Lord Noam & Co. v Howie Hawkins: #Epic Hubris
A recent email from Howie to supporters:
‘Dear Wendy,
If you thought Bernie Sanders was the only one facing the wolves this election season, let us inform you that he’s not. It’s become pretty obvious that there’s all-out war against Bernie Sanders, and the DNC’s picks for the committees that will oversee nomination convention business certainly underscores this reality. And now with Barack Obama threatening to “go public” on his opposition to Sanders, you know the fix is in.
Last week in an open letter, Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, and other progressive luminaries insisted that Howie Hawkins and the Green Party vote Democrat for president in battleground states.
They condescendingly describe Green votes as a self-indulgent “feel-good activity” as if Green votes are not votes for urgent climate action, real social and economic justice policies, and peace policies.
Don’t they see that the Democrats have joined the Republicans in supporting pro-corporate economic policies and pro-war foreign policies that have generated growing inequality at home and endless wars abroad?
As Howie said in his response to the open letter, “The left cannot outsource fighting the right to the Democrats.”’
‘An Open Letter to the Green Party for 2020’, Jan. 24, 2020, truthdig.com
Signatories: Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Fletcher, Leslie Cagan, Ron Daniels, Kathy Kelly, Norman Solomon, Cynthia Peters and Michael Albert
Some snippets from an overly-long letter that needed some serious editing, imo:
“As the 2020 presidential election approaches the Green Party faces the challenge of settling on a platform, choosing a candidate for president, and deciding its campaign strategy. In that context, Howie Hawkins, a contender for Green Party presidential candidate, recently published a clear and cogent essay titled “The Green Party Is Not the Democrats’ Problem.” It represents a precedent Green Party stance which may guide Green campaign policy. We agree with much, but find some ideas very troubling.”
“We agree that many factors led to Democratic Party losses and that the Supreme Court was a big one as was the Electoral College, and we too are furious at Democrats joining Republicans in so many violations of justice and peace. Likewise, we admire the Greens’ Green New Deal and economic justice commitments, and also support a grassroots, local office approach to winning electoral gains.”
“The stance also says “the Green Party is not why the Democrats lost to Bush and Trump,” but even if true, that wouldn’t demonstrate it won’t be why this time. In any case, let’s take Trump and Clinton, and see how Green Party policy mattered.”
“Similarly, if these Stein voters did indeed erroneously believe that no harm could come from casting a vote for Stein in a close state in a close election, that also to some degree was surely a result of Green campaigning insisting that Green voters bore no responsibility for the 2000 election result.
And finally, if these voters did indeed erroneously believe that it was immoral to contaminate themselves by voting for Clinton or for a Democrat, surely in part that too was encouraged by Green campaigning that treated voting as a feel-good activity (“vote your hopes, not your fears”) as if fear of climate disaster, for example, shouldn’t be a motivator for political action.”
“We have no way to assess the claim that Greens would find it dispiriting to remove themselves as a factor that might abet global catastrophe via a Trump re-election. But wouldn’t Trump out of office much less Sanders or Warren in office not only benefit all humanity and a good part of the biosphere to boot, but also the Green Party? For that matter, weren’t more potential Green Party members and voters driven off by the party’s dismissal of the dangers of Trump than were inspired by it? Which grew more in the last four years, DSA or the Greens?”
“We are told, “Greens want to get Trump out as much as anybody” but how can that be if Greens would vote for a Green candidate, and not for Sanders, Warren, or any Democrat in a contested state knowing that doing so could mean Trump’s victory?
“Greens tell Democrats “to stop worrying about the Green Party and focus on getting your own base out.” We agree on the importance of Democrats getting their base out, starting with nominating Sanders, or, at worst, Warren. But how does that warrant the Green Party risking contributing to Trump winning?”
“The stance says “Greens don’t spoil elections. We improve them. We advance solutions that otherwise won’t get raised. We are running out of time on the climate crisis, inequality, and nuclear weapons. Greens will be damned if we wait for the Democrats. Real solutions can’t wait.”
But real solutions require Trump out of office. Real solutions will become far more probable with Sanders or Warren in office. Real solutions will become somewhat more probable even with the likes of Biden in office.”
duopoly plus Wall Street
I can’t get the comments underneath to boot up, but yesterday there were 1279 when I’d looked in; some were fascinating, so I hope they’ll load for you.
