USA under presidency of a know-nothing, neo-fascist, racist, sexist, mobbed-up narcissist!!

[Peter Lemkin]

My comments in red.

That article, above, from Newsweek is what one would/should expect from one of many propaganda mouthpieces of the Establishment Machine [which comprises both the Republicans and the Democrats]. It denigrates Sanders and Stein and posits that the Democrats can be the real answer to anything in the USA.


Tell the millions people who have benefited from the expansion of health care that Obama didn't do anything for them.

Obamacare wasn't good for everyone, but for those on the bottom of the economic scale it was a life-saver.

They saved something like 70,000 lives just by tightening regulations on hospitals, and millions of poor folks benefited from the expansion of Medicaid.

Now the GOP is planning to eliminate Obamacare, Medicare and Medicaid.

Any idea how many people are going to be sentenced to an earlier death because the GOP has taken over?

I don't buy it. The Democrats are only the lesser of evils to the Republicans

What you are over-looking -- and as an ex-pat you may not be aware of -- is the influence the Democratic grass roots has on policy. Not all policies, mind you, but many.

Net neutrality, the Consumer Protection Board, same-sex marriage, raising the minimum wage -- these are all issues the Democratic grass roots have influenced.

If we organize more, we can influence more.

But when the GOP has the White House and Congress it's the Republican grass roots who have influence.

You think there's no difference to someone whether they have health insurance or not?

Think again.


- but BOTH are evil and part of a pact with the 'Devil' of the Military, Intelligence, Corporate, Financial Oligarchy - which we need to get rid of before they get rid of the Planet and what LITTLE is left of our freedoms and democracy. NDAA was passed under Obama.

But Obama objected to the "indefinite detention clause" and the Democrats in the House voted against that clause.

It's only there because the Republicans in the House voted in lock-step for it.

Obama put out a signing statement saying it doesn't apply to US citizens.

Think Trump will make such a declaration?

No, and then we'll formally be in a military dictatorship.


Obama used drones to kill thousands of innocents - foreign and US Citizens. Bill Clinton and Obama both destabilized nations and waged needless wars for the Military-Industrial-Intelligence. Clinton repealed Glass-Steigall, and Obama bailed out the big banks but not the citizens they have robbed..and one can go on and on.


Indeed. It's been a constant battle. But false equivalencies must be rejected as readily as false dichotomies.

The National Security State doesn't work for the President.

The President serves the bidding of the National Security State.

We were lucky to have a guy in Obama who sometimes got around the War Party imperatives -- that's how we got the deal to remove chemical weapons from Syria and nuke material from Iran. Obama out-finessed them.

Otherwise, he did what he was forced to do. Drone wars, Ukraine, Libya, the crackdown on whistle-blowers.

But he opened relations with Cuba, and deserves credit for it.


The view that the Democrats are some life raft to the rough seas of the Republicans is at best naive, at worst the kind of dangerous thinking that has landed the USA exactly where it is now.

The analogy is hysterical.

With the Dems there is a chance -- maybe a small chance but a chance nevertheless -- that social progress can be made.

I live in San Francisco. I get health care through a Democratically installed health program (not Obamacare). I enjoy rent control -- pay 20% of current market value.

Republicans would take all of that away from me if they could.

Think we're not going to fight for the progress we've made along many issues?

As for Trump being elected there is no one to blame but the DNC itself for ignoring the will of their supporters to have Sanders,

Sanders lost by 4 million votes.

That wasn't the DNC's doing.


and not to have another big champion of things as usual and a war monger/owned-by-wallstreet - Clinton. Sanders, while far from perfect was the only mainstream person who could have defeated Trump and at the same time made some difference - he really should have run on the Green Party ticket - the Democratic machine on paper proved they didn't want his brand of Democratic Socialism. The Green party has the kind of change we need to avert disaster in the USA and the World - nothing less than that will do.


The electoral college insures a two party system.

Without a Green Senate and a Green House none of these wonderful Green things could be implemented.


It is exactly this idea that we can make change without changing from the usual choices between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum [Republican / Democrats] that American never changes [except in the smallest ways that don't 'bother' the secret ruling Mandarins],


Maybe having affordable health care and affordable housing are "the smallest things" to you, but not to me.

You don't live here, Peter, you have no idea what it's like on the ground.


and the World is on the brink of collapse on all fronts - moral, environmental, endless wars, trickle-up economics, diminution of freedoms and liberties, et al. No more business as usual; no more lesser of evils; no more doing the same old things and expecting a new outcome (the definition of defective thinking)!

The fact that I live outside the USA [not by choice by the way - I had death threats from those who run the 'joint'] doesn't make me any less aware or concerned than anyone who does. I do return to visit and even flurted with a return in my last years - NOW out of the question - but likely was not to be anyway. I get the 'treatment' when back - so YOU don't understand as I do what 'vulnerable' sections of society fear and face.

Your endless at nauseum repetition that it was not the DNC's own documented dirty tricks [an conspiracy with the media they have affiliations with] to deny the more popular candidate - Sanders - and run a much hated and hawkish insider who would do their bidding ['their being who owns and funds the DNC'] will not change my mind that you are totally wrong on that. Sanders, for many reasons would have trounced Trump and the DNC has to face up to this. Also the notion that Assange is a Russian agent is lunatic stuff. That was the excuse to cover their asses the Democrat machine put out out of embarrassment of their on perfidy against Sanders, and other crimes and misdemeanors. I'm glad you benefit from Obamacare and rent control. Yes, there are minor differences, mainly internal, between the two parties - but the BIG issues are unchanged and unchanging. I'm not willing to accept the minor changes to NOT try to change the entire system! Humanity, the ecosystem, nor Americans will survive without totally destroying the system and rebuilding another. How many millions died in Obama's eight years? How many new and old wars? How many wistleblowers jailed or hunted for the Espionage Act? How many Trillions from the poor to the rich? You seem not to be able to see the big picture nor to make the big changes needed to save the country and the World - sad. You are just thinking of your own situation - as were most of those misguided folks who voted for Trump. In the end neither you nor they will get what you want nor deserve - nor the rest of the citizenship and World populace. We need HUGE structural changes, not tiny little ones. We are not incrementally making progress IMHO, they are trowing bones to distract from the ongoing horrors.

As Howard Zinn said 'When you always vote the lesser of evils, you always will get evil, and less'.....that is the take-away you refuse to see. He is right.