Democrats don't actually believe in democracy
Jill Stein gets it. Unfortunately, she had to learn the hard way.
Seven months after the election, the attacks on her presidential bid have continued.
Caitlin Johnstone points out that partisan Democrats still can't stand the idea that someone on the left ran for president and got some votes.
There’s a relentless ongoing public flagellation of not just Stein but anyone who voted for her. Even though we know their votes made no difference in the outcome of the election, mainstream pundits continue to stomp on their heads every single day, screaming “You! Will! Not! Disobey! Again!” They are not satisfied with the fact that this wonderfully wise woman, whose Green New Deal could have literally transformed America and saved the world, received only one percent of the vote. They need to make an example of her and of everyone who voted for her as well.
It's largely your fault, you imbecile https://t.co/JmXmlEc7mz
— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) June 2, 2017
It wasn't just the odious Rachel Maddow and deceptive John Oliver.
The entire news media establishment, from neoliberal faux progressive, to neoliberal centrist, to neoliberal right-wing, lined up against her.
US News called her 'Trump abettor'.
Vanity Fair says she handed the presidency to Trump.
Newsweek says she cost Hillary the election.
The Week called her the 2016 Ralph Nader.
And this is all since the election.
It doesn't matter that the math doesn't work.
CBS News' exit poll posed the hypothetical question of who third party voters would support if the race were only Clinton and Trump, and both Johnson and Stein supporters appeared to support Clinton over Trump by about 25 percent to 15 percent. But 55 percent of Johnson's supporters would have just sat out the election, as would 61 percent of Jill Stein supporters. According to New York Times exit polling, a whopping 63 percent of voters who declined to cast their ballot for the two major party candidates said they would have not voted at all in a two candidate race.
Partisan Democrats always start with the baseless assumption that they are entitled to your vote. They don't have to earn it because it is their privilege.
This illogical thinking doesn't apply to the vastly larger group of liberals and minorities who vote Republican, or don't vote. Only to third party voters.
As Hillary Clinton says, people who vote third party are, "the crazy third-party people.”
Having choices to vote for of people that represent your values, isn't a privilege - it's a necessary part of democracy. That's why partisan Democrats no longer support democracy.
These people openly argue that the Greens should never have run a presidential candidate, insisting that they should just focus on state and local electoral contests, despite the fact that the Democrats attack them just as ferociously in those contests, and despite the fact that running a presidential candidate is an essential component in generating party legitimacy. “No, you must let us run our fake popularity contests between our two corporatists while struggling in obscurity, unseen and unheard.”
Half of the public no longer even votes, and Democrats respond by wanting to reduce your choices even further. Legitimacy be damned.
Democrat's slanders of Stein's trip to Russia finally prompted Stein to make an ironic observation.
“The solution for a democracy on life support is not less democracy,” Stein says.
Stein believes the US is as guilty as Russia when it comes to attempts to silence political opposition:“Silencing political opposition is a very dangerous thing to do. That’s what they do in Russia, which we are making such an effort not to be influenced by. We would be copy-catting Russia to fully silence our political opposition.” – Dr. Jill Stein
Comments
All your votes are belong to us
to paraphrase The Sage of Orange Dead State.
Anyone who voted for the supposed woman named Stein, rather than Her Royal Clintoness, is a misogynist, obviously. /s
(Edited)
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
@Bollox Ref Don't forget racist as
Don't forget racist as well! All of us Bernie Hos who voted for Stein/Baraka were both misogynistic racists or something.
"The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to those who think they've found it."
Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment
count me as one, very proudly.
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
A vote for anyone but us is a vote for EEEEVIIIIIL!!!!!
Everybody who doesn't vote for Clinton is Hitler.
Or Russian Hitler.
Or American traitors who follow Russian Hitler.
Or American Traitors who listen to people who get their orders from Russian Hitler.
Or American Traitors who just hate anybody who doesn't look exactly like them in every way, right down to hair color and exact skin tone.
Or Nazis. Because unless you focus 100% of your energy on identity issues instead of economic issues, ONE DAY THEY WILL COME FOR YOU! AND IT WILL ALL BE YOUR FAULT FOR NOT VOTING FOR CLINTON!
Have I covered most of their bullshit? Because I'd like to move on to actually fixing problems. Isn't that the entire reason we HAVE politicians? You know, to work together in order to fix problems.
/snark
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
You forgot sexist.
Because I voted for the wrong woman last time.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
You forgot Putin is Hitler and one that hits close
to my heart - Pussy Grabbers!
If it comes to a choice between Shrillary and my pussy, I'll grab my pussy before I'll vote for Her.
Academics: “Diversity of thought is white supremacist bullshit”
https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9272
Critical Race Theory — the Democratic Party’s demographic-based long-range strategy?
