Subject: Re: Is Making a Protest Vote in Presidential Elections a Vanity Choice? Good Question!
But Miriam, the Black and Latino people have been suffering all along. I see nothing offered by either "Party" to ease their pain. Putting Obama in for another 4 years might slow down the privatization of Social Security and Medicare, but it will not stop it's progress.
Notice how president Obama has once again began to sound like the People's Warrior we thought he might become back in 2008? My belief is that once he has secured another 4 years, it will be business as usual. It will be a slower spiral into the Pit than if Romney were elected, but it will not turn upward. This is not the 30's when the masses had some measure of power. Our power has been nearly stripped from us. We are spied upon and lied to and denied access to critical information about what the government is up to.
One of the great successes of the Empire has been to make certain that no strong national leaders emerge in defense of the Working and Lower Classes. In controlling the mass media, from news papers to periodicals to TV and radio, the Empire is able to present potential leaders as silly, addle brained fools, while building up a real fool to the place where we put him in the white house. And just to make clear which fool I was referring to, it was George Bush.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----From: Miriam VieniSent: Sunday, August 05, 2012 7:38 AMSubject: RE: Is Making a Protest Vote in Presidential Elections a Vanity Choice? Good Question!Bob,
No, Obama won't fight like hell for the working man. But this isn't the
1930's. back then, there was manufacturing in this country. If the
unemployment rate was 25%, there was potential in the system to change that.
Now, the majority of jobs are leaving. Even the components for
infrastructure improvements are being outsourced to China or other countries
for manufacture. The turn around, if it ever happened, would be a lot more
complex and take a lot longer. So many, many people, particularly our black
and latino residents, will suffer greatly as the idealistic Progressive
community plays "chicken".
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org] On Behalf Of Bob Hachey
Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2012 12:28 AM
To: Blind Democracy Discussion List
Subject: Re: Is Making a Protest Vote in Presidential Elections a Vanity
Choice? Good Question!
Hi Miriam,
In the short run, you are probably right about how most idiot Americans seem
more concerned about someone cheating on a subway fare or not looking hard
enough for work than they are about the banksters and real doers of evil who
keep us all down. I'm afraid that we'll need to see higher unemployment
before the worm really turns. Unemployment was way up around 25 percent in
the 1930's when the new deal came to be. IF Romney wins, we'll get to that
type of rate much more quickly. this does not mean I want Romney in the
White House. But, remember that it was under Clinton that Glass-Steagall was
put out to pasture.
In the end, we proegressives are in a horrible situation. Call me selfish,
but I'm damned sick and tired of playing into the hands of the power
structure by voting against someone rather than voting for someone. Again,
this is an easy position for me to take here in Obama country. I think if I
lived in a swing state, I'd be tempted to flip a coin in the voting booth.
Heads for Stein, tails for Obama.
AT least Obama is starting to show more backbone and talking a good game
again. You know, if I could be convinced that he'd fight like hell for the
little guy in a second term, I might be persuaded to vote for him again, but
given his support for the war on terror, I'd not only need a gas mask, but
an independent oxygen supply.
Bob Hachey
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
To: "'Blind Democracy Discussion List'" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2012 10:34 PM
Subject: RE: Is Making a Protest Vote in Presidential Elections a Vanity
Choice? Good Question!
> We go round and round about this. Carl, you know we live in a right
> wing country. You know that we are not going to have a socialist
revolution.
> You
> know that just as the mainstream media spin the news on behalf of
> corporations, the Left spins it so that support for its positions
> within the public is misrepresented. Over and over, I read statistics
> to the effect that the public is in favor of a single payer health
> system and that the public is opposed to our continuous state of war.
> Well, perhaps when the survey questions were put to a sample of people
> in a particular manner, those were the results. However, I know what
> the people around me are saying and I hear what their opinions are and
> what they will and won't support.
> And
> although they are cynical about government and angry at corporations
> and big banks, and although they don't like the idea that we are
> spending money for war, they tend to choose right wing solutions when
> they feel frightened or angry. They tend not to be informed about
> issues that we talk about on this list every day. They become
> viscerally angry at people whom they see as cheating, like a person
> not paying subway fare or stealing something from a store or not
> finding a job. They say things like, "I'm sure if she looked hard
> enough, she could find something". They do not have that same kind of
> personal anger at the head of Citibank.
>
> This is the unpleasant reality with which we're faced. Everyone who
> makes that choice, that is seen as moral and will somehow, magically,
> lead to the downful of the lousy system under which we live, every one
> of you who refuses to vote for the lesser of two evils because you are
> too politically and ethically pure to do that, maybe be contributing
> to even worse suffering than we see now, suffering of the elderly, the
> poor, the disenfranchised, and all of the people of color throughout
> the world whom the U.S. bullies.
> Tell me honestly that if you look at Romney and the folks who openly
> support him as opposed to Obama, tell me that it truly won't be worse
> for you and me if Romney is elected with a Republican sweep in
> congress which will accompany his election. Obama may make some cuts
> to medicare and social security. Romney and his friends will privatize
> it all. You want that so that in the distant future there might be a
> theoretical revolution?
>
> Miriam
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org
> [mailto:blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org] On Behalf Of Carl
> Jarvis
> Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2012 7:09 PM
> To: ceverett@dslextreme.com; Blind Democracy Discussion List
> Subject: Re: Is Making a Protest Vote in Presidential Elections a
> Vanity Choice? Good Question!
>
>
> This is just a rehash of the same old thinking that has put us where
> we are today. Following this logic will play right into the hands of
> the Ruling Class. They have set the conditions that limit our
> choices. . We don't gain a thing by falling into line.
> My friends often tell me that I must choose between God or the Devil.
> "Why?" I ask them. "What if I want to select the Wizard of Oz, or the
> White Rabbit, or even the Tooth Fairy?"
> "But either God or the Devil will win all human's Souls", they cry.
> "Says who?" I counter.
> "Well, it's in the Bible"!
> And so it is written in the Book of the Ruling Class that I must
> choose between the one or the other viable candidate if my vote is
> going to count.
>
> But I don't believe their book. It was written by people in power. A
> new book can be written by new people in power. But that new book
> will never be written if we keep on playing by the Ruling Classes
> Rules.
> Obama. Romney. You both have taken up with the Empire. I choose
> neither one of you. Sure, one of you will win. But when enough
> people become fed up...well, it's happened many times before.
>
> Carl Jarvis
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Claude Everett <mailto:ceverett@dslextreme.com>
> To: 'Blind Democracy Discussion List'
> <mailto:blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
> Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2012 9:26 AM
> Subject: Is Making a Protest Vote in Presidential Elections a Vanity
> Choice? Good Question!
>
>
> Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
>
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------
> ----
>
> Consortium News [1] / By Robert Parry [2] Is Making a Protest Vote in
> Presidential Elections a Vanity Choice?
>
> Continued from previous page
>
> August 3, 2012 |
>
>
> My recent article, "The Vanity of Perfectionism [3]," has stirred up
> some anger, in part, because of my choice of the word "vanity" to
> describe some behavior that I have witnessed on the American Left in
> people who sit out presidential elections or cast ballots for
> third-party candidates who have no chance of winning.
>
> So, let me explain what I was driving at. The central point of the
> article was that Americans, especially on the Left, need to get
> realistic about elections and stop using them as opportunities to
> express disappointment, anger or even personal morality. Through
> elections, Americans are the only ones who can select our national
> leaders, albeit in a limited fashion.
>
> The rest of the world's people have no say in who's going to run the
> most powerful nation on earth. Only we can, at least to the extent
> permitted in the age of Citizens United. The main thing we can still
> do is stop the more dangerous major-party candidate from gaining
> control of the executive powers of the United States, including the
> commander-in-chief authority and the nuclear codes, not small things.
>
> So, when we treat elections as if they are our moment to express
> ourselves, rather than to mitigate the damage that a U.S. president
> might inflict on the world, we are behaving selfishly, in my view.
> That's why I used the word "vanity." U.S. elections should not be
> primarily about us.
>
> U.S. elections should really be about others - those people who are
> likely to feel the brunt of American power - Iraqis and Iranians,
> Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, Vietnamese and Cambodians, Palestinians
> and Syrians, etc., etc.
> Elections also should be about future generations and the environment.
>
> Whether we like it or not, the choice this year looks to be between
> Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. People were free to run in the primaries
> to challenge these guys and, indeed, Romney faced a fairly large field
> of Republicans whom he defeated. Progressives could have challenged
> Obama but basically chose not to.
>
> I believe it is now the duty of American voters to assess these two
> candidates and decide which one is likely to inflict less harm on the
> planet and its people. One of them might even do some good. We can
> hope.
>
> If you do your research and decide that Romney is that guy, then vote
> for him. If it's Obama, vote for him. (Before you make your decision,
> I would recommend that you read Romney's book, No Apology, a
> full-throated neocon manifesto, which he claims that he wrote
> himself.)
