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By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
So New York happened. Bernie closed the 40 point divide Hillary held to come within a dozen or so, but it wasn’t enough to impact Gotham, where capitalism makes its decisions behind closed boardroom doors. I doubt if any of us are surprised.
The Talking Heads, who undervalued Sanders’ chances early on, are now sure he has no path to the nomination, telling us that he’d have to take 60 percent of the remaining delegates, in even less friendly states like Pennsylvania and Maryland. The last hope, so it’s said, of the Sanders campaign comes down to convincing super-delegates that he’s the more electable — and on paper, he surely is.
According to Real Clear Politics, Sanders does best in projected general-election match-ups. Mother Jones, describing Bernie as a “scourge to machine politics,” cites polls that have Sanders leading Trump by 15 points, Clinton by 9. Against Ted Cruz, Sanders wins by 11 points, Clinton by 2 (this last seems somewhat ominous).
Like so much else in today’s politics, these numbers are hypothetical. Bernie’s unconventional style, proposals, and religious convictions haven’t yet faced a well-funded onslaught of Pub negativity, which would surely move that needle should he become the nominee, but I doubt he’d earn the same level of distaste (even disgust) of those who refuse Hillary’s candidacy. After all, to the faithful on the right, Bernie’s just a Commie, not the Bride of Satan.
Still, although Sanders remains the most trustworthy of those in the running, what started as a movement may end up just that: a burgeoning political movement that inches the needle left, a bit at a time — hopefully not with the kind of minimal increment Mrs. Clinton prefers — but that in itself is a monumental achievement considering the kind of money interests orchestrating this calamitous exercise. Those who think this populism (seeking reform on the left, replacement on the right) will go away quietly should think again.
There were a good many so-called “third rails” before Bernie Sanders began to mainstream his call to populism — topics that were simply not brought up except in disposable talking points, like ‘banks too big to fail.’ We were stuck in corporate rhetoric, vulture-like media, and status quo political leadership, with no end in sight. Thanks to Bernie, we will find most of those topics in the news today.
B.B. (Before Bernie), banks too big to fail were ignored no matter how much Elizabeth Warren railed at egregious Wall Street practices, which continue despite having been solidly condemned. The One Percent meme of #Occupy had all but died out until Bernie took it up, in parrot fashion, to link it to the greed and purchasing power of ‘the billionaire class.’ Suddenly it wasn’t just something we had to live with during the financial meltdown of the last decade; it’s something we’re living with now, and today everybody knows who the Koch Brothers are.
B.B., Social Security was touted as limping and broken — certainly not easily fixed by a moderate increase in the tax on earnings, and absolutely not solvent enough to consider a necessary increase in benefits. Suggesting that the rich should be responsible for their fair share is no longer anathema.
B.B., Big Pharma had to make and keep all those outrageous earnings in order to spend time on research and development — much of which is now understood to rearrange molecules in existing medications so new patents apply and guarantee outrageous profit, continued insurance scams, and victimization of patients who must scramble to survive the cost.
B.B., we knew media might not always tell the truth, but it was assumed most of the news would be reported. The Sanders campaign not only got left behind, it got completely ignored in favor of the ratings Trump enjoyed. Most of the electorate noticed that it wasn’t just FOX News that suffered from a deficit of ‘fair and balanced’ reporting. Media itself proved to be the (self-admitted) ‘ratings whore’ we always thought it was.
Perhaps most dramatically, B.B., Israel could do no wrong — a tiny and beloved outpost of democracy in a sea of hostile terrorists. Before Bernie, whose Jewish heritage makes him THE person to speak to the issue, the plight of Palestinians in the West Bank — sometimes likened to slow genocide — would still be under media black-out and NOT open for discussion.
The Republicans will have no truck with these issues, of course; they’re all part of the progressive agenda and therefore easily ignored. But Bernie has pushed them out into the mainstream, just as he’s pushed the frontrunner into taking positions well to the left of those she would have preferred.
Ultimately, though, with Hillary and Cruz the likely candidates, the question isn’t which party captures the flag. The question is, will we let corporatocracy and oligarchy have its way with us for yet another presidential administration, or will we finally begin to question the neo-liberal policies that have brought us to a standstill.
The outliers, despite their warts or virtues, have brought the heart of our chaotic national agenda into focus: ethical, balanced economic policy that stabilizes a floundering nation. They alone have the spunk and courage to properly address what those politicos in the middle don’t dare mention, so let’s not miss the remarkable advantage they provide to wake up a cowed society.
Opportunity to change course and shake off the programming of a by-gone era doesn’t come every day, and it’s a challenge to catch the attention of an overwhelmed public. Only when the citizenry is adequately clothed, housed, fed can it attend to matters of ethical importance. Only when it’s given enough accurate information and education to consider its situation can it attend to the duties of citizenship. Only when the working class is let off the hamster wheel long enough to regain equilibrium can it make a choice for political will. For all those reasons, the economy lies at the center of our concerns.
Regardless of the belligerent rhetoric, racism, and xenophobia displayed in the Donald’s campaign, it’s his anti-establishment economic populism that has captured the imagination on the right. While the America they want to make great again is no doubt very white, it’s also prosperous. The younger folk who support Bernie are focused on correcting the financial inequality they see as the impediment to a decent future, while the older folk are invested in a return to the sociopolitical support and economic opportunity they knew in the past.
More of us have begun to agree that fuzzy-headed acquiescence to the economic status quo as only needing a tune-up here and there is the ‘happy place’ of the well-off, if not the hubristic wet dream of the elite. That leaves the rest of us out in the cold in what Elizabeth Warren has correctly labeled a rigged system, and few of us — right or left — argue the point. You can see where the various candidates fall in that spectrum on this revealing scale.
You might think, reading this, that I’m giving up on Bernie. I’m not, nor has he given up the fight. If anything has been proven during this campaign season, it is that nothing is as it appears and anything can happen, but we must agree that the wealthy will do whatever they can to stop Trump on the right and Sanders on the left. Neither of them play by establishment rules, and it’s taken the plutocracy close to forty years to get it just the way they want it.
Even then, it remains to be seen how the conventions play out, and certainly the electoral system is as faulty as the economic. If Trump or Sanders, either one, had gone into this race as Independents, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Neither would have gotten time at the podium or attention in the press, no matter how outrageous, or spectacular, their ideas. But our two-party system — the same one that founders Washington and Adams warned against as dangerous to liberty — is a lock.
Third parties have never been successful in the United States, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be. The Greens, the Working Family party, the Independents, even Libertarians in some camps, have separated themselves into schisms that might make a big noise once united, but alone have as much chance of surviving a campaign as a guppy in a shark tank.
With a Gallup poll indicating that 60 percent of the population would prefer a Third Party candidate to either Pubs or Dems, it might be time for such a national experiment. The populist movement sweeping the nation, no matter who wins the election, is like a flood which must flow somewhere, a force of nature — or perhaps better said, of the human heart. It’s best that somewhere be productive. Surely our new era is asking for a people-centered template on which to build a better way.
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Thank you for putting it so succinctly Jude “. . .capitalism makes its decisions behind closed doors”. It is too easy to get despondent in this modern world full of drugs and deception and the illusions media provides in spades. But the blinders are coming off, and we know that thanks to the timing of the astrological cycles, especially the Neptune-Uranus of the 1990’s, and the Neptune-Pluto of the 1890’s (both focusing on the U.S. Moon among other things) and of course the Uranus-Pluto of the 1960’s.
If we need a clue to what the U.S. Sibly chart’s natal Uranus at 8+ Gemini means, we need to look no further than Elizabeth Warren’s natal Mars at 8+ Gemini conjunct her natal Mercury at 10+ Gemini. Of all the cycles we should be examining it surely must be the one between Pluto and Neptune that last took place at 8+ Gemini. It is a cycle noted for the widening of consciousness as well as institutions and other groups dissolving due to corruption. It is a cycle that lasts in the neighborhood of 480-500 years.
However, I don’t think we have to wait that long to see results. Although the next exact sextile between transiting Neptune and Pluto won’t arrive until July, 2026 (a day when transiting Uranus will be trine Pluto and sextile Neptune even, and Jupiter will trine Neptune, oppose Pluto and sextile Uranus even!!) they will be within a 3 degree orb off and on as early as 2019. The fact that this cycle initiated where the U.S. Sibly Uranus is located speaks to sudden and transformative events in the vein of Pluto-Neptune. Right now transiting Mars sits at 8+ Sagittarius, opposite our country’s Uranus for a total of 24 days where he stationed retrograde just days ago. That’s powerful stuff.
Looking at the big picture you present it seems only logical that a new third party is about to be born. Logic in itself is hard to define during a time of chaos, but you know transiting TNO (transneptunian object) Logos has been on or near the U.S. Sibly version chart’s MC for many, many months now. Yung felt that logos symbolized rationality and decisiveness and Phil Sedgewick once said Logos works to create a belief in one’s destiny. The MC of a chart tells us something about our destiny and Bernie Sanders’ natal Mercury-Juno is conjunct the U.S. MC. I find comfort in that.
