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When the .01% wants truly reactionary legislation passed and signed, they rarely rely on Republicans anymore because they’ve exposed themselves as reactionary for so long that people are wary of them. Instead they rely on Democrats like Obama and Clinton.
NAFTA was a Republican initiative but it made little progress under Reagan and Bush1. Clinton championed it, twisted arms to get it passed and then signed it. The AFL-CIO reports that “To date, nearly 700,000 U.S. jobs have been lost or displaced since NAFTA took effect in 1994, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute.”
To make matters worse in 1999 Clinton championed and signed another Republican bill, The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act or the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, which deregulated predatory lenders and wiped out all the financial safeguards put in place during the Hoover Depression to prevent another one. Demorats and Rethugs voted for Gramm–Leach–Bliley in huge majorities.
Then, in 2000, Clinton championed and signed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 which deregulated the toxic financial products known as over-the-counter derivatives.
The combination of the three created the current depression.
Now Obama, a Clinton clone, repeatedly promises to put Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid on the table, proving once again the truth of Gore Vidal’s analysis of the two parties “There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.”
On November 6th, vote socialist, write in Brad Manning or just sit it out. Decent people don’t have a horse in this race.
25 Comments
I’d suggest voting Green rather than sitting it out.
Yes, DO NOT sit it out, that tells them you don’t care.
It looks like in most states, either/or Jill Stein and Rocky Anderson (or both) will be on the ballot. I’m not sure about Stewart Alexander, but in many states, you can write in your choice even if they are not on the ballot. Pick whoever represents your values the best and vote, by all means vote.
But, please, do not stay home. Make sure you add your vote to the “neither wing of the Uniparty” column as opposed to the “I don’t care” column.
Recommended! Bill Perdue is completely correct that we are in for 16 years of following the same failed economic policies. (1)
I also agree that the solution is to vote third party. While I like Jill Stein, pick your own favorite third party and vote for them. The only wasted vote is for the democratic-republican Uniparty.
(1) For documentation see Economy – http://newprogs.org/blog/2011/11/10/economy-under-democraticrepublican-uni-party
Economic Graphs – http://newprogs.org/blog/2012/03/02/economic-graphs
Yep, and yep. We could name more duopoly screw-the-people alliances, but I’ll vote for Someone Other Than the Slave Masters without Conscience.
You will, however, like this rhetoric from W.E.B. Dubois in 1956 via Black Agenda Report.
Er…and Rec’d.
Greens are reformists. They have a bag of band aids to put on the supperating wounds of a system in it’s death agony.
Not good enough by a long shot. The Greens in Australia are much better. http://www.greenleft.org.au/
Voting in a retrograde banana republic is pretty much futile. The only point in electoral campaigns by socialists is to educate and organize.
Who cares if they know we think their ‘democracy’ is a fake? Roughly one third of the electorate already boycott elections. Unless you think your vote counts, and that’s a delusion, join us.
Or, if you took one too many civics classes and feel you just have to vote write in one of the opponents of regime. Just don’t pretend that voting has had any meaning since 1865. Mass actions won suffrage, built the unions and ended the Vietnam War on our terms – voting had nothing to do with it.
Thanks – a mine of data waiting to be unearthed.
BAR is the best.
Moreover, they’re incompetent. But I’ll probably vote Jill Stein as a protest vote even tho I can’t consider the Green party a serious contender. (Especially not after they took republican money to get on the ballot in TX.)
Rocky Anderson’s economic prescriptions have been described as Obamanomics lite. Jeebus, enough already with demonstrated failure, the very definition of insanity. Where are the best and the brightest? We’ve got senile old farts and senile young farts running the country. Miles wide and about a sixteenth of an inch deep, if that. All veneer, no depth.
Amen. Sitting it out will be spun as no one was far enough to the right for those who stayed home. It will never, repeat, never, be spun as a mesage from the left.
Sorry, but those are nothing but the most self defeating suggestions for the left. I am voting for Dr. Stein. She will lose, but my vote will not be wasted.
Brad Manning? What on earth will that accomplish?
Neither Party is going to have the least concern that America will ever elect a socialist President.
As far as staying home, the two major Parties will ignore it (maybe even welcome it) or spin as Romney not being far right enough to win. It will never be spun to benefit the left, never.
For all the disinformation about what Nader did or did not do to the 2000 election, everyone can agree at least that Nader made waves when he ran as a Green.
Jill Stein got matching funds, which is a huge stride for a third party in this odd nation. Greens are making strides in some lower level officers too.
In sum: If you want to help the right of both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party and aid in stealing elections, by all means, stay home.
If you want people to discount your vote as a looney one that will never present a realistic threat to Democrats or Republicans, by all means vote for poor Brad Manning or a socialist.
If you want to make Democrats worry, even a little, that they may have gone too far left, vote for Dr. Stein.
Since the Greens are not going to win anyway, what difference does it make if they are not as far left as you would like? The Greens are to the left of the Democrats and that is all that matters
Voting in a banana republic is absurd.
I don’t want to make Democrats worry, I want to make them politically extinct. Democrats are not part of the left, who cares what they think. They’re the enemy.
Greens are left centrist, not left. They’re pro-capitalist. That’s unprincipled and unworkable.
“ended the Vietnam war on our terms?”
I think the right wanted the draft ended.
In Illinois for a vote to be counted the candidate must either be on the ballot or have filed paperwork declare intent to be a write-in candidate. There are likely similar constraints in other states. I’m sure we all have questions about votes being counted fairly in general, but even in a perfect environment, a write-in for someone you admire, or an idea like Medicare for All doesn’t make sense.
As far as not voting, in 2008 101 million people of voting age and 58 million registered voters didn’t vote. No message was sent.
In 2012, to pick an ambitious number out of a hat, let’s say another 7 million people decide to “send a message.” Using 2008 statistics as a guide, if they don’t vote, their numbers disappear in the 101 and 58 million. If they vote for Jill Stein, that’s 5% of the total vote for the Green Party, it states clearly why people didn’t vote for the duopoly, it can facilitate ballot access in 2014 and 2016, and it may help to build a sense of possibility and empowerment for people.
On the day after the election (or starting today, why not) if you have issues with the Greens or other third parties, or if you think building a social movement is a better strategy at this point than focusing on electoral politics, get to work organizing, protesting, contributing in whatever capacity is possible in your personal circumstances.
But never give up the right to vote, that people have fought and died for, and that is under threat today, and never encourage other people to give up that right. It may or may not be our most effective tool for change right now, but belongs to us. Never give it up.
I’m not giving up the right to vote, I’m exercising the right not to vote.
Concise, to the point, and accurate. Recc’d.
And if I could, I’d rec your comments, too, Bill. If you say you are a Green, most people will think, “Oh, a tree hugger,” and think to themselves that you are either harmless or at worst a foolish enabler of the Republicans by not voting Democratic.
If you tell them you’re a Socialist, they get uneasy. But they don’t think you’re harmless, and may even wonder why you just said that and ask why you’re a Socialist or what that means.
Then conversations get interesting and you can see the mental gears start turning in anyone with even a partially open mind.
I guess one could claim that staying silent is exercising the right not to speak freely, and staying home is exercising the right not to freely assemble, but what does that accomplish? Who benefits from that?
You’re a very intelligent person, I know that from your posts. If I vote “D”, I will be voting for the most effective, deceptive, and duplicitous Republican to ever occupy the White House. While there are third party options, I’m not sure if I’ll have the time to research and make the proper decision; however, that is an option that remains open.
If you think that you’re wrong. That’s an absurd idea.
A combination of antiwar efforts by the civilian and the GI antiwar movements, combined with the heroism and intransigence of the Vietnamese, forced Nixon to cut and run. It was a wonderful day for humankind. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AiyFF9qOls
The same thing happened this time. Before he left office Bush, imitating Nixon in the mid-seventies, signed the Status of Forces Agreement. After Obama was elected The Iraqi government decided to prosecute American soldiers and mercenaries guilty of war crimes. Rather than see thousands of American mercenary pigs and American officers arrested, the Americans, tails between their leg, got out.
“But they don’t think you’re harmless, and may even wonder why you just said that and ask why you’re a Socialist or what that means. Then conversations get interesting and you can see the mental gears start turning in anyone with even a partially open mind.”
After I answer theri questions about socialism, then I tell them I’m a revolutionist.
“But never give up the right to vote, that people have fought and died for, and that is under threat today, and never encourage other people to give up that right. It may or may not be our most effective tool for change right now, but belongs to us. Never give it up.”
Perfectly delusional. The US is a (soon to be second rate) nation ruled and owned by the .01%. It’s not a democracy, it’s a plutocracy. It’s a banana republic. Electoral work that’s not meant to educate and organize is futile.
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Many people are living in a delusion, that’s a little different than being “deluded”. Those people living in a delusion are in another time, they’re in an old black and white movie, where the words they’re speaking now, might have been true at that time.
This is a “banana republic”, while it may have been evolving, it has made dramatic changes in the last 7 years that seem to me as being part of a plan. Those changes I speak of were recorded, but no one is looking at the record. I would like to bring your attention to the record. Please go to this website http://wp.me/p2vRlu-4
Thanks.
What I’d like to point out is that the most important commodity in any capitalist society is working people and our ability to create value with our labor. From the time of FDR to that of LBJ American administrations operated on a program of ‘Guns and Butter’, pursuing imperialist dreams while insuring that ‘Labor Peace” held on the home front.
Nixon began to reverse that with his wage (enforced) and price (unenforced) controls. Carter, Reagan and Bush1 exported jobs and cost hundreds of thousands of jobs thru deregulation. Clinton wildly escalated the process by signing NAFTA and the deregulation bills of 1999 and 2000, unleashing the financial pirates and creating the Clinton Depression. Bush2 did his bit with borrowed financing for wars and tax breaks for the rich and Obama has been the worst of all with massive union busting, austerity measures and borrowed or created (1) financing to cut the losses of the financial pirates and finance the murder of GIs and civilians form Palestine to Pakistan.
maryminIL’s movie is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBUKRAE2O9c
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(1) QE “When interest rates are close to zero there is another way of affecting the price of money: Quantitative Easing (QE). The aim is still to bring down interest rates faced by companies and households and the most important step in QE is that the central bank creates new money for use in an economy.
Only a central bank can do this because its money is accepted as payment by everybody. Sometimes dubbed incorrectly “printing money” a central bank simply creates new money at the stroke of a computer key, in effect increasing the credit in its own bank account.” Financial Times Lexicon http://lexicon.ft.com/Term?term=quantitative-easing
Wouldn’t you say this is self-defeating? Labor commoditization is an expression of the power of capitalists. Furthermore, that labor unions will be able to break that technique or counter all the other methods of capitalist hegemony grows increasingly dubious.