>
> In my view, everything else that Americans do - throwing away their
> votes on third parties or sitting out the election - are acts of
> vanity.
> Maybe it's
> moralistic vanity or intellectual vanity or some other kind of vanity,
> but it is vanity. It has no realistic effect other than to make the
> person feel good.
>
> I've known people who say they have always voted for Ralph Nader or
> some other third-party candidate. Thus, they say, they are not
> responsible for whatever the United States does to other countries.
> But that attitude, too, is vanity.
>
> Instead of doing something practical to mitigate the harm that the
> U.S. does in the world - by voting for the person who might be less
> likely to overuse the U.S. military or who might restrain the emission
> of greenhouse gases - these folks sit on the sidelines basking in
> their perfection. They won't make a call.
>
> The hard decision is to support the imperfect candidate who has a real
> chance to win and who surely will do some rotten things but likely
> fewer rotten things than the other guy - and might even make some
> improvements.
>
> I know that doesn't "feel" as satisfying. One has to enter a morally
> ambiguous world. But that it is the world where many innocent people
> can be saved from horrible deaths (though not all) and where possibly
> actions can be taken to ensure that future generations are left a
> planet that is still habitable or at least with the worst effects of
> global warming avoided.
>
> Has That Technique Ever Worked?
>
> Though the choice of the word "vanity" may have been the most
> controversial part of my article, the bulk of it addressed another
> issue. Has the Left's recurring practice of rejecting flawed
> Democratic candidates actually done any good? Was it preferable for
> Richard Nixon to defeat Hubert Humphrey; Ronald Reagan to beat Jimmy
> Carter; and George W. Bush to elbow past Al Gore to the White House?
>
> If the Left's tendency to punish these imperfect Democrats for their
> transgressions had led to some positive result, then the argument
> could be made that more than vanity was involved here, that the effect
> of causing some Democrats to lose was to make later Democrats more
> progressive and thus more favorable to the Left. Or maybe that the
> Left is on its way to building a viable third party that can win
> nationally.
>
> But any examination of those three case studies - Elections 1968, 1980
> and 2000 - would lead to a conclusion that whatever practical goals
> that some on the Left had in mind were not advanced by the Democratic
> defeat. The Democrats did not become more progressive, rather they
> shifted more to the center.
>
> All three Republican presidents - Nixon, Reagan and Bush-43 - extended
> or started wars that their Democratic rivals might have ended or
> avoided. Those elections - plus congressional outcomes in 1980, 1994
> and 2010 - also bolstered the Right and helped consolidate
> anti-progressive attitudes on domestic and foreign policies.
>
> More than four decades after 1968 and a dozen years after 2000, there
> is still no left-wing third party that can do more than play the role
> of spoiler.
>
> Yet, if there has been no positive practical result from these
> electoral tactics in the past - and there is no reasonable expectation
> for the future
> - then what's the point of repeating them? There's the old saying that
> one definition of madness is to do the same thing over and over
> expecting a different result.
>
> Nor, by the way, is there a popular movement that can significantly
> alter government policies strictly through civil disobedience or via
> protests in the streets - with all due respect to Occupy Wall Street.
> So, what's up here?
>
> The only explanation that I can come up with for throwing away a vote
> on a third-party candidate or not voting for "the lesser evil" is that
> such a choice represents a personal expression of anger or
> disappointment.
> And I
> don't mean to disparage anyone's right to feel those emotions. Given
> the recent history, it's hard not to.
>
> But - when some lives can be saved, when some wars can be averted and
> when the planet can possibly be spared from ecological destruction -
> the true moral imperative, in my view, is to engage in the imperfect
> process of voting for the major-party candidate who seems more likely
> than the other one to do those things.
>
> To ignore that imperative, I'm sorry to say, is an act of vanity.
>
>
> .See more stories tagged with:
> robert parry [4],
> obama [5],
> mitt romney [6]
> .
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------
> ----
>
> Source URL:
>
> http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/making-protest-vote-presidential
> -elect
> ions-vanity-choice
> Links:
> [1] http://www.consortiumnews.com
> [2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/robert-parry
> [3]
>
> http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-parry/44590/the-vanity-of-p
> erfect
> ionism
> [4] http://www.alternet.org/tags/robert-parry
> [5] http://www.alternet.org/tags/obama-0
>
>
> Claude Everett
> American By Chance , Californian by Choice.
> Every one has a disability, Some, are more aware of it than others.
>
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>
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