In February, 2017, transiting Pluto will reach one of the 2 degrees where transiting Neptune met transiting Uranus in 1993, 18+ and 19+ degrees of Capricorn. That month there will be a solar eclipse at 8+ Pisces that will square the U.S. Uranus at 8+ Gemini. At that time transiting Mars will be conjunct transiting Uranus who will be sextile the U.S. Mars in Gemini. Transiting Neptune will be conjunct the U.S. progressed Sun and transiting Saturn will be conjunct the Galactic Center. I can’t help but wonder what the new U.S. President will do with all that Uranian-Martian influence.
For what it’s worth when Neptune and Uranus met on 10/24/93 at 18+ Capricorn they were sextile Mars and asteroid Lilith at 19+ Scorpio. Bernie Sanders has natal Jupiter at 19+ Gemini which forms the apex of a Yod when combined with that sextile of 1993. Yods signify an adjustment must take place.
be
What I noticed about the difference between Hilary support 8 years ago and Hilary support now is that BO (Before Obama), “we” were happy to consider just having a woman in the White House, and NOW, just as you have laid out point by point, AB (After Bernie), a great many of us have been able to get a new focus on the issues–which of course SHOULD have to do with how any candidate is going to identify and address them.
This just past Thursday, a competent classmate presented 10 minutes on ‘Feeling the Bern’ in Public Speaking class. I did not jot down his sources as he spoke, but his information indicated that Bernie does still stand a chance at the nomination, and importantly, that Hilary is not well-liked–as in not well-liked enough that she is projected to lose against any of the Pub candidates. (His pitch (persuasive speech) was that we all need to get out and vote in CA primary because it still matters.)
I found this on a quick search:
http://www.infowars.com/msnbc-shocked-by-hillarys-unpopularity/
Anyway, thanks for the update, Jude (and Be). I do know that the one word around campus is “change” and the need for it, no matter the individual’s political leaning. The jist of things does seem to be what, how and why change (of action) will come, and who will initiate it.
Good news of the week, Obama has finally, and formally, rejected the XL pipeline (a decision fledgling House Speaker Paul Ryan called “sickening.’} And Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe restored voting rights to 206,000 ex-felons.
As for the campaign, the Trump coverage has blown up over if, how and when he might become presidential and if, how and why the right might embrace his candidacy. Whew! Exhausting.
On HBO’s Vice Friday night, they did an expose on the shameful use of slave labor (really sad!) for Trump’s new golf course and resort in Dubai (not his problem, he sez, call his business partner about scrutinizing his sub-contractors. Donald sells his name and self-interest only, not his participation.)
Of interest to Dems, the right-wing paramilitary Oath Keepers are predicting civil war if Hillary wins. That sounds pretty far fetched to most of you, I suspect, but here in rural MO not so much. My son recently had an interaction with one of several local candidates for sheriff when the guy stopped by a work site to pass out literature. He asked if the group had guns, and when the answer was affirmative, he said, “Good, I might have to deputize all of you when the Fed’s try to take over.” I’m assuming he tells that to everyone who has a gun and probably gets very little push-back — and there are little spots like the Pea Patch all over this nation.
Had to laugh at that link you sent, aWord — shocking, just shocking! The word (rightly) used for MSM on this topic was “myopic.” As often as the polls show that Bernie has a MUCH better chance of cleaning the Pub clock than Hillary, they continue to see him as an also-ran, outside of public approval. Obviously, reality on the ground is NOT in their wheelhouse.
Bears repeating, Clinton is loathed on the right and distrusted on the left. Nick Kristof wrote an op-ed for the NYT declaring Hillary trustworthy by virtue of her campaign vetting if not her shifting record, and felt it necessary because it turns out that only 30 or so percent of the nation think her honest. That does not bode well for general election turnout.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/opinion/sunday/is-hillary-clinton-dishonest.html
Let’s give her her due — she pushed back hard, Scorpio fashion, at the Republican propaganda war during Bill’s tenure and they’ve punished her for it ever since. She’s been in defense posture for thirty and more years, so if she sounds practiced rather than authentic — she’s had to be. Still, her triangulation, capitulation and shifting policies toward what does her the most good in the polls has fashioned her as opportunistic and untrustworthy, and its a narrative — combined with the darker imagination of the Pub conspiracies — that has stuck.
