Why would anyone vote in the future?
We just watched as the DNC rigged the 2016 and 2020 primaries against Bernie so why vote in 2022 if they are just going to cheat?
On top of the DNC's shenanigans in Iowa we had Obama making phone calls and getting people to drop out, except for Warren, and plow the field for Biden over Bernie. Pete and Amy had more votes than Biden, but they were pushed out. And Jordan states in the video that Obama has been grooming Buttiguges since 2011. Gee who will Kamala pick for her VP in 2024? 
I am adding this video on MMT because as she points out taxes have been cut for the upper class since 1980 and each year it adds more to the debt that the GOP/DEM worry about when democrats are in power. The GOP runs it up, the dems come in with austerity polices, rinse and repeat as often as you need to so that the lie stays going.
How many times have you seen that congress can order the fed to create a Trillion dollar coin and go from there? Hopefully those who are more informed on this can fill in my blanks.
Comments
I didn’t vote this year.
And unless there is some seismic caliber upheaval in US electoral politics I see no reason whatsoever to vote next time either. I couldn’t agree more, Snoop.
Voting only helps in giving tptb the illusion
that voting = democKracy. This video showing what a farce our "elected govt" is, never gets old.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig]
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Why do you have to vote for a Democrat or a Republican?
There have always been alternatives. I have voted for Ralph Nader, Jill Stein and other Greens, and some others over the years. The People's Party will be available fairly soon and just might gain some traction.
I have had people tell me "you are wasting your vote." All I can says is that 1. it's my vote to waste and 2. if we all voted for whom we wanted instead of worrying about a false choice we would probably get a far better government. The only wasted votes are those given to someone you don't want or those not submitted.
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
Good point on 3rd parties
I am glad that they are there so that people can vote outside dem/gop and I hope someday they will get off the ground and be a real threat to the democrats. However we just saw democrats get the GP kicked off the ballot in a few states. People wondered why they would do that so openly. My thoughts were that they did it to piss people off so they would stay home and dems would lose down ballot races. Which they did. I think dems are very happy when they don't hold the senate. Funny how when the gop is the minority they can block bills, but dems rarely use it.
I saw so many comments before and after Biden got the nod and became pres elect. "Biden was down on my list for president, but now that he has won, HE IS exactly WHO we need to repair the damage from Trump. How naive. Biden/MyBoss had the chance to repair the damage after Bush and they failed. On purpose. Biden's not gonna do a damn thing. IMO of course.
Hope you holidays are happy ones.
Quite true, Polka -
The false choice(s) consist of picking somebody solely to avoid a making putative false choice.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
amen and so mote it be!
Amen and so mote it be!
There's also the factor of getting a little tiny dig in against the bad guys. In the words of the great Southern philosopher Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton (1946-2009), "Fuck you!" (Addressed to the bad guys, of course!) Every vote they have to see for non-oligarchs and non-plutocrats is a tiny little "Fuck You!" from us to them. And even if it never does anything else, no such vote is wasted, as you pointed out above.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
This is why I REALLY do not get just not voting
If everyone who COULD vote, but DIDN'T, had in ANY election in the past few decades, voted en masse for a 3rd-party candidate, we'd have gotten a 3rd-party President every election.
I'd non-voter-shame them, lecture them on their dereliction of civic duty, but if that would have worked at any point, that point is past simply due to a sociopolitical atmosphere so toxic for so long that the word 'toxic' itself has become sickeningly trite.
This was the zeitgeist 16 years ago, FFS: https://politics.theonion.com/nation-s-liberals-suffering-from-outrage-f...
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Hello Polkageist
Had not seen you around for a while.
I've voted third party and was involved in the founding of the Pacific (now Pacific Green) Party in Oregon, so can relate to looking for alternatives as well as the general disgust about the state of the major parties.
That said, I see the "well, voting is just window dressing/theatre/pointless/rigged so why bother" as something of a cop out. There is an element of truth to characterizing voting as such in the current environment, but the right question to be asking, seems to me, is how do we make it so that voting *is* meaningful and what do we have to do to make it so?
One thing that has started to really annoy me about minor parties is I've never seen one yet try to do something as obvious as promoting proportional representation at the state level or apportioning presidential electors on a proportional basis...
Hey, who'd have thought Guns n' Roses would have gotten one of their biggest hits from a polka band?
