This is the tricky problem. Do you say “the ends justifies the means” and throw your vote to the lesser evil candidate that can win (like Obama) or do you vote on principle and try to build up a real alternative? I know that I went with the former in the last election because I didn’t want to see a war with Iran and see hundreds of thousands of people murdered and millions displaced. I strongly dislike Obama (who is a statist), but I’m glad he is smart enough not to get us into neo-con style preemptive attacks and ‘optional’ wars. As a voter I sometimes feel like I’m riding a bull. How do I steer it to cause the least damage. How I get off the bull is a different question altogether.
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This is the tricky problem. Do you say “the ends justifies the means” and throw your vote to the lesser evil candidate that can win (like Obama) or do you vote on principle and try to build up a real alternative?
If there was a real alternative, then we all (on the left, moderates, independents, etc.) would have voted for that person. It’s notable that you didn’t name a real alternative. Who is this person in reality that can take out greater evil Republicans in a presidential race?
In the horrible, political realities of 2008 and 2012, the lesser evil that was allowed by the corporatists to run and continue to run was Obama. We won’t end up with a worthy lesser evil until after decades of consistently supporting lesser evil. It’s just the reality we live in especially after a near decade of pure regression from allowing greater evil to rule.
Voting for Obama was, indeed, a vote on principle and it remains so to this day. The alternative was worse and there wasn’t a viable third party candidate that had a chance in hell of winning. To vote for a guaranteed loser (or to not vote at all) would have only helped to usher in McCain/Palin or Romney/Ryan.
What wasn’t principled was all the people that threw away their votes on a third party (or didn’t vote at all) and helped to usher in GW Bush for two terms and all the lackey, rubber stampers in congress to boot.
It’s time to vote in lesser evil consistently for a couple of decades to lessen the damage that’s been done already.
Many wonder how Democrats became Republicans. They should look in the mirror. 
When the American public is inconsistent and votes in Republicans (either directly or indirectly), many Democratic politicians surmise they need to shift increasingly to the right in order to win seats. By not supporting lesser evil Democrats, we send a message loud and clear to others that they need to shift to the right in order to make a greater impact (to win or stay in office at all).
If we would have consistently voted in lesser evil Democrats all these years, even the Republican party would have shifted more the left by now. Instead, here we are with an infestation of DINOs and Blue Dog Democrats as the barely lesser evil and a Republican party that’s so far to the right, that they’re dangerously unhinged.
We’ve allowed greater evil to become entrenched in our government by our own inconsistency. And, because of this egregious mistake it’s now going to take (literally) decades of consistently voting in lesser evil before there’s even a small hope of a feasible third party candidate that has a chance in hell of winning; Especially when you consider how much the greater evil employs voter disenfranchisement among other tactics to stay in power.
If you know of a third party candidate and/or democrat that is a viable threat to the current power structure, then by all means tell us who that person is now. But, if in the end, that person can’t beat the greater evil, then I will most definitely vote for the lesser evil instead (even while still principally supporting this person financially until they gain enough strength down the road).
Who should we give our support and money to? Who can take on this current power structure and WIN? For the love of God, please step up now and let us all know your name.
Otherwise, the principled thing to do is to vote lesser evil. But, I really do talk about this too much already.
From the classic, Who’s Going to Be the Lesser Evil in 1968, by Hal Draper:
The day after Reagan’s election as governor of California, a liberal
pro-Brown acquaintance met me with haggard face and fevered brow,
muttering “Didn’t they ever hear of Hitler? Didn’t they ever hear of
Hitler?” Did he mean Reagan was Hitler? “Well,” he said darkly, “look
how Hitler got started …” A light struck me about what was going on
in his head. “Look,” I said, “you’ve heard of Hitler, so tell me this:
how did Hitler become chancellor of Germany?”My pro-Brown enthusiast was taken aback: “Why, he won some election or
other – wasn’t it – with terror and a Reichstag fire and something
like that.” – “That was after he had already become chancellor. How
did he become chancellor of Germany?”Don’t go away to look it up. In the 1932 presidential election the
Nazis ran Hitler, and the main bourgeois parties ran Von Hindenburg,
the Junker general who represented the right wing of the Weimar
republic but not fascism. The Social-Democrats, leading a mass
workers’ movement, had no doubt about what was practical, realist,
hard-headed politics and what was “utopian fantasy”: so they supported
Hindenburg as the obvious Lesser Evil. They rejected with scorn the
revolutionary proposal to run their own independent candidate against
both reactionary alternatives – a line, incidentally that could also
break off the rank-and-file followers of the Communist Party, which
was then pursuing the criminal policy of “After Hitler we come” and
“Social-fascists are the main enemy.”So the Lesser Evil, Hindenburg, won; and Hitler was defeated.
Whereupon President Hindenburg appointed Hitler to the chancellorship,
and the Nazis started taking over.The classic case was that the people voted for the Lesser Evil and got
both.Now 1966 America is not 1932 Germany, to be sure, but the difference
speaks the other way. Germany’s back was up against the wall; there
was an insoluble social crisis; it had to go to revolution or fascism;
the stakes were extreme. This is exactly why 1932 is the classic case
of the Lesser Evil, because even when the stakes were this high, even
then voting for the Lesser Evil meant historic disaster. Today, when
the stakes are not so high, the Lesser Evil policy makes even less
sense.
From the classic, Who’s Going to Be the Lesser Evil in 1968, by Hal Draper:
From the current reality that doesn’t require Godwin “Hitler” rhetoric to make sense, there is this.
HINT:
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Godwin? Aren’t you forgetting that the original article is part of an ongoing crisis on major governments flipping out over the revelation of mass surveillance campaigns? The question of whether the US is, or is about to become, a full-blown police state, is a matter of widespread discussion (the main argument against it being a full-blown police state being that we’re able to discuss the question at all).
Draper’s article points out, the “lesser evil” case is different from the “Tweedledum/Tweedledee” case, in that there are distinct differences between the candidates. So yes, it’s possible to assemble facts that make Obama sound relatively good, and that the Democrats are generally better on domestic politics than the Republicans. But that misses the underlying problem. The Democrats and Republicans have broad areas of agreement, much of which is never up for discussion.
There’s an astonishing amount of pressure placed on the occasional politician who does try to bring unspoken points of political consensus up for discussion. Just in terms of electoral strategy, it should be trivially obvious that with a strategy of voting for the “lesser evil”, the “good” candidates will never have a chance of electoral success. But what really matters in democratic politics – with a small “d” – is what happens outside conventional politics, since the entire point of conventional politics is to suppress democracy.
EDIT: I should also point out that Draper’s 1967 essay was directed at the movement against the Vietnam War; many activists argued that they should support Johnson in the 1968 presidential election, because they hoped that Johnson would end the Vietnam War, or at least scale it back. As it turned out, Johnson massively escalated the war, incidentally sacrificing his liberal domestic agenda to do it.
Godwin?
Hitler?
So yes, it’s possible to assemble facts that make Obama sound relatively good
Not good, but the facts show he was (and still is) a lesser evil than McCain/Palin and Romney/Ryan. Obama was the best “choice” that the corporatists gave us.
and that the Democrats are generally better on domestic politics than the Republicans.
Generally? Did you miss that little chart I posted up there. People not having jobs kind of sucks domestically, doesn’t it? What is it, specifically, that Republicans do better on domestic issues? How about foreign policy while you are it? Multi-trillion dollar wars based upon lies that kill our soldiers, civilians and rape our wealth just doesn’t cut it for me.
Oh, and before you jump into dreaded false equivalence, 60 percent of Democratic Representatives voted against the Iraq Resolution while less than 3 percent of Republican Representatives voted against it. For some reason the media rarely focuses on how much dissent there was from Democrats. I wonder why?
But that misses the underlying problem. The Democrats and Republicans have broad areas of agreement, much of which is never up for discussion.
“Never up for discussion” is a very black and white point of view on a very grey area. Care to clarify?
When the Iraq Resolution was “up for discussion” it would have clearly been voted down (see percentage above) if more “lesser evil” Democrats were in office. But, there was a dire lack of lesser evil and greater evil prevailed.
The recent NSA scandal had a vote that failed to neuter it. Guess who voted in greater numbers to stop it? The Democrats. For some reason the media rarely focuses on how much dissent there was from Democrats. I wonder why?
Just in terms of electoral strategy, it should be trivially obvious that with a strategy of voting for the “lesser evil”, the “good” candidates will never have a chance of electoral success.
Who is this mystical “good” candidate that we’ve all been ignoring. What’s this savior’s name?
I get the feeling you’re not really reading my posts nor checking out my links while keeping an open mind. You seem to have a pre-determined mindset on this.
Once again, if you know of a third party candidate and/or democrat that is a viable threat to the current power structure, then by all means tell us who that person is now.
Who should we give our support and money to? Who can take on this current power structure and WIN? For the love of God, please step up now and let us all know thy name.
What are you waiting for, “good” candidate? Are things not evil enough around here for you yet?
I would love to see a independent Scotland. Those “northern Brits” seem a bit more levelheaded. Sadly it will not happen.
