After all that has happened people are foolish enough to still believe elections are an answer?
I am 82 years old and fighting congestive heart failure among other candidates to be my end. I sit here and read the childish recitations bout how we will solve problems by winning elections. I wonder if these people slept through my lifetime and especially the past three years.
I have to say that I want to hang on as long as I can but get little incentive from these political robots. Thank goodness the elections keep them distracted because they are potentially harmful because of their lack of understanding.
The system we live in was set up by slave owners and people who committed genocide. Our elections have done very well in preserving that system to the point that the façade of democracy is no longer necessary. Trump has stripped away the cover and the ugliness stands naked before you.
Yet you recite the litany of electoral politics with all the "if we can only..." fantasies that it requires.
Are you ever going to grow up?
Comments
Thinking outside the election box
...has been mocked and rejected wherever people gather. Even after voting has become a mockery of itself in recent elections, it remains the default political solution. It doesn't seem to matter that it cannot work at the Federal level, where all the power and the institutional knowledge is in the hands of unelected authorities with permanent terms. Voting remains a ritual and an act of faith.
I think there are ways to use the system and turn democracy around to work for the people. National voting blocks, strategic alliances, coalition alliances, election spoiler votes, demographic boosting through voluntary vote abstinence, the liberal use of referendums and recalls, buying laws and policies outright, going global through the UN with a national vote of no confidence, and as always, demanding a new people's constitution based on 21st century principles which also confer upon people the universal human rights established in 1948. It would be the first time Americans experienced the most basic of these rights.
These discussions, however, are not in the narrow spectrum of topics that are permitted in the public square. The heads of the six media monopolies all hold a prominent position, together, at the Council on Foreign Relations, which defines the political philosophy of this nation as The Global Empire Authority by Right. This is one of the last things Julian Assange talked about before he was recently silenced. So, Americans are working against a system that they cannot see the core of, and have little understanding of who specifically holds power. Brave and knowledgeable leaders are needed, who understand how the system works and can remind people what they can expect and demand when they go to the trouble of forming a nation. Their understanding of this has been suppressed and distorted. But without enlightened leaders, they will have a hard time.
Generally, I suggest they help their kids to educate abroad and gain citizenship elsewhere. Which way would you look, Don?
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
@Pluto's Republic we are part of a global
we are part of a global system that is destroying the earth...tear down that system
An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.
How?
@HenryAWallace stop supporting it..
stop supporting it...use a system we build....make it ours...change our lifestyle....wake up...try any of these for starters rather than acting like you don't know to excuse your contribution to the problem
An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.
No specifics in your reply, either.
Also,you need to stop accusing people about whom you know nothing of acting, pretending, dishonesty, etc.
@HenryAWallace look around...we
look around...we are ALL dishonest and avoiding our responsibility for the problem. My saying it is not the problem. Everyone failing to say it is.
An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.
the difficulty with trying to
, is that it requires access to resources that are currently under the control of institutions and individuals whose authority is established and enforced by the system that is in place.
as long as that is true, you are going to find your efforts thwarted, one way or another, by state violence. are we all supposed to just get up tomorrow, stop paying our bills, and magically feed/shelter/clothe ourselves with our good intentions? how many people can actually afford such an option (and I don't mean "afford" in the minimal financial sense)?
to place any pressure at all on the system that is in place, you're going to need buy-in from scores of millions of citizens. you don't need 1 million or 5 million people to stop buying fast food and suburban homes, you need 50 million. i suggest to you that long before you could ever motivate such an army of opt-outers, you could mobilize an army of voters demanding candidates and platforms that support the interests and needs of humanity. and yes, you may consider that scenario laughably unlikely, but i consider yours even more so. that leaves us each with the choice of working towards what he believes is the more likely of two unlikely scenarios, or sitting around sputtering angrily and condescendingly (sorry, bro, but you are NOT smarter than me) at anybody working towards anything other than his preferred scheme.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
@UntimelyRippd so you say you
so you say you can afford the destruction coming but can't afford the pain of trying to prevent it?
