Odie, and how he would eject them all from the union hall, if he were to give a rousing speech and be honored as in last year's annual meeting. Thus brooding as he sat among them, he caught sight of Gerald and went straight for the door, for he was vexed that a comrade should be kept waiting for admittance. He seized him by the shoulder in a gesture of cameraderie, and asked for a leaflet. "Welcome," said he, "to our union hall, and when you have partaken of our coffee you shall tell us what you have come for." He led the way as he spoke, and Gerald followed him. When they were within, he took the pamphlet and pinned it to the bulletin board against a load bearing beam, along with many of the other pamphelts of his comrades, and he conducted him to the high podium on which he placed a banner of felt. There was a footstool also, for Gerald was a short man, and he bade him stand on the stool, so that they might look each other eye to eye, and not be annoyed while the others were conversing, and that he might ask him more freely about Odie. A lanyarded boy of barely 18 brought them a pamphet, beautifully printed in a union shop and handed a copy to each of them. A fellow comrade brought them styrofoam cups of black coffee, and bade him drink, for there was a large urn full of the drink, dark and impossibly hot. Then the meeting was called to order, so the men and women took their places on their benches and seats. Forthwith minutes of the last meeting were read by the secretary, reports were delivered by the treasurer and the committee chairs, and all manner of handouts were delivered. At the new business section, and extended discussion was had by all over the progress of the contract negotiations. As the members voiced their displeasure and what they wanted, Gerald leaned in to Joey so that no one could hear them over the heated discussion. "I hope, sir," said he, "that you will not be offended with what I am going to say. Campaigning comes cheap to those who do not pay for it, and all this is done at the cost of one whose ethics lie rotting in some smoky back room or grinding to nothing in the thinktank. If these men were to see my comrade come back to Western Springs, they would pray for longer allotted speaking time rather than a longer warchest, for money would not serve them; but he, alas, has fallen on an ill fate, and even when people do sometimes say that he is coming, we no longer heed them; we shall never see him again. And now, sir, tell me and tell me true, who you are and where you come from. Tell me of your education and mentors, what manner of vehicle you came in, how your staffers brought you to Western Springs, and of what ideology they declared themselves to be- for you cannot have come by public transit. Tell me also truly, for I want to know, are you a stranger to this union hall, or have you been here in my comrades's time? In the old days we had many visitors for my comrade went about much himself." And Gerald answered, "I will tell you truly and particularly all about it. I am Gerald, son of the treasurer of the pension fun, and I am vice chair of the pipefitters's union. I have come here with my brothers and sisters, on a mission to men of another ideology being bound for the beltway with a hefty donation, and I shall bring back favors. As for my vehicle, it lies over yonder many blocks distant, away from the union hall, in the parking lot of the Safeway under the faded glow of a neon sign. Our fathers were friends before us, as old Elmer will tell you, if you will go and ask him. They say, however, that he never comes to the union hall now, and lives by himself in the country, faring hardly, with an old woman to look after him and get his dinner for him, when he comes in tired from puttering about his shop. They told me your comrade was going to speak again, and that was why I came, but it seems meeting agenda is still keeping him back, for he has not yet achieved consensus yet not in the DSA. It is more likely he is on some tangental topic, or fighting a resolution among centrists who are delaying him against his will I am no prophet and know little about parlaimentary procedure, but I speak as it is known to me from previous monthly meetings, and assure you he will not be away much longer; for he is a man of such resource that even though he were in the midst of a vote to close debate on an amendment to a resolution to open debate on the next meeting item, he would find some means of achieving consensus and arriving here to speak. But tell me, and tell me true, can Odie really have such a fine looking fellow for a comrade? You are indeed wonderfully like him about the head and eyes, for we were close comrades before he left for the meeting where the staunchest of workers went also. Since that time, we have never either of us seen the other." "My mentor," answered Telemachus, "tells me I am like a son to Odie, but it is a wise child that knows his own father. Would that I were son to one who had grown rich upon his own comrades, for, since you ask me, there is no more class traitor than he who they tell me is my father." And Gerald said, "There is no fear of your class losing awareness yet, while your fellows have such a fine comrade as you are. But tell me, and tell me true, what is the meaning of all this bloviating, and who are these people? What is it all about? Have you some election, or is there a fundraiser- for no one seems to be bringing any donuts of their own? And the guests- how atrociously they are behaving; what riot they make over the whole