I worry about her in the national. The problem with folding Berners into her campaign is that so many of them ARE outliers — reaching toward center to embrace Bernie’s accommodation as a Dem. They’re Green, they’re Indy’s, they’re Working Family, even Socialist, and they’ve embraced Sanders BECAUSE he’s met them where they live, focused on their concerns. It isn’t a CANDIDATE these people are supporting, it’s a PLATFORM.
Change the platform, put it in Hillary’s hands (especially when we can guarantee she’ll turn back toward center when she gets the nod) and turn-out will be dutiful on the left but NOT enthusiastic. One more time — Clinton burn-out is a REAL THING, especially as center-piece of an establishment that is quickly becoming obsolete.
By the way, Big Bill should be home practicing to be First Mate, needle-pointing a pillow that reads “A Closed Mouth Gathers No Feet.” He recently went after Millennials for not turning out in 2010, telling them they’d have had a decent congress and jobs if they’d voted the mid-terms … and while he’s right about turn-out, blaming the kids (some of whom coulnd’t even vote then) isn’t helpful and SURELY not when Hillary needs to court them!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bill-clinton-blames-millennials_us_57191d13e4b0d0042da88c9f
And here’s another BB to add: before Bernie we didn’t have a dramatic sense of how broken the nominating system was, different state by state — or the distressing slap at democratic choice with the Dem delegate process (super my ass!) We need open primaries, same-day registration, the end to partisan ‘purges.’ We’ve got a fresh view of how flawed the system and its clear need for reform. Bernie and Donald’s campaign have given us a close-up of nominating dysfunction.
Thanks for the specifics, be, and I agree — we won’t have to wait that long. It’s happening as we speak. And I appreciate the call for ethics, compassion and enlightenment that’s growing. Here’s an excellent read by Robert Koehler, quoted below — open the link for more.
“What remains endlessly hinted at about the 2016 presidential race, but not fully articulated, is that something enormous — bigger than politics, bigger than America itself, perhaps — is trembling and kicking just below the surface, struggling to emerge.
“I have a name to suggest for this hypothetical phenomenon: the New Enlightenment. Nothing less than that seems adequate.
“There are millions of midwives at the ready — angry, despairing citizens — desperately hoping to assist in the birthing process . . . by being part of the Bernie Sanders campaign. I say this with full cognizance of the flawed, compromised nature of politics in general and the Democratic Party in particular. The political process is a stew of money and competing interests, power, compromise, cynicism and secret deals. But that’s not all it is…”
http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/we-need-a-new-age-of-enlightnment-of-humanization-and-compassion
Millions of midwives at the ready! Great visual, huh?
Change IS the name of the game, aWord, and I appreciate your remarks on Hillary as a female candidate. I find myself wondering how many women have thought about how that might look in Hil’s hands. She’s sold as strong but fair, compassionate but pragmatic and those things may be true but she’s also more of a foreign affairs hawk than her besties in the Pentagon, the Generals (and that’s according to THEM.) Those who think Hillary will wage peace haven’t studied her record.
Meanwhile, those of us who have studied the topic and moved left to Sanders have mixed feelings and it’s for the same reason that the outliers on Bernie’s team do — the policy shifts we so desperately want (and need) seem likely to die a quiet death on her watch, especially as regards military issues. At least they would without our activism.
(Of note on the warrior issue: John McCain, up for re-election, is in a dead heat with his progressive Dem opponent. At 80, John’s probably a little tired but he’s also incredibly connected and financed in red Arizona … and still in serious trouble. The big military-industrial footprint is beginning to decline in popularity, another of those ‘changes’ that we’ve been expecting.)
That said, MSM has Bernie bowing out today but the movement will continue, and while he has pledged to go on until California he did pivot slightly today, in terms of the Democratic Party itself needing reform:
“What mostly we need to do is to open the doors of the Democratic Party, which in many ways are not open right now, to millions of young people and working class people who want to make fundamental changes in the way this country operates,” he explained. “And the function of the Democratic Party cannot just be to go to wealthy people and raise money. It’s got to be meeting with ordinary people, hearing what’s on their mind and prepare to take on the powerful special interest, who today control this country legislatively, economically and media-wise.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/bernie-sanders-democratic-party-fairness-222355#ixzz46m9EXzK6
Continued activism in a progressive political movement that restores the promise of the Constitution, and reform of the political parties to meet the needs of the people?
I can mid-wife that! Sounds like a plan!