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I’m  kind of a  slow adapter as far as technology is concerned.  It was just a couple of days  ago I created my first meme, and I haven’t known  how to use hashtags for all that long, either.
But I’ve been having  a lot of fun with  this one today.  I thought the  reaction  from camp Hillary was hilarious, saying “Only a  female candidate would be asked  to drop out” and I found it funny because Hillary supporters have been hounding  us to drop out for months now.  So, I hope this  keeps trending, I hope  millions of people  join in.  I’ve heard  we’re  over  400,000, which I guess  is a lot.  Again, I don’t really know how  these  things are measured, but, knowing people, I’m guessing things related  to cats, or  Justin Bieber, probably  also get hundreds of  thousands of participants.

I wrote a little poem with it,  and posted each  line  separately.  Like this:

Trump’s got the nomination #DropOutHillary

Trump is an abomination #DropOutHillary
If Hillary runs, she just might lose #DropOutHillary

Sanders is who we should choose #DropOutHillary

and my idea was to have them one below the other, so  people would  read each line individually, but in succession, like the old  Burma Shave  signs.
But, it seems things  go in in reverse order, and there are a lot of people tweeting in between, so they  probably got  read singly, if at  all, and just looked kind of stupid.  I hate that.

Still, memes, hashtags, I’m  making progress.

I know most of you pledged loyalty to Hillary Clinton way back before all this began, but that was a long time ago and a lot has changed since then.

We’ve got the miracle story

First off, the way she probably bribed you, with money for your own campaigns, or the threat to withdraw those funds, well,  we now know that that’s DNC money which you were supposed to get a share of anyway and instead, she’s using 99% of it for her own campaign.  If  I were you, I’d  be pissed.

Second, you  probably figured she’d  have it wrapped up and  you wouldn’t even be needed  for anything.  Well, surprise.  It’s decision  time and you have to really think about this, like the jury in 12 Angry  Men.  The future of the world depends on you.

Third, the phenomenon of  Donald Trump.  I’m sure you  thought he was a joke  at first.  We all  did.  But it’s not funny any  more.  If  the rumors are true that the Clinton’s encouraged him to run, thinking he’s be a patsy for Hillary, they may have  made the  most serious miscalculation since Hillary voted for the Iraq War.  It’s a hell of a risk to take.

Fourth, the  insane popularity  of Bernie  Sanders.  Despite a press blackout that has become comical (even last night’s win in Indiana was not the  headline this morning), not having  any super pacs, low name recognition, the short debate schedule  and  other things  which showed  clear DNC bias, being 74 years old and a socialist,  he’s still kicking her  ass.  “But  she’s winning,” you say. More  on that  in a bit but, in short, she’s not.

Fifth, the incredible suckage of Hillary as a candidate.  She doesn’t hold  rallies, she holds fundraisers.  Part  of the  reason is because she can never get enough money, and part of it is she can’t draw  a big crowd. She is whatever the opposite of charismatic is.
She makes unforced errors.  She told  a girl from Black Lives Matter to shut up, she made that  incredibly  stupid and  racist joke with Bill de Blasio and then threw him under  the bus over it, and said  she  was sick and tired of  Bernie Sanders lying  about her record despite  the fact that a) she  wasn’t talking to Bernie Sanders and b)what the lady from Greenpeace said wasn’t a lie and c) Bernie  hasn’t lied  about her environmental record, either  and d) her  environmental  record sucks.

Sixth, although we sometimes find it hard  to convince the Hillbots on facebook (some of whom are just paid trolls – you know that, right?) that this election is rigged, you people have a bit of political experience, you’ve been  around the block a few times, and I’m sure you know  without a doubt, every single one of you, that this election is rigged.  You know  about fixed  voting  machines.  You know about  voter suppression.  You know about push polling.  You know damned well that  when there’s a huge discrepancy between  the exit polls and the official results, it’s because  the official results are crooked.  That’s why I say he’s kicking her ass.  Without her  cheating, Sanders would have won Illinois, Massachusetts, Arizona, New York and Delaware.  AND YOU KNOW IT.

I hope you think long and hard about these points.  You have a little under three months.

Some Hillary people are trolls, some may have legitimate  reasons, although I can’t see any, but a lot of them are kind of naive and innocent and easy to argue  with, although almost impossible to convince.

They are the ones who think Hillary is soooo smart and soooo qualified, and it’s about time we had a woman president.  They haven’t actually been following all this talk about policies and  such.  So they sometimes ask very innocent questions that  hover in  the air like a slowly  thrown softball at a company picnic.
One jumped onto a thread today and said “Can somebody please explain all this Hillary hate to me?”  This was my response: “I’ll try. As a Senator, she voted for the Iraq War and the Patriot Act. At a time when she could have assumed, and earned, the leadership of the Democratic party, she assumed the role of cheerleader for George W. Bush.
She also voted for offshore drilling. She’s willing to allow fracking, and will likely vote for the Keystone XL pipeline. She is no friend of the Earth, that’s for sure, and the Earth is rather important to a lot of us.
She is for private prisons, which are an abomination. As long as some people can make profit on others’ misery, they will do everything they can to bring as much misery to as many people as possible. To make sure those private prisons have a plentiful supply of raw materials, she is in favor of keeping marijuana illegal.
She and her husband have used their roles as ‘public servants’ to become outrageously wealthy. Her charity is basically a money laundering machine. (She doesn’t give a shit about Haiti. If the Clinton Foundation had done the stuff they’ve taken credit for, Haiti would be an O.K. place by now, and it’s not.) She fought against a 62 cent minimum wage for Haitian seamstresses. She arranged a coup in Honduras. She supports the TPP.
All of those are reasons I would find it difficult to vote for her, they are areas where I disagree with her strongly. But the real reason I hate her is this election. It hasn’t been fair from the start – the lopsided press coverage, the bias of the DNC, right up through the out and out theft of the elections in Arizona and New York – and I’m amazed that Hillary supporters don’t see that. I am amazed that anybody is willing to settle for such a corrupt, self-serving, power hungry individual when we have someone in the race who is honest, and decent, and dedicated to serving the public.
I hope that explains it for you.”

I doubt that she’ll be convinced, (too mansplainy) but my point is that after several months of campaign, I can reel it off like a stump speech.  Look at all these reasons for opposing Hillary.  Look at how fucking many of them there are.

I just got back from the Alchemy poetry reading, May edition.  It was pretty good, even though it turned out to be a small event.  There were only about a dozen people there, but 5 of them performed.

There was a guitarist, which  was lovely, a rhyming poet there for the firs time, and 3 others, but nobody sucked.  As far as poetry readings go, that’s sort of an exceptional big deal.

My section went fairly well, too.  Short blog tonight, I’m falling  asleep in front of the keyboard.

One site I joined recently, or at least I went to their page and  clicked ‘like’, I’m not exactly sure how these things work, was the Progressive Party.  The idea, I guess,  is that  we need to hang together no matter what and  continue to fight for progressive ideas.

I’m for that, even if Bernie wins, so so far, so good.

But what is to differentiate this party  from  other 3rd parties, and other progressive parties, which have failed?  That’s a darned good question.  One of the  beautiful things about the Sanders campaign is that it has shown me that a lot of people share the same ideals I have, that it would  be possible to put  together a platform of things we all agree with without too much trouble.  Making it a platform that a majority of American voters would agree with might be a bit more problematic, but I thing that  could be done, too.  A majority of Americans favor legalized marijuana.  A vast majority of Americans are opposed to private prisons.  For instance.

So, this  would be  my plan for  this  budding, emergent Progressive  Party.  (The term emergent is important.  This is something that should come from the people up, not from the leadership down.  We have the technology. Let’s make it so)
1.  After November, summon a convention.  Of course, this would be an online convention, 24/7, for the purpose of writing a party platform.  For 1 month, everybody is just saying what topics should be covered, and in what order they should be prioritized.  (Priority is not so important.  What is important  is that  we  reach  consensus on each, and that  we cover all sorts of issues.)

For instance: I submit that the most important issues facing us are global warming, overpopulation, and alien invasion from outer space.  Then, people would argue over which  issues should be addressed and which not.

2.  After the first month, you start individual threads for each of these topics.  Since it’s bottom up, there will be a huge array of creative solutions suggested.  Some might get subthreads.  Comments which actually involve logic, historical precedent, statistics, and science would be prioritized over comments which just say “awesome!” or U R fucking nuts, dude, which probably should just  be deleted.  Eventually, through steadily revising and rewording the original proposal, we wind up with consensus on each issue.  Consensus – I figure if we can get 90% withing our little progressive group, then it will be at least 66% among the general public,  and that’s enough to win elections.

3.  Identify our people by location and get them to run for office.  City council, state Senate, school boards, etc…  In every electoral precinct across the country, even in the reddest of red states.  Probably, since we’re a new party, a lot of these people will be political  neophytes: 18 year olds, pumped up with idealism and 0%, angry moms, your local pot dealer.  That’s O.K., if we run candidates for every office, in every district, we’ll pick up a few.  A high percentage of races are between uncharismatic Democrats and disgustingly corrupt Republicans, so people will vote 3rd party just out of spite, and if we’ve got a published platform that almost everybody agrees with, that’s a point in the candidate’s favor.  In districts where a major party candidate endorses our platform, all right then.

4.  Once we have a few in congress, and as state governors, then we can start to mount another presidential bid.

5.  By this time, of course,the corporate campaign cash contribution machine might be even wealthier and more entrenched than they are now.We are going to have to figure out ways to campaign without money.

This is a first draft.