From BAR, 29 Jan 2020, ‘Safe-States Strategy from Hell: Greens Respond to Progressive Left Dems’
Here’s a response from Ajamu Baraka, the Green Party’s 2016 vice presidential candidate, Black Agenda Report Editor, and founder of the Black Alliance for Peace:
“Fully expected this from the “progressive left”, but it’s a little early for the perennial ‘elect the Democrat or the world ends’ that we have seen from Reagan forward.
“‘Oh, but Trump is a special case. The worst and most dangerous president in U.S. history.‘
“Well these progressives have a different reading of U.S. history than I do because I can think of at least 16 worse than Trump, including all of the slave-owning presidents of this settler state’s first few decades.
‘’But the conditions are different, Ajamu.’ [they say]
“Yes, we have a global capitalist/imperialist crisis and a struggle among the ruling class between competing visions and interests between the extreme right with a nationalist orientation and base and the transnational neoliberal right that is holding state power—even while Trump occupies the executive component of the state.
“In this struggle, the progressives argue that we have a moral responsibility to align with the neoliberal right. In other words, align with the right to defeat the right! That is why for many of these progressives, they don’t require any of the Democrat candidates to take definitive stances against U.S. imperialism and in fact a few of them have not found an imperialist intervention by the U.S. in the last decade and a half that they could oppose.
“No, we are not buying it this time. Look, if the Democrat establishment shared the concerns of the progressives regarding Trump, perhaps they would be more open to fielding the best candidate they could against Trump, no matter their ideological orientation. But they are not interested in that because the establishment understands something that these progressives have never understood—power. They would rather lose than give up control of their Democratic Party instrument.
“The protracted struggle to overthrow capitalist power which is the only solution that history and the current contradictions demand, are not bound by the bourgeois election cycles. We must understand that. We must understand that we have to build independent power not tied to electoralism. We will survive 2020 and Trump, if he wins again, which seems to be the course he is on primarily because of horrendous strategic blunders by the Democrats. It will be difficult, but at least there is resistance. And that resistance will only intensify because we have no other choice. Resistance and building power should be the progressive position, not tailing behind the Democrats and fear mongering.”
p.s. I have a funny story to recount about signatory Bill Fletcher in comments.
Comments
boy, that's some bad letter!
what's with all this "erroneously believe" nonsense? Didn't they have somebody go through this to remove the offensive bits? I guess not.
irratonal, repetetive $
specious subjectivity takes Time to Write especailly when the authors (love to know who'd penned), so repetitively. so: no time left for Editing!
It’s very simple
If the Dems field the best candidate, they get my vote. If they field another HER styled neoliberal, they don’t. I don’t play lesser evilism.
Edit to add, sad that Chomsky is still on the TDS boat.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
I'm sorry Noam, et al
a "feel good" activity is voting once again for the "lesser of two evils" and expecting a different result! And then telling yourself how good and virtuous and anti Trump you are. Talk about arrogance. I'm sorry I ever bought a book by Noam and I have one from Ehrenreich as well that I won't bother with again. And they're "furious" with Democrats but advocate voting for one? I tried to read that letter when it first came out for mere curiosity, pretty much anticipating what these sell outs would say, couldn't get through it then and barely made it through what you've excerpted here.
Thanks for the write up on this.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Dumbfounded
Norm should be telling everyone that the reason we have Trump is because the democrats have f'cked over their voters for far too long including when they had all branches of government and did squat with it. I'd like Norman to tell me how the Obama administration was different than the Bush one.
And will they write this same letter to the libertarian candidate? Who BTW got more votes than Stein did, but she is the only one people blame for Hillary's loss.
BTW Norman two words. Super Delegates! Oh yeah and no one owes any one their vote!
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Sorry to see Chomsky participate in this
attempt to use the lesser of two evils argument to basically shut down 3rd party voting.
Bottom line.... if the Dems nominate a candidate from the Third Way school of politics and shut out Bernie Sanders, I'll be back once again pulling the lever for the Green Party candidate. And those who give me a hard time about it, like the last time, can stuff it!
"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin
Yep.
Chomsky should know better.
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?