EDIT: I should also point out that Draper’s 1967 essay was directed at the movement against the Vietnam War; many activists argued that they should support Johnson in the 1968 presidential election, because they hoped that Johnson would end the Vietnam War, or at least scale it back. As it turned out, Johnson massively escalated the war, incidentally sacrificing his liberal domestic agenda to do it.
Dude, get real. The greater evil alternative was Barry Goldwater.
Goldwater suggested using atomic weapons in Vietnam:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/goldwater-suggests-using-atomic-weapons
Goldwater was a bloodthirsty, Republican maniac whose only complaint with Johnson on the Vietnam War was that he didn’t EXPAND it to Northern Vietnam.
I think all the people that are alive today because that greater evil, sack of shit didn’t get elected would like you to reconsider your thoughts here.
tl;dr – You’re not helping your case here.
I’m afraid you’re failing to understand my case. The point is not that the lesser evil isn’t, genuinely, less evil than the other major candidate. The point is that accepting that all politics amounts to is looking at the two leading candidates, deciding which is less evil, and voting for that candidate. Elections are a minor part of politics.
The Johnson Administration escalated the Vietnam War. The Nixon Administration agreed to a cease-fire and withdrawal of US troops. This wasn’t because Richard Nixon was secretly a liberal dove. It was because of the combination of the starlwart resistance of the Vietnamese, the mass anti-war movement, and the increasing resistance to military discipline within the US military.
Draper was arguing that the anti-war movement was making a strategic mistake in putting too much of its energy into support for Johnson. My experience has been that the elections of 2000 and 2004 were disasters for the opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as many activists dropped anti-war activism for the duration of the election campaigns in order to work for the Democrats. I saw organizations collapse following mass demonstrations, and only be built again from scratch, smaller and weaker, after the elections ended.
On the question of jobs, you seem to have missed, or ignored, the crux of Graeber’s argument, which is to bring into question why we focus so much on the quantity of jobs available, rather than asking why we aren’t working fewer hours at higher wages. Focusing on the quantity of jobs tends to play into conservative arguments about “job creation”. And for that matter, there’s the example of a shared assumption among Democrats and Republicans: that the economy, as measured in GDP, must continue expanding.
Why do our working conditions, wages, and hours keep getting worse, rather than better? More than anything else, I would say its the decline of the labor movement. And a major reason for the decline of the labor movement, I believe, is that for decades it focused entirely too much of its waning strength and resources on supporting the Democrats.
I’m afraid you’re failing to understand my case.
The feeling is mutual.
The point is that accepting that all politics amounts to is looking at the two leading candidates, deciding which is less evil, and voting for that candidate. Elections are a minor part of politics.
You made no sense there. Want to reword that or something? If you’re trying to use a reductive fallacy on me, that won’t work (as you’ll see below).
Draper was arguing that the anti-war movement was making a strategic mistake in putting too much of its energy into support for Johnson.
Nowhere have I ever said that anyone should “put all their energy” into any candidate like Obama. If anything, I think more direct action is needed including more whistleblowing, civil disobedience, educating one another on issues online and otherwise, voting lesser evil locally, personally getting involved in our own government and causing a ruckus in general.
To use common sense by voting in a viable lesser evil versus much more destructive republicans doesn’t negate any of those other things. Consistently voting in the lesser evil is one strategy of many. We haven’t tried consistently voting in lesser evil. Did you not see this chart that I showed above? Just look at it.
Just look at it.
Ever play ping-pong? You know, where the ball goes back and forth, back and forth? Poor ball never seems to get anywhere, does it?
On the question of jobs, you seem to have missed, or ignored, the crux of Graeber’s argument, which is to bring into question why we focus so much on the quantity of jobs available, rather than asking why we aren’t working fewer hours at higher wages.
For the many who lose their jobs under Republican rule, and then by proxy lose their health care for themselves and/or their family and finally lose their homes… getting better vacation time and national GDP isn’t the first worry on their list, that’s why.
Please, get real. There’s real lives at stake here while you focus on ivory tower suppositions that mean very little (if anything) in the real world in 2013.
Why do our working conditions, wages, and hours keep getting worse, rather than better?
By voting in greater evil instead of consistently voting in lesser evil. I’ve explained this in great detail already. If you choose not to read it, then please quit asking me redundant questions you really don’t want the answer to and move on.
So… did you happen to miss the utter disaster I linked to earlier? Are you reading any of my links?
Here it is again:
Now please read through that article and ask me again why our working conditions, wages, and hours “keep getting worse”?
More than anything else, I would say its the decline of the labor movement.
I don’t agree. Republicans devastating the the economy by siphoning too much money from the poor and middle class to the rich is the main reason. Income disparity has a solid history of hurting jobs and much more. But as far a unions go… What kills them? Many factors, but mostly greater evil Republicans. How? By the American public voting in greater evil Republicans and by proxy also allowing for rampant deregulation and rampant media consolidation that did everything in its power to disparage unions at their behest.
Why is Canada’s unions doing so much better than the USA? One huge reason is because in the USA, greater evil Republicans have pushed through anti-union “right-to-work” laws in half the country so far that Canadians aren’t stupid enough to implement (yet). And, let’s face reality, compared to the USA, Canadians vote in far less evil than the USA does (so far). That’s why they have a single payer system for health care among many other advantages.
Oh, and never, ever discount the lasting effects of the great satan of greater evil, Ronald Reagan, who helped to destroy so many aspects of the USA it lends itself to an entirely different thread. Speaking of which…
This conversation is incredibly sidetracked… if you really want to continue this, I suggest creating a new bbs topic. Otherwise, I think it’s best if we agree to disagree.
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Let’s say the government suspects someone was a bitmule for some spy agency (not a terrorist), transporting some stolen death star plans or whatever, something that you would unequivocally agree is bad™… would it be ok to detain such a person at an airport to search them for said plans?
If you say, yes, well then as far as the government is concerned this is no different (they claim the NSA techniques saves lives, etc). If you say no, then you put the lives of millions of cute, furry little ewoks at risk.
Being someone who has been detained at a border crossing, I know what it is like, and it sucks, but it isn’t jail, torture or whatever. Searching someone for suspected classified material would well be within the purview of border control agents.
We need to pressure the politicians to make the material unclassified, but until then, I would suspect that any court of law would regard these actions as legal.
Fuck reality. It’s way more broken than that.
Chipping away at the edges just doesn’t float my boat. Sure, Rootstrikers looks like a relatively well-targeted bit of effort, but it’s still the same old thing where you try to take the scumbags head-on over one little aspect of their hegemony, where any success is unlikely and apt to be clawed back.
On the other hand, the Doctor’s Way, as @William_Holz is currently calling it (I prefer The Cooperation), is something the system is relatively powerless to resist, and all-encompassing, right, like a cancer of the corporatocracy.
Like I said, never mind rearranging deckchairs, we haven’t got time. Don’t let the audacity of the notion put you off; it’s bloody brilliant. And it’s like, day one, dude. Give it a chance to flesh out. If/when it kicks off, it’ll be exponential.
Give the fucking corporatocracy what it deserves.
Terminal metastasis.
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As do most of us with more than a mere handful of neurons to rub together.
Wait, I just realised I was polite enough to hallucinate an ‘I’ leading your sentence. Tut.
Anyway, what I was going to say was that you seem to have an inordinate amount of faith in the system’s ability to correct itself, whereas I and others see it reeling out of control like a pathetic drunk, apparently unaware of its own indignity.
Fuck reality.
Ok… Will you be sending the shrooms via mail or is there somewhere I can meet you?
By the way, I think I’ve found you some investors in your company. They’ll be contacting you shortly.
Sorry, I dropped a few words. It should have been, “The point is that the mistake is accepting that…”.
This is the most important thing, I think. My experience has been that in an election year, activist groups evaporate, with many members saying that they believe that they need to put all their energies into supporting the Democratic Party.
Sorry. For some reason, I didn’t see that link before.
I probably shouldn’t have brought up Graeber. It’s the wrong scale of problem.
So you’d prefer to take a cheap shot rather than catch my drift?
That’s a shame; I’d have thought better of you.
I’d have thought better of you.
Never, ever trust a cow. Especially after telling said cow to “fuck reality”.
I’ll tell you again - fuck ‘reality’.
It blows chunks. I’d prefer a more reality-based reality.
Haven’t we all just seen our culture profoundly transformed in the space of a decade or so? Don’t be so timid.
To be fair to everybody else (and to me, the friends I’ve had helping, and the amazing woman who is infused through this whole thing), it’s a LOT easier for some people to see this than it’s been for anybody to explain it except for some in-depth, in-person conversations. There’s a lot of context to break, and it’s amazing how many assumptions we’ve piled on top of each other to create this great big messy LARP that we live in.
I mean, I’ve been pummeling my brain for almost two years and I still don’t know how deep that rabbit hole goes. But they’re just incremental enhancements, like Feynman’s chess analogy.
Also, we’re finally getting some good questions and whether due to accident, fate, or luck we’ve finally figured out how to break this up right. It’s just all about hitting things from the right angles for the right people.
I had to leave a bunch out, because we were talking hundreds of pages of boring. Now we’re putting the bits that matter back in, people’ll get it soon enough. 
Though huge points for lateral thinking potential there, Kimmo. . . that’s a useful and rare talent, and we need a bit of everything to kick things into gear properly.
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