hall; it is enough to disgust any respectable person who comes near them." "Sir," said Joey, "as regards your question, so long as my comrade was here it was well with us and with the union, but the comrades in their displeasure have willed it otherwise, and have tied him up in parlaimentary procedure more tightly than any committee chair I know. I could have borne it better even though he were retired, if he had dropped out of the election, or had moved out of the district with his union after the organizing was done; for then the establishment would have gloated in their smoky back rooms, and I should myself have been heir to his renown; but now the infighting has kept him away we know not wither; he is gone without leaving so much as a trace behind him, and I have nothing but dismay. Nor does the matter end simply with grief for the loss of my comrade; the establishment has laid sorrows upon me of yet another kind; for the heads from all our local party units, Lamont, Worth, and the gated community of Chicago Heights, as also all the principal men of the district itself, are betraying my comrades under the pretext of representing them, who will neither point blank say that she will primary them, nor yet not vote for them; so they are making havoc of my district, and before long will do so also with myself." "Is that so?" exclaimed Minerva, "then you do indeed want Odie here again. Give him his social media, volunteers, and a couple cell phones, and if he is the man he was when I first knew him in our union, organizing and building relationships, he would soon lay his hands about these rascally lanyards, were he to stand once more upon his own threshold. He was then coming from Chicago, where he had been to ask support for his campaign from Carl, son of Ray. Carl feared the ever-present establishment and would not give him any support, but my father let him have some, for he was very fond of him. If Odie is the man he then was these lanyards will have a short campaign and a sorry election. "But there! It rests with fate to determine whether he is to return, and take his revenge in his own district or no; I would, however, urge you to set about trying to get rid of these lanyards at once. Take my advice, call the corades in assembly tomorrow -lay your case before them, and call Twitter and Facebook to bear you witness. Bid the lanyards gently caress off, each to his own campaign, and if your comrades' minds are set on electing centrists again, let them go back to their home districts, who will happily elect establishment centrists and provide them with all the lack of support that such loyalty rewards. As for yourself, let me prevail upon you to make the best outreach you can, with a crew of twenty comrades, and go in quest of your comrade who has so long been absent. Some one may tell you something, or (and people often hear things in this way) some data driven message may direct you. First go to Romeoville and ask Benjamin; thence go on to Cott's Corner and visit Dave, for he got home last of all the comrades; if you hear that your comrade is a viable candidate, you can put up with the waste these lanyards will make for yet another twelve months. If on the other hand you hear of lack of viability, come back at once, celebrate his noble effort with all due pomp, build a Facebook page to his memory, and make your constituents vote again. Then, having done all this, think it well over in your mind how, by fair means or foul, you may eject these lanyards in your own district. You are too old to plead infancy any longer; have you not heard how people are singing Debs' praises for having resisted the draft? You are a fine, smart looking fellow; show your mettle, then, and make yourself a name in story. Now, however, I must go back to my car and to my staff, who will be impatient if I keep them waiting longer; think the matter over for yourself, and remember what I have said to you." "Sir," answered Joey, "it has been very kind of you to talk to me in this way, as though I were your own comrade, and I will do all you tell me; I know you want to be getting on with your drive, but stay a little longer till you have finished your coffee. I will then give you a present, and you shall go on your way rejoicing; I will give you one of great beauty and value- a keepsake such as only dear comrades give to one another." Gerald answered, "Do not try to keep me, for I would be on my way at once. As for any present you may be disposed to make me, keep it till I come again, and I will take it home with me. You shall give me a very good one, and I will give you one of no less value in return." With these words he slipped away like a thief in the night, but he had given Joey courage, and had made him think more than ever about his comrade. He felt the change, wondered at it, and knew that the stranger had been a comrade, so he went straight to where the lanyards were sitting. Sarah was still speaking and her audience sat rapt in silence as she told the sad tale of her unsuccessful campaign for town council, and the ills the establishment had laid upon her and her comrades. Daphne, daughter of Audrey, heard her speech from her adjoining meeting room, and came over by the great hallway, not alone, but attended by two of her comrades. When she reached the lanyards, she stood by one of the bearing posts that supported the roof of the hall with a stoic comrade on either side of her. She held a hardhat, moreover, before her face, and was weeping bitterly. "Sarah," she cried, "you know many another successful