The big flaw in this election's results is that the disaffected, almost-half of the electorate who is sending Trump in the Oval Office also returned the very same Congress that has worked to thwart, counter, prevent and reject every single progressive initiative of the past six years that have exactly precisely and with surgical precision addressed every single -- without exception -- issue which has turned the disaffected almost-half electorate against the establishment. The problem is not an unresponsive government. The problem is a recalcitrant, divided, internecine-warring Republican party, half of which is batshit crazy, government-is-the-problem delusional. The other half is merely racist-against-the-black-Kenyan-post-colonial-Marxist-Communist-socialist-weak,-fascist-tyrannical President, neo-liberal oligarchs. The message, instead of how bad Trump is, would better have been: "This is what the Republican Leadership has stood in the way of accomplishment -- and list every single intervention they staged -- So, give us a Congress we can work with. Vote Democratic." And, that remains the only solution to the problem we face. Only then can we address return of the Fairness Doctrine, Glass-Steagall, Equal pay, women;s health, corporate personhood, corporate welfare, corporate subsidy, corporate loopholes, lobbying, campaign finance, Citizens United, Voting Rights, gerrymandering, etc, etc, etc.
Let me put it another way: Out of the frying pan...
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Sunday, October 30, 2016
The Republican Party Is Not Your Friend
The (dis)loyal opposition party has been over since George W dispensed with plausible deniability with his overt overreach in applying all their eco and poli policies at full bore without any wiggle room, cover or fallback. Without any place to hide, they resorted to The Tea Party as the latest rebranding of the Fringe Faction among their numbers. You know, their base. The former Know Nothings and direct descendents, both ideologically and genetically, of the John Birch Society.
They first gave us Voodoo Economics which they combined with rampant, pro-oligarchy deregulation which only blew up the world economy. In response, they really thought The Tea Party was a good idea. And, then, they gave us Donald Trump. Out of the frying pan. And, everybody out of the pool!
Eight years of Congressional obstruction posing as forward looking opposition policy is indicative of the terminal nature their grasping at straws actually is. Just how long did they think things could possibly last applying the quarterly report method to chronic, real world, life-and-death issues?
Email. Yeah, that's the ticket!
They first gave us Voodoo Economics which they combined with rampant, pro-oligarchy deregulation which only blew up the world economy. In response, they really thought The Tea Party was a good idea. And, then, they gave us Donald Trump. Out of the frying pan. And, everybody out of the pool!
Eight years of Congressional obstruction posing as forward looking opposition policy is indicative of the terminal nature their grasping at straws actually is. Just how long did they think things could possibly last applying the quarterly report method to chronic, real world, life-and-death issues?
Email. Yeah, that's the ticket!
Sunday, October 16, 2016
End Of An Eon
I'm a retired, fat, long haired, Mexican, socialist, atheist faggot living in poverty. Considering all the heartache and actual prejudice to outright persecution I have personally experienced, not to mention the countless millions subject to the cruelty promoted by the avarice, subterfuge and fraud from that party's operations, agents, supporters and constituents for decades, I can't actually associate my euphoria at the apparent breakdown of that house built on foundations of sand with schadenfreude. It's too well deserved to be unfortunate for any reason, on any level, from any point of view. They've been so awful, intentionally and horribly mean and cruel fo so very long, it's almost too good to hope that the wicked witch may actually be dead.
Monday, September 5, 2016
This is a comment I posted to a pundit roundup in The Daily Kos.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/9/5/1566651/-Abbreviated-Pundit-Round-up-Campaign-shifting-to-post-Labor-Day-and-the-deplorables#read-more
Reality neither knows nor exhibits any kind of bias. [What we see in contemporary Main Stream Media roportage] is [the result of] almost forty years of Republican smear campaigns labelling “liberal” as pejorative that has likewise falsely painted reality as having a liberal bias. There is no such thing as a liberal media by virtue of the fact that ALL main stream media is corporate owned. And, those corporate overlords have a vested interest in controlling the narrative. That’s why we always served a (pathetic) horse race electoral competition even when one of the candidates is an unworthy, sociopathic fraud without even a scant clue about creating policy. It has rendered factually reporting Republican avarice and subterfuge as somehow flawed and (absurdly) unbalanced. (attn: fact and fiction do not carry the same weight. Creating an argument by pitting reality and make believe against each other does not render any kind of balance whatsoever nor reveal any manner of truth. Nor does it have a chance of solving anything.) It’s the well funded (vast, right-wing conspiracy) propaganda machine working as intended. The lily-livered fourth estate dutifully folds to the pressure due to being owned by the very oligarchs who cannot be reported accurately — read: not allowed to be reported upon without actual bias.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/9/5/1566651/-Abbreviated-Pundit-Round-up-Campaign-shifting-to-post-Labor-Day-and-the-deplorables#read-more
Reality neither knows nor exhibits any kind of bias. [What we see in contemporary Main Stream Media roportage] is [the result of] almost forty years of Republican smear campaigns labelling “liberal” as pejorative that has likewise falsely painted reality as having a liberal bias. There is no such thing as a liberal media by virtue of the fact that ALL main stream media is corporate owned. And, those corporate overlords have a vested interest in controlling the narrative. That’s why we always served a (pathetic) horse race electoral competition even when one of the candidates is an unworthy, sociopathic fraud without even a scant clue about creating policy. It has rendered factually reporting Republican avarice and subterfuge as somehow flawed and (absurdly) unbalanced. (attn: fact and fiction do not carry the same weight. Creating an argument by pitting reality and make believe against each other does not render any kind of balance whatsoever nor reveal any manner of truth. Nor does it have a chance of solving anything.) It’s the well funded (vast, right-wing conspiracy) propaganda machine working as intended. The lily-livered fourth estate dutifully folds to the pressure due to being owned by the very oligarchs who cannot be reported accurately — read: not allowed to be reported upon without actual bias.
