America... you failed

America, you failed.

Democrats single handedly fucked the American people last night in a predictable and startling lack of vision. Bernie represented exactly the Democratic Party that the old liberals in America always remember fondly, but interestly that same group decided to flex it’s muscles into a last breath of relevancy by destroying that vision in favor of a corporate whore. The reason? I am guessing comfort and/or fear of the unknown.

Money and power has turned this supposed democracy into a laughable and pathetic version of what it once was. The corruption is so comedic and sad that it boggles the mind. We have corporations that fill the political coffers of most all of our representatives, who then enact laws written by those corporation’s lobbyists. This is not fantasy or conspiracy theory, this is an absolutely understood and well documented fact. Bernie Sanders wasn’t just being some sort of wing-nut when he kept mentioning the Oligarchy… he was simply stating a verifiable truth. We the people have allowed this country to become the 2 party state that it is. It was not written into our constitution that we only have two powerful parties. We the people allowed the money to take control because we were too lazy to pay attention and stop it. We the people failed to realize that this same money goes to both parties… making us really more of a one party corporatist state with different social flavors than a functioning democracy. We the people have accepted the “lesser of two evils” narrative as wisdom after being told that we risk everything we hold dear if the opposing side ever wins. This is, of course, complete bullshit. It should be said that the lesser of two evils is still evil, and the “powers that be” count on this thinking as it cements our system into the same two options the powers already control. Think about that. What if everyone started to vote their conscience instead? How much harder would it be to manipulate that?

Trump is a complete and total asshole, let there be no doubt… but we have survived many in our years, and the end of the world did not occur. Do not let your fear of Trump make you support the one party state masquerading as a two party state ultimately still controlled by the same money. Get off the merry-go round. Stop playing the games you are being told to play. If you do, the game will never end, ever. The backlash against this monied, corrupt system reached a new level in this election cycle. People on both sides of the political compass actively rose up in huge numbers to break up the control of the traditional party structures. We can’t afford to let that momentum go to waste. For me, I see only a few options:

1. Refuse to support anybody other than Bernie, ride this through, then push for an independent run if necessary. If that doesn’t happen, write his name on my november ballot. This would show that the support was for him and his ideas, and maybe if the numbers were high enough to register in the election, it would embolden the next generation of Sanders styled idealists to run for office. 2. Vote for Jill Stein from the Green Party. I am not a big fan of the party, but her platform is very similar to Bernie’s. She asked him to join her at one point recently, and she is reaching out like mad to his supporters. Might be worth it to give another party a big bump to weaken the dominance of the big two even further… and present an opportunity for other ideas at the debates. 3. Since I will not vote “for” Hillary Clinton, the only way I could go Democratic is if Warren was VP... and I was “extremely” confident that she was given the room to actually push a significant part of the party agenda. While I hate Hillary, I very much would like Warren as President… and being pragmatic, this would put her in line to get it. The idea of voting Hillary makes me feel ill, but this would be the only scenario in which I “might” do it. Bigger Picture.

My primary issue with this idea is that it is painfully clear that Clinton would ask her to run as a political ploy to get Sanders supporters on board. Not sure I can deal with that, but I would consider this overall scenario if it felt like it was truly helping Warren. Warren’s ideas are very much in line with breaking up the same money in politics as Bernie’s, so having that kind of force inside one of the big two parties is pretty huge. Initial thoughts for election process change are: Create a single, simple, voting standard for the entire country - Yes, I know that states like to be proud of their own processes… but these are national elections with national consequences. There were absurd amounts of fraud, mistakes, and overall confusion all over the country during this process. The laws and rules are all over the place. It was a complete shit show. Picking people via multiple choice is something kids figure out in kindergarten. It would seem that only government can make this complicated. This will also avoid situations where everybody thinks one candidate is 3 million popular votes ahead, while neglecting to understand that in all the caucus states the other candidate won by large margins… no actual popular vote counts were taking place due to the nature of how they are run. This kind of crap creates propaganda fodder for the corrupt media machine.

Digitize the voting process - All votes taken should be automatically counted… none of this provisional, absentee, etc...ballot silliness. You vote, it counts right away, end. If it’s digital, there are more options to overcome time and location issues people have. Security concerns are huge, but given that all of the world’s financials seem to move around the globe between governments and banks with enough security, it is absolutely certain that we could protect the voting system. I would advocate for both private and gov sectors be involved in the design, with private corporations monitoring the security on a rotation. That way, it makes it harder for the gov to push it’s shenanigans onto a small group of known companies. I don’t think that gov could bribe the entire tech sector. Plenty have pushed back for less important reasons.

Remove all public funding for primaries/caucuses unless they are fully open - A lot of americans got no voice in this election cycle because of party rules. Parties want to lock these events down with the claim that they have a right to restrict who votes for their candidate. This wouldn’t be an issue except that they expect to do this with our public resources. The second any public money is involved, any taxpayer of age deserves to take part. If parties don’t want that, then they should foot the bill for everything. Somehow, I don’t see them interested in that option. Super delegates are stupid - The very notion of super delegates is built on the idea that party leaders know the candidates better than the general public, and can use these votes to help avert potential disasters. If that is true, as it may be, you fix the problem by educating the public regarding their candidates so they can make more informed choices… not by giving the insiders a potentially overriding vote. Total bullshit. Automatically enroll every legal citizen to vote - There is no excuse for all the loops one must go through to vote. It is stupid, confusing, and outdated. If you possess the requisite legal rights for the purpose of voting, then you should already be enrolled. The gov already knows who you are. Make any voting day a national holiday - The idea that it isn’t is stupid. I beg for someone to provide a rational, defensible reason for it not being a mandatory holiday. Place limits on early mail-in voting - The disconnect between apparent and voted support for both Hillary and Sanders is explainable by the fact that she had incredible amounts of votes cemented in early on. It is my opinion that many who voted early would change their vote now, as Bernie wasn’t that well known till later in the campaign. My opposition to early voting has less to do with this election’s results, and more to do with the fact that people should be placing educated votes… and this requires the time to get to know the candidates. Clinton started off as the expected winner from the start, and I think that this undermined her challenger unfairly. Make debates actual debates - Do not let candidates know what will be asked. Do not stop them from going off script. Let the buttons be pushed. Let their real character come out. Stop all this scripted nonsense. Also, setup the debate dates by statute, and let all the press partake in a lottery to be the lead for each. No more messing around with debate times to help or injure candidates. Open the debates to more parties via a lower baseline for participation that would include the larger third parties such as the Green Party and Libertarians. Put all campaign donations in a general fund - This is a bit radical, but running an election isn’t about who can “media” you into believing the best bullshit, it is about educating the population on the best candidate to vote for. If donations became non-partisan, non-person specific, then the primary mechanism for nefarious influence goes out the window. Distribute that money equally to all parties that meet the same threshold as mentioned above for debates. This brings in an even playing field for different voices, and removes the bribery that takes place. Even money and even time. Any candidate who can’t win on an even playing field shouldn’t win an election. Add “none of the above” as an option on all ballots - We are continuously forced to either choose from the options presented, or write in names that never have an impact. When the population truly dislikes the options presented, they should have an official mechanism for saying so. If “none of the above” wins, all the candidates are tossed out and things start over. This simple option means we are never forced to pick the lesser of two evils ever again. There are more things I am thinking of... and will be posting soon. Stay tuned.

#election #bernie #primary #california #democrat #2016