Hi Blue Republic.
I think I saw somewhere in the Peoples' Party platform or in their discussions some mention of proportional voting. If we can get them elected it seems likely that we can make a lot of necessary changes. Sounds easy but isn't as we all know.
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
The Dems are now legally ok'd to rig the primaries
but not the general election. That doesn't mean the two big parties don't try to rig November but they can't go to court claiming that it's fine if they do.
My personal belief, subject to change if different info comes up, is that there's no point in counting on the Democratic primary process. Forget the Dems. Bernie or a Bernie type will not be allowed to get the nomination and then we'll be stuck in late spring 2024 casting about to figure out what to do.
We'll have to vote Biden out from another angle.
As one of the victims of their fraud, I say:
DO NOT give up on the legal battle to call their crimes crimes! They owe me, personally, AT LEAST enough money to buy a decent used car, and that's just from the 2015-2016 political season!
There has GOT to be a way - for instance, if they say it's somehow not "fraud" because they're a private corporation, how about resubmitting the charges against them as "false advertising"?
I figure "false advertising" must be one of the safest and most effective lawsuits out there, since the corporations need to be able to use it against each other as much as anybody.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
I'm just saying
[video:https://youtu.be/KVJI3HHsWyg]
Jordon Chariton has a more indepth article about the Iowa "Shadow" shenanigans, which I would NOT call a "Caucus"...
Gee, Hillary's email server and the DNC's server, were NEVER turned over to FBI investigators to definitively determine if "Russian hackers" actually accessed either's machines. If you never look, you can claim what ever you want, evidence free!
American democracy, ain't it great! Vote, heck I don't have time, I'm too busy working on my 2nd PhD from the Carlin Institute of Political Science and Economy.
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
American democracy is as good as its justice system
Hillary should never have been the candidate because of her email server being connected to her house and the fact that she not only never turned them in, but she deleted 30,000 that had been subpoenaed by congress. This seems to be much worse than lying to them or the FBI. Crowdstrike admitted in early 2017 that they never saw evidence of Russia stealing them. Plus WikiLeaks exposures and now we find out that Obama knew she was making up the accusations against Trump and he played along with it. Funny how everyone is blaming Trump for the cyber attacks, but Obama skated on 'letting Russia interfere with the election." Typical.
Jordan Chariton is a voice to watch
His way of speaking is focused, condensed, intelligent, ethical, no excess verbiage for color or filler.
I want to read or hear as much of his thinking as I can. He feels like a good C99 person.
If there are third parties, one can always fote for them, and
in CA there will always be some third parties, viable or not.
In addition, there is always the possibility of a chance to
something
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I am pretty tired of casting votes for
candidates that have no chance to win.
I am completely fed up with 2 corporations putting candidates of their choice on the ballot.
When can private citizens get their candidate?
I feel that voting has been reduced to an act of veal penning.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
We need to break the duopoly by organizing some ABT
campaigns (anybody but them); just find somebody withoug too many horrible black marks against them and tell everybody to vote for them because they aren't from the duopoly. When it is time to repaint the eaves, you have to first scrape off all of the old paint, then prime, with any old primer, then paint.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
The reason for voting now is to clear the corruption
...out of Washington by voting strategically against all incumbents in every national election, A clean congress is a gift for the next generation. It will give them a fighting chance for a decent life.
An organized voting bloc of Americans can make certain that no representative in congress stays for a second term. To do this, they vote in every election against any duopoly incumbent running for another term. It is during the second term that representatives become corrupted, lazy, compromised, greedy, and/or unethical. This is when they begin to betray the people who voted them into office; this is when they seek re-election funding and are hooked and dominated by the duopoly cartel. Congressional seniority must be neutralized. It's the most corruptive influence of all.
If there is no incumbent in a race, one should vote against the candidate who has accepted the most corporate funding. This is anti-worker, anti-rights funding.
I estimate it will take 3 to 4 election cycles to turn Congress into a one-term "people-controlled" focus group.
It's important for disenfranchised voters to publicize and organize their voting Bloc. They should register as independents and stop recognizing the legitimacy of either duopoly Party. No official political Parties should be recognized by the Bloc until there are enough parties established to represent the key interests of all the American People. Ideally, five or six parties will coalesce, including the Republicans and the Democrats. All Parties must have equal access to the election infrastructure. Until then, the Bloc should continue to vote out all incumbents while they are establishing a common political platform for all the American people.
