Christ, that kind of bullshit is the worst kind of cynicism. It suggests absolutely nothing useful (“we need something radically different”–well thanks for the profound and helpful observation) and buys into the exact narrative that will make electoral change impossible.
Anybody who thinks that “voting won’t change anything” has had their heads up their asses for the last year and a half.
The most charitable possible interpretation of that statement is “voting alone is insufficient,” but if that was the intent of her words it was some pretty piss-poor phrasing.
It was Collateral Bareback too, IIRC
Given that it was a statement that occurred in the middle of a mental health crisis while she was running a campaign against a strong incumbent, I would read it less as a political call to arms for more than voting or as an attack on democracy and probably more of a public cry of despair.
We should hang him. Literally. From a scaffold. He deserves it. Trump is all his fault.
I can’t wait.
They’re connected, but perhaps not in the way you’re thinking. There are related underlying causes.
John Kiriakou has a show with Sputnik News; is he also a Russian agent?
People who criticise US imperialism do not get regular spots on MSNBC. People who point out liberal complicity in white supremacy do not get regular spots on MSNBC. People who seriously critique capitalism do not get regular spots on MSNBC.
For much of the left, RT and Sputnik were their only chance to reach a mass audience.
The mainstream US media landscape is constructed so as to totally exclude anyone to the left of the establishment Democratic party. Even Cenk Uygur was too far left to stay on the air.
Silly. Women aren’t people, so you can stick whatever into whatever hole you want! As long as you blather on about freedom and the internets… /s
I guess that Emma Goldman is wrong, too, eh? How much changed for black americans in the first 64 years of the 20th century.
The past year and a half is how it’s been if you’re not white, male, and cisgendered, actually.
It does not imply that, no, but since Sputnik News’ whole point is to be a Russian propaganda organ in the West, it shows a lack of knowledge or care about the company he keeps.
Not a new commenter - the account just needed to be resuscitated. Assange seems to have infuriated a lot of people for exposing the truth, and continues to pay the price. I justy believe when someone tries to imply a payoff with vague accusations, we should be asking why.
Assange didn’t seem to have problem getting google hits before RT, it’s still sketchy as hell that he allied himself with them. Kiriakou is probably not a spy, but he works for a Russia propoganda outfit. He states it’s tremendously helped his financial situation, that seems to come out more than him wanting to “reach a mass audience”. He allegedly told another friend that it puts food on the table. https://newrepublic.com/article/148342/cia-spy-became-russian-propagandist
And how people vote can change the course of our country, sometimes radically, as history demonstrates. I’m not sure these notions are at all in conflict.
I didn’t know that, and after having looked at the timing on her Twitter, I wish I could modify my comment to be less of a criticism of her (or at least less of that type of criticism of her) and more of an observation that perhaps politics is not the appropriate place for Ms. Manning.
Weird cherry-pick of a time-frame, but OK, I’ll bite:
the 19th amendment, which gave franchise to the half of black people who were not allowed to vote
Guinn vs. the US, which began precedents agsint segregation, eliminating the Grandfather clause that denied franchise to black people
Executive order 8022, which eliminated discrimination in defense contracting
Executive order 9981, which integrated the military
Buchanan v. Warley, which overturned housing segregation
and, Brown v. Board of Ed., which overturned school segregation
…I am leaving out scores of cases like Moore v Dempsey, which established civil rights precedents that didn’t just apply to black people, like the right to due process and representation. Stuff like giving black women the right to vote is what makes the CRA possible, framing 20th century history in terms of pre-and-post CRA is missing the forest for the trees.
I guess I’m looking over the longer term here… yes there was a rights revolution, but this is part of the backlash we’re seeing and have been seeing since the election of Reagan.
Maybe I’m just more pessimistic, cause studying and teaching history is my job. 
Which was literally useless post reconstruction for about 100 years… and we have one party working to disenfranchise as many voters as possible.
African American men STILL couldn’t vote effectively for another 50 years, rending that meaningless again.
The executive orders were pushed under serious duress. The first DURING the war, when A. Phillip Randolph threatened a march on washington in the middle of the war. In the post war military, African Americans STILL faced hostility from their white compatriots. Black soldiers had harder roads to promotion within the military, and often were pushed into more dangerous assignments, well into the Vietnam era. Also, there is a white supremacist who has yet to be ejected from the military (a marine, I believe). And the public school system is more segregated than it was in the 90s and the struggle to get Brown to have literally any meaning included the rise of the 3rd KKK, and vicious acts of violence against CHILDREN seeking to go to a school that they were LEGALLY allowed to attend. The integration of Little Rock was just a start, but it began like this:
This was not an image of acceptance and healing. It’s an image of white women assaulting a child.
Let’s not forget how the crack epidemic devastated many inner city communities and led to mandatory minimums, which has allowed nothing short of legalized slavery (the exception to the 13th amendment).
Are things better, in some ways, sure, it’s absolutely better. But we still have 10 year old kids getting shot by cops for no reason. We still have effective segregation (and shitty public education in rural parts of our country, which works against both the rural black and white working class, though more often against the black working class), the dismemberment of the welfare system at the behest of the white middle class (once blacks were legally allowed to access it), and white people who think that they should call the cops for black people walking, bbqing, talking too loud, or for them refusing to talk to sad white people. Overall, you seem to be confusing the practice of law with the practice of actual discrimination, which functions in numerous ways, not just through the legal system.
Voting determines the course of our country. It can’t change the past, but it is determining the future. Not by itself, of course, but it’s what ultimately put the people in charge in office. The situation we’re in now is because enough garbage people got off their asses and voted, and not enough decent people did the same.
Not always. Voting isn’t the end all and be all of democracy, I’d argue. Yes, nearly have the voting population doesn’t vote, in part because they don’t believe it does much good. Given the “two party duopoly” in some ways, they aren’t wrong on that point. I think it’s also a function of the corruption of the party system that has led us to that, and if those are the only real choices above the state level, you’re either gonna spend your time voting for the lesser of two evils or you’re going to check out of voting.
Lack of voting isn’t the only problem here, because voting has serious limitations with regards to the current party system AND because democracy isn’t just about the vote, but about general involvement, too.
Recognizing that voting isn’t the be all and end all of democracy is both accurate and fair. Organization, money, advocacy, it all makes a difference too. That’s not the same thing as arguing that voting doesn’t matter, which is the bullshit cynicism I took issue with. And yes, they are wrong in a lot of ways because the two party duopoly still offers some pretty meaningful choices that make real-world differences. Maybe not as many differences as we’d like or should be, but real differences nonetheless.
Voting for the lesser or two evils is still a pretty goddamn important choice in a lot of instances, as the last year and half has demonstrated pretty goddamn clearly. I don’t know which comedian it was, but someone recently had a bit where they imagined the incredulity of someone who lived under a despotic dictatorship listening to an American voter whining about how the election was just an opportunity to pick the lesser of two evils. You mean you had a choice to pick someone who was less evil and you didn’t bother to take it?
