@Big Al

I get the sense you could stand right in front of that guy, look him straight in the face, and say, "Hillary Clinton is a child murderer who should be put in prison the rest of her life", and he would look back with blank eyes, maybe twitch a little bit and just turn around and walk away.

This is what our political system is doing and has done to people for decades and decades, turns them into zombies. In that sense, it is the fault of the American people we got Trump, and as I've said before, that we allowed such a farce of an election between two assholes to happen in the first place.

@Raggedy Ann

Some of us continue to slip out of their control, like those of us on c99.

Here I thought he was an independent thinker - a light in the dark tunnel of information - an anti-sheeple advocator. Instead, he's become a tool for the DNC - sold out - SAD!

@Lily O Lady . I chatted with him a few times back in the day...seemed open to reason, and gave me a different perspective on some things. But once the poo hit the flinger...

reinforce bad policies and tactics used by both. My vote for the Greens was a rejection of the duopoly which further entrenches TPTB. Enough is enough! Got that, Devega?

@Dr. John Carpenter HER refused to even offer a VP as window dressing for the left. In HER usual deaf and blind fashion, she doubled-down on neoliberalism. I assumed it was insurance to her donors over her possibly failing health.

Sorry to sound like a broken record but the Democrats belittled, lied, cheated and stole the primaries from members of their own party. Then, after claiming Sanders couldn't have won, blamed their victims and held them accountable for Her losing. Never once did they give any indication, even a false indication, that there was anything for a Sanders supporter other than "not Trump". They couldn't even be bothered to concede the smallest points. And they are arguing in court that they had the legal right to do it.

So really, how was not voting any different than voting for Her?

@Mark from Queens
he would discover that what made the difference for Trump was not the 10s of millions of people who never vote, but only several hundred thousand African Americans who did not vote -- presumably because HRC gave them no particular motivation to do so.

compare the turnout in Milwaukee in 2008 and 2012 with that of 2016, and you will learn all you need to know about the disastrous failure of the Dems' reliance on identity politics in 2016.

i expect, though, that if i were to try to point this out to CdV, i would be buried under an avalanche of accusations about my privilege, because i would be "blaming" african americans (when, to the contrary, i'm blaming the Dem elites for failing to address the needs and concerns of the African American community.)

upon the 1956 election wrote this blistering, incisive piece "Why I Won't Vote"

I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no “two evils” exist. There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say. There is no third party. On the Presidential ballot in a few states (seventeen in 1952), a “Socialist” Party will appear. Few will hear its appeal because it will have almost no opportunity to take part in the campaign and explain its platform. If a voter organizes or advocates a real third-party movement, he may be accused of seeking to overthrow this government by “force and violence.” Anything he advocates by way of significant reform will be called “Communist” and will of necessity be Communist in the sense that it must advocate such things as government ownership of the means of production; government in business; the limitation of private profit; social medicine, government housing and federal aid to education; the total abolition of race bias; and the welfare state. These things are on every Communist program; these things are the aim of socialism. Any American who advocates them today, no matter how sincerely, stands in danger of losing his job, surrendering his social status and perhaps landing in jail. The witnesses against him may be liars or insane or criminals. These witnesses need give no proof for their charges and may not even be known or appear in person. They may be in the pay of the United States Government. A.D.A.’s and “Liberals” are not third parties; they seek to act as tails to kites. But since the kites are self-propelled and radar-controlled, tails are quite superfluous and rather silly.

The present Administration is carrying on the greatest preparation for war in the history of mankind. Stevenson promises to maintain or increase this effort. The weight of our taxation is unbearable and rests mainly and deliberately on the poor. This Administration is dominated and directed by wealth and for the accumulation of wealth. It runs smoothly like a well-organized industry and should do so because industry runs it for the benefit of industry. Corporate wealth profits as never before in history. We turn over the national resources to private profit and have few funds left for education, health or housing. Our crime, especially juvenile crime, is increasing. Its increase is perfectly logical; for a generation we have been teaching our youth to kill, destroy, steal and rape in war; what can we expect in peace? We let men take wealth which is not theirs; if the seizure is “legal” we call it high profits and the profiteers help decide what is legal. If the theft is “illegal” the thief can fight it out in court, with excellent chances to win if he receives the accolade of the right newspapers. Gambling in home, church and on the stock market is increasing and all prices are rising. It costs three times his salary to elect a Senator and many millions to elect a President. This money comes from the very corporations which today are the government. This in a real democracy would be enough to turn the party responsible out of power. Yet this we cannot do.

@Mark from Queens
This excerpt is also stunningly apropos for right now, especially for all those still-scorned Neoliberal DK zombies after $hills was not anointed, those whose trough has been upturned or who have blindly flocked like sheep to the Blue Team without questioning anything.

Here's the setting for the 1884 presidential election, which I knew nothing about until reading the introduction to a second version of the Twain collection "A Pen Warmed Up In Hell." From Albert Bigelow Paine, his biographer

The Republican Presidential nomination of James G. Blaine resulted in a political revolt such as the nation had not known. Blaine was immensely popular, but he had many enemies in his own party. There were strong suspicions of his being connected with doubtful financiering-enterprises, more or less sensitive to official influence, and while these scandals had become quieted a very large portion of the Republican constituency refused to believe them unjustified. What might be termed the intellectual element of Republicanism was against Blame: George William Curtis, Charles Dudley Warner, James Russell Lowell, Henry Ward Beecher, Thomas Nast, the firm of Harper & Brothers, Joseph W. Hawley, Joseph Twichell, Mark Twain — in fact the majority of thinking men who held principle above party in their choice.

On the day of the Chicago nomination, Henry C. Robinson, Charles E. Perkins, Edward M. Bunce, F. G. Whitmore, and Samuel C. Dunham were collected with Mark Twain in his billiard-room, taking turns at the game and discussing the political situation, with George, the colored butler, at the telephone down-stairs to report the returns as they came in. As fast as the ballot was received at the political headquarters down-town, it was telephoned up to the house and George reported it through the speaking-tube.

The opposition to Blaine in the convention was so strong that no one of the assembled players seriously expected his nomination. What was their amazement, then, when about mid-afternoon George suddenly announced through the speaking-tube that Blaine was the nominee. The butts of the billiard cues came down on the floor with a bump, and for a moment the players were speechless. Then Henry Robinson said:

“It’s hard luck to have to vote for that man.”
Clemens looked at him under his heavy brows.
“But — we don’t — have to vote for him,” he said.
“Do you mean to say that you’re not going to vote for him?”
“Yes, that is what I mean to say. I am not going to vote for him.”

There was a general protest. Most of those assembled declared that when a party’s representatives chose a man one must stand by him. They might choose unwisely, but the party support must be maintained. Clemens said:

“No party holds the privilege of dictating to me how I shall vote. If loyalty to party is a form of patriotism, I am no patriot. If there is any valuable difference between a monarchist and an American, it lies in the theory that the American can decide for himself what is patriotic and what isn’t. I claim that difference. I am the only person in the sixty millions that is privileged to dictate my patriotism.”

There was a good deal of talk back and forth, and, in the end, most of those there present remained loyal to Blaine. General Hawley and his paper stood by Blaine. Warner withdrew from his editorship of the Courant and remained neutral. Twichell stood with Clemens and came near losing his pulpit by it. Open letters were published in the newspapers about him. It was a campaign when politics divided neighbors, families, and congregations. If we except the Civil War period, there never had been a more rancorous political warfare than that waged between the parties of James G. Blaine and Grover Cleveland in 1884.

That Howells remained true to Blaine was a grief to Clemens. He had gone to the farm with Howells on his political conscience and had written fervent and imploring letters on the subject. As late as September 17th, he said:

Somehow I can’t seem to rest quiet under the idea of your voting for Blaine. I believe you said something about the country and the party. Certainly allegiance to these is well, but certainly a man’s first duty is to his own conscience and honor; the party and country come second to that, and never first. I don’t ask you to vote at all. I only urge you not to soil yourself by voting for Blaine.. . . It is not necessary to vote for Cleveland; the only necessary thing to do, as I understand it, is for a man to keep himself clean (by withholding his vote for an improper man), even though the party and the country go to destruction as consequences.

Sound familiar?

Give Chauncey my regards, from formerly that of thirty three and a third, at his pathetic Neoliberal house of frauds.

upon the 1956 election wrote this blistering, incisive piece "Why I Won't Vote"

I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no “two evils” exist. There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say. There is no third party. On the Presidential ballot in a few states (seventeen in 1952), a “Socialist” Party will appear. Few will hear its appeal because it will have almost no opportunity to take part in the campaign and explain its platform. If a voter organizes or advocates a real third-party movement, he may be accused of seeking to overthrow this government by “force and violence.” Anything he advocates by way of significant reform will be called “Communist” and will of necessity be Communist in the sense that it must advocate such things as government ownership of the means of production; government in business; the limitation of private profit; social medicine, government housing and federal aid to education; the total abolition of race bias; and the welfare state. These things are on every Communist program; these things are the aim of socialism. Any American who advocates them today, no matter how sincerely, stands in danger of losing his job, surrendering his social status and perhaps landing in jail. The witnesses against him may be liars or insane or criminals. These witnesses need give no proof for their charges and may not even be known or appear in person. They may be in the pay of the United States Government. A.D.A.’s and “Liberals” are not third parties; they seek to act as tails to kites. But since the kites are self-propelled and radar-controlled, tails are quite superfluous and rather silly.

The present Administration is carrying on the greatest preparation for war in the history of mankind. Stevenson promises to maintain or increase this effort. The weight of our taxation is unbearable and rests mainly and deliberately on the poor. This Administration is dominated and directed by wealth and for the accumulation of wealth. It runs smoothly like a well-organized industry and should do so because industry runs it for the benefit of industry. Corporate wealth profits as never before in history. We turn over the national resources to private profit and have few funds left for education, health or housing. Our crime, especially juvenile crime, is increasing. Its increase is perfectly logical; for a generation we have been teaching our youth to kill, destroy, steal and rape in war; what can we expect in peace? We let men take wealth which is not theirs; if the seizure is “legal” we call it high profits and the profiteers help decide what is legal. If the theft is “illegal” the thief can fight it out in court, with excellent chances to win if he receives the accolade of the right newspapers. Gambling in home, church and on the stock market is increasing and all prices are rising. It costs three times his salary to elect a Senator and many millions to elect a President. This money comes from the very corporations which today are the government. This in a real democracy would be enough to turn the party responsible out of power. Yet this we cannot do.

@Bollox Ref

I think I'd rather read Chauncey Gardiner

Or Geoffrey Chaucer. In the original language.

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@Bollox Ref What's the Message, Mr. Gardiner?

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