Stein proved more than that
She started a recount. Well, in MI the recount was stopped because someone noticed that in Detroit Hillary was credited with more votes than ballots cast. (Detroit used paper ballots but 10 year old optical readers to count them) Supposedly the recount people claimed that the readers were jamming (and I guess tabulating votes again and again until the jam was cleared - and Hillary legitimately received 95% of the vote in Detroit, so certainly such an error would favor her) Believable, but an honest system would correct for that, not throw up its hands. The only explanation under the circumstances was that MI recounts (or this recount in particular) were set up to not expose a stolen election or specifically not to embarrass Hillary.
Now what if some enterprising journalist, or a rabid Republican owning a tv station, suggested that the same thing might have occurred in NY or CHI, or (hey wait a second!) LA? Is it possible that Hillary actually lost NY, IL and CA?
On to Biden since 1973
I didn't know that.
Thanks for that info. There was an information overload at the time and I couldn't keep up with everything going on.
Speaking of the recounts, there's a cautionary point for any progressive thinking they can work with the Democratic Party. Stein started all those recounts and got criticized pretty hard by Greens, even though this is a thing the Green Party traditionally does. Even her own running mate turned against her on this. Regardless of if it was out of honest concern or an attempt to curry Democratic favor, the outcome was the same, as the OP shows.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
@Dr. John Carpenter Many of us were less
Many of us were less than thrilled at the recount, which sounded wonderfully moral on the surface, but actually was one more way of obscuring the fraud that happened in the primary--which Stein could not and did not challenge--by focusing on whether or not Trump cheated Clinton in the general. In fact, Stein's recount focused only on states where Trump won.
It sounds very moral to call for a recount. People say "How could you possibly oppose a recount?" and it seems unanswerable. But the fact is that if you bring up a controversy over whether there was fraud in the general, while not addressing the abundant fraud in the Democratic primary, the new controversy will take up all the oxygen, and people will forget to even ask about the previous fraud.
It's a clever trick, because it can hide behind the guise of pursuing election integrity while also covering up for previous fraud.
It's also the reason I won't vote for Stein again.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Agreed.
That was my take at the time too. I really felt like the targeting and pushing the Russia narriative were some misguided attempt to curry favor with the Dems. I was trying to make a more neutral sounding comment earlier, but yeah, I remember being pretty disgusted at the time, especially as it seemed she was going in on the Russia nonsense.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
Yep
It seemed like Stein wanted to placate the Dems, rather than uncover fraud.
She didn't realize the Dems will never be satisfied with a progressive challenge.
Caitlin nails it. Thanks.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
@divineorder I agree. Stein turned a
I agree. Stein turned a blind eye.
Likewise, I won't vote for her again.
She had nothing to do with Her losing, and the resulting vilification of Stein is to let the next 3rd party candidate know what will be in store for them, even if they are totally insignificant.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Fuck You and Your Pony! Vote Hillary! nt
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
I'd noticed that the party name no longer has to do with
anything they actually believe, if they believe in anything at all. They're just interested in power.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
power
I'll give them some power!
source (State of Florida)
Extra Crispy, please!
/snark
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
As said in the film Trading Places, the way you
hurt rich people is to take away their money.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
You gotta love the hyper-partisanship of the Dems.
But it won't do them any favors.
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.
What does democracy have to do with it?
We are against Assad, Maduro, Duterte, and many other duly elected leaders...because we are for the global corporations being able to extract resource when and where they want.
We are for capitalism, not democracy!
Check out the intercepts podcast (and transcript) with more from Jill...like the dinner she had with Flynn and Putin. The 1st couple of mins are great with a Boris and Natasha mash up.
https://theintercept.com/2017/06/07/intercepted-podcast-the-woman-democr...
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Putin should refuse to do interviews unless they are
US shown in their entirety. The US "news" is well known to cut and paste and change the meaning of interviews they do with foreign leaders on the "black" list.
Here's a response the bimbo's cut interview with Putin.
Hippy punching. Stop with the single payer shit.
The democratic party and its media lackies will continue to attack and marginalize the left. The left was kept out of any DNC and even state party positions. And now the continuing ideological beat down of Stein as a stand in for Leftists. I bet one can graph the general hippy punching as progressives make progress against establishment dems like in the town hall meetings.
Can you imagine if Bernie had taken stein's offer?
And ran as the Green Party candidate? Surely he and every New dealer would have been blamed for Trump. On an order of magnitude greater than now.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
@The Voice In the Wilderness They blame Bernie too.
They blame Bernie too. His passionate support of Hillary and the Democratic party has not stopped that from happening, and it won't.
They will blame whoever they need to blame at the moment, regardless of what that person has done or not done. Putin, Comey, Bernie, Stein, third-party voters, voters who sat out, racists, sexists, fifth columnists, millenials, millenial feminists...
