Calling All Remorseful Nader Voters

It's time to atone! Saw a link to the following thread on the HRC reddit site:

NaderVoter.jpg

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Is this a great idea, or what? Here's everyone's favorite lefty funnyman Bill Maher, appropriately groveling before the Great Man in person:

[video:https://youtu.be/zHWZ-J0Pjhk]

"I was young and impetuous - I fucked up." He forgot to add that he was also an obnoxious asshole and smug, self-satisfied prick, but then again it's understandable, considering the fact that he appears to have made very limited progress in the intervening years correcting those defects.

Anyhoo, having nothing better to do with my Sunday afternoon, I thought I would take it upon myself to help out the denizens of Hillbot World by contributing a script for a possible Nader Remorse commercial. Any constructive suggestions for improvements are most welcome!

The scene: Inner city street with a rundown tenement building in the background. Off to the right you see an elderly homeless man scavenging in a dumpster.

In the foreground sits a late '30's Gen-X'er who's clearly gone to seed - bleary-eyed, unshaven, overweight, wearing a dirty-looking sweatshirt with holes. He peers into the camera with a contrite and crestfallen look on his face.

Audio: Hi, I'm Caleb, and I want to talk to you about the upcoming presidential election. An election that virtually all political commentators agree is the single most important election in American history. The stakes literally couldn't be any higher.

Sixteen years ago, fresh out of college, America was facing a similar moment of truth, and I - along with almost 100,000 other Floridians - chose to cast a vote for the spoiler candidate, Ralph Nader. We knew he couldn't win, but we wanted to make a point.

Because of our foolishness, our shortsightedness and immaturity, a great man, Al Gore, was denied the presidency. Instead, it went to his unworthy opponent, George W. Bush. Let's look at all the things that happened, that most experts agree wouldn't have happened, had Al Gore rather than George Bush been elected:

  • The 9/11 terrorist attacks
  • The costly and disastrous war with Iraq
  • The Patriot Act, and the massive curtailment of civil liberties
  • The Great Recession of 2008

I could go on, but the lesson is clear. The nation paid a huge and bitter price for the self-indulgent folly of a small group of ideological purists. So all you young and not-so-young people who are thinking of voting for a third party candidate this time around - please take some advice from someone who knows. Don't do it!

The price I paid on a personal level was just as bad, if not worse. Wracked with guilt, I started drinking heavily, and even began experimenting with drugs. I lost my job, my wife left me, and nearly all my friends abandoned me. None of which would have happened had I not succumbed to that fatal moment of weakness in the voting booth sixteen years ago. Please, don't make the mistake I made!

Nowadays I spend most nights in a homeless shelter, and spend my days toiling away in a sub-minimum wage job making frilly little doilies that ridiculous old ladies use in their tea parties. Quite a comedown for an Ivy League graduate who was on the fast track to success as a rising young executive in a Fortune 500 company. Look at me, for God's sake! I'm pathetic, I admit it! Do you really want to risk something like this happening to you?

For the sake of this country's future, for the sake of your own personal future, I urge you, I implore you, I beg you - please do the smart, sensible, and the only morally defensible thing, and just say no to voting third party. As I learned the hard way, it's just not worth the risk!

Thank you.

Voiceover: Paid for by BlockTheVote, an organization not affiliated in any way, shape or form with the Hillary Clinton for President campaign.

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MsGrin's picture

This will surely drive people to the polls... s/

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'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member

Especially disgusting since that election was stolen to get Bush in in order to achieve the horrors he did - but the Clinton Dems have no problem with that and are doing the same thing...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

She doesn't need my vote. They all said so.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

I see it too dk. The fix is in. I just hope they do it a little more discretely than they did the primary. I don't want all the yahoos rioting in the streets tearing up shit because the cops won't dare rough up a white male conservatives. I'll bet the NYT and all the other serious newspapers already have their November 9th papers printed with giant bold letters "YOU"RE FIRED!"

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Those riots might bring a chance for justice and democracy, rather than a totalitarian corporate coup being quietly accepted as a 'done deal'.

Once domestic law has been officially (if illegally and unconstitutionally) off-shored away from the people and into corporate trade courts, where the public interest does not apply and only maximized corporate profiteering is considered, in all betrayed countries, human/citizen rights will be nothing more than a concept interfering with the maximized anticipated future profits of thousands of involved corporations and billionaires all fraudulently promised a 'right' to sue the public for any law protecting themselves and their environment - on which we all depend - against their depredations.

There should be riots when elections are routinely rigged so that the people can be betrayed into a hostile corporate take-over.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Bisbonian's picture

Does anyone have a link? I'd love to post that in response to a bunch of the shit I have been getting.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

probably elsewhere, telling the Bernie or Busters "who cares".

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

snoopydawg's picture

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Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Maybe we should just write in Comey?

Still love this: http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/10/02/new-york-times-paid-n...

If "atone" we must, guess it's another vote for Donald Trump (not snark!) cuz we all know our ABC's: Anybody But Clintons ROFL

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Anja Geitz's picture

I can think of a few friends on FB who have been crowing about the NYT Trump tax revelation I'd like to respond to. The Clinton Machine must've called in a lot chits to get them to publish that one.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Or the GOP's flagrant cheating. And by the way, shut the fuck up and get back in line. And don't ever dare question the oligarchy again.

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Bollox Ref's picture

Democrats who voted for Bush in Florida?

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

boriscleto's picture

Too bad touch screens took away the spectacle of hanging chads and rioting Republican lawyers. Now they are just preprogrammed for a Trump win.

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" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

boriscleto's picture

A largely Jewish area. Palm Beach County

There was a 'butterfly-ballot' and 3,407 people marked the wrong spot for Al Gore. The spot next to Gore's name was the spot to vote for Buchanan. Before the election it was estimated that he had 400-500 supporters in the County.

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" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

who purged the voter rolls, or the people who set up police checkpoints near predominantly African-American poling places, or the people who actually, literally, threw boxes of votes into the fucking Atlantic Ocean, or, I don't know, any of the people who were committing actual *crimes*.

But no. After all, none of that would have mattered without the evil 100,000.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

At TOP, I was told those 300,000 Democrats are forgiven because approximately the same number of Republicans voted for Gore. Bipartisanship - two parties working together to cover each other's asses by blaming and inhibiting third parties.

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“ …and when we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine,and understand who God is, and what our own potential is and duties are as human beings.- RFK jr. 8/26/2024

needs to be a run on sentence with nospacebetweenthewords to actually Represent!
Is it Thanksgiving yet?

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Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .

Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .

If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march

mouselander's picture

Another factor to consider: Florida is one of the states that enforces a lifetime ban on voting for convicted felons. Thanks to the Clinton-Gore administration's success in passing the 1994 crime bill that resulted in a huge increase in rates of incarceration, a large number of additional Floridians (disproportionately poor people of color, one of the Dem's most reliable demographics) were permanently deprived of the right to vote. Karma really is a bitch, ain't it?

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inactive account

snoopydawg's picture

Counterpunch had an article about whether Gore would have invaded Iraq if he was president and he would have.
From your link

Former Vice President Al Gore
September 23, 2002

Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction...
I was one of the few Democrats in the U.S. Senate who supported the war resolution in 1991. And I felt betrayed by the first Bush administration’s hasty departure from the battlefield...
We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country...
Iraq’s search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.
Also:

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Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?

Though we can’t be totally certain what “Imaginary President Gore” would have done on any issue, we can be totally certain that if McCain or Romney had been elected, and continued the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, destroyed Libya, ensured corporate control of health care, persecuted whistleblowers, promoted the TPP…..the list goes on…Team Blue would be telling third party voters that “Imaginary President Obama” would never have done that.

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shaharazade's picture

wonder what the internal or real polling is showing. It's almost laughable how much they have cranked up the fear and are now pumping blame pre-election at those who won't buy this obvious shamelessly rigged wrestlin' match of an election. Surely they can get enough Republican's to cover the loss of the left or even right 'protest' voters.

I just want them all including Bernie to fade away. As Lee Camp says this election is an insult our intelligence. Even the people I know who are scared shitless of the Hairball and going to vote Clinton are well aware of what the Democratic Party and the Clinton's are about. Hope this barrage of guilt tripping talking points backfires.

What happened to 'Putin did it' last months scary meme'? I didn't vote for Nadar, he creeped me out on a personal/ego level. I did hold my nose and vote for Gore who was so much a DLC party guy that he refused to even let the black caucus on the floor of the House to talk about the voter fraud/ disenfranchisement in Florida asked him to. Took me 3 more election cycles to wise up to the complicity and corruption of the New Democratic party and vote for Jill Stein in 2012. Glad to hear they are freaking out and bringing out this lame blame to get us to acquiesce to the coronation. Why do they bother since it's a rigged circus regardless of the protest voters?

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Gore couldn't win his home state in a close election. Mondale, who lost in the overwhelming Reagan landslide, won his home state.

Gore was simply a piss poor candidate. Like Hillary.

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shaharazade's picture

he was at least just another DLC pol instead of a world class psycho killer like the Clinton's are. I didn't see him kissing Kissinger. He was a DLC Clinton underling and having Lieberman his VP pick agree with Cheney in the debates certainly did not appeal to the majority of Democratic voters who by this time had had enough of the Clinton's and there globalizing screw or get screwed multinational greed is good 'New World Order'. How many Iraqis died under the Clinton's daily flyovers and sanctions?