Some really bad reasoning here
Yeah it does. Following Chomsky, Ehrenreich et al.'s strategy would mean that the Green Party must fight losing ballot access battles until it becomes impossible to have a national Green Party. Chomsky, Ehrenreich et al. need to dispense with the disingenuous argument above and declare themselves to be anti-Green, or readers should just assume that they are lying.
All "the Green Party is why the Democrats lost" arguments assume that Democratic Party candidates are ENTITLED to Green votes. They are not. Voters need to be constantly in the position of telling candidates: don't hold my vote hostage -- go out and win it. With this letter, Chomsky, Ehrenreich et al. declare their support for hostage-taking in elections. They also reveal this support for hostage-taking in this argument:
Once again, for Chomsky, Ehrenreich et al. the Democrats bear NO RESPONSIBILITY WHATSOEVER for running winning candidates. Who is responsible for electing Democrats, according to them? The Green Party.
So far, "fear of climate disaster" has meant voting for candidates who say "vote for me because I'm not a climate change denier, even though I won't do anything effective to mitigate climate change." It's not an effective strategy. Hoping for an effective solution, on the other hand, might be worth a voter's time.
The "special danger" of Trump was 1) mostly the same danger that existed under Obama, that of ever-increasing executive power, and 2) also a special opportunity to motivate people toward political action against Trump. Chomsky, Ehrenreich et al. need to be asked: "if you don't prefer a demobilized public, why are you trying to demobilize a Green campaign?"
We see the "special danger" argument again in a paragraph below this one:
The far more probable outcome will be that Biden (or whomever replaces him when he's found incompetent to stand for office) enacts Trump's agenda and all the nice Democrats remain silent because "the Republicans are worse." Biden, moreover, has more or less openly endorsed the Obama-era strategy of giving government away to Republicans.
Lastly we have this bit of unsubstantiated argument:
Did the Greens quit doing that? I don't think so. Nonetheless this argument is offered without substantiating evidence.
*****
Now, personally, I think that the above arguments constitute winning ones, in that any fair-minded debate referee would declare Chomsky, Ehrenreich et al. to have lost the debate, their position in need of serious modification. (NB: I have taught college-level debate before.) At the very least I've blown some important holes in said position.
I used to be a Green. Soon I will be campaigning for Bernie Sanders. Today I recognize that Chomsky, Ehrenreich et al. and their cheerleaders are more powerful than anything the Green Party can organize. Maybe the Green Party should disappear, to remove Chomsky, Ehrenreich et al.'s favorite scapegoat. Then, when the Democrats give the government away to the Republicans again, the Greens will no longer be around to be blamed, even if the "blame the Greens" argument was without credibility in even one of the 900-plus races the Democrats lost in 2010 and 2014. But make no mistake. Chomsky, Ehrenreich et al. do not contribute to American democracy in any affirmative sense with this letter. Instead, democracy must be abolished because the Vichy Party is, on balance, better than the Republinazis.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
Bravo!
you said everything much better than I could. I’m just so worn out from the attempts to shame me into lesser evil voting. We haven’t even seen the first primary yet! Sheesh.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
Some on the left,
myself included, take Trump's threat to democracy more seriously than many others here do, which makes for a more reasonable and palatable LOTE argument than in previous cycles.
And re Trump, the racist, corrupt wannabe dictator for the ultrarich and big corps and friend of actual dictators worldwide, the arguments here to portray him as a mere buffoon and only marginally worse than most Dems (except Hillary of course) are extreme and barely reflect the grim authoritarian reality in the White House. The whattabout arguments -- look at what Obama and B Clinton did -- and the false equivalencies between the parties are at best only easy surface arguments usually intended to get applause from a deeply jaded far-left audience.
Yes, the DemParty is lousy and riddled with bought and paid for cowardly pols. It's just that the RepubPty, now the TrumpCult, is a little more bought and paid for, cowardly and corrupt. A lot more actually. Almost to a jaw-dropping 99% level. And the 1% remaining are Never-Trumpers, with one foot out the door of the party or both feet. So, doing the math, it still seems worth noting there are substantial differences between the two parties and usually it will matter whether a D or R gets elected prez. Examples from recent times: Humphrey in '68 rather than Nixon; Carter rather than Reagan in '80; Gore rather than Shrub in 2000.