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Blame Bernie
This is why when I heard people explaining that he didn't go after Clinton because he was afraid he'd be blamed if she lost the general (because apparently it was a foregone conclusion Her was going to win the primary) I had to laugh. It was obvious the mere fact he was running had earned him maximum scorn and nothing he was ever going to do would change that.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
@Dr. John Carpenter I don't get why
I don't get why people don't understand that. It shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Hillary's character, and I'd think by now, everybody except her ardent supporters would understand exactly who and what she is.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Dermocrats are not a party of the common man or woman
anymore. Period. Their claims to the contrary are flat out lies.
And neither of the two major parties wants democracy. They want the continuation of their stranglehold on the electoral process, which considering the lies, fraud and corruption that both engage in :liberally" makes our country a plutocracy at best, edging toward fascism. Trump should be a warning. Imagine if he wasn't a complete buffoon and someone posing as a right wing populist came into power. We'd see the reincarnation of the Nazis in all but name in record time.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
21st century Nazis will be philo-Semitic and pro-Israel
@
The 21st century equivalent of Nazis will take Israel’s dealings with the Palestinians as their model for dealing with groups they view as undesirables.
It’s already happening — “Israel has a wall and it works; why can’t we?” “Israel defines itself ethnically — why can’t we?”
It's interesting
because these same establishment Democrats told us on the left that they did not need us and would pick up two suburban Republican votes for every one of us they lost. Their idea of unity is a litany of excuses while beating the left into submission. I, for one, am done with them.
I actually had a Facebook friend, someone I knew in person from high school, actually de-friend me because I voted for Stein. This was after she posted a rant accusing me of electing Trump. I saw her attitude as representative of that of the Hillbots.
No one owns my vote. It is mine and mine alone to do with whatever I please, including NOT voting period. The Democratic party is loaded with hubris and continues to act like a spoiled child. I am not going to continue to enable that attitude.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
If they want to say Jill Stein has that much influence
that she and her 1% of the vote actually cost the democrats the election -- I still say the smart counter move is not to cry innocent. Instead, embrace it and accept the power they say you have. Instead of feeling beaten down or punched, feel proud and strong. Answer this with "Why yes! How wise of you to notice. We did make Hillary lose. Hear us roar! And don't forget, we are going to make the next corrupt corporate democrat lose too. And the next. In fact, Democrats are never going to win again, because we are done with falling in line."
Say this and I guarantee they will immediately change their tune back to "You Don't Matter, You Irrelevant Lunatic Fringe Nobodies" as they inform you that you have no power and aren't important. But they really can't have it both ways.
Either the Jill Stein 1% has that much power, in which case they must be accommodated and listened to, or they don't matter and can safely be ignored or spit on. Which is it gonna be democrats?
@CS in AZ They've been trying to
They've been trying to have it both ways for about 7 years at least. It was a favorite cognitive dissonance on DKos. "You're powerless and useless and small! You're so powerful that if you don't vote for our candidates, demon Republicans will win! But you're powerless and useless and small!"
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Heh.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
As I read through the list of names that were blaming Stein
I thought how scared they must be because people are seeing that the Green Party is the only one that represents so many people's values and they have to destroy the reputation of Jill Stein before it gets out of hand.
Oops, too late:)
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Hillary used Black prison labor while First Lady of AK
Twitter erupts over news that Hillary Clinton used Black prison labor when she was First Lady of Arkansas
In the article you linked to about Maddow, there is a link to Steins twitter page. I found this link to the article about how Hillary used Black prison labor and kept using them "because it was a long standing tradition and it kept costs down.
OMG, the way she rationalized using the prisoners is beyond disgusting, even for her.
Wasn't she afraid of being around those Black prisoners, many who were murderers? Yes of course she did at first, but as time went on, she became friends with them.
Inferior IQs is so 1980ish and I bet her thinking evolved over time, right? Um no, because in 1994 she called them Super Predators.
I wonder if this information had been available during the primary, would that make her supporters think differently about her?
Let's ask them.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
She said:
You know, that's pretty much what Nathan Bedford Forrest and Stonewall Jackson said too.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
Kamala Harris thinks prisoners are just a labor pool
The upcoming neoliberal presidential candidate who is being groomed for 20/20 doesn't have a problem with prisoners being paid $.08 to $.34 per hour.
The democrats are having a bad week after this article from 2014 has been rediscovered and is back in the news again and is being spread on social media. Then there's Hillary being okay with Black prisoners working at the Arkansas governor's mansion.
Prisoners are part of the labor pool
That is an astounding argument, implies that the "justice" system is simply a means for acquiring slave labor and has nothing to do with so-called law and order.
Not to mention if they are forced to release inmates early it affects their profit - unless of course they can replace them with new prisoners.. (Empty prisons aren't profitable)
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Sen. Harris is going to need watching
BTW up-thread -- Arkansas is AR. AK is Alaska.
Go to Twitter and see the beating old
Keith is getting. He ain't making any friends and he's losing a few old ones along the way.
https://mobile.twitter.com/KeithOlbermann/status/870528781844271105
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa