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Post 16 Dec 2016, 1:57 pm

puh-lease Ricky!
The DNC attack was not nice, I am not trying to sugar coat it as if it's a non-issue. Foreign governments trying to mess with anything we do as a government is pretty bad. However, the result of their hack was minor at best as far as any interference. They found some conspiracy stuff that harmed Sanders and that painted the entire party in a bad light but that was old news by the time of the election and Clinton was never in any real danger of not getting there anyways. The hacks were indeed MINOR.

Your claims about the right to privacy is really putting you in the same stratosphere as UFO whacko's. This was not an attack on anyone's personal freedoms or privacy, they hacked the DNC. Where is your outrage over the recent Yahoo attacks that compromised millions of individuals accounts? Where is your outrage over the millions of attempted hacks of the Pentagon daily, where is your outrage over those Nigerians who need your bank account to get their millions? The claims of Personal privacy here is a bit of a laugh seeing as how you ignore the very real personal privacy attacks that happen every day to very real people. Not a single word from you on those, not one! Yet now we have the DNC hacked and exposed and wow, now it's personal?
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Post 16 Dec 2016, 3:09 pm

freeman3 wrote:It's a big deal that Russia tried to influence our election (and may have succeeded) and we need to retaliate in a proportionate way to make sure they realize they can't do it again. Democracies cannot tolerate other countries trying to undermine the integrity of their elections. I just don't understand the response from Tom and Dags that it is no big deal. Making sure our elections are free from outside interference is a very big deal and Russia will get even more aggressive if we do nothing about it.

And Dags is like since Sanders was screwed then whatever else happened does not matter. It's completely shocking that the establishment DNC would favor Hillary over an outsider candidate. Like the RNC did not try to do everything they could do to stop Trump. If Sanders was strong enough what the DNC did to favor Hillary would not have mattered. And in any case Russian interference in our election is a larger issue than any personal animus against Hillary or the DNC. At least it should be.
Yes. This.

There is also the assumption that the hacked emails were not manipulated before being made public, or that they actually reveal what they were spun out to mean.

And given that it is being assumed that they hacked the RCC too, and are holding on to the data, could it also be that there is blackmail they are hoping to use against the next President or the Republican majority in Congress? Would that not also be a threat?

Russia clearly wants a weakened and divided US. You now have a President with many supporters who are more willing to believe Russia than the CIA. Whoever won the election would have been tarred with scandal thanks to the hack-and-leak.

Putin is winning.
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Post 16 Dec 2016, 7:23 pm

tom
Where is your outrage over the recent Yahoo attacks that compromised millions of individuals accounts? Where is your outrage over the millions of attempted hacks of the Pentagon daily, where is your outrage over those Nigerians who need your bank account to get their millions? The claims of Personal privacy here is a bit of a laugh seeing as how you ignore the very real personal privacy attacks that happen every day to very real people. Not a single word from you on those, not one! Yet now we have the DNC hacked and exposed and wow, now it's personal?

I expressed my outrage quite fervently on the redscape board discussion regarding this topic.

There is a very different reason, and very different actors behind the Yahoo hacks and the Nigerian Princes emails... compared to the DNC and RNC hacks. And the disinformation campaign. Which was a large part of the Russian effort. For instance, are you certain the suppossed DNC leaks were entirely accurate?
The Nigerian Prince was not trying to subvert the US elections. Just scam you out of some money. Like Trump Universityscammed people.

Putin was hoping to confuse and confound the American voting public and in particular Clintons campaign. He now has his useful idiot as President elect. Mission accomplished.

Thousands of Americans have died defending democracy. At least that's why they were told they were fighting. The russians can chip away at the foundation of democracy with impunity, and with no outcry from those who normally revere those who've sacrificed to defend democracy -
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Post 17 Dec 2016, 11:23 am

Try as I might, I honestly can't bring myself to get too worked up about this. There's a couple of reasons for that. Firstly, I honestly don't believe that the hacking of the DNC made very much difference to the outcome of the election, if any. Russia didn't make Hillary Clinton into a terrible candidate and neither did it create the current anti-establishment mood which is sweeping the Western world. I'm willing to bet that most of the Rust Belt voters who pushed Trump over the line were blissfully ignorant of the latest missives from Wikileaks when they went along to cast their vote. This all smacks of sour grapes to me. I guess it's a step up from the way the Remoaners have reacted to the Brexit vote ("all of you guys are ignorant racist fools who can't think for yourselves"), but not by much. It's still treating Trump voters as if they're mindless automatons who were manipulated by Russian propaganda. Fact is we have no evidence that these leaked emails influenced a single vote, but the way it's now being spun it's as if Vladimir Putin personally stole the election.

Secondly, attempting to influence the domestic politics of other countries is hardly something that's unique to Russia. Americans do plenty of that kind of thing. Quite often they do it overtly as well. I mentioned the Brexit referendum earlier. It wasn't that long ago that the President of the United States flew into Britain and told a series of outright lies to the British people in an explicit attempt to influence the way we voted in a referendum. Granted, that was overt rather than covert, but it was still taking sides in an internal matter that had nothing to do with the US. You do plenty of covert action too, not least targeting Russia. Where do you think all of the recent leaks about Putin's personal wealth came from ? Who, if not the Russian people, was the intended audience ? This is a game that everybody plays. I should also point out that other countries have meddled in American elections to a far greater extent than the recent DNC hacks. Israel is the obvious example, which has been engaged in espionage against the US and looking to manipulate American elections for decades, with far greater success than the Russians have ever managed.
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Post 17 Dec 2016, 5:06 pm

I think we have to look first at how close the election was to assess whether Russia affected the election:

Wisconsin 10 Electoral votes Trump +1.0% 27,000
Michigan 16 electoral votes Trump+.3 % 11,000
Penn 20 Electoral votes Trump +1.2% 68,000
Florida 29 electoral votes Trump +1.3% 120,000
North Carolina 15 Trump +3.8% 177,000
Georgia 16 Electoral votes + 4.7% 231,000
Arizona 11 Electoral votes +4.1 85,000

So that’s 117 electoral votes that Trump won whether if a few percent changed their vote Hillary would have won. Hillary lost 306 to 232 so she needed 38 more electoral votes to win. So if .7% of Florida voters switched from Trump to Hillary and .2% of Michigan voters switched from Trump to Hillary, Hillary wins. Of course, there were many possible combinations of Hillary winning with slight changes in voting preferences in 2 or 3 of the above-listed states.So Russia did not need to do a lot to influence the election since the election was so close.

The DNC leaks upset Sanders’ voters because they indicated that the DNC favored Clinton. The Podesta leak indicated that Donna Brazile may have helped Clinton by giving questions beforehand and the Podesta leaks regarding the Wall Street speeches again went to her credibility because they showed she was so complimentary to Wall Street in her speeches while being more critical in the public comments as a candidate. In total they confirmed a narrative of Clinton being an Establishment candidate, not truthful, and friendly to Wall Street.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/20 ... 9fd4421a7a
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... right.html


Those leaks upset Sanders’ supporters a great deal. I don’t know the breakdown of the other states but I know in Wisconsin that Trump got fewer votes than Romney did in 2012. So Democrats stayed home and presumably a good many of those were Sanders’ supporters. It did not need to be that many to tip the election.

And of course Russia also helped to spread fake news against Hillary as well.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technolog ... oters.html

Now to the several arguments that Sass made. One was that Trump voters were not aware of the Wikileaks. I think the leaks regarding the DNC helping Hillary and Donna Brazile giving her questions were very well publicized. Many Sanders’ supporters were very publicly upset about the leaks. They were certainly discussed extensively on right-wing websites. I don’t know why we would assume that this information did not get to most of the voters.

Sass argues that we’re assuming that Trump voters are automatons and could be manipulated so easily. Most voters of course would not be swayed by these leaks as far as making a voting decision. But we’re talking about maybe 20% of the electorate that is sitting on the fence. Any significant information negative to a candidate could influence the vote. And again it was a very close election. Certainly Russia thought it was worth the risk to interfere in the American political process.

The US has intervened in the past in Iran, Guatemala, Chile etc. to get person they wanted into power. And those interventions are not remembered fondly by people that were affected by them. Is there any reason why we should tolerate interference in our elections by a power that is far less powerful than us? I don’t think the example of Brexit is relevant. It is one thing to try and influence policy but intervening to get a candidate elected in another country is a pretty serious intervention. Obama trying to influence the Brexit vote does not come close to that. That's called diplomacy. I cannot think of a recent example similar to what Russia did, certainly not when the power affected has more power than the intervening party. It is absurd for us to tolerate this.
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Post 18 Dec 2016, 10:32 am

freeman3 wrote:I think we have to look first at how close the election was to assess whether Russia affected the election:

Wisconsin 10 Electoral votes Trump +1.0% 27,000
Michigan 16 electoral votes Trump+.3 % 11,000
Penn 20 Electoral votes Trump +1.2% 68,000
Florida 29 electoral votes Trump +1.3% 120,000
North Carolina 15 Trump +3.8% 177,000
Georgia 16 Electoral votes + 4.7% 231,000
Arizona 11 Electoral votes +4.1 85,000

So that’s 117 electoral votes that Trump won whether if a few percent changed their vote Hillary would have won. Hillary lost 306 to 232 so she needed 38 more electoral votes to win. So if .7% of Florida voters switched from Trump to Hillary and .2% of Michigan voters switched from Trump to Hillary, Hillary wins. Of course, there were many possible combinations of Hillary winning with slight changes in voting preferences in 2 or 3 of the above-listed states.So Russia did not need to do a lot to influence the election since the election was so close.

The DNC leaks upset Sanders’ voters because they indicated that the DNC favored Clinton. The Podesta leak indicated that Donna Brazile may have helped Clinton by giving questions beforehand and the Podesta leaks regarding the Wall Street speeches again went to her credibility because they showed she was so complimentary to Wall Street in her speeches while being more critical in the public comments as a candidate. In total they confirmed a narrative of Clinton being an Establishment candidate, not truthful, and friendly to Wall Street.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/20 ... 9fd4421a7a
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... right.html
Those leaks upset Sanders’ supporters a great deal. I don’t know the breakdown of the other states but I know in Wisconsin that Trump got fewer votes than Romney did in 2012. So Democrats stayed home and presumably a good many of those were Sanders’ supporters. It did not need to be that many to tip the election.

And of course Russia also helped to spread fake news against Hillary as well.
http://www.slate.com/articles/technolog ... oters.html
Now to the several arguments that Sass made. One was that Trump voters were not aware of the Wikileaks. I think the leaks regarding the DNC helping Hillary and Donna Brazile giving her questions were very well publicized. Many Sanders’ supporters were very publicly upset about the leaks. They were certainly discussed extensively on right-wing websites. I don’t know why we would assume that this information did not get to most of the voters.

Sass argues that we’re assuming that Trump voters are automatons and could be manipulated so easily. Most voters of course would not be swayed by these leaks as far as making a voting decision. But we’re talking about maybe 20% of the electorate that is sitting on the fence. Any significant information negative to a candidate could influence the vote. And again it was a very close election. Certainly Russia thought it was worth the risk to interfere in the American political process.

The US has intervened in the past in Iran, Guatemala, Chile etc. to get person they wanted into power. And those interventions are not remembered fondly by people that were affected by them. Is there any reason why we should tolerate interference in our elections by a power that is far less powerful than us? I don’t think the example of Brexit is relevant. It is one thing to try and influence policy but intervening to get a candidate elected in another country is a pretty serious intervention. Obama trying to influence the Brexit vote does not come close to that. That's called diplomacy. I cannot think of a recent example similar to what Russia did, certainly not when the power affected has more power than the intervening party. It is absurd for us to tolerate this.



I don't think it is a revelation that any one government might try to influence politics in another government. This has gone on throughout history and shows no signs of abating, whether we like it or not. That Obama is only now expressing his moral outrage is a joke, considering that this information was apparently "known" for some time during the election. Instead, he was silent, while he and Michelle were actively campaigning for Hillary. Only after the loss, did this issue suddenly become a big deal, since everybody was sure Hillary was going to win. Had Obama started making noise about "Russian Interference" as an explanation for the ongoing leaks during the campaign, it might have looked like he was merely trying to deflect the criticism and made things worse for Clinton.

Did the Russians officially do this? Maybe. Maybe not. The CIA has yet to reveal its evidence; and the FBI's acceptance of the finding is yet another instance of that organization swinging from one side to the other. If Russia was involved, I would not be surprised. Apparently, any competent computer agency could have done the hacking. And we don't know if other governments did not ALSO do this, but chose to not make their findings public.

So what this exposure also points out is:

A. Our politicians and government workers are incredibly stupid and naive when it comes to security, confidentiality, and common sense. Bragging about your illegal/unethical/injudicious actions in emails and memos invites publication and public scorn. This is the same kind of idiocy that one sees in countless statements on FB, Twitter, and other social media.

B. The Left's publicly-cultivated position of supporting the down-trodden, the victimized, the "common man" has been overturned by elitist, cynical, and hypocritical politicians who used "identity politics" merely to gain political votes, while privately and even publicly marginalizing large groups of people (Catholics and Jews; the "basket of deplorables", meaning the unwashed, poor, and "obviously racist" whites).

C. The ongoing exposures of these emails, recordings, and other documents - whether legally or illegally obtained, laid bare the corruption within the Democratic Party and Clinton's campaign. That is to say, had they not engaged in these activities, there would have been NOTHING for the leakers and publishers to report. And the results of the election might have been different.

In the end, I think it was the DNC and the Clinton campaign that was the true basket of deplorables.
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Post 18 Dec 2016, 12:20 pm

georgeatkins
Did the Russians officially do this? Maybe. Maybe not. The CIA has yet to reveal its evidence

Publicly. But they've provided indepth evidentiary brieifings to those with security clearances. Like the Presdient Elect.
Plus, out side agencies have documented the hacking by two Russian groups, and their use of Gufficer 2... not just in the US, but in Poland, the Ukraine, and other European elections. Thgeir use of disinformation in western politics has a decades long pedigree.
The intelligence community, and the government of the US, are saying they did it. Whats the evidence that someone else did?
Doesn't exist.

Georgeatkins
In the end, I think it was the DNC and the Clinton campaign that was the true basket of deplorables
.
Who was using identy politics in the election George? I seem to remember Trump started with "Mexicans", moved on to Muslims and then took a run at the Chinese... All based on lies and misrepresentations.
The characterization of the left using "identity politics" is an attempt to disparage and discourage any minority with a confluence of concerns and issues that affect them as a group from offering an organized and coherent message. Blacks shouln't get so uppity, women should know their place and gays should stay in the closet. At least thats what this sounds like to me. If these groups fnd an ally in the Democrats and support them, there's a reason.They see them as a path to change.

If you want to criticize the Democrats for not delivering on their commitments to these minority groups interests...okay. Just so we understand that its hard to take steps forward when someone is standing in your way. (Your political opponents who are dedicated to obstruction in every way possible.)
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Post 18 Dec 2016, 12:28 pm

rickyp wrote:georgeatkins
Did the Russians officially do this? Maybe. Maybe not. The CIA has yet to reveal its evidence

Publicly. But they've provided indepth evidentiary brieifings to those with security clearances. Like the Presdient Elect.
Plus, out side agencies have documented the hacking by two Russian groups, and their use of Gufficer 2... not just in the US, but in Poland, the Ukraine, and other European elections. Thgeir use of disinformation in western politics has a decades long pedigree.
The intelligence community, and the government of the US, are saying they did it. Whats the evidence that someone else did?
Doesn't exist.

Georgeatkins
In the end, I think it was the DNC and the Clinton campaign that was the true basket of deplorables
.
Who was using identy politics in the election George? I seem to remember Trump started with "Mexicans", moved on to Muslims and then took a run at the Chinese... All based on lies and misrepresentations.
The characterization of the left using "identity politics" is an attempt to disparage and discourage any minority with a confluence of concerns and issues that affect them as a group from offering an organized and coherent message. Blacks shouln't get so uppity, women should know their place and gays should stay in the closet. At least thats what this sounds like to me. If these groups fnd an ally in the Democrats and support them, there's a reason.They see them as a path to change.

If you want to criticize the Democrats for not delivering on their commitments to these minority groups interests...okay. Just so we understand that its hard to take steps forward when someone is standing in your way. (Your political opponents who are dedicated to obstruction in every way possible.)


Sorry, but that's no excuse. It is always the role of one party to oppose the other. That is why we have parties. Do Republicans play identity politics? Well, it depends upon what your definition is. The Left use it as a way to politicize groups of people for the purpose of votes and garnering support. You want to say that what Trump said had anything to do with Republican theory and position? I think you misunderstand the situation. Trump ran against both the Dems and the Republicans. Of course, he was using identity politics in a different way. So what?

The point here is that everybody (at least on the left) like to believe that the Democrats are the Party of the (real) People, not Big Business. I think the Clinton Campaign put "Big Lie" to that. Everybody expects Republicans to be high-minded, elitist, biased. It is something else when the "liberal" Democractic Party to be found doing the same thing.
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Post 18 Dec 2016, 12:29 pm

rickyp wrote:georgeatkins
Did the Russians officially do this? Maybe. Maybe not. The CIA has yet to reveal its evidence

Publicly. But they've provided indepth evidentiary brieifings to those with security clearances. Like the Presdient Elect.
Plus, out side agencies have documented the hacking by two Russian groups, and their use of Gufficer 2... not just in the US, but in Poland, the Ukraine, and other European elections. Thgeir use of disinformation in western politics has a decades long pedigree.
The intelligence community, and the government of the US, are saying they did it. Whats the evidence that someone else did?
Doesn't exist.

Georgeatkins
In the end, I think it was the DNC and the Clinton campaign that was the true basket of deplorables
.
Who was using identy politics in the election George? I seem to remember Trump started with "Mexicans", moved on to Muslims and then took a run at the Chinese... All based on lies and misrepresentations.
The characterization of the left using "identity politics" is an attempt to disparage and discourage any minority with a confluence of concerns and issues that affect them as a group from offering an organized and coherent message. Blacks shouln't get so uppity, women should know their place and gays should stay in the closet. At least thats what this sounds like to me. If these groups fnd an ally in the Democrats and support them, there's a reason.They see them as a path to change.

If you want to criticize the Democrats for not delivering on their commitments to these minority groups interests...okay. Just so we understand that its hard to take steps forward when someone is standing in your way. (Your political opponents who are dedicated to obstruction in every way possible.)


Sorry, but that's no excuse. It is always the role of one party to oppose the other. That is why we have parties. Do Republicans play identity politics? Well, it depends upon what your definition is. The Left use it as a way to politicize groups of people for the purpose of votes and garnering support. You want to say that what Trump said had anything to do with Republican theory and position? I think you misunderstand the situation. Trump ran against both the Dems and the Republicans. Of course, he was using identity politics in a different way. So what?

The point here is that everybody (at least on the left) like to believe that the Democrats are the Party of the (real) People, not Big Business. I think the Clinton Campaign put "Big Lie" to that. Everybody expects Republicans to be high-minded, elitist, biased. It is something else when the "liberal" Democratic Party to be found doing the same thing.
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Post 19 Dec 2016, 7:01 am

I wasn't so sure of what George said but after reading it that second time, it became so much clearer!
:laugh:
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Post 19 Dec 2016, 7:28 am

Freeman,

Instead of restating that the Russian hack job took place, would you mind explaining why I should care?

I get it. The Russians influenced the election. You've mentioned that now quite a few times. No one is disputing that here I don't think.

Why is this suppose to be so monumental? Because it worked and they influenced our election? Ok, now why is that such a big deal again?

And please don't point to espionage as their greatest wrong. They spy. That's what they do. We do the same to them and others. Countries spy on one another. That's not a news flash.

How have you been injured by the result of their spying? Because your candidate lost?
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Post 19 Dec 2016, 7:49 am

george
The Left use it as a way to politicize groups of people for the purpose of votes and garnering support

What came first George?
Did blacks organize to gain civil rights and their protection or did the Democrats create this? (Since when the civil rights movement began to gain strength in the post WWII years, the republicans were actually more liberal, that should be obvious.)
Did gays organize to gain their civil rights, or did the Democratic party create the gay rights movement?
Were women organized by the democratic party to demonstrate for equal pay, anti-discrimination and access to abortion or did they organize groups on their own?

The democratic party does not create the "identities". They respond to them.
The identities, the womens movement, the gay rights movement, the various movements and organizations that offer to represent the aspirations and goals of blacks and hispanics ... are not created by either political party. However these groups understand that the political process is where they can gain power to change things that will help them achieve their goals and aspirations. Thats the whole point. To gain notice and to sway politicians to respond to them.

You are right that democrats appeal to many of these identities. They want their votes. And they structure their policies to appeal to the groups aspirations and goals. And therefore they get them
Republicans appeal more successfully to some other groups. Gun owners. Religious conservatives. The corporate elite. Because their policies and priorities seem to fit the goals and aspirations of those "identities".

Trump, you say ran against both Dems and republicans? You think?
He ran in the republican primariesappealing to the base republican voter... He made many commitments or policy statemenets designed to engender the support of the identities that are comfortably in the Republican Base.
Yes, he ran against corporate elitism and made it seem that like he was prepared to battle inequality. Because inequality is victimizing much of the rural, suburban white population that is the republican base. (Free trade was a very small part of this by the way. Immigration even smaller.)
However, and this is the ironic part .... none of his policies are likely to have any positive affect on inequality. (His tax proposals would gift the very rich enormousy. His health care and education proposals would further create gulfs between the rich and everyone else.) His cabinet appointments seem to indicate that he'll abandon the working class and middle class whites, in all but word.
You are right that because it was about identity rather than susbstance he managed to con them...

