So apparently Cornel West went onto the podcast of Tim Black, having exhausted the more active minds, and went on this long rant in which he "called out" people who have been calling him out. This bickerfest mode seems to happen a lot. I saw it in the Green Party and I saw it in Occupy Los Angeles. They get to the point where --- we're ALMOST THERE -- they feel they're SO CLOSE to being something that's NOT the two-party system, and suddenly the big egos take over and they think they're something out of the classical Greek pantheon. It happened with Nick Brana, it seems to have been a thing with RFK Jr., and now it appears to be happening with Cornel West, who should -- if his brain were plugged in -- take his lumps and move on. What's making it happen that way? Is there some flaw in the process that's so deep that even when they come to the dawning realization that "omigod there's a flaw in the process!" they become another flaw in the process?

I have a different perspective than the RBN people. I think of critiquing the candidates on the issues is -- well, I can see the case for it, but it's really a secondary matter. The point of running for President is to be against the Two-Party System, not conditionally, but objectively. If you can't see that, then you're Nick Brana or RFK Jr. or Cornel West. Maybe they had a dawning thought once or twice that that was the thing to do, and then they went back to being egomaniacs. As for the other stuff, I could give a damn about Peter Daou. The problem with Daou was that he quit early. Dude, if you were going to quit, why did you join the campaign in the first place?

I can tell that the RBN people don't really make the President thing a big priority -- they tell everyone that at the end. There isn't much to pleading before the emperor. But, really, to the extent anyone wastes their breath on this stuff at all, it's got to be about figuring out some way -- eventually -- to break the duopoly. A lot is possible that wouldn't otherwise BE possible when the duopoly can be avoided.

Right now it looks like I'm voting for Stein.