Sunday, June 26, 2016
What It Means To Be Mean
Whence
Evil: Normalizing Hatred
(Originally published on The Progressive Playbook website, Sept. 16, 2013
(Originally published on The Progressive Playbook website, Sept. 16, 2013
The path
toward becoming either a Progressive/Liberal person or a Regressive/Conservative
person winds through a measurable combination of environmental factors and intrinsic
brain function. Recent studies of brain function and psychological makeup have
revealed that varying degrees of political outlook are rooted in organic,
biological brain function as well as variable exposure to ambient social
attitudes throughout life. That is, it’s a combination of nature and nurture.
The studies suggest some people may not be able to control their attitude and
outlook. Other people go with the flow and may ultimately choose, or not, to
think differently from their parents, peers and surrounding society.
Let’s first
examine the effects of either mindset. According to Moral Foundations Theory, promoted by a collaboration
among psychology professionals and social scientists specializing in morality
and politics, morality is widely variable among cultures yet repeats itself
thematically in universally similar ways. Each culture exhibits a discreet, array
of instinctive ethical conventions which informs and confines its members’
behavior. These rules are the scaffold around which that society builds a
series of social boundaries that define the hierarchy among its members,
attributing color and flavor that delineates the unique shape and timbre of that
society’s culture.
According
to Moral Foundations Theory, every culture exhibits a combination among these
ethical categories:
1)
Care/harm
– This classification describes how well we relate with others in terms of
intuiting others’ pain or suffering. It is attached to kindness, tenderness and
how effectively we cherish or care for others. This is one side of empathy.
2)
Fairness/cheating
– Altruism is thought to be an evolutionary adaptation promoting survival of
the tribe, group or family. Justice, individual rights and autonomy
altruistically delivered to others applies. It’s another side of empathy.
3)
Liberty/oppression
– Domination from without creates tension eliciting umbrage and corrective
reactions in opposition to, most often, defined authority. Images of peaceful
demonstrators being bullied and injured by uniformed authority swelling the
ranks of subsequent protest actions is a good example.
4)
Loyalty/betrayal
– Social animals, including humans, form coalitions of mutual support and
common cause. Patriotism, self sacrifice for the common good
5)
Authority/subversion
– This order and hierarchical configuration expresses social interactions in
terms of leadership, how one follows, qualification of legitimate authority and
tradition-defined behaviour.
6)
Sanctity/degradation
– Underlying, but not limited to, religious concepts of raising existence above
the sensually indulgent, animal, lustful, fleshly, worldly or basely human, into
an elevated, spiritual sphere. Sanctity and degradation treat the notion that
the body is a fragile shrine easily desecrated by immoral acts or toxic contaminants.
Societies
combine these ideas in variable proportion as a matter of self definition. Rebellious
population segments may act to further refine proportions of Moral Foundation
Theory aspects within the society to elicit change or eventually die out. Conflicting
priorities that arise among an evolving culture make for a divided society.
Conservatives rely on all six of the ethical departments, and the culture wars
of the last thirty years rage over the Right’s greater reliance upon Authority,
Loyalty. Additionally, perhaps especially, the application of
Sanctity and conflict over legitimacy of its pseudo- or fundamentally religious
authority weighs heavily. Conversely, Liberals and Progressives bestow greater
proportional weight upon Care/harm criteria with heavy support from the areas
of Fairness/cheating and Liberty/oppression.
What are
the pressures that bring some in society to revere the group or its leaders so
highly that individuals are less valuable or even expendable? How do
individuals come to regard those who are not members of their group, however it
may be defined, as not deserving of the advantages of their core members?
Simon Cohen-Baron, Professor of Developmental
Psychopathology in
the Departments of Psychiatry andPsychology at theUniversity of
Cambridge in
the United Kingdom. has been studying empathy for three decades. His work is
wide ranging and comprehensive. He has led in the development of what he calls
the Empathy Quotient to quantify individuals’ empathy. With multiple
combinations of colleagues, Professor Cohen-Baron has examined the effects of
testosterone on Empathy, taken hundreds of brain scans pinpointing Empathy Center
activity in the brain and how those functions reflect in behavior. Amniotic fluid and adult blood
samples measured isolated protein compounds’ effects on gestational development.
Subsequent examination of amniotic fluid compounds’ effects on brain Empathy
Center acuity have yielded much evidence on how differently fully developed
brains function. These examinations, combined with analysis utilizing an
extensive range of investigative sciences, reveal whether the application of
empathy results from a systemic empathy function compared to some degree of
social or other biological determinants The analysis from such a wide array of
disciplines, such as social neuroscience, genetics, tomography techniques,
psychosis quantification -- among many others, pinpoints why some people are
capable of and even prone to cruelty while others are not..
In Professor
Baron-Cohen’s book, The Science of Evil,
he redefines the mystical, emotionally laden term evil toward empathy, or the
lack of empathy, establishing a quantifiable emotion upon which to base and
test his theory. Among many factors, it turns out there’s an effect from
testosterone levels during gestation and after puberty. But, that’s just the
beginning. The greater population of “empathy normal” individuals exhibit a
range of observable brain “empathy center” function. Among the individuals who
exhibit reduced or diminished empathy center activity are categorized in three
types, Borderline, Narcissist and Psychopathic. Measurable trends indicate a
range of genetic predisposition from reduced empathy to a status of no
measurable empathy at all: “Empathy Zero, Negative.” There is significantly
less empathy center activity in the brains of individuals who measure in the
Empathy Zero, Negative population. Gestational and environmental aspects are
also indicated representing all three factors – Borderline, Narcissist and
Psychopathic - in the nature v. nurture realm of personality traits.
In other
words, some people are just born that way, though there do appear to be some
avenues of therapy that can help ameliorate the final outcome of some who
exhibit Zero, Negative personality characteristics. That’s not to say that
everybody who descends from a family sprinkled with Empathy Zero, Negative
ancestors will become Zero Negative, or even exhibit reduced empathy. That is
because there is a large number of environmental factors in the stew that
effect the individual’s personality as well. That is to say, just as one may be
genetically predisposed to exhibiting reduced or Zero Negative empathy, one who
has neither familial history nor genetic markers of zero-negative orientations
may also be affected by multiple environmental factors, such as childhood
neglect or abuse, as well as the general public zeitgeist on issues of empathy,
to swing an individual disposition one way or the other.
In recent
decades, there have been well organized private, public and government
sponsored policy shifts institutionalizing gravitation away from an empathetic
society to one of evermore reduced empathy. America is currently verging on operating
as a zero-negative personality would toward those who are vulnerable or who
cannot fend for themselves due to political and socio-economic factors. It
began with Ronald Reagan’s exhortation that government is not the solution, but
that government is the problem. Reagan failed to define, however, to whom
government is the problem. His and his followers’ implication is that
governmental influence is a universal threat to its citizenry. At the same
time, religion arose as a political issue, blurring the Constitutionally drawn
line separating Church and State, which introduced a host of cultural issues
with a revived mantle of supernatural authority only suggested previously, and heretofore
easily relegated its Constitutionally appropriate place.
Enter the
so-called Culture War. The Culture War is based on largely theocracy justified
policies(see: Loyalty, Authority and Sanctity-degradation above) coupled with
corporate elite pressure toward dispensation from civic responsibility. The
resulting philosophy created a systemic rejection of empathy in secular policy
and law. The Right leaning political forces had strength in numbers among
Religionists and the financial strength of corporate interests that include,
among other characteristics, diverting monies previously used to maintain
society to further finance the erosion of governmenalt protections for the poor
and needy as well as protection of the general population against corporate greed
and abuse.
Removal of
the Fairness Doctrine by President Clinton under Republican pressure removed
any semblance of public media balance offered to the public by televangelists, news
outlets, and paved the way for the likes of Fox News. Under the mantle of corporate
personhood, special interest themes designed to overshadow reasonable discourse,
fortified as speech protected by the First Amendment, continues to
systematically deceive the public toward control of public opinion without
consequence. Reaching the logical conclusion of corporate personhood, the
Republican nominated Supreme Court majority has handed Corporations carte blanche to overwhelm the airwaves
with opinion posