Bno

"We invaded sovereign soil, going after oil Taking countries is a hobby paid for by the oil lobby Same as in Iraq, and Afghanistan And Ahmadinejad say they coming for Iran"

@Space Try to look at this systemically. Is this only Trump or is it him plus the military industrial complex, the political establishment and multinationals who want to spread their businesses by force? Didn't we see this happen in recent history too? When Obama bombed 7 different countries killing millions of innocent civilians including school buses and weddings? When Bush started the torture facilities and bombing the middle east to expand his and his administrations' corporate interests which continued under Obama and now Trump? This far from partisan. Currently under Trump, we have "resistance" Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren voting for Trump's increases in the military budget and expanding the surveillance state.

Unfortunately, it seems like @Leo Gura is doing this. Or suggesting that Trump is the worst. Obama started 5 wars (Lybia, Syria, Sudan, Yemen, and Somalia) in addition to Bush's 2 (Iraq and Afghanistan). If anything, I'd say Obama is more dangerous than Trump because of how asleep the left gets when there's a Democrat in office.

@Annoynymous We are seeing people in some Latin American countries fighting back against imperialism. I wonder how the end up this new decade will look like.

@Annoynymous It's all manufactured so that we can spread US neoliberalism around the world. Multinationals who fund US politicians push for war to install their business in countries that have many of their resources nationalized. All the US has to do to manufacture consent is say "so-and-so is an evil person! We must act now with military force." In recent history, so-and-so = Sadam Hussein of Iraq, Ghadafi of Lybia, Asaad of Syria, Chavez and Maduro of Venezuela, etc. We are the ones starting these wars. If the US truly cared about ending "evil dictatorships," we wouldn't still have Saudi Arabia as our clients.

@Meetjoeblack You know process for everything has gone up except our wages? $8 in the 1980s is equivalent to $20 today. People can't make a living for all their expenses for basic needs off of minimum wage.

The US media, including major 'progressive' outlets like TYT and Democracy Now are silent on this: It seems like a reason the MSM and mainstream media-lite outlets aren't covering this is because it doesn't fit their Trump-Russia narrative.

Chris Hedges is really good and he spoke truth about the Iraq War before it was popular and he got fired for it. It's important to separate the stage yellow analytical progressives and the healthy green progressives who show the least amount of partisanship blindness from the unhealthy green progressives (and sometimes stage orange pretending to be progressives) whose emotional reactions without well thought out analysis leads to them working against the best interest of the progressive movement. Stage yellow/healthy green: Kyle Kulinski (Secular Talk) Jimmy Dore (The Jimmy Dore Show) Niko House (MCSC Network) Fiorella Isabel (MCSC Network) Craig Pasta Jardula (MCSC Network) Ron Placone Graham Elwood Lee Camp (Redacted Tonight) Primo Nutmeg Max Blumenthal (The Grayzone) Aaron Mate (The Grayzone) Ben Norton (The Grayzone) Anya Parampil (The Grayzone) Kim Iversen Jamarl Thomas Krystal Ball (The Hill's Rising) Sagaar Enjeti (The Hill's Rising) Matt Taibi (Rollingstone's Useful Idiots) Katie Halper (Rollingstone's Useful Idiots) Glenn Greenwald (The Intercept) Chris Hedges Michael Tracy The main hosts at Hard Lens Media Unhealthy Stage Green/Orange: Everyone still in TYT Mike Figeuredo (The Humanist Report) Sam Sedar (The Majority Report) Michael Brooks (The Michael Brooks Show) Tim Black David Packman Amy Goodman (Democracy Now) David Doel (Rational National) Everyone at Vox; very neoliberal

Yup

@Annoynymous What about having both services and money? As long as the the amount of money doesn't exceed productive capacity and real resources, inflation won't occur. With more money in our pockets, we have more to spend and flow it back into the economy.

He's not in it for those things, unfortunately. He's for a public option but pretends to be for single payer by pretending to be for M4A. His UBI could be supplemented on top of those public programs you mentioned though. Do you still think UBI will lead to inflation on top of these programs and on top of federal jobs guarentee?

Vox is an establishment biased actor

Yang is antiestablishment but not necessarily progressive. I think UBI would work well on top of a federal jobs guarantee. Too bad they were making it seem in one of the debates that you can only have one or the other. You can have both.