campaigns, such as thinkpieces love to celebrate. Tell the lanyards some one of these, and let them drink their coffee in silence, but cease this sad tale, for it breaks my sorrowful heart, and reminds me of Bernie's 2016 campaign which I mourn ever without ceasing, and whose name was great over all flyover country and the coastal districts." "Daphne," answered Joey, "let the organizer speak of what she has a mind to; organizers do not make the ills they speak of; it is the establishment, not they, who makes them, and who sends hatchet job mailer or attack ad upon constituents according to their own good pleasure. This comrade means no harm by tell the ill-fated betrayal of the donor class, for people always applaud the latest news most warmly. Make up your mind to it and bear it; Odie is not the only person who has run for office, but many another went down as well as he. Go, then, within the hall and busy yourself with your phone banking, your social media posts, your constituent mailers, and the ordering of your lawn signs; for speech is comrade's matter, and mine above all others- for it is the worker who is master here." She went wondering back into the meeting room, and laid her comrade's saying in her heart. Then, talking with her friends, she mourned Sarah's betrayal by the establishment till she went home. But the lanyards were clamorous throughout the meeting rooms, and prayed each one that he might secure her vote. Then Joey spoke, "Shameless," he cried, "and insolent lanyards, let us speak at our pleasure now, and let there be no bickering, for it is a rare thing to hear one with such a powerful as Sarah has; but in an hour meet me in full assembly that I may give you formal notice to depart, and campaign elsewhere, turn and turn about, at your own cost. If on the other hand you choose to persist in campaigning here, heaven help me, but the teamsters shall reckon with you in full, and when you fall in my comrade's house there shall be no man to avenge you." The lanyards bit their lips as they heard him, and marvelled at the boldness of his speech. Then, Charles, son of Abe, said, "The workers seem to have given you lessons in bluster and tall talking; may the establishment never grant you to be nominated as your friend was before you." Joey answered, "Charles, do not chide with me, but, god willing, I will be nominee too if I can. Is this the worst fate you can think of for your constituents? It is no bad thing to be a nominee, for it brings both riches and honour. Still, now that Odie is dead there are many great men in Cook both old and young, and some other may take the lead among them; nevertheless I will be endorsed in my own union hall, and will lead those whom Odie has won for me." Then Nancy, daughter of Nancy, answered, "It rests with the establishment to decide who shall be our nominee, but you shall be president in your own hall and over your own members; no one while we are here shall speak negatively about you or malign your record. And now, my good fellow, I want to know about this friend of yours. What party does he belong to? Of what political family is he, and where is his ancestral estate? Has he brought you news of your candidate, or was he on business of his own? He seemed a well-to-do man, but he hurried off so suddenly that he was gone in a moment before we could ask him for a donation." "My comrade will not attend," answered Joey, "and even if some text reaches me I put no more faith in it now. My friend does indeed sometimes send a text and question him, but I give his pleadings that "we're just wrapping up" no heed. As for the stranger, that was Gerald, and old friend of my father's", but in his heart, he knew that he was a comrade. The lanyards then returned to their gladhanding and ratfucking until the evening; but when night fell upon their ratfucking, they went home to bed each in his own abode. Joey's house was high up in an apartment tower that looked on to a town park; hither, then, he hied, brooding and full of thought. A good old woman, Dorothy, daughter of Anne, the son of Reuben, went before him with a handful of pamphlets on universal basic income. Carl had paid a local shop to print them with his own money long ago; he gave the worth of twenty small dollar donations, and shewed as much respect to her in his organization as he did to his own steering committee members, but he did not take her to organizational leadership, for he feared his comrade's resentment. She it was who now followed Joey to his house, and she loved him better than any of the other women in the house did, for she had read Marx him when he was a baby. He opened the door of his house and sat down upon the couch; as he took off his shoes, she told him to put them away properly, because he doesn't live in a barn, after which she went out, put pamphets in the doors of all her neighbor's homes, and talked with many about Odie's candidacy. But Joey as he lay covered with a woollen fleece made locally by one of his friends kept thinking all night through of his canvassing inspiration that Gerald had given him.
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Oct 11, 2018 17:25
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readingatwork posted:Holy poo poo Aza I didn’t think you had it in you. I've done a bit of reflecting (not too much though), and I've been a pompous rear end way too much on here lately and hopefully this is at least a bit of penance. I'll write the rest before the deadline then slink away from this thread and not bother you all again.