As for Chomsky, Ehrenreich et al, by definition these left public intellectuals are going to be free thinkers and so won't be found passively checking the expected boxes straight down the left party line, if one exists. Gore Vidal was even quirkier and contrarian -- and maddening at times -- which is what made him interesting and entertaining, a true original.
Re 2016, fwiw I don't fault the Greens for Dems losing WI, MI, and PN. Far more the fault of: Hillary's negligent campaign and her lack of appeal for GOTV energy; the bland white bread D ticket kept AA turnout down; voter suppression by the GOP; and the historically strong showing of the Libertarians, which may have pulled away slightly more D-leaning voters than R leaners as both dudes on that ticket were of the mod-lib stripe. Oh, and the additional protest voters who wrote in another name -- we're not sure who if anyone they tended to write in, but some might guess that Bernie's name might have appeared often.
Reply to the argument as posted.
Do what you want -- the problem as I've pointed it out is that "Trump's threat to democracy" does not in itself make an adequate argument for campaigning for someone who is there to lose, who will not stop Trump's threat to democracy.
If the reality is indeed that grim then we should expect a rigged election in November. Keep your head down and try not to get purged.
This is not my argument. My argument is that there are two parties: one party to be the Republicans, and another party to give government away to the Republicans. You are going to stop the Democrats from the losses they hope to achieve through your enormous army of lesser-evil voters?
If you want to prevent a third alternative, then you'll just be expanding the ranks of the nonvoters. Maybe that's what you want. My participation in politics is not guaranteed. I don't even have to participate in this little debate, here, and you should thank the gods that I care enough to respond. At some point I will probably take a step further, and leave the country. That was the smart move when Hitler was appointed to run Germany, no?
You know, Bernie Sanders worked hard to promote Hillary Clinton's candidacy, but to me it looked like an exercise in futility. The Democrats hate us far more than the Republicans do, and they will act accordingly. They may be better than the Republicans, but too many of us, you see, have joined what they see as their party, and so we represent a grievance that isn't just felt every four years.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
Michael Albert's Reply to Hawkin's Reply to the Open Letter
Albert is with ZNet by the way . . .
Here it is for what it's worth and if anyone cares.
A snippet from Albert's reply:
There are some other articles about the controversy in Counterpunch.
what a patient and fulsome
response, amigo. if i'm reading between the lines correctly, part of your argument is that a Larger Threat to Democracy is making demands that a third party should stand down and STFU.
What's noteworthy --
about the hostage-taking arguments by Chomsky, Ehrenreich et al., is that none of them really want to address the rather distinct possibility that the Democrats don't really stand for themselves, and that if the assembled forces of capital (INCLUDING the Democrats) see it as necessary for Trump to win, then coercing the Greens to vote for his opponent will not stop that outcome.
They think they have the problem covered by going on and on about how much better the Democrats are than the Republicans. Such arguments can be as correct as you please. It doesn't really matter how correct such arguments are if the Democrats do not defend themselves in any adequate manner, and inadequacy is an all-purpose alibi these days. Lesser-evil voting is never empowering.
So Chomsky, Ehrenreich et al. are sending targeted messages at five people in a room as if prepping them to be scapegoats again. Hillary Clinton raked in TWICE the campaign cash that Donald Trump got. She still lost. It's going to happen again, if Chomsky, Ehrenreich et al. can think of no better use for their time than THIS. Really, what are those five people in that room supposed to do? Shut down democracy in the swing states? Every state is now going to claim to be a swing state, and call for the abolition of the Green Party. Or maybe they'll all get "Top Two" voting like what they have in California, and do away with the Green Party in that way.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
good on your more nuanced
comment, including this:.
and i'll refer back to my diary of 2012 when (a younger, less tamed) glen ford had written:
anyhoo, it's been going on for a long time; so now it's...2020?
It's all --
"Let's pick on people who vote because we don't like their protest votes." Meanwhile the nonvoters who got Trump elected are tuning out the whole show.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
4 in 10 not voting;
i suppose that's a statistical anomaly, then? anyhoo, it caused me to try remember raplh nader's one-liner quip when he was blamed for being a 'spoiler' is political bigotry.
but as to your link, he'd said 'you lost the race fair and square for not getting your voters out'...or something.
i sure wish the comments under that open letter would have loaded, as i'd only read six or seven of the (then 1279) but those were not supportive of noam & co.'s creepy chutzpah.
