A further note on lesser-evil voting
This topic was prompted by the persistent reflection among the pundits that what we will be getting next year is another Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump matchup for the November election.
Let's review. Joe Biden is the guy who won because back in 2020 they hid him in a remote location or something while Donald Trump destroyed his own chances at re-election by making the election about himself and his enormous ego. And -- back in 2020 -- nobody outside of the Cult of Trump cared about his enormous ego; he was a guy who at best ate junk food and played golf while America focused on something else. Joe is running for re-election this time around.
The selling point for Team Biden is the "lesser-evil voting" appeal: the other guy is worse. The Bernie Sanders dramatization of this selling point is the idea that "the future of democracy is at stake"; the current Team Biden presentation of democracy, however, in its control over the Democratic Party, is one of how "you have no choice." You are not allowed to choose RFK Jr. or Marianne Williamson. You cannot choose Cornel West because if you vote for him -- Team Biden tells you -- Donald Trump will win. And you can't choose Donald Trump because they will prosecute Donald Trump. Because nothing screams "saving democracy" like depriving the public of choice.
Any observer who cares to think would have to conclude that if the future of democracy were really at stake, a vote for Joe Biden would be wasted. Let's mention Team Biden's persecution of journalists, and move forward to discuss Team Biden's obsession with Ukraine, a place in which the future of democracy might vaguely be at stake except that the current President of Ukraine has in fact banned all left-wing opposition parties from that country.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine do not control the airspace above the areas which they occupy, so all "counter-offensives" they conduct have been, are, and will be pointless except insofar as the money they justify will flow into the hands of the already-wealthy. We nonetheless have Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois, saying she wouldn't support a bill replenishing FEMA (this in the middle of disaster season) unless more "aid" was sent to Ukraine. This is of course all part of the cottage industry through which the US government pretends that is cares deeply about that portion of Ukraine inhabited by ethnic Russians for the first time in the world's history. The on-the-ground result of "aid," of course, is more counter-offensives and thus further diminished Ukrainian troop strength as the corpses pile up. Behind the scenes, more money is skimmed off from "aid" and sent to the already-wealthy. The country itself is already property of the IMF, World Bank, and analogous European institutions.
What can easily be predicted from all of this mess is that the war will continue, regardless of its cost to Ukraine, until the November 2024 election. Joe can't be out there saying he lost a war when, "democracy is at stake" or something like that. By that time the US should be a Third World country because a large share of the international bourgeoisie will stop investing in the US because of what the US has done to confiscate the wealth of anyone (Russia being the name most recently added to the list) connected to any country they didn't like. Oh and the Russians, Saudis, and UAE, all oil producers and now members of BRICS, will cut production to the US. So yeah, Detroit? Cleveland? East Palestine? Lahaina? What's left of the West Coast's forested areas? Row upon row of abandoned houses, businesses, and dead municipal infrastructure? When November 2024 rolls around you'll be seeing a lot more of that.
Okay so how does all of this information connect to lesser-evil voting?
So yeah, even though Cornel West was and is the TARGET of lesser-evil arguments, he's -- according to Jimmy Dore -- USING them to portray Biden as the lesser evil. I wanted to bring this up as a problem of how lesser-evil arguments are so pervasive they can even poison third-party candidacies -- I didn't want to get into it about who is right and who is wrong. Jimmy Dore is of course thoroughly invested in lesser-evil arguments -- Dore thinks of Trump as the lesser evil (between him and Biden).
Let's go back to the argument I gave about lesser-evil voting in a previous diary:
"Lesser evil" -- the "lesser evil" is clearly something to vote for, but not for the reason usually portrayed. "Lesser-evil" voters are not interested in minimizing evil, because -- for instance -- at present the actual minimization of evil would mean swiftly concluding the proxy war in Ukraine out of an aversion to World War III. But, rather, those who proclaim themselves to be "lesser evil" voters want to avoid thinking about evil. Evil is evil -- there isn't a calculus to it. "Lesser-evil" voting is therefore not really about considerations of evil.
So this is the thing. We go to the polls. It's one of those November-every-four-years elections. We know that the demographics of our votes will render them meaningless unless we live in swing states, in which the electoral votes of our state are up for grabs. Then we think "I should vote for the lesser evil" among the two candidates one of which will attain our state's electoral votes. The result of it all is that we get another evil President. Later, more evil is done, and we have the world we have now.
What happened was that did not seriously think about evil. And so now evil, having triumphed over us so thoroughly in the past that our ability to recognize it has become impaired, threatens to extend its rule over us further. Over the next sixteen months, then, Biden evil will become more apparent than it is now. We will then have to decide -- again -- what to do.
PS -- RBN went over the Jimmy Dore/ Cornel West think in fine-toothed-comb detail.
I changed it so it was timed for 50:24 when the Dore/ West content began.
Comments
I'm thinking
that I can't even imagine still being alive by the election. Biden's sure to start a new war or two by then, in order to ride the mythical "wartime president" schtick. And Trump's people will probably be randomly shooting people in the streets (more than now, anyway) whether he is in jail or not. So it is rapidly coming down to whether we'll have been vaporized or Freedumbed by then.
Anyway, in the unlikely event that I'm somehow still on this side of the grass by then, I'm no longer planning on making the effort to vote. That's 5 minutes of my life I'd never get back. Sorry if that causes any inconvenience...
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
This movie is named "Death to America"
A better name would be "Rome's movie." Have you seen it yet? It speaks to all of us.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
Jim Clyburn
He's the biggest rigger of the Dem primaries and then elections. I don't want Trump to win but I do want to say to Clyburn "you can't win them all".
Which is what he said in 2021. India Walton won the Dem primary for Mayor but the incumbent, who'd lost that primary, stayed in as a write-in candidate, supported by mainstream Dems. And that guy, Byron Brown, won. Clyburn's message to lefties was as above, "you can't win them all" when what he meant was "you can never win".
Our best chance, if we have any chance at all, is that the Dem Party will burn itself up so it can be replaced by something useful.
Several years ago
I learned the expression "black misleadership class" from Glen Ford who coined the term, and Bruce Dixon. Glen or Bruce in his steed would go Mark Thompson's radio program every Thursday for quite some time. I looked forward to listening to them when I was on the road. Unfortunately, they both passed away. I spoke to them a few times and they were both great guys. Mark himself hated the expression, because his buddy who came on the program occasionally was Clyburn. Mark and Glen or Bruce, depending who was on for that Thursday, would argue and argue about this. Thompson was wrong.
I used the expression once during primary season one time with Mark when I called in, and he went ballistic and got all abusive. Never listened to his program again. Same thing happened to me with Mike Malloy once, in his old chat room. After that happened and maybe a few other incidents with some of the others there. Mike and Cathy severed their association with the chat room.
LOL the good ole days.
語必忠信 行必正直
Wow.
Jimmy and Cornel -- that one went south rather quickly. Jimmy was in taking no prisoners mode. They both provoked each other to unnecessary anger. The debate over who is more fascist, Donald or Biden, or if both are about the same on that scale, is not a very productive discussion. Jimmy was a bit too purist lefty, almost impossible to meet his standards of principled leftiness, while he also made a good point about Cornel's seeming lack of interest in the Covid debacle.
DIdn't get much from a brief listen to the post-debate commenters. One commenter claimed to know that RFK will drop out by Super Tuesday while praising Cornel for "being in the general election". What he failed to note, and no one on the large panel did either, is that the GP is basically handing West their nomination, so by definition he would be around for the general, while RFK must move a giant boulder to overcome impossible odds to get the DP nom.
The panel also seemed unaware that RFK at least twice has said publicly he won't back any Dem nominee who wants to continue Biden's Ukraine war. That sounds to me like he won't pull a Bernie.
Right -- not productive.