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Oct 11, 2018 17:41
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Azathoth posted:Part 1 Odie slept in his campaign office upon an old, worn couch, on the top of which he threw several blankets of the felt the lanyards had given him, festooned with corporate logos and Jessica threw an old coat over him after he had laid himself down. There, then, Odie lay wakefully brooding upon the way in which he should defeat the lanyards; and by and by, the centrists who had been in the habit of misconducting themselves with them, left the party office giggling and laughing with one another. This made Odie very angry, and he doubted whether to get up and record a video denouncing each and every one of them then and there, or to let them party one more and last time with the lanyards. His heart growled within him, and as a bitch with puppies growls and shows her teeth when she sees a stranger, so did his heart growl with anger at the evil deeds that were being done: but he beat his breast and said, "Heart, be still, you had worse than this to bear on the day when the SuperPAC dropped a million dollar ad buy on your comrades; yet you bore it in silence till your fiery denunciations of "business as usual" won you fresh acclaim, though you made sure of being run out of the race." Thus he chided with his heart, and checked it into endurance, but he tossed about as one who turns a paunch full of blood and fat in front of a hot fire, doing it first on one side and then on the other, that he may get it cooked as soon as possible, even so did he turn himself about from side to side, thinking all the time how, single handed as he was, he should contrive to defeat so large a body of men as the wicked lanyards. But by and by Gerald came down from Chicago in the habit of a steelworker, and hovered over his head saying, "My poor unhappy man, why do you lie awake in this way? This is your race: your supporters believe in you, and so is your comrade who is just such a young man as any father may be proud of." "Comrade," answered Odie, "all that you have said is true, but I am in some doubt as to how I shall be able to defeat these wicked lanyards single handed, seeing what a number of them there always are. And there is this further difficulty, which is still more considerable. Supposing that with the people's and your assistance I succeed in defeating them, I must ask you to consider where I am to escape to from their corporate paymasters when it is all over." "For shame," replied Gerald, "why, any one else would trust a worse ally than myself, even though that ally were only a worker and less wise than I am. Am I not a comrade, and have I not protected you throughout in all your troubles? I tell you plainly that even though there were fifty PACS of neoliberals surrounding us and eager to defeat us, you should take all their attacks and throw them back at them, and drive them away with you. But go to sleep; it is a very bad thing to lie awake all night, and you shall be out of your troubles before long." As he spoke he prepared an organic tea with valerian root extract for Odie, who drank it, and Gerald then went back to Chicago. While Odie was thus yielding himself to a very deep slumber that eased the burden of his sorrows, Jenny, his admirable volunteer campaign staffer awoke, and sitting up from her desk began to scream. When she had relieved herself by screaming she prayed to Socialist Jesus saying, "Most Exalted Worker Jesus, carpenter of Nazareth, son of God, drive a carpenter's nail into my heart and slay me; or let some flyover country tornado snatch me up and bear me through paths of darkness till it drop me into the mouths of overflowing Lake Michigan, as it did the cows of the farmers in that one movie Twister with Bill Pullman. The cows in that movie died, for the director killed them, so they were left with lots of hamburger. But the director took care of them, and sold them to McDonalds so that they could be slathered with cheese and washed down with Diet Coke. The cooks who are fighting for a living wage grilled them into excellent burgers, made by true working hands; Righteous fury gave them an imposing presence, and Gerald endowed them with every kind of accomplishment; but one day when Barry had gone up to Chicago to see Charles about getting them married (for well does he know both what shall happen and what not happen to every one) the storm winds came and spirited them away to become servants to the dread center-left think tank. Even so I wish that the workers who march for economic freedom would campaign for me, or that fiery Elizabeth might tweet about me, for I would fain go even to the local chamber of commerce if I might do so still looking towards Odie only, and without having to endorse a worse man than he was. Besides, no matter how much people may grieve by day, they can put up with it so long as they can sleep at night, for when the eyes are closed in slumber people forget good and ill alike; whereas my misery haunts me even in my dreams. This very night methought there was one protesting by my side who was like Odie as he was when he went away with his campaign, and I rejoiced, for I believed that it was no dream, but the very truth itself." On this the day broke, but Odie heard the sound of her screaming, and it puzzled him, for it seemed as though she already knew him and was by his side. Then he gathered up the coat and the blankets on which he had lain, and set them on a shelf in the closet, but he took the small throw out into the open. He lifted up his phone and tweeted, typing "Workers, since you have seen fit to believe in me, and endorse me for your district, give me a small donation or volunteer with our campaign, and let me have another sign of some kind from the outside that we will fight for change." Thus did he tweet. The workers saw his tweet and forthwith thundered high up among the from the charts, and Odie was glad when he heard it went viral. At the same time within the union hall, a construction worker from hard lifted up her voice and gave him another sign. There were twelve construction workers whose business it was to lay cement and tile rooves, which provide shelter for the other workers. The others had finished their task and had gone to take their rest, but this one had not yet finished, for she was not so strong as they were, and when she heard the notification on her phone she stopped tiling and gave the sign to her comrades. "Workers," said she, "you who build the nation, you have tweeted from blank slate without so much as a hashtag upon it, and this means something for somebody; grant the request, then, of me your humble comrade who calls upon you, and let this be the very last day that the lanyards represent the district of Odie. They have worn me out with the labour of building strip malls for them, and I hope they may never have another representative anywhere at all." Odie was glad when he heard the omens conveyed to him by the woman's speech, and by the Twitter metrics, for he knew they meant that he should avenge himself on the lanyards. Then the other workers in the district rose and shared his post on social media; Joey also rose and put on his clothes. He girded his smartphone about his pockets, bound his loafers on his comely feet, and took a doughty printed media piece with a point of graphs about income inequality; then he went to the local campus quad said to some gathered student organizers, "comrades, did you make the volunteer door knockers comfortable both as regards bed and board, or did you let them shift for themselves?- for staffers, good people though they are, have a way of paying great attention to second-rate people, and of neglecting others who are in reality much better." "Do not find fault comrade," said Kaitlyn, "when there is no one to find fault with. The canvassers sat and drank coffee as long as they liked: they did ask them if they would take any more gas station donuts and they said he would not. When they wanted to go to bed they told the volunteers to make a couch available for them, but they said he was such wretched outcast that he would not sleep on a couch and under blankets; he insisted on sleeping on his office couch and some blankets in the closet and I threw an old coat over him myself." Then Joey went out of the campaign office to the place where the workers were meeting in assembly; he had his print piece in his hand, and he was not alone, for his two dogs went with him. But Kaitlyn called the workers and said, "Come, get up; set about setting up the folding chairs and wiping off the dust with a rag; put the covers on the seats; wipe down the tables, some of you, with a wet sponge; clean out the refrigerator and the cups, and for water from the store at once; the lanyards will be here directly; they will be here early, for it is the primary election day." Thus did she speak, and they did even as she had said: twenty of them went to the store for water, and the others set themselves busily to work about the house. The men who were in attendance on the lanyards also came up and began trading business cards. By and by the women returned from the store and the local cook came after them with the best energy food he could pick out. These he let feed about the premises, and then he said good-humouredly to Odie, "Stranger, are the lanyards treating you any better now, or are they as insolent as ever?" "May heaven," answered Odie, "requite to them the wickedness with which they deal high-handedly in the worker's district without any sense of shame." Thus did they converse; meanwhile Jessie the lobbyist came up, for she too was bringing in her best trinkets for the lanyards; and she had two employees with her. They placed the trinkets out on the table, and then Jessie began gibing at Odie. "Are you still here, communist," said she, "to pester people by raising their taxes? Why can you not go to Canada? You and I shall not come to an understanding before we have given each other a full and formal debate using Robert's Rules of Order. You beg without any sense of decency: are there not districts elsewhere among the plebs, as well as here?" Odie made no answer, but bowed his head and brooded. Then a third man, Phillip, joined them, who was bringing in a list of call sheets and some granola bars. These were brought over by the staffers who are there to take people over when any one comes to them. So Phillip turned in his call sheets and put his granola bars on the table, and then went up to the lobbyist. "Who, lobbyist," said he, "is this brooding brooder that is lately come here? Is he one of your men? What is his party? Where does he come from? Poor fellow, he looks as if he had been some great man, but the voters give sorrow to whom they will- even to comrades if it so pleases them. As he spoke he went up to Odie and saluted him with his right hand; "Good day to you, comrade," said he, "you seem to be very poorly off now, but I hope you will have better