About those boat loads full of global workers the 1% rising tides were going to lift up? Thank you slick Willie who is now going to take over the economy while Killary implement's WW3 and at best the reheating of the Cold War while expanding the killing fields in the ME.

By this time people especially the liberals were wising up to the damage done by the Vichy New Democrat's, both domestically and globally. They saw the handwriting on the wall having had two terms of getting screwed while Poppy's other son felt our pain and continued to set the stage for the Bushies.

Hey a piss poor campaigner who was honest and not preaching the same old shit with a Democratic label would be a pleasure to vote for. After that we got 'Send Me' Kerry running around in fatigues rooting for war and talking like the Skull and Bonesman Forbes 1% he is and was.

After this we got to see Democratic Senator Punjab Hillary in a warm up for the shades of things to come. Then they threw the fed up populace a talented groomed marketer passed off a community organizer as the bringer of a change and hope. He put the final nails in the Democratic coffin which contained the long dead body politic of the Democrat's as a party of the people and justice for all.

So I think that Gore was more then a piss poor candidate. He stood for everything real Democratic voters were sick of. He was just another dynasty family 1% pol trying to pass himself off as a Democrat. Your right about the fact he was pretty piss poor as a candidate. Sad that the Democratic party runs and supports candidates that are all to the right of Raygun and calls them 'progressive' and Yankee Doodle Dandy. USA, USA, USA.

Bernie's success in the rigged primary with 43+ million votes was not in vain because by now everyone who's not fear riddled or brainwashed gets to see what a farce and failure the loyal opposition the Democratic party is and has been for decades. There is non way in hell that if not for Trump The Mad Bomber and all the Clintonites that infest the Dem. party would stand a chance.

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snoopydawg's picture

Bush wouldn't have been able to invade Iraq if Hillary and a lot more democrats voted against it.
They had planned to overthrow Saddam before 9/11 and wanted Clinton to do it, but he was involved with saving his butt from being impeached.
Anyone believe that Hillary wasn't aware of this letter that the PNAC members sent to Clinton?
http://www.iraqwatch.org/perspectives/rumsfeld-openletter.htm

The banks wouldn't have needed to be bailed out because of the global economic crisis which happened because Clinton repealed Glass Steagal and deregulated the banks.

And who was it that suspended his campaign to work on the bank bailout, didn't charge any CEOs of those banks and did nothing to help people from having their homes foreclosed on?

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Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?

Powell was not sent to the UN to convince China and France to join the US in a war against Saddam. Nations don't make decisions based on a public speech. He was sent to make a televised speech that our corrupt news networks would air to the American public. Why Powell? Polls showed he was the most trusted member of the Bush administration at that point.

Hillary did not make a speech supporting the war on the floor of the Senate to convince her fellow Senators. That's not how Senators make decisions, either. Heck, most of the time the chamber is empty, though C-Span is forbidden to show that. Those speeches are for the public and record. She made the speech because Bush could not have only Republican support for the war; and Bubba has always been high in the polls, including while being effing impeached. And First Ladies always poll well. So, she was probably the highest polling Democrat in the country at the time.

Of course, like Kerry and other center right legislators who were planning to run for POTUS, she felt she needed to vote for the war for political reasons, for what are human lives, minds and limbs and other devastation when it comes making sure you will be President?

The only satisfaction I can get is that it backfired on her with Democratic voters in 2008. And that she and Powell threw each other under a bus over the emails. (Bubba threw Powell under the bus for the unconstitutional DADT, too. Heaven forfend a Clinton take responsibility for anything. Even when they say they're taking responsibility, they're lying,)

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snoopydawg's picture

However, there hasn't been a military intervention she hasn't been in favor of.
Whenever Bill was waffling about bombing a country Hillary would encourage him to do it.
I don't think that she voted for it because she was going to run for president, she voted for it because she's a sociopath or something. Look at how she laughed after watching the video that showed that Gaddafi was killed by being sodomized with a sword. That alone should disqualify her from being president!
No one should react that way about some one's death!
And yes her Iraq vote caused her to lose in 08 and I wonder how many of the people who didn't vote for her then because of it are voting for her now?

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Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?

universe or two However, IMO, if someone had whispered in her ear: "Voting for this war is going to make it more difficult for you to run for President," she would have voted against it. And, I don't think it was coincidence that every Senator who later ran for POTUS voted for it. Dodd, Kerry (who famously voted for it before he stupidly voted against it by voting against funding a war for which he had voted), Edwards (though he was at least smart enough to admit he'd been wrong and express regret), Lieberman (who probably would have voted for it, no matter what) and Biden. Wait: I don't know if Gravel voted for it and am too lazy to check.

I think if you told any of them that voting for it wasn't the safest political move, they would have voted against it in Baghdad minute. I think Kerry's flip flop was the result of his seeing he'd made a mistake, as far as his ambition went. I think they voted for it because they feared seeming unpatriotic and/or weak. Hillary's ambition is her North Start, the thing that has government her activities for decades. That's how I see her, anyway. BTW, I think most of those Senators are sociopaths and Hillary is a psychopath.