And you and other critics of the Democrats can rightfully say they didn't deliver the goods when all they offered with Hillary was incremental change rather than a revolutionary change. Substantially different policies... at least on corporatism, health care and the tax code.

George
The point here is that everybody (at least on the left) like to believe that the Democrats are the Party of the (real) People, not Big Business. I think the Clinton Campaign put "Big Lie" to that. Everybody expects Republicans to be high-minded, elitist, biased. It is something else when the "liberal" Democratic Party to be found doing the same thing
.
Yes. The US is very much approaching an oligarchy. I agree. Corporations control the tax code, and most of the regulatory laws. Primarily to their benefit. Some corporations are moving to respond to issues that are more long term, than next quarters' fiscal results... Its corporations that actually lead on things like social justice and the environment. (see North Carolina bath room law.) And the governments of the major cities that actually need to deliver services to their populace.

In the last election Bernie did offer a different approach. Hillary not so much.
But Trump? Putin's boy is going to try and cement the oligarchy.
The US has been massively conned.
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Post 19 Dec 2016, 11:41 am

[url]What came first George?...The democratic party does not create the "identities". They respond to them.[/url]

Well, I never claimed they "created" them. Yes, they respond to them, of course. The point is not that, but that they do it for reasons other than the members of those groups suppose. And when your platform is based on this kind of "selective" acknowledgement, it undermines the "inclusiveness" that the Democratic Party likes to wave in everybody's face.

Addendum: Not every group comes ready-made, of course: Immigrants of country x; people earning minimum age, etc. But the Democrats favor portraying their voting groups as suppressed, repressed, disenfranchised, and dependent upon the DNC as their Savior. Again, I'm not True Believer in the RNC, either. I think their kow-towing to the "religous right" and pushing that agenda is not what I'm looking for.

It would be a bit different if the current Democratic Party believed in its own mission statements, but that does not seem to be the case. We can cast stones at the Republicans, as well, though not because they necessarily hold their voters in the same kind of condescending dependency that the DNC and the various Advocacy Groups do. I see that as a major difference, though I won't claim I favor the Republicans, either. That is, the Republican Party seems to actually believe in what they say to their voters and do not try to peddle phony "hope and change" messages. People disparage the Republicans for what they believe in. We can disparage the Democrats for not believing in what they say they do, unless it is the game the system in their favor.

I think you mentioned that the Republicans were quite different back in the 1960s and 1970s. Right you are, Ricky. So were the Democrats, and I don't mean the Dixiecrats, either. Today, Parties look at issues and voters from absolutist positions. The notion that Platforms are merely positions from which to move forward, today Platforms are positions from which to draw lines and pontificate.
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Post 19 Dec 2016, 3:57 pm

george
The point is not that, but that they do it for reasons other than the members of those groups suppose

Please back this up...
Name an interest group that the Dems have used in the way you describe...
I suspect you are projecting or listening to rhetoric that is without substance.


george
But the Democrats favor portraying their voting groups as suppressed, repressed, disenfranchised, and dependent upon the DNC as their Savior

I think the "voting groups" would complan that they are indeed suffering from things that fit these descriptions.
Womens groups rightly complain that they earn only 75 cents for every dollar men make. They also rightly complain that governments try to restrict their access to legal abortion. They rightly complain that they live in the only G8 nation without decent maternity leave (let alone family leave)
And they rightly complain that they suffer discriminatory behavior in soceity.
Blacks complain that they are discriminated against in the justice system, and that they face far greater risks in encounters with police. They also complain about racial discriminaation.
Gays complain about discrimination as well.

Are these manufactured complaints? Did the Democratic party manufacture these complaints or the conditions that cause the complaints?
Are they offering policies that they believe will redress these complaints? Are the republicans.?

I think you are complaining about democracy. That people with power, in their votes, are seeking to affect change in their lives. And the find only one of the two parties offering something theybeleive will help.