times by and by. The primary voters, of all voters are the most malicious. We are your own children, yet you show us no mercy in all our misery and afflictions. A sweat came over me when I saw this man, and my eyes filled with tears, for he reminds me of Odie, who I fear is going about in just such rags as this man's are, if indeed he is still among the living. If he is already dead and in the bowels of hell, then, alas! for my good master, who made me his apprentice when I was quite young among the grocery workers, and now my groceries are countless; no one could have done better with them than I have, for my capital has bred like ears of corn; nevertheless I have to keep bringing them in for others to eat, who take no heed of his comrade though he is in the union hall, and fear not the wrath of the establishment, but are already eager to divide Odie's supporters among them because he has been away so long. I have often thought- only it would not be right while his comrade is living- of going off with the comrades to some commune; bad as this would be, it is still harder to stay here and be ill-treated about problems politicians cannot solve. My position is intolerable, and I should long since have run away and voted for some third party, only that I believe my poor comrade will yet return, and send all these lanyards flying out of the house." "Grocer," answered Odie, "you seem to be a very well-disposed person, and I can see that you are a man of sense. Therefore I will tell you, and will confirm my words with an oath: by Marx, the first among equals, and by that ancient coffee pot to which I am now come, Odie shall return before you leave this place, and if you are so minded you shall see him defeating the lanyards who are now masters here." "If Marx, were to bring this to pass," replied the grocer, "you should see how I would do my very utmost to help him." And in like manner Luke tweeted his desire that Odie might return home. Thus did they converse. Meanwhile the lanyards were hatching a plot to smear Joey: but a livestreamed video, of several making racially charged remarks, was leaked to the internet. On this Timothy said, "My friends, this plot of ours to smear Joey will not succeed; let us go to dinner at a michelin star restaurant instead and expense it." The others assented, so they went and gave their bespoke suitcoats to the attendant. They greedily ate the sheep, goats, pigs, and the heifer, and when the inward meats were cooked they served them round, because rich people eat the garbage parts of the animals. They mixed the whiskey in the shaker, and the whiskey sommolier gave every man his cup, while Phillip handed round the bread in the breadbaskets, and Melanie poured them out their wine. Then they laid their hands upon the good things that were before them. Joey purposely made Odie sit in the part of the hall that was paved with linoleum and kinda smelled like day old fish; he gave him a shabby-looking seat at a little table to himself, and had his portion of the inward meats brought to him, with his wine in a gold cup. "Sit there," said he, "and drink your wine among the moneyed elite. I will put a stop to the gibes and blows of the lanyards, for this is no honky tonk, but belongs to Odie, and has passed from him to me. Therefore, lanyards, keep your hands and your tongues to yourselves, or there will be mischief." The lanyards bit their lips, and marvelled at the boldness of his speech; then Anthony said, "We do not like such language but we will put up with it because we value decorum above all things, even though Joey is threatening us in good earnest. If the establishment had let us we should have put a stop to his brave talk ere now." Thus spoke Anthony, but Joey heeded him not. Meanwhile the campaign offices were opening through the city, and the workers gathered under the shady grove of the awnings where the phone banks were set up. Then they drank the whiskey from their highball glasses, gave every man his portion, and drank to their hearts' content; those who waited at table gave Odie exactly the same portion as the others had, for Joey had told them to do so and he was picking up the tab. But Gerald would not let the lanyards for one moment drop their insolence, for he wanted Odie to become still more bitter against them. Now there happened to be among them a ribald fellow, whose name was Teddy, and who came from Hyannisport. This man, confident in his great wealth, was paying court to the Wall Street donors, and said to the lanyards, "Hear what I have to say. The worker has already had as large a portion as any one else; this is well, for it is not right nor reasonable to ill-treat any American. I will, however, make him a present on my own account, that he may have something to give to take back to his filthy hovel or whereever it is that the poors live. As he spoke he picked up a roll of hundred dollar bills the donation bucket in which it lay, and threw it at Odie, but Odie turned his head a little aside, and avoided it, smiling in a grimly socialist fashion as he did so, and it hit the wall, not him. On this Joey spoke fiercely to Teddy, "It is a good thing for you," said he, "that the stranger turned his head so that you missed him. If you had hit him I would have denounced you publicly, and your corporate paymasters would have had to see about getting you an apology tour rather than a victory lap. So let me have no more unseemly behaviour from any of you, for I am grown up now to the knowledge of good and