A montage of videos submitted by regular folks who support MPP. I like this better than the high-production-value videos shown earlier. I think the first face was 2016 Green presidential candidate Bill Kreml. Remember to find this video and repost it, dbc.)
Mike Gravel couldn't make it, but comedian/Congressional candidate Lauren Ashcraft is subbing for him. "We live in a failed state. And that state was built by white. property-owning men" to operate in their interests. "You cannot fix something that was built to be broken...We're in an abusive relationship with our two-party system." And oh yeah, "All cops are bastards." Preach, sister. We can pay for all the progressive dream programs, mostly by stopping endless wars, but we have to start now. "We don't have to choose between bad and worse: We can choose change"
Brana: People's Party Convention is now #4 trending in the US!
Isiah James, another Congressional candidate from New York, not a stand-up comedian, an Iraq/Afghanistan veteran. Don't think you're going to win right away, or even that you'll live long enough to see victory, but let's get started moving forward for those who come after us. "It's a monumental task, but so was abolishing/overturning" name your favorite obsolete societal institution. The many reasons contributing to his deciding to run for Congress are the same as those that drew him to MPP.
Eleanor Goldfield...swoon. Oh no, she's going to read one of her poems! written for the occasion. Actually, it's not bad, kinda Whitman-esque and encouraging us to act on the needs of the People, damn the consequences; it's not the white-chick-affecting-hip-hop poetry that she typically spits on Act Out! "There's no Pause, no Rewind; Play."
Brana reminds us that "there is no revolution without art, without poetry, without dance, without songs." #2 Trending now.
Progressive Soapboxer Jamarl Thomas starts by talking about unemployment and its implications. The unemployment, like the riots in Kenosha (yes, he used that word), like the percentage of people of color incarcerated, result from policy choices made by the people we've elected to power. I haven't watched this guy in way too long, had forgotten how good he is—insightful and verbally gifted. "The only way out is to extricate yourself from the political parties." If you can't get Democratic leaders and nominees to advocate for a policy that 88% of the party supports, you may as well give up, "Any notion of representative government is dead."
Another Jimmy Dore comrade Ron Placone is up now. He provided entertainment for the Green Party's national convention in July. I didn't think stand-up would work over Zoom, but it did even though he was sitting down. He's actually using some of the same jokes, but that's OK. Gonna put this entry to bed now, run to the john, and then start Part 5.