But If You Guys Don't Vote For Us, The Other Guys Win!

Unfortunately, with Trump we see what can happen when you vote for an outsider who’s not one of the same politicians.

Sure. But it’s not enough just to vote for someone new. Obviously, voting for a buffoon like Trump is worse than voting for the same old, same old. As I recall, the GOP primary included several people who weren’t politicians, but weren’t as bad as Trump.

Sorry about that. I actually wasn’t thinking about it at all when I tacked that bit onto the front, it was just that I’d found myself writing for like 30 minutes and it seemed a bit big for a comment on a story :slight_smile:

Just as an aside, I think mainstream Americans as a whole in terms of our politics are horrible people. We’re fine with using missiles to kill families and children overseas just because we’re too cowardly to actually pursue the wars we want so that our creature comforts from cheap gasoline to cheaper smart phones remain a reality. We Americans have a huge problem when it comes to acknowledging our parasitic and imperialist natures. Rather than saying that either party is any worse or better than the other on these issues I’m going to put the blame on the US citizen which both parties represent. As such I think blasting the Democrats for not toeing the line is silly so I think we’re in agreement there. But I still stand by saying that if fellow Americans are fine with blowing up babies so they can get cheap rare earth elements for their iPhones then they’re shitty people and don’t deserve any respect or love from anyone. And if fellow Americans aren’t willing to even try to break down this horrible system of slaughter then I really don’t have the patience to interact with them.

Sorry for the rant but I think that’s where Sanders was going with some of his campaign. I don’t think he did a good job of explaining it, though.

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“Never try to accomplish thing folks!” ~ DNC

Now that you mention it, it would be a really refreshing change of pace to have a president who’s neither complicit in war crimes at the time of assuming office nor bragging about how many war crimes they’re going to commit once they’re in office, wouldn’t it?

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Good thread about the “You’re just petulant and don’t understand real politics” attitude:
https://twitter.com/meaganmday/status/851863613463642112

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Interesting.

I always get the feeling that because I disagree with third way liberalism people think I am a naive middle class kid who is just out of school, rather than a struggling liminal-working class woman in her mid thirties who became disabled 15 years ago and had read a lot of political work because I had a lot of time on my hands. Even then I remember being in my teens disagreeing with Tony Blair even before he was Prime Minister. I remember his claims that “Things Can Only Get Better” and this song being played all over the place.

Did things get better? That would depend on how rich you were before. The Charver subculture didn’t spread over Britain because they were doing well in society, It happened because they felt pushed to the side by a quasi-left wing party who didn’t care about them. The social side of things has been give and take, we’ll give you this freedom, but we will also take away another different one.

Still I was naive and thought that the government was there to help, up until 2003 when my life went to shit (I have talked enough about the details of this, no need to repeat them) and I had to go looking for help. I forget the amount of time I was told that there was nothing they could do to help me move away from violence. I eventually got out by going to a college in another city, but my health failed after the year of stress.

I have spent the last 20 years being ignored, abused and betrayed by those who claim to represent me. I have been accused of wanting to go back to the 70s, but I don’t, those politics didn’t work then and won’t work now, I want a new socialism. I have been accused of being a populist, but I want popular participation not populism.

So why am I caring about politics in another country? First, I am an internationalist, I see it as my duty to support allies in other countries which involves knowing how politics works there. Secondly, the USA has repeatedly interfered with the politics of my country, pushing it to the right, so I see it as fair that I get involved in the politics of the USA.

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Businessman and Iraq veteran Joseph Kopser, a former Republican who is backed by national Democrats, was asked about his views on border security at the Ranchers and Landowners Association of Texas the second weekend of February.
“Border security on our Southern border and our Northern border is something we have to focus on,” he replied. He went on to advocate for fences and greater use of technology in the air and on the ground to detect threats on the border. Curiously, he cited his time in Iraq as justification.

“I want to secure our borders because when I spent my time in Iraq, when we were fighting Al Qaeda, the border between Iraq and Iran was not secure, and those fighters came over with Iran and that didn’t do us any good in that fight,” he said. “Nor do I want to allow anyone across our border without us knowing who they are.”

A member of the audience called out, “Are you sure you’re on the right ticket?”

He replied, “I’m on the American ticket.”

Anybody that has a problem with this is just complaining about “purity”, right?

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Yet another progressive candidate wrongly maligned by petulant leftists.

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You mean maybe the party needs some ideological purity that’s not the neoliberal kind? :open_mouth:

Sounds fair to me. Speaking as an American citizen and voter.

The USA influences elections all over the world, both openly and covertly. And sometimes when we don’t get what we want, we’ll violently overthrow a fairly elected government, either openly or through funding of proxies. So it would be pretty transparent hypocrisy if we got all selfrighteous about foreigners trying to influence our politics.

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If I was a citizen of one of those other countries and found that my President had colluded with the CIA to fix an election I’d be pretty pissed off too.

I don’t expect the Russian citizenry to be angry at Putin for meddling in our elections. I expect the AMERICAN citizenry to be angry that our leaders aren’t doing anything to stop it. It’s like The Manchurian Candidate came true, was exposed for all to see, and half the country just shrugged and said “better than letting the Democrats win.”

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There are a lot of countries that can justifiably get angry at the US for their reactionary bent, but yours isn’t one of them. The “Reagan revolution” in the US was fueled by Thatcher, and Bush sold the invasion of Iraq using “evidence” provided to him by Tony Blair. Don’t blame us for your Tory problems.

Sure, but I think some element of “you shall reap what you sow” requires acknowledgement, so I went ahead and owned it.

And while I don’t expect people to stop obsessing over meddling foreigners, the constant monocle-popping has to be costing a fortune.

Where did you get that idea? The only thing the Constitution says is that Congress sets the day of “the choosing of electors” and it has to be the same day for the whole nation.

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Huh! For some reason I thought that the day was set in there. Like I said, it’s been a few years since I read it :slight_smile:

It’s not the “meddling foreigners” who are surprising. We try to meddle in their shit, they try to meddle in our shit, everybody is (presumably) looking out for what they perceive as their own country’s best interests and doing whatever they can get away with in the process. I assume we have plenty of spies in Moscow just as they have plenty of spies in Washington. That’s the game.

The upsetting part is when our own guys are actively trying to help the other team.

I keep a copy in my suit coat pocket, next to my spare American flag pins.

Just kidding, I’m not a psycopath politician.

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There is evidence that the CIA funded the Social Democratic Party, which split from Labour and stopped them from winning in 1983 (possibly, but there were other reasons why they lost) and 1987 (more probable). They didn’t want the left wing Michael Foot or the more centrist Neil Kinnock from stopping Thatcherism.

1992 is entirely on the Labour party though, Kinnock fucked that up at the last minute.

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