Some principles for political discussion in an election run-up
(Sigh) another election run-up. I really can't stand Trump, and I really can't stand the Democrats. But this is election season, and so here we go. I'm hoping this set of principles can soften the expected blows of election run-up social life a bit.
1. Most votes for President are unimportant.
If you are voting for the "major party" candidates, you will only affect the election outcome if you are voting in a "swing state." Otherwise, you will be contributing to a vote total in an election which has largely been decided, or if it hasn't been decided, the election outcome has been baked-in. This has been the case since 1992, when the Clinton-Bush contest baked in the red-state, blue-state, swing-state distinction.
2. America is an oligarchy, not a democracy.
Between the alphabet agencies (NSA, CIA, FBI), the mass media and their corporate handlers, the lobbyists, their super-rich and ideologically-committed backers, the super-PACs, the Pentagon, and the cops, do you think you stand a chance? The November election, then, is about who is to be the main figurehead for this oligarchy. How big a deal is that? Common sense suggests making the Presidential election a lower priority than what most voting Americans make of it now.
3. Political rhetoric in an election run-up means nothing.
They're not making promises. What they're doing is throwing red meat to their voters, and to their funders. None of it will mean anything once they have your votes. They will find some way of getting you to forget what they said.
4. Most of what will happen over the next four years will be coping with the "done deed" that the previous four years has been.
Presidents are not elected in a vacuum. Rather, they have to inherit what their predecessors did. As Biden was a transformative President, this is going to count heavily in what our next President does.
I hope that deflates the balloons a bit. The idea is to allow for civil discussion. Anything that would make the next two months less of a headache would be supremely welcome.
Comments
Canvassing for Jill Stein
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An attempt to get her on the ballot in our state. May just work?
Uphill battle at this point, but screw the duopoly.
https://www.jillstein2024ballotaccess.com
Here in MA
the Kennedy volunteers collected far more signatures than the 10,000+ required. The ballot access petition papers went to the respective town halls for voter certification. Last Friday some volunteers and lawyers for the campaign presented the town certified petitions in Boston, over 15,000 of them. They did not count either the number of pages or signatures but measured the stacks with a ruler. There didn’t seem to be any problem but they said they would just measure because they were unsure of what Kennedy was going to say.
After the group left Boston the campaign was contacted by the Secretary of the Commonwealth office and informed that a certain necessary affidavit from both Kennedy and Shanahan was “missing”. Today is the last day to complete the ballot access petition.
The phuckery of the Democrats in power knows no bounds. Nationwide the Kennedy campaign and volunteers have collected over 1,000,000 ballot access petitions, a monumental and unprecedented number.
Kennedy has asked to have his name removed in swing states, intends to remain on the ballot in the rest. He has suspended his campaign, he has not ended it. There is an important difference between the two in ballot access law, which Democrats are making a concerted effort to ignore. The legal battles continue….as does his candidacy.
“ …and when we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine,and understand who God is, and what our own potential is and duties are as human beings.- RFK jr. 8/26/2024
It's the "you have no choice" campaign.
It would seem, then, that 2024 marks a certain refinement of the "you have no choice" campaign. You have no choice because the promoters of this campaign are applying millions of dollars to deny you a choice. Jill Stein thinks this is good publicity, probably because it's the only publicity she's getting from the oligarchy.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
I'm glad to see that Stein is on the ballot in WA
though it appears New England has a problem.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
Unfortunately
100% true. Democracy, who we choose to take advantage of us and exploit us.
"As Biden was a transformative President [sic]..."
You've said this before, but what do you have in mind, exactly?
I'm not sure I've seen anything happen in the last 4 years that was not set in motion at some point beforehand; surely the real "transformers" are those who sow rather than those who reap?
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 am thinking --
that Team Biden made US hegemony, sure, already bad, but definitely part of the world, far less innocuous than it was previously. Now we face World War Three and genocide whereas before we may have thought "sure, it's possible."
