We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Democratic platform deal sets stage for Sanders’ endorsement of Clinton

Click here to access article by Jerry White from World Socialist Web Site.

Sheepdog Sanders has performed his job well for the sheep farmer known as the ruling capitalist class. He has herded many dissident-sheep into the farmer's corral known as the Democratic Party. The dissidents are now being fed with a "progressive" platform to allay their fears, and are faced with the agonizing choice of going down the Democratic Party's chute to be slaughtered or leaping over a small fence and going down the Republican Party's chute to be slaughtered. White in this article clarifies the significance of the platform.
...the Clinton-controlled Democratic Party platform committee agreed to a number of amendments to the party’s 2016 platform proposed by the Sanders camp. The 35-page document, which will be finalized and ratified at the Democratic Party national convention in Philadelphia later this month, is nonbinding and of zero significance in terms of the policies of the next president.

It has been decades since the official platforms adopted by the two parties of American big business, the Democrats and Republicans, were seen by the parties themselves or the political and media establishment as a whole as anything more than window dressing. This year, however, Sanders has sought to portray the document and the convention itself as having great political import. He is doing so in furtherance of his effort to divert the popular disgust with the political system and desire for an anticapitalist alternative that was reflected in the broad support for his campaign....