A reminder: Parties are special interest clubs concerned with promoting candidates who represent the Party's particular ideology to run for office in national and state elections. These candidates promise to align with the political will of the Party's largest corporate donors. The current duopoly is the mechanism that creates the deep divisions between the American People. These divisions conveniently polarizes the nation, which helps to maintains the status quo. Political divisions also drive the profitabllity of Party fund raising, and expand the profits of the continuously expanding "news" media extravaganza. Thus, it is a conflicted political perversion for the duopoly to also operate in the capitol, running parts of the government and peddling influence to wealthy donors. It shatters true democratic actions.
A Fairness Doctrine must be reinstated to regulate the national news media back to its former neutrality. When the public airwaves are used for propaganda and misinformation during national news broadcasts, a collective voice that opposes those deliberate distortions must be given air time to rebut biased opinions, anonymous rumors, factual distortions. or unsupported accusations that the media presents as credible news. This is simple and it works. Fairness and objectivity will return naturally after this corruption is removed. There is no democracy without equal access to a media mouthpiece. Eventually, the establishment news media will stop using the subjective opinions of recycled experts pushing their evidence-free conspiracy theories to replace factual reporting. It is also time to prohibit all paid advertising during national news broadcasts. The media make enough money from influence peddling during the other 23 hours.
Vote out the incumbents. You owe it to your country for all the times you voted while bamboozled.
[edit=typos and small clarifications]
OT if anyone is interested
https://electronicintifada.net/content/annexation-was-always-israels-age...
Gee really? Who else knows about this in governments?
Heh...people haven’t given up their humor
Phone lines are open now.
Good one!
Thanks for the chuckle.
Here’s another chuckle for ya
Biden is telling Trump to sign the bill
sure would be nice if he told congress to pass the $2k instead. It’s not that big a deal.
https://www.rt.com/usa/510816-biden-trump-devastating-consequences-relief/
I vote mostly for state and local measures.
If a local dem politician has done okay, then I will vote for them. Otherwise vote for anything close to a Green or Progressive third party candidate. But my state uses mail voting and seem to be on the up and up.
You vote --
because if you don't vote, someone else will.
It's amazing, though, that all sorts of people, nice Iowa residents and such, would vote for (Mayor) Pete Buttigieg. Nathan J. Robinson's two pieces, All About Pete and More About Pete, really do sum up Pete Buttigieg well, and the rebuttal to these pieces, at least the one which shows up prominently in a Google search, is really lame and merely nitpicks about a couple of Robinson's points while leaving the great bulk of his accusations unchallenged. That should have put a stop to Mayor Pete right away. The coup de grace, that there really was no substance to Mayor Pete's campaign, should have finished it off long before the Iowa caucuses.
And then there are the vast legions of people who would end up voting for Joe Biden because the 31 flavors of neoliberal Democrat candidate would "drop out of the race" and oh-so-unconvincingly endorse Biden -- these were no doubt the same people who were fooled by Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Bloomberg, Booker, Harris, and Warren. These people did not do their research and chose on the basis of whomever put out the best public relations garbage.
Obviously voting would be one tiny part of an effort to dethrone this cabal of neoliberal social climbers, and all you can really do at this point is gainsay the vast legions of idiots who thought Joe Biden was really an alternative to Donald Trump. But don't rule out the possibility that, once these people have completed their disastrous failures with America and retreated to their bunkers in remote portions of New Zealand or wherever, voting might at that point matter.
The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.
The system has been purchased ...
The political process is kabuki to create the illusion of democracy.
Sadly we are owned by multinational global corporate conglomerates. That is who the government serves. That's why the people get no stimulus, unemployment, nor eviction protection, while the Fed is creating trillions to give to corporations to buy their own stock. We need more than US reform.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
My .02 cents
There needs to be a party with a clearly defined platform that cannot be compromised away. In any primary it is understood all the candidates support and will work to further the platform no matter what, until the goals are attained. Dems love to point to the FDR programs as their own accomplishment, when none of those programs would get past todays dem leadership.
It's got to get past the personality contest, it's their turn mentality. All politics these days is just a scripted "Real Politicians of Washington DC" show.