No that isn't your argument
I think that was directed at me because of my comments to wokkamile.
How cute.
Cass nails it by saying that the democrat's job is to give everything to the GOP. Congress has many procedures to stop bills from even seeing the light of day and democrats rarely use them.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Some even badder reasoning (not to mention, math) here,
; If every vote for Stein, in Philadelphia, had gone for Clinton instead, Her still would have come up short.
PA/Trump: 2,912,941
Her: 2,844,705
Stein: 48,912
_________
Her+Stein 2,893,617
https://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
It's wrong to lump Bernie together with Warren and other Dems
ISTM that both Chomsky et al. and the Greens are doing that in their arguments.
I don't think it's wise to proceed with either argument because they are based on a false equivalency.
And if folks still don't see a big enough difference between Bernie and the rest of the Democratic Party field or even with Trump, well, jeesh. . . the sure result will be Trump and climate catastrophe and maybe cataclysmic world war, too. So it goes. Cheers!
I did find this interesting from the letter to the Greens:
Finally, I gotta wonder how many Socialist Equality Party members and supporters vote Green. Anybody have any idea? Is there a SEP contingent/caucus in the Green Party these days?
the SEP is running their
own ticket: Kishore and Santa Cruz. me, i'll vote for howie hawkins if he wins the nomination; his policies tab is here. on twitter, last i'd checked, the folks who run his account seem to like promoting howie's version of the Green Party's GND, although i wish it weren't so, myself. his menu of which parts of the economy to socialize is (or was) great.
So Hawkins is pro-impeachment and even . . .
. . . supportive of the Russiagate narrative?
Or is the video below fake news? I really don't have an opinion here and will appreciate your feedback as well as from any other Green Party advocates or supporters or sympathizers. I haven't ever really looked into the internal machinations of the Green Party.
I've now looked up a bit what's going on in the Green Party and it seems like there are two "approved" candidates and several "unapproved" candidates who are complaining about ballot access and vote rigging and essentially being treated like Tulsi is by the Dem Party elite.
I also see that the Green Party presidential ticket got on the ballot in 45 states in 2016. I'm wondering if it'll be more or less this year. My guess is that Howie Hawkins has the nomination locked up, no? Seems, too, that some of the other candidates and their supporters will split from the party if he is the nominee. But I don't have a clue how serious this sectarianism will prove to be. I really don't have a horse in this race but it's interesting . . . .
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvbSLYC2PaE&feature=share]
I don't see any fake.
And it's confirmed with this video with Jill Stein commenting on Howie and Russiagate and how she tried to talk reason to him.
Jimmy referencing his previous support (against Cuomo in NY) for Howie sounds so much like a lot of lefties probably -- he "reflexively" supported Howie, as the Green Party candidate, thinking only good thoughts w/o checking the record.
The GP will lose a lot of IQ points in their nominee if he is selected. Jill Stein is solid, someone worth voting for. Howie seems no better than what he sees on the teevee.
I was actually taken aback learning about Howie Hawkins
His positions on certain issues strike me as anathema to the views of most folks here.
I don't think Stein has put her name in for nomination, has she? Might she?
I've often voted Greeen essentially as a protest vote going back to Nader daze. I've voted for Stein. I just don't see the purpose of voting third party at this point. Bernie or Dust. Such is life, so it goes and all that.
Examples?
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
Jimmy Dore doesn't seem to like Hawkins
. . . to say the least.
For detail, see the videos above. The one I linked with Jimmy Dore in the screen and the one Wok references with Jill Stein.
I really wasn't aware of the criticisms of a bunch of his policy positions until yesterday.
This is what literary people call --
"narrative suspense." You've suggested that Hawkins has political positions that we won't like, but you're not going to tell us what they are. Jimmy Dore doesn't like Hawkins, for reasons that aren't a deal-breaker for me. Russia, so what.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
You've never railed against Russiagate and Russophobia?
Againt impeachment as a strategy to defeat Trump? Or in support of Tulsi's position re Syria?
I'm not sure what Hawkins' position is re. Ukraine.
Maybe I tend to get folks here confused but it sure seems to me that most are opposed to Hawkins' clearly stated positions on these matters. Again watch those videos and if I'm misinterpreting his positions, let me know how. Thanks.
If you're going to have
deal breakers, it would seem Russiagate would have to rank right up there with the best of 'em. It always had the strong flavor of state propaganda, and when we scrape away the surface statements -- per the great work done at Consortiumnews for instance -- the Deep State lies are there for anyone to see. Not a lot of heavy duty research or deep thinking required.
There is more nuance, as I see it, to the impeachment issue from a Dem/left perspective. I never favored the remarkably tepid, narrow impeachment focus on Ukraine when there's so much more material to offer in a senate trial, but I'm too much invested in the Get Rid of Trump camp, including by Al Capone means if necessary, so overall I have backed the effort. Others on the left disagree, including 99% of the posters here, which hasn't made for very many interesting impeachment discussions.
"Russiagate" is a diversion --
coming from Democrats who don't like Trump but who want to use impeachment to forward their own militaristic agenda. Howie Hawkins probably doesn't realize this.
Is there anything else about Howie Hawkins you would disagree with?
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
while i do remember a c99er
saying that 'we are woke because we agree w/ jimmy dore', i've always loathed him for many reasons, but this one tipped me over edge, the asshole:
now you may not know what it's like to be muslim, christian, or lower caste in modi's india, but with the recent 'registration' it's even worse. think 'palestinians in israel' worse. fuck jimmy dore and the horse he rode in on. too bad he's not even a quarter as funny as he thinks he is.
I've read that JS
decided running twice was enough. Can't blame her. Even 20 yrs after Nader should have boosted that party to major 3d party status, it still seems feeble, disorganized and inconsequential. I don't see their footprint anywhere on the lefty sites I frequent, and the GP or its leader is rarely if ever seen on the cables. Makes me wonder sometimes whether they are just naturally incompetent or deliberately so or whether they prefer remaining marginal and being perceived largely as lefty elitist.
howie was full of shit there;
but they were actually talking about UkraineGate, not RussiaGate. stein stumbled when asked "and how did howie respond?"...but Stein is and was a RussiaGater having raised shit tons of $$ for recounts in three states clinton lost "due to russian interference in our elections", later "foreign interference in our elections"...all against the express protestaions of her running mate ajamu baraka (her third choice) and the national green party steering committee.
yeah, that's why she's tooooo tired to run again...#Pffft.
note ajamu baraka's answer to this irrational open drivel by chomsky, et. al. i did vote for him last cycle, but NOT for stein.
They were talking
Russiagate, not Ukrainegate from all that I heard, either with Jimmy and the host or Jill talking about Howie with that host. Any cites to show Jill is a R-gater herself? Would be odd as she is on video criticizing Howie for just that. I also see no evidence that she used the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election as a rationale for her recount request. Maybe I've missed something -- any cites there for me?
So far, we have Howie as a bit of a gullible doofus on R-gate, Syria and with his fence-straddling and insinuations about Assange. Not my idea of a bold independent leader.
I won't be casting any votes for Howie Hawkins in any scenario. Connie Hawkins maybe, if he's still around.
Let's not dismiss Hawkins
[video:https://youtu.be/3S7a4Uj2yME]
maybe one of us should go
back and listen again, but what i heard howie was speaking about mueller's investigation and how well he'd nailed it on the phone call, which is UkraineGate: allegedly withholding bucks for ukraine as a quid pro qo for investigating hunter biden.
given that you can doubt it without being willing to type the search terms into a search engine, i will say i'm embarrassed to be spoon-feeding you. New York magazine with an internal link to the guardian. 'she won't profit from it'...but she'd reported that the states kept raising the costs of recounts...and i believe they never happened.
separate is the issue of stein being called a russian asset for going to russia to meet with putin and a table-full of others.
let me reiterated cass's point: No One is asking you to vote Green, whether howie or another hopeful! but please, at least familiarize yourself a bit with the issues before offering such strident opinions.
many states have made it virtually impossible for Greens to get on the ballot; why do you suppose that is? you might want to read: 'the epic barriers to Third Party candidates' as bruce dixon of black agenda report explained it.
Why now?
If Bernie wins the nom, the Greens won't be an issue in the general. (Seriously, no matter how pure your politics, how many Green leaners will NOT vote for Bernie?)
If Bernie doesn't win, however, then a wholesale defection of Sanders supporters to the Greens will probably cost the Dems the election.
So giving swing state Green voters no place else to go isn't about protecting Bernie. It's about protecting everybody EXCEPT Bernie.
And THAT's why were seeing this letter coming out BEFORE the primaries rather than after. Because if the Greens capitulate and withdraw from the swing states now, then the argument during the primaries for the electability of establishment candidates to beat Trump improves dramatically.
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?
Having remembered curmudgeon Bill Fletcher, Jr.
writing at the reader diaries at Firedoglake, as well as remembering having engaged in a few (unremembered) kefuffles with him now again, I’d Bingled him at (now) kevin gosztola’s Shadowproof and had run into this diary I’d put together in August of 2012: ‘Drivelers for Obama: Disregard His Record; Fight the Caligulas!’, which opens:
“Really, what’s left for OBomba to run on? ‘Forward!’ his campaign slogan hollers, like Ward Bond yelling ‘Wagons, Ho!’ as the Conestoga faithful snap whips at their horse teams and mule teams* and follow The Rock of a Trailmaster to the Promised Land. Ah, California, the Land of Milk and Honey, where you can just pick the food up from the ground to feed your hungry family. ‘The land is so fertile, all ya have to do is stick some seeds in the ground, and watch ‘em grow!’ There might not be quite enough Law and Order there yet, but it’ll come, by crackee!
It’s hard to know whether to laugh or rage at the August 9 piece ‘progressives’ Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Carl Davidson posted at Alternet.org. Glen Ford wrote about their crapitude yesterday, and he’s calling them out:
[snip]
Pace to any of you who agree, and espouse the ‘we must be practical on election day’; you will vote your consciences or your fear. Some of you may even agree with the authors that third-party politics at the Presidential level are not only quixotic, but may amount to ‘flag-flying propaganda and serve only to recruit tighter circles of ‘militants’ or whatever.
Well, fuck me, I’d hate for them to think I’m militant since I’m going crazy because this administration is selling our futures to the highest bidder; is refusing to prosecute massive amounts of financial crime on Wall Street; crapping on workers; bombing funerals in Afghanistan and Pakistan hoping they’ll kill the next No. 2 Al Qaeda/Taliban, or anyone OBomba deems ‘a militant’, and creating ever more enemies who’d like to take us down, and get us the hell out of their lands.
I’d hate to be thought of as a militant for caring that this President has chosen to void his pledge to uphold our nation’s Constitution with impunity, and is more secretive and punitive against whistle blowers than Bush ever was. Or that his FDA is fast-tracking pharmaceuticals that may be killing us in the name of profit, or fast-tracking secret trade deals in which multinationals will hold all the power, and citizens…can eat shit and die, just like we’re supposed to. Never mind fast-tracking the XL pipeline, or disregarding its own EPA on pollutants from coal-fired power plants.’, and so on...
I’d ended the diary with Los Lobo’s ‘Is this all there is?’
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVbUD7kO4Ho]
If you need support
from a group separate from yours, and you have differing goals, you negotiate to form an alliance and work on common ground. The democrats won't do that. They will not compromise with the left. They're worse than any republican.
Ask Biden, he has more faith in them than the left wing of his own party. So you have these toothless drooley admonishments to "do the right thing" and make no promises to the Greens. It will suck if Trump wins, but for the Greens it'll still suck under the democrats.
The Democrats don't need support from the Left.
As revealed in 2010 and 2014, they can lose all sorts of political offices and still be paid. They're fine without support from the Left.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
Yeah
I keep forgetting.
Chomsky has many interviews out there
advocating blue no matter who against Trump.
I have started to largely disregard him, a man I once regarded as a great, great liberal proponent.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
just saw this on a break from mending a pile of things
on the sewing machine.
January 31, 2020 ‘The Imminent Threat of Trump and the Value of Progressive Third Parties, Roger Harris, counterpunch (re: the Open Letter from noam and all) it's long, nut i've grabbed some bits and bobs:
silly as it is, for posterity
on a dead thread i'll add because its taken so long to percolate thru the blogosphere::
'Chomsky and other Liberal Intellectuals ask us to Join them in Throwing in the Towel; Their “Open Letter to the Green Party”, by Stansfield Smith / January 27th, 2020, dissidentvoice.org
and so on...