I'm including books here that aren't on Leo's booklist but I think many of you will still benefit from. For more details, you can find more elaborate book reviews and interviews with these credible authors online. If you'd like to share other books if you've read on politics, please share. Listen, Liberal: or, Whatever Happened to the Party of the People? - Thomas Frank If you have a liberal bias, this book is great for disillusioning that bias and help you see our politics more objectively. This nonfictional story describes how the Democratic Party detached itself from its average American constituency through increasingly favoring neoliberal policies. American Exceptionalism and American Innocence - Roberto Sirvent and Danny Haiphong Is the news you're hearing all fake? Sirvent and Haiphong expose how not only MSM, but mainstream pop culture and even schools have all participated in misinforming the public about the US being the white night heroes of the world throughout history. The Management of Savagery - Max Blumenthal If you're wondering about the rise of nationalism, Blumenthal reports on how the failures of US foreign policy in the Middle East led to the election of President Donald Trump. Contending Economic Theories: Neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian - Richard D Wolff and Stephan A Raesnick This book is great for understanding the differences of historically important economic theories and how they influenced countries. FDR - Jean Edwards Smith I recommend the biography of any president, but seeing how the current increasing divide between the poor and rich and low levels of corporate regulations are so similar to the roaring 20s giving rise to the Great Depression, it's essential to learn about the man that led a revolution that benefited the people. This book explores how Franklin D Roosevelt's relationships, battle with polio and other experiences shaped him to be a strong leader during big historical events like the passing of the New Deal and going into WWII. The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy - Stephanie Kelton A book on modern monetary theory. There's a very good chance that you, like many others including several politicians, do not understand how the economy actually works. Where does money come from? Why does our country collect taxes? The truth is that ever sense the 70s, our country gave up the gold standard and now money isn't really based on anything. The US Congress is the only money issuer and they can create money whenever it is asked upon them. However, it would be unwise to create more money than the actual labor and resource capacity. Taxes really only exist to control inflation and promote good behavior and punish bad behavior. Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel - Max Blumenthal What is the Israel-Palestine conflict all about? Blumenthal breaks down the disturbing history of the conflict and the disenfranchisement and maltreatment of the Palestinians in Israel. The US Constitution This is important for understanding your rights and the power and limitations of the US government.

@Ferdi Le But you could also say they lost more votes to Trump and abstaining lol

@Ferdi Le If he doesn't remember, it's our job to remind him. I'm a little worried because Bernie has been bowing down to some things that the establishment wants that go against what his base wants and what he likely truly believes.

@Ferdi Le The DNC elects the VP after the nominee gives their suggestion. My hopes are that Bernie and the people he rallies put enough pressure on the DNC to allow him to have his uncoerced and consensual VP choice. He's mentioned in a past interview that he wants a progressive VP who is younger than him, is a minority, and of the opposite sex. The two that qualify for that are Nina Turner and Tulsi Gabbard. I think Yang will be in Bernie's cabinet and I think he'll be great!

@Ferdi Le With Warren's recent fall and no crossover appeal and Buttigieg's virtual 0 support from black people, I don't think they stand a chance Ferdi. The only people that do stand a (good) chance are the candidates that focus on economic issues and have crossover appeal like Tulsi, Yang and Bernie.

Unless you understand the statistics from that study, you cannot accept it as a good study. One major fallacy with your assumption and the assumption from that study is that all Stein voters would've voted for Hillary. As one of those Stein voters, I would NOT have voted for Hillary. Other former Stein voters like my fiance and her father, my family members, and some close friends also said they would not have voted for Hillary either. Even some youtube pundits like Niko House and Jimmy Dore also say they wouldn't have voted for Hillary. If you go on social media, you'd see some people saying they would've or they wouldn't have. You're being too biased here.

@Ferdi Le I just elaborated more on my previous post. If you're going to take into account 3rd parties, you should also consider Gary Johnson who had about 4% of the total votes in MI which take away from Trump. And how is 1% more significant than the over 13% of former Obama voters that voted for Trump? https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_geoffrey_skelley/just_how_many_obama_2012_trump_2016_voters_were_there

Let's be a bit more objective here. More votes were taken away from Trump by the Libertarian party and a huge chunk of previous 2-times Obama voters voted for Trump, especially in those states that Hillary didn't campaign in (Wisconsi, Ohio and Michigan). Half the country didn't even go out to vote. Are we really going to conclude that the Green Party (who got an insignificant 1% of the vote) was a big contributor to Hillary's loss? If Trump loses in 2020, it'll be because he went up against a populist progressive Democrat, not a Hillary 2.0 who doesn't excite the country. Trump's approval ratings are currently close to 50% and that's because establishment Dems and the MSM attack him on insignificant issues that the majority of people either don't care about or it excites his base more.

@DoubleYou The majority of the people of this country wanted Bernie Sanders, that's why he's been the most popular US candidate for 3 years. The DNC stole the presidency from him.

@Alyosha

Let them know. I had several friends who loved Obama and all my family members were Obama supporters. I tell them this and they feel uncomfortable too. I also point out the fact that if I said Trump instead of Obama, they wouldn't have that reaction. The truth is important and people are starting to wake up to it. It's also important to understand why we have Trump. It's not because our country has so many racists, it's because of years of neoliberalism. We're leaving the age of acceptance of traditional dogmas and unquestioning authorities to an age of information and skepticism.

@Alyosha Through more consciousness work on our part and their part and research that we try to provide them about US politics throughout the decades, hopefully they'll see past image. For now, all we can do is try to understand why they think this way and try to help them connect the dots. What concerns me is someone in Leo's position not looking past image and still calling Trump "the most corrupt president we've had" and putting him "on a class of his own." The fact that he's read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein and Who Rules the World? by Noam Chomsky and still classifies Trump as the most corrupt figure in politics we've ever had boggles my mind. Some people who listen to him on youtube or on these forums may take what he says as confirmation to their unconscious bias and continue down the path of being mislead and not working towards solving the actual root problems of the world and having a more conscious society.