An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.
i'm saying that most of the people in this country
would quickly die of starvation or exposure to the elements if they attempted to reject the current structures.
moreover, only 5 to 10% of the citizens would ever imagine such a thing was necessary/possible/sensible/useful. that's in contrast to the 20% who are hardcore antihuman psychos devoted on principle to those elements of the current arrangement that you or i would label Evil.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
@UntimelyRippd how many will
how many will die horrible deaths if we just sit still?
An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.
approximately the same number as will
die horrible deaths if each of us who sees the implications of the status quo attempts to reject the current system (writ large) while explaining to everybody we meet that they need to do the same.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
cranky?
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Yes, elections still are
the answer. Until they aren't.
If over 60% of us vote, elections remain valid.
If less than 60% of us bother they are less so. The more of us that vote the more valid they are, those that would "fix" them less able to. The Oligarchy have done a damn fine job of voter suppression, making it more and more difficult for people to vote. So they don't. How these suppression efforts are even legal should be the question asked that never is. Why are these asshats not hanged for even making the suggestion of voter suppression? Regardless, get enough voters to the polls and their efforts fail. The Left should be in the business of making voting "cool" again, out beating the bushes for $5 contributors to Lefty candidates. Elections work when people vote. Don't when they don't. Simple as that.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
For voting to be representational in the US
You need a "No Confidence" choice on every ballot.
Then you do it over again until you find a candidate who can achieve a majority.
This is what works, what respects the will of the people, and what will bring out voters in greater numbers. We would not have the problems we have now with a proper ballot.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
@Pluto's Republic lol...and we need a
lol...and we need a good fairy too
An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.
Lol
stop the fascism that is sweeping
the globe and tear down the system is realistic but Pluto wants a fairy because she suggested putting a vote of no confidence on our in country’s ballot. .
Is there a reason you decided to drop in just to be rude and condescending to everyone? Bad day? Need a nap? Sick? Pluto is also right when she says we don’t talk to each other like that, and as a moderator I would suggest you stop. Whatever you do, I’m done with your nasty sniping.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
"We end up measuring and counting rather than reasoning."
that is a direct quote form Don's book "Beyond Complexity" which has been online since forever. He has posted here enough, and previously at dailykos that I think Snoopydawg does know wtf he is doing asking like that... snarky. Mechanics of reductionism at work, or whatever. ~shrug~ I don't know. I had no idea Pluto was a she either, so there's that. Thanks for moderating, it doesn't appear fair to me and I know that doesn't matter. I'm just sayin'.
Whoosh! That is the sound of advanced math going over my head, but at least I bothered to look up Rosen et al, and tried to learn something on my own. I thank Don for making his work available, I really appreciate it, and I appreciate him coming here in what could be his last days. He is brilliant, if only people would take time to look up his previous comments, or even do a bit of research. I never would have read anything like this until I read Don's paper:
Rosen’s (M,R) system in process algebra
https://bmcsystbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1752-0509-7-128
Thank you Don Mikulecky. Good luck on the journey.
Peace
I am not arguing with his point.
I am just taking exception to his tone. I don't like our group being sniped at by a drive-by shooter.
Don may be smart and have a lot to teach us all. I think we would all absorb it better if he was more supportive when sharing what he has learned.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
@eyo thanks! I admire
thanks! I admire your hard work and understanding. Furthermore you provide a nece3ssary contrast to other shallow post to which my repies are called "sniping"
An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.
Maybe, assuming the election and the count is clean.
Elections can be, and IMO, have been, rigged.
Shortly after Democrats gained control of Congress in 2006, Waxman held hearings on this topic. Testimony was that writing software for voting machines would easily rig elections. However, Democrats did nothing about this but hold hearings.
The business that only close elections can be stolen ("close enough to steal") is a fairy tale.
The vote count in the old mechanical voting machines
could be rigged by not having the counters start at zero. Stickers saying "0" were pasted over the counter so upon inspection on election day, the machine would appear to be starting at zero.
As the counters rotated, the stickers would come off and disappear into the bowels of the machine.
This and other corrupt practices were all laid out in the book Let George Do It! by former Democratic governor of Massachusetts Foster Furcolo.
@Wink lol
lol
An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.
Laugh all you want,
but Not Voting
cures nothing. Exactly what "They" want.
And, I agree with Henry. We've known for some time now that elections are rigged. The easy cure for that are paper ballots hand counted.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Believing in elections is also what "they" want.
What the 2016 primaries screamed at us is that the entire system is rigged. Heads, they win; tails, we lose.
@Wink laughing harder...
laughing harder....voting or not voting is a distraction from dealing with the problem
An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.
“Schrödinger’s ballot box” — it’s quantum superposition
You can cast a vote and not cast a vote at the same time!
Regardless, open the box and you find genuine democracy is dead.
Vote for this piece of sh*t or that one
I'm not wasting my time anymore. I'm not wasting my effort and emotions anymore, either. I can choose from pieces of shit or I can choose to not decide between those abysmal choices, and let everyone else pretend like voting means anything anymore.
Like the Rush song says, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice . . . I will choose a path that's clear. I will choose freewill."
[video:https://youtu.be/bpOyQhgM1FU]
Yes, Hillary and Trump being the only candidates with any
realistic chance of becoming President is a great example.
Too bad most people are so wedded to voting either Democratic or Republican.
Trump/Hillary, Cruz/O'Rourke, etc.
There is no point anymore. We could go to paper, but we're still left with nothing but shit to choose from. It's all a farce. A game, and we're the pieces being played.
The capitalist pigs will never give anything up,
even if we vote them the fuck out. They'll just be back in within a year or two and the token victories gained will have been for naught. Nothing short of jailing the entire government from top to bottom and putting a new system in place will change anything.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
@The Aspie Corner wow! you have unveiled
wow! you have unveiled the oligarchy's plan
An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.
Keep on rocking Don.
Yes, there are still people that believe that, plenty of them. Enough to keep this sorry oligarchy designed and controlled system going. Check out this article from Paul Street relative to how this system came into being.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/13/time-to-stop-playing-simon-says-...
Why don't you tell us how to stop the fascism that is sweeping
the globe and how to tear down the system. You must have some ideas.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
@snoopydawg my ideas are out there in
my ideas are out there in print and have been for a long long time...stop pretending you don't know that to appear cute here....you have always been dishonest in that way
An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.
This is not how we speak to one another here.
It is a privilege to post to the people here. Be respectful.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
Lawsuits are what I think of.
And refusing to pay taxes for an unaccountable system that is lawless. That seems most direct. I know the Federal Reserve prints money for war and abuse and that our taxes make virtually no difference, but I think a legal challenge can be launched against the Federal Reserve itself. It is a Right-Left agreement, as no benefit comes to the people of this country from this out-of-control national debt for war and oppression. Stop funding it. Stop agreeing to pay their debt.
You'd have to get rid of Capitalism, then.
And the right would never agree to that.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
@The Aspie Corner you have to take
you have to take control of your own lives...who cares who else agrees?
An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.
Basically I agree with you
except that we are stuck with electoral politics. The alternative is either violence or complete refusal to comply. Violence will be bloody and very, very likely to not end well. Always remember, the bad guys have the biggest guns and the least scruples against using them. As for complete refusal too comply with opression, well, that would require massive hardship to trigger. America will become a 3rd world failed state before enough people try it.
On to Biden since 1973
We are
getting closer, don't you think?
Third world, that is.
If elections made a difference, policy would have changed at some point in the swapping of parties in power! The policies just continue to screw over the general populace to the benefit of a relative few. The wars continue-fuck it, see OPOL's post just before this one on community page.
Or is this in response To that post? Look, Don, I don't know you, I've never read your books-hell, it seems like I read all the Wrong books-but I respect you for for what you've written here and almost as importantly, How you've written it. If we seem(collectively) like dense undergrads before a gifted professor, it ain't a gift unless you can pass it on.
You got solutions? Fine, I'm all ears!
Your bitchin' at us just turns people off and aggravates 'em. Go ahead, ask me How I Know.; }~
peace
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
If we are going to be brutal
Then lets go to the full conclusion: there is no answer. While there could be answers with time, we do longer have that time. The only way we would win without climate change is either a long, hard and bloody battle (that would likely be lost- probably quickly) or a very large number of sleeping people (which I once was) wake up. I had at least a sliver of hope for the second, but it won't happen. We don't have time for either option regardless. Climate change, one way or another, will likely solve the problem for us.
If ideas about everyone banding together outside the system that didn't involve voting, then voting would work too. It's just a sheer numbers game where either way an overwhelming number of people would be needed. Individual action/lifestyle changes/acceptance means nothing with no control of the system, which holds all the power.
@Dhyerwolf well said
well said
An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.
I Still Think IRV aka: Ranked Voting is a Silver Bullet.
The Corporate Center has completely overplayed it's hand. All the corporate sponsored institutions are completely on the ropes: corporate media, corporate politicians, corporate finance, corporate medicine, and corporate food.
The Left and the Right hate them all to various degrees. And it's obvious that they are consolidating their power in DINOs and RINOs forcing a LoTE voting situation. Both the Left and the Right are completely sick of it, and the voting roles show it.
A major push here, Right and Left, could force the Corporate Center to fight basic democratic principles in the election and defend the money drenched status quo - using their discredited corporate sponsored institutions. It would further show their disdain for legitimate self governance.
IRV or Ranked Voting would win out with a strong Left / Right coalition. Moderates would get sucked in too. It would be the 23% of the Dems 23% of the Reps (Authoritarian Followers) vs the Independents and non-voters. It's not even close.
IRV passes and Big Corporate & the Oligarchs can't game the system. 4-6 variables will prove too complex and costly to game.
At the very least this would restore some veracity and legitimacy to the election process and would completely change the nature of electoral politics.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
Bad odds
Yes, you are correct: there it is. It's about as undeniable as can be, if one has eyes to see. Certainly the purposely staggered elections, lifetime judge-ships, next-to-impossible amendment and/or re-writing requirements, voting restrictions, gerrymandered congressional districts, etc., have all been the success that those who wrote the original
constitutionconstraints envisioned.I damn sure don't know the solution, if it be peaceful. It the solution is violent, then there can be many possibilities. Probably the odds of any violent solution being a solution at all are not too good.
I Live in a Bus with a Dozen Dogs. Only Purchase Tools For My
business and computer equipment for production. I shop local. I buy local beer.
I have no money in the stock market. I take the penalty on taxes for lack of healthcare. Up until a year ago I was not really known to the system at all. For all intents and purposes, I've dropped out of the corporate world.
I would estimate 75% of our spending is local - beer and food. I suggest others do so as well.
I speak frequently about corporate cartels and human capital, and speak frequently and openly about politics in a-partisan fashion to many people. I also try to create language and ideas with people like you that can be deployed to make a progressive message land upon primed ears.
I think that's kind of my job.
I'll tell you, dropping off the grid without a net is a terrifying experience. It is a choice of mine, one I'm fine with, but it is a scary lifestyle.
I think most Americans of my age have a pretty terrifying lifestyle. The days of a retirement, let alone a comfy one, are over for most of us. It's kind of hard to lash out at the powers that be from that part of the system, and is completely impossible if nobody has articulated the problem in public to a large audience.
Bernie fit. But then he went all weak in the knees and turned around and supported the Establishment that cheated him and that he cut his political teeth on. We, meaning people like the C99ers, are pretty much the only people that caught the fearless messaging as a tactic.
But he fucking lost. He was cheated, and he lost. Then he went and worked with the bastards and blamed Putin for Hillary's cheating. The message is not strong enough. It needs more articulation and some wins attached to it (Ocasio, DSA, and general non-Drumpfenfear shit).
The United States Citizen doesn't have a clear picture of the bogeyman. And until that happens, when we point to the Suits, ALL the Suits, as a zeitgeist; that's when we can stop worrying about messaging and just talking about this shit.
And if you've been watching closely, you'd notice that we're winning. They're getting clobbered everywhere. The big derail has been the neoMcCarthyism, but other than that corporate, their media assets, congress, the spook agencies, and the banksters all have no-confidence polling.
I'll keep showing up here and taking good ideas, like the evolutionary branching of the system leading to a new organism instead of the organism I want, remember, or read about. I'll take those good ideas out into the world and I'll spread them around while I live in my bus and teach people to play with their dogs.
peace~
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
@k9disc more power to you
more power to you
An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.