Right. Like I said:
We are living -- today -- the accumulated decades of lesser-evil evil. And it sucks.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
Ah! I'd just been reflecting on something you said the other day
https://caucus99percent.com/comment/599352#comment-599352
So here's what I was wondering: What happens when/if the market speaks in unison with people and democracy? That does happen sometimes.
I'm thinking, in part, back to pre-Darthification Stephen Colbert, whose Colbert Report persona was finally allowed to stop being a global-warming denier because "Al Gore's movie made money, The Market has spoken, global warming is real!"
I mean, The Market already seems to be speaking on BRICS Vs NATO, to name just one example, but they don't seem to be going with the flow.
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!
Well Joe Biden officially claims climate change is real.
The problem is, however, that Biden's well-marketed belief in the reality of climate change is of no consequence, as more and more of the Arctic is opened each Biden year to oil "development." From Branko Marcetic back in March of this year:
So have you been on US route 199 recently? For the readership, US route 199 is a short national highway linking Crescent City in California with Grants Pass in Oregon. It connects US route 101 with Interstate 5 along the California-Oregon border. Last month, US route 199 was closed to traffic in both directions because a complex of wildfires -- climate-change augmented of course -- was burning down the forest in that area.
But they reopened it five days ago.
https://krcrtv.com/north-coast-news/eureka-local-news/highway-199-reopen...
I'd be interested to know if anything is left of the forest growing alongside the highway, and of the health of the upper stretches of the Smith River.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
Hi there. I happen to follow Kirsten Dirksen as she
and her family roam the planet looking at alternative ways to live especially home dwellings. Ironically, she had within the month visited the Siskyou Mountain complex of Dan Schultz.
His update of how they did is here:
A couple of comments he makes are worth noting...
- The forest had built up fuels for about a hundred years. It had needed debris clearing.
- There are several examples of the fire burning all around an object or tree and leaving a small space intact. The eddies and whirls of a fire/wind are like water in a stream going around rocks. Very similar movement.
- Right from the start Dan mentions a lightening storm starting the fires. Years ago, I was at Steens Mountain camping with my dog and had a quick intense T-storm move in dropping the temps at least forty degrees. Hail, rain but first lightening. Any of us willing to stick our heads above the rimrock saw many strikes on the flat slopes hitting and igniting Sage brush. Many fires in a short period. Really intense and scary.
The original mini documentary about the off grid compound:
Here is contact information for Dan and his group:
Ecovillage
He mentions in the interview with Kirsten that he is a prepper and how he felt he could withstand almost any problem. Fire is not mentioned. They had quite a few reservoirs of water but no mention of wetting down the forest and buildings of his complex. Not sure it would have saved them.
ETA block quote.
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.
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Wow.
Watching the video, I keep thinking of what the prerequisites are for having an ecovillage. Ecovillages are great. This one even partially survived a catastrophic fire. How can they be the predominant form of human habitation on Earth?
Obviously you don't want your ecovillage burning to the ground. It's difficult, though, because most everything you'd want to use under our 21%-oxygen atmosphere is flammable. Or at least that's the sentiment I had when I evacuated and my neighborhood burned to the ground back in 2020. But you'd want adequate water to put out fires, building materials that would survive fires, I don't know, what else? Adequate fire-fight forces in the area?
It's hard to have an ecovillage when the land is tied up in capitalism. An ecovillage is not built on land that's being dolled up to sell to someone. Do they have ecovillages in San Francisco, or Hong Kong?
What would they have to do if they were to build an ecovillage in Ukraine? The first thing they'd have to do is to kick the government off of their land, and have a government of their own that would stick up for them, which probably wouldn't be the current government of Russia. Ecovillages aren't really compatible with armed nation-states fighting pitched battles over turf.
At any rate, the discussion of ecovillages rolls back to my thinking about utopian dreams, dreams of a world in which good things are possible. I suppose that my tendency to lean upon utopian dreams is part of why I've singled out Joe Biden, whose team tells everyone they have no choices and they can't have things.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
That doesn't really answer my inquiry
If you're leading with that, I'm concerned you might've missed my point; maybe I shouldn't have brought up the old Colbert anecdote.
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!