The Democratic party is at a dangerous low point. The 2016 elections were a horrendous disaster for the Democrats, the United States and the whole world. This disaster was caused by a series of policies and decisions that the Democratic party leadership must fully own, take responsibility for and apologize for. It is essential that the Democratic party literally go through the process of truth and reconciliation.

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The Democratic party is at a dangerous low point. The 2016 elections were a horrendous disaster for the Democrats, the United States and the whole world. This disaster was caused by a series of policies and decisions that the Democratic party leadership must fully own, take responsibility for and apologize for. It is essential that the Democratic party literally go through the process of truth and reconciliation.

Here's how Wikipedia describes Truth and reconciliation :

"A truth commission or truth and reconciliation commission is a commission tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government (or, depending on the circumstances, non-state actors also), in the hope of resolving conflict left over from the past."

South Africa created the most famous example of a truth and reconciliation (T&R) commission. Here's what South Africa says about its T&R commission:

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was set up by the Government of National Unity to help deal with what happened under apartheid. The conflict during this period resulted in violence and human rights abuses from all sides. No section of society escaped these abuses.

The South Afrcian TRC was based on the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, No 34 of 1995(pdf)

In order to regain any semblance of credibility, let alone to recover seats in the house, senate , state legislatures and governorships and the White House, the Democrats must go through a similar process-- confessing to and apologizing for their abuses of democracy and justice and betrayal of constituents, workers, the middle class and America.

The South African T&R act states:

"it is deemed necessary to establish the truth in relation to past events as well as the motives for and circumstances in which gross violations of human rights have occurred, and to make the findings known in order to prevent a repetition of such acts in future;"

Here are some of the truths the Democrats must confess to:

Betraying constituents by protecting the interests of corporations over people

Top down directing and influencing primary elections at all levels, instead of allowing the people, the constituents to choose candidates

Abandonment of Democratic principles of fairness, social and ecological justice, peace

Abandonment of the middle class, of workers, of the 99%, instead favoring transnational corporations and trade deals like TPP, NAFTA, CAFTA, etc.

Abandonment and votes for policies which adversely affect consumers and workers, while favoring corporations and their lobbyists

closing primary elections to independents, rigging the system so weaker, but more loyal candidates would be elected

intentionally interfering with and rigging the 2016 Democratic primary election-- via:

top down backing and inflicting upon Democratic voters the most disliked and mistrusted presidential primary candidate in modern Democratic party history

use of super delegates to skew results of delegate counts more than one year out from the election

DNC coordination and collaboration with the Clinton campaign

knowingly allowing the Clinton campaign to collaborate with mainstream media networks

allowing, even encouraging and failing to address election irregularities at the state level

Please help me expand this list with your comments

Those are the truths the Democratic party and leaders must confess to and acknowledge. That doesn't mean they get to keep their jobs. It means they tell the truth to save the Democratic party, to regain the trust of the millions of Americans who are disgusted by the Democratic party, including Bernie Sanders Supporters and independents and recent Republican converts who voted for Trump as a way to repudiate Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party's betrayals and misconducts, as described above. Many of these leaders must step down from their leadership positions as part of the healing process.

This Democratic Party Truth and Reconciliation process offers the best way for the Democrats to win again in 2018 and 2020. It is highly unlikely that the current leaders of the Democratic party will willingly engage in the above described truth and reconciliation process. The only way it will happen is if we the people, the bottom up grass roots constituents take back the Democratic party. This has begun. Bernie Sanders reported, at the SisterGiant conferencethis past weekend, that progressives have already taken control of the California and Washington state democratic parties.

And there is a powerful surge of organization and activism working on taking back the Democratic party.

Cenk Uygur, of the Young Turks TV network, which now exceeds the reach of CNN, told an audience of 1800 at the SisterGiant conferencethat there are two new projects aimed at taking back and taking over the Democratic party:

First, there's Wolf-pac , which aims to take money out of politics. Their stated goal is to get money out of elections and

We must restore balance and integrity to our elections.

We demand a government that is accountable to the People.

Join the fight for Free & Fair Elections.

Here are more details.

Cenk Uyghur told the SisterGiant conference,

-citing the suffragette movement aimed at getting the women's right to vote as an example, "The reason they tell you things are impossible is they don't want you to try"

-"The Democratic party is a shell of a party. They have no soul, so we're going to reclaim it."

-Democrats gave the White House to Trump

Cenk has founded http:// Justicedemocrats.com to take over the Democratic party. Over 100,000 people signed up to be involved in the first week. This is going to happen. The current leaders of the Democratic party will resist. But the energy and passion the American people are feeling will manifest in huge changes.

And to those of you who are disgusted with the Democratic party, join the club. Unfortunately the system is rigged against starting new parties that have a chance at being effective and successful. The Democratic party establishment is ripe for takeover. It's begun in CA and WA. It will roll into more states as the learning process and the passion and energy build.

When I refer to Democratic leadership, I'm talking about Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Stenny Hoyer, Donna Brazile (head of the DNC.) Fortunately, failed Democratic party leaders Joe Biden and Barack Obama, who shoulder much of the blame for giving the world the current occupant of the White House, are already gone. But the leadership also includes the hundreds of state level Democratic party establishment system leaders who have perpetuated the problems and abuses cited above.

I'd like to give credit to the SisterGiant conference and Marianne Williamson, it's founder and c0-organizer, for inspiring me to come up with this idea.

Authors Bio:

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

Check out his platform at RobKall.com

He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity

He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com

more detailed bio:

Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.

Rob Kall Wikipedia Page

Rob Kall's Bottom Up Radio Show: Over 400 podcasts are archived for downloading here, or can be accessed from iTunes. Or check out my Youtube Channel

Rob Kall/OpEdNews Bottom Up YouTube video channel

Rob was published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com for several years.

Rob is, with Opednews.com the first media winner of the Pillar Award for supporting Whistleblowers and the first amendment.

To learn more about Rob and OpEdNews.com, check out A Voice For Truth - ROB KALL | OM Times Magazine and this article.

For Rob's work in non-political realms mostly before 2000, see his C.V.. and here's an article on the Storycon Summit Meeting he founded and organized for eight years.

Press coverage in the Wall Street Journal: Party's Left Pushes for a Seat at the Table

Talk Nation Radio interview by David Swanson: Rob Kall on Bottom-Up Governance June, 2017

Here is a one hour radio interview where Rob was a guest- on Envision This, and here is the transcript..

To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.

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His quotes are here

Rob's articles express his personal opinion, not the opinion of this website.

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