During the pandemic it appeared as if the world could possibly be a better place if, say, Congressmember Pramila Jayapal could be a bit less of an idiot than she was. Yes I know this was not much of a hope. Now we imagine that maybe Russia and China will be better places in the future while Europe, where we all dreamed of moving for its universal health care, descends into chaos.
The shift in Trump's public image really sort of illustrates the transformation occurring under Biden. In 2016 the idea that Trump would be a fascist was believable. During Trump we discovered that mostly he was going to screw up the courts while the rich would get richer and most everything else remained the same. Now what's believable is RFK Jr.'s portrayal of Trump as a lesser-evil candidate.
Sure, you might argue that a lot of what we are seeing now is an amplification of trends which were already evident under Trump. But it's a really big amplification: today we have the Democratic Party as a whole as the public relations arm of neoconservatism, the foreign policy of the first Reagan administration, whereas under Obama the neoconservative impulse had to be smuggled in through Hillary Clinton, who caused only a small portion of the damage one sees under Team Biden. It is with Team Biden that many of the latent wars became open ones.
It is also with Biden that one sees the Axis of Resistance, Russia and China and Iran and so on. These are not visionary places: they're authoritarian and capitalist, like here. And now we wait for dedollarization and the point at which the national debt becomes due. But there is no resistance in the US; instead, what you've got is an out of control unhoused ("homelessness") problem, bad before, far worse now.
So, yes, Biden, transformative. There's more: maybe I will pick this up again later.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
Please, please do!
That was quite something.
I'd be much obliged if you (or someone else) reminded me why Jayapal's idiocy was so significant at a moment when idiocy became more normalized (Mandatory, even!) than possibly ever before; hers was not a name I recall hearing complaints/suspicious plaudits about.
BTW, who's/what's with your new avatar?
A pretty far cry from that cheeky young-looking cartoon character you went with for so long.
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!
Jayapal, if I recall correctly --
-- was in some sort of leadership position when we were all witnessing the drama of Senators Synema and Manchin withholding their votes on the Build Back Better Act. Jayapal "trusted in the process" rather than demanding anything of Biden while the abovementioned Senators, designated villains both, dismantled and then scrapped Build Back Better.
Instead what we got was the Inflation Whatever Act, basically a corporate giveaway. And then, of course, the poverty rate shot up when Biden ended the COVID subsidies. I can say more later.
As for my avatar, I am currently going with a photo of Cornelius Castoriadis. If you haven't done so already, please read his essay "The Retreat from Autonomy," written, I think, at the end of the Eighties.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
Before, it was "we will push them to the left."
Now it's just "joy."
Transformative.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
'Hope and Joy'
That about sums up the degeneration of otherwise benevolent aspirations.
What’s next, Ecstasy and Rapture?
Don't say
"Rapture": it gets the fundamentalist Christians all excited. And it also strikes a little too close to home at the moment- we can get our asses as raptured as they are likely to get, at any moment. The powers that be are really going out of their way to imannentize the eschaton.
And there are two things that come immediately to mind as I think about the whole "Joy!" thing, each hilarious in its own way. The first is this, and the second requires a video:
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
so really, joy is the solution to our troubles?
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don't buy it, it is just another shit wonder the ptb have invented
to keep the voters obscure. joy for more war, joy for more poverty
joy for more BS the ptb are shoveling down our throats.Yeah, that's
the ticket. Wrap it up under the joy theme. It is fun! Don cha ya know.
Not at
all. The pink thing, whatever it is, smashing itself over the head with some heavy object to FUCKING MAKE IT STOP is exactly where I am. I never saw this show, but the sensation of bashing my goddamned brains out over the unweilding stupidity of it all is all too familiar. Perhaps I have misunderstood the imagery of the clip- but my vision is clear.
What is being sold to the masses by the Circle D Corporation and their wholly-owned presstitutes is not, and can never be, actual joy. But other folks mileage may vary, of course.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
I retract my words,
if in any way they excite Christian Fundamentalists. They're the last I’d want to stir up.
The link to Kraft durch Freude was interesting and informative, thanks.
I’m glad you can still find humour in the hysteria.
So glad to see that here.
It's actually really profound - especially the denouement.
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!