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Its getting so thick it must be hard to breathe if your a Hellery supporter.

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Citizen Of Earth's picture

And don't get me started on Maher -- what a Supreme sellout. Stopped caring about anything he says a long time ago.

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Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Damnit Janet's picture

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"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

I've been saying it for 16 years, and people still act like voters voting for George W. Bush, Ralph Nader, or the man in the moon somehow determined the course of the 2000 election.

Experiencing election fraud personally is like nothing else. It's like the movie The Matrix where you wake up and find yourself in a tub of goo.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Damnit Janet's picture

I sound like a broken record.

My vote didn't count because I wasn't even allowed to vote. Now they are going to blame me for not voting...

LOL

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"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

Though I admit, the remorse was quickly swallowed up in horror and outrage at what was happening around me.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

reflectionsv37's picture

Your hypothetical story was great! I was LOL as I read it. I wonder how many stories will be posted over at TOP with same story line? I'm guessing at least 5 per day with titles like...

16 Years Later, Why I'm still on Suicide Watch

I've Been Unable to Sleep Since I Voted for Nadar

Why My Grandchildren Hate Me!

My Dog Still Pisses on My Leg!

The Mailman Still Throws My Mail in the Trash Bin

I'm not sure but I'm guessing the internal polling of the Hillary campaign must be seeing some very concerning numbers. What ever happened to Miss Inevitable?

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“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
George W. Bush

Not Henry Kissinger's picture

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

I did not ever vote for Nader and I am incredibly remorseful. I so did not get it then. I am sorry, Americans everywhere, so, so very sorry. And ashamed. I had no business voting while low info. In my defense, so many things conspired to make sure I didn't get it, including "our" media, which is "their" propaganda arm.

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The Dem super-delegates can take the blame if Hillary loses. Not me.

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"We've done the impossible, and that makes us mighty."

You can let Trump and the GOP hog it all, or you can step up and claim it so that we too have an ounce of power. Teach them to watch their backs instead of fucking us over and blowing us off. Don't run from the power. Embrace it. Bernie or Bust was a promise, not just more bluster from the left.

I love this.

"I was young and impetuous - I fucked up." He forgot to add that he was also an obnoxious asshole and smug, self-satisfied prick, but then again it's understandable, considering the fact that he appears to have made very limited progress in the intervening years correcting those defects.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Bisbonian's picture

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

They only know how to nominate weak candidates and lose the election. And then they cry about it and blame everyone else except themselves for being such losers.

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Love is my religion.

Corporate candidates are always weak in a democracy because they stand for nothing that legitimately matters and is not ultimately destructive even to the self-interests backing them.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

I hope she gets nothing from this disgusting shaming campaign.

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“The first duty of a man is to think for himself”

How about the Clintons and their coterie being, where applicable, actually charged and tried for a number of issues, so that accountability again becomes a thing to curb corruption and betrayal?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

is how everybody, even us, buys into this idea that people voting for Nader, Bush, or anybody determined the ascendance of George W. Bush into the White House. Are we really that weak-minded, that vulnerable to propaganda, that we can't remember the assault on the rule of law and Black people's civil rights that resulted in that fraud taking the Presidency--twice? We are talking people actually throwing boxes of votes into the Atlantic, people deliberately creating software that would find "false positives"in data sets, mistakenly identifying voters as felons so they could be purged; Katherine Harris simply refusing to add thousands of new voters to the rolls; police checkpoints set up near predominantly African-American polling places, delaying voters by searching their cars--should I go on?

If you want more, you can go to this website http://www.michaelparenti.org/stolenelections.html
Or, better yet, watch this movie, which was made by people I put up while they were doing research in Duval County--the woman funded most of it with her own money! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0346091/

Sorry to inject a note of negativity here, but this really bothers me; why do we keep talking like the choices of voters mattered in the 2000 election? Why have we let the Democratic Party rewrite this narrative? Why?

I feel like Dammit Janet, except I've been saying this shit for 16 years now, and it's like people, even people of good will, simply cannot hold in their heads the knowledge that the voters were disempowered and the results basically invented.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

But after two years of the media building up Dubya while trashing Gore, I felt that I had to vote for Al. He proved to be worse than I feared when he folded like a cheap suit after the Florida results got flipped, and his game playing over the recount made me wish I had voted Nader instead.

I also voted for Kerry in 2004 in the vain hope that he'd be a better candidate, only he surrendered almost as soon as he reported for duty. It was like he couldn't get away from the election fast enough.

Because of these two prominent Democratic Party losers, I cannot again fall for the Party lie that they must win because the other GOP guy is worse. They can't walk their talk.

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Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.