Three Punches for the People: #1 Flooding the System

(Note: If you have already read my long essay State of the Revolution, you will find this piece largely redundant. This piece, for logistic reasons, presents a certain portion of the former article.)

We are in trouble, felt strongly by many of us today, because our government, mass media, and major political parties only serve the plutocrats who squeeze the livelihood out of our lives and stop at no amount of destruction to slate their greed. To save ourselves, our country, even our planet, we must wake from our long slumber and fight against the pervasive corruption which ruins life on every level.

Thankfully, Americans have finally begun waking up. Especially last year when millions woke up. Efforts have been underway to fight back at last — to, essentially, have a second American Revolution.

While the wheeling and dealing in Washington and other power nodes continues as always – and while much public hysteria is being fanned about distractions like Russian meddling, politicians spying on other politicians, Trump resistance, and so forth – real progress has been made on a number of fronts. The fight is on, and I thought it was time to take a little stock of how we the people are faring in our burgeoning efforts to clean house.

I recently published my findings here in one long article: State of the Revolution

However, I constantly find a need to link to specific portions of these findings in other articles I write. So I have decided to dissect the above long treatise into three pieces to which I (and others) can link, allowing readers to take a closer look at specifics mentioned in passing whenever there is no room to include the details.

This is part one. It’s about:

Flooding the System with Good People

This strategy is about not necessarily changing the parts of our system, but driving out the corrupt occupants of important positions and replacing them with good people from among us who will work for the common good instead of the plutocrats and the bribes the receive from them.

Here is the current state of affairs in these efforts:

After a long silence, last February there finally came news from Our Revolution, the organization Bernie Sanders announced at the end of his campaign for presidential nomination. It was supposed to carry the energy of his campaign forward towards electing true people’s representatives into as many offices as possible. Later we heard of a falling-out within the new organization over fundraising issues. Now there are finally some new tales coming forth. In a Wall Street Journal article, titled “Bernie Sanders Loyalists Are Taking Over the Democratic Party One County Office at a Time,” we were informed that some seats have indeed been taken over by, hopefully, non-corporatist delegates and other officials in California, Hawaii, Nebraska, and Washington state.

Specifically, in California, Bernie supporters packed the obscure party meetings that chose delegates to the state Democratic convention and managed to grab more than half the slots available. In Washington state’s “Democratic”-state-central-committee, they ousted the party chairman and installed one of their own in his place. The article further claims, “Sanders acolytes have seized control of state parties in Hawaii and Nebraska and won posts throughout the party structure from coast to coast.”

While this is not quite a landslide, at least there have been decisive victories. Maybe we can be cautiously optimistic. In Iowa and Michigan, Our Revolution didn’t get very far, though, and engaged in compromises with establishment politicians, which could signal a loss of momentum and the take-no-prisoners determination that any of our efforts to clean corruption out of politics requires.

To keep the flame of optimism burning, I’ll add that Our Revolution recently announced that they have already gotten 62 progressive champions elected to public office (no specifics given as to what offices, where, at what levels).

As you know, none of this made a difference at the level of the DNC which, once again, denied the wishes of working class Americans and picked a corporatist and big friend of the banksters, Tom Perez, as their new chairman.

So, this news is of a mixed nature. I am glad to finally hear of some activity by Our Revolution and of it having had some success, while most everybody’s attention was elsewhere. Maybe flying under the radar has helped it. At this point, the corporate establishment of the “Democratic” Party may be waking up and raising the drawbridges. In this case, perhaps additional pressure from the Justice Democrats, which arose with the same intent as Our Revolution (but pledges to stick to small donations), may then be of help.

I have, in the past, urged for this kind of party takeover, from the bottom up, and will continue to do so, although I think it needs to be a lot bigger than has been reported so far. We need a real surge! I also worry that it may not work in the long run, even with a big surge, due to too many built-in barriers against an insurrection from the base within the “Democratic” Party (including superdelegates). It is still worth the effort, though, since any pressure we can bring to bear against the establishment will weaken it, at least, for a moment. If enough pressure comes from enough directions, it could perhaps breach their walls.

There are, in fact, quite a number of efforts and directions from which pressure is being brought to bear or might be in the future. BrandNewCongress was also created with a goal like Our Revolution and the Justice Democrats in mind, and they have recently joined forces with the Justice Democrats. Kudos! Strength from unity. That’s the way to go!

Now, if you are simply looking for worthy candidates in your next election, you may find them on the Berniecrats Network which provided a valuable list of candidates worth voting for during last year’s election and will perhaps continue to do so. Support Progressives! consolidates similar lists from a variety of “progressive” organizations, including the Berniecrats Network. As to the reliability of these listings, see the next part in this series.

Your comments below are always much appreciated and help make a difference.