If you want to say that Democrats have failed to deliver on their policeies. well, okay. For instance I agree that Obama fell well sort of properly regulating and properly punishing Wall Street for their almsot willful destruction of the western economy. The current regulations may not be sufficient to forestall another such event. But in a convoluted system of governance, a President cannot effect change without much compromise.....And who's responsible for those compromises? The other party. Who claim that none of the "interest groups" complaints are genuine, or if genuine not worthy of action...
I think you complain about the fact the system is working the way it was designed. Or at least the way it evolved over time...

george
Today, Parties look at issues and voters from absolutist positions. The notion that Platforms are merely positions from which to move forward, today Platforms are positions from which to draw lines and pontificate.

well, at least with your current president elect, you have no real idea what his policies are since he really hasn't given them much thought.
When you have a two party system, with primaries, the fanaticstake old. Thia ia much more a fact in the Republcian party than with Democrats however... Part of the charm of having a collection of disparate one issue pressure groups is that none of them dominate.
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Post 20 Dec 2016, 10:42 pm

rickyp wrote:george
The point is not that, but that they do it for reasons other than the members of those groups suppose

Please back this up...
Name an interest group that the Dems have used in the way you describe...
I suspect you are projecting or listening to rhetoric that is without substance.


What I mean is that the Democratic Party uses real and believed issues with specific socio-economic groups to further their own cause, more than fixing any real problems. Did we win the War on Poverty? (in some ways, I think so) How about the War on Drugs? Nope. The War on the Achievement Gap? Nope. The Education Gap? Nope. They all make good pep talks and rallying points, but nothing much comes out of them, in the end.

rickyp wrote:george
But the Democrats favor portraying their voting groups as suppressed, repressed, disenfranchised, and dependent upon the DNC as their Savior

I think the "voting groups" would complan that they are indeed suffering from things that fit these descriptions.
Womens groups rightly complain that they earn only 75 cents for every dollar men make. They also rightly complain that governments try to restrict their access to legal abortion. They rightly complain that they live in the only G8 nation without decent maternity leave (let alone family leave)
And they rightly complain that they suffer discriminatory behavior in soceity.


The oft-repeated notion that women make less than men is something of a red herring and usually unfair. And it is based on an overall comparison, without regard to jobs, experience, or education. (e.g.http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/01/no-women-don-t-make-less-money-than-men.html)

When comparing men and women in the same occupation with the same level of experience, such differences tend to disappear. In fact, you would be hard to find any such disparity in government workers, union workers, or education. Some people claim that men tend to go after careers that habitually involve greater risk and reward, hence greater pay (e.g. computer science, finance, construction, while careers women traditionally gravitate towards have lower pay scales (nursing, social work, teaching, non-profits). Here, I think you can say there are different pay scales because of the different career paths/jobs. And a valid question is "why don't these traditionally "female" careers have better pay ranges? No simple answer, but it must have something to do with what a given society as a whole accepts. Teachers are often held up as being grossly underpaid. In some areas, perhaps, but after they have been on the job for awhile, and with better academic credentials and experience, their pay rises to a respectful level. They just don't start out at the top. Teacher pay is based on a complex set of qualifications. In the school district where I work, salaries run from a starting pay of around $38K for a fresh teacher with a B.S. and no experience up to the low $80K with a Master's and additional experience. The pay-steps look like tax tables. But you can take it to the bank that both a man and women will have the same pay with the same credentials and time on the job.

Our government is not trying to limit access to abortion, though some groups within Congress and outside certainly are. There is also the common complaint that government is trying to prevent women from obtaining birth control information or applications. What they really mean is that they are complaining about legislators trying to stop the Gov't from paying for "free" birth control.

rickyp wrote:Blacks complain that they are discriminated against in the justice system, and that they face far greater risks in encounters with police. They also complain about racial discrimination.
Gays complain about discrimination as well.


Gays, not so much, anymore. They are not only a protected class, they have nearly become a non-entity, merging into the great anonymous stew of American people. Sure, there are still complainers and the usual religious nuts warning of Sodom, but it's a magnitude better, overall. The speed with which the conversion from anti-Gay to Gay-OK occurred throughout the country (and the military) was phenomenal. Quite the opposite situation in most Islamic countries, on the other hand. But not even Hillary had very much to say on the topic this time around.

As for blacks, that is a more complex issue, for which I think there is too much hype, exaggeration and accusations on both sides, drowning out real concerns. One reason there is so much police attention on blacks, for example, is that police are deployed where the crime is. Like anybody else in any other cultural group, blacks don't like to talk about their own issues, such as black-on-black crime, or that blacks commit more violent crime than whites; that blacks are more liable to be killed by other blacks; that cops kill more whites than blacks, etc. (http://www.dailywire.com/news/7441/7-statistics-you-need-know-about-black-black-crime-aaron-bandler and https://infogr.am/Black-34991937313. I don't know why this is so. It is very sad and disturbing. I don't for a minute think blacks are any more inherently violent than any other racial group. But it certainly has to make life for most blacks more difficult.

I found it equally sad, for example, that Hillary solicited for blacks, women, and other special groups to vote for her. They needed to. Why? Did she think they were going to run across the aisle and vote for Trump? Most likely, it was because she wanted to portray herself and the Democrats as their "savior and benefactor", once again trying to maintain a manager-subordinate relationship. But that kind of pandering is one kind of divisiveness that turns people off and does not help resolve anything. Clinton's special groups did not run to Trump, of course. They simply stayed home.

rickyp wrote: Are these manufactured complaints? Did the Democratic party manufacture these complaints or the conditions that cause the complaints?
Are they offering policies that they believe will redress these complaints? Are the republicans.?


Well, in some cases, they are manufactured. The idea that police (as a group or entity) have a vendetta against blacks and feel they are entitled to kill them with impunity (a common BLM accusation) is without foundation. News media and advocacy groups concentrate on those cop-on-black crimes, but ignore the black-on-black shootings and cop-on-white shootings. Police officers are entitled to due process, just like anybody else. And if the court/jury/prosecutor feels they are not guilty, that is how the system works. Just for the record, I am all for roasting any police officer found guilty of criminal action.

rickyp wrote: I think you are complaining about democracy. That people with power, in their votes, are seeking to affect change in their lives. And the find only one of the two parties offering something theybeleive will help.


Note sure at all what you are talking about, Ricky. I'm talking about Democrats, not democracy. Well, the common people of the land (of which I am one) are surely interested in programs and people that will help improve our lot, our future, and our country. Change is a meaningless buzzword (e.g. "Hope and Change"), and most people don't like change. They either want things to remain as they are or just to get better. Democrats like to claim they are there to help, but I rarely see it happen. Cities, esp. mid-to-large-size, tend to be Democratic in government and voting. Yet that is where you find the biggest problems with education, crime, and poverty. And it rarely changes. It seems to me that, if I were still a Democrat, I'd be wondering just why the hell these politicians keep blaming Republicans for the ills, when the Democrats are the ones in charge at the local level.

rickyp wrote: If you want to say that Democrats have failed to deliver on their policeies. well, okay. For instance I agree that Obama fell well sort of properly regulating and properly punishing Wall Street for their almsot willful destruction of the western economy. The current regulations may not be sufficient to forestall another such event. But in a convoluted system of governance, a President cannot effect change without much compromise.....And who's responsible for those compromises? The other party. Who claim that none of the "interest groups" complaints are genuine, or if genuine not worthy of action...
I think you complain about the fact the system is working the way it was designed. Or at least the way it evolved over time...
.

Sorry, Rick. This seems muddled. Is the system working or not? And what system are you talking about? Presidents actually have little they can actively do, other than cajole Congress and the population to favor or disavow whatever the current topic of the day is. Sure, they can issue Executive Orders, though they can be overturned. Congress is partly to blame for this loophole. As for compromise, it is a rare piece of steak these days, as neither party is really interested in sharing. Obama, for his part, talked the talk, but failed to walk the walk. He set the tone when he decided to let the Democrats write up the ACA without input from the Republicans, until it was completed. I don't let the Republicans off the hook, either, as their "Just say No" approach was equally absolutist some of their tactics were just plain childish.

On the other hand, keep in mind that it is the "job" of one party to oppose the other. It is SUPPOSED to be difficult to pass laws. That is why we have the government we do and why we have it based on the notion of checks and balances. Laws are not supposed to be pushed through like groceries moving from shopping cart to grocery bag.

rickyp wrote:george
Today, Parties look at issues and voters from absolutist positions. The notion that Platforms are merely positions from which to move forward, today Platforms are positions from which to draw lines and pontificate.

well, at least with your current president elect, you have no real idea what his policies are since he really hasn't given them much thought.
When you have a two party system, with primaries, the fanaticstake old. Thia ia much more a fact in the Republcian party than with Democrats however... Part of the charm of having a collection of disparate one issue pressure groups is that none of them dominate.


Well, that is part of the great adventure, no? Nobody has any idea what Trump is actually going to try and do. Even with his Cabinet, there are more questions than answers. However, you must have been getting tired or too hyper at the end, as your text breaks up and I have no idea what you were trying to say. If you are trying to say that fanatics tend to be found in the Republicans, I would argue. It is the fanatics that have driven the Democrats far to the left, and away from their centrist positions of old. With regard to the single-issue groups you mention, I say more power to them.

Sorry for the length. I got carried away again.