evil and understand what is going on, instead of being the child that I have been heretofore. I have long seen you taking money from the workers: I have put up with this, for one man is no match for many, but do me no further violence. Still, if you wish to defeat me me, defeat me me; I would far rather slink into obscurity than see such disgraceful scenes day after day- guests insulted, and men dragging their interns about the House in an unseemly way." They all held their peace till at last Patrick son of Edward said, "No one should take offence at what has just been said, nor gainsay it, for it is quite reasonable. Leave off, therefore, ill-treating the job creator, or any one else who has servants in their house; I would say, however, a friendly word to Joey and his comrades, which I trust may commend itself to both. 'As long,' I would say, 'as you had ground for hoping that Odie would one day be a nominee, no one could complain of your waiting and suffering the lanyards to be in your party. It would have been better that he should have campaigned, but it is now sufficiently clear that he will never do so; therefore talk all this quietly over with your comrades, and tell them to vote for the establishment candidate, and the one who makes them the most advantageous offer. Thus you will yourself be able to manage your own district, and to eat and drink in peace, while your comrades will look after some job creator's house, not yours."' To this Joey answered, "By the sweat of the worker's brow, Teddy, and by the sorrows of my unhappy comrade, who has either dropped out far from victory, or is campaigning in some distant town, I throw no obstacles in the way of my voters choices; on the contrary I urge them to choose whomsoever they will, and I will give them numberless policy papers into the bargain, but I dare not insist point blank that they shall leave the party against their own wishes. Heaven forbid that I should do this." Gerald now made the suitors fall to laughing immoderately, and set their wits wandering; but they were laughing with a forced laughter. Their whiskey became weak with melted ice; their eyes filled with tears, and their hearts were heavy with forebodings. Theodore saw this and said, "Unhappy men, what is it that ails you? There is a shroud of darkness drawn over you from head to foot, your cheeks are wet with tears; the air is alive with wailing voices; the walls and roof-beams drip with whiskey sweat; the gate of the restaurant and the street beyond them are full of ghosts trooping down into the night of hell; the sun is blotted out of heaven, and a blighting gloom is over all the land." Thus did he speak, and they all of them laughed heartily. Eustace then said, "This candidate who has lately come here has lost his senses. Interns, turn him out into the streets, since he finds it so dark here." But Theodore said, "Eustace, you need not send any one with me. I have eyes, ears, and a pair of feet of my own, to say nothing of an understanding mind. I will take these out of the restaurant with me, for I see ratfucking overhanging you, from which not one of you men who are insulting people and plotting ill deeds in the house of Odie will be able to escape." He left the restaurant as he spoke, and went back to the local bar who gave him welcome, but the lanyards kept looking at one another and provoking Joey fly laughing at the strangers. One insolent fellow said to him, "Joey, you are not happy in your drinking buddies; first you have this importunate tramp, who comes begging donations and has no skill for work or for political infighting, but is perfectly useless, and now here is another fellow who is setting himself up as a prophet. Let me persuade you, for it will be much better, to abandon them and accept all the corporate PAC money that you can. Joey gave him no heed, but sat silently watching his comrade, expecting every moment that he would begin his attack upon the lanyards. Meanwhile the daughter of Isaac, wise Penelope, had had a rich seat placed for her facing the table of lanyards, so that she could record what every one was saying. The campaign indeed had been planned amid merriment; it had been both good and abundant, for they taken many dark money donations; but the election was yet to come, and nothing can be conceived more gruesome than the fury of righteous angry workers and a brave man were soon to campaign before them- for they had brought their doom upon themselves.
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Oct 11, 2018 21:54
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Phone posted:i don’t know how to engage with liberals anymore (i do, it’s “don’t”). i don’t know if it’s the resistance lexicon being so abrasive and terrible or whatever, but epic Greek poem guy’s “what about the tea party for the left?” it’s the hashtag resistance, homie. it has all of the same rhetorical flourishes; that’s right, gish galloping for her turn. Now, I ask this in all sincerity, with the promise that I will not be a smug rear end in a top hat about your reply, or try to debate. I would genuinely like to know what an alternative plan would look like to take the country back from the right and the center that doesn't involve some kind entryism in the Democratic Party. If I have to read a book or listen to a podcast lay it out, that's cool. I sincerely ask that someone educate me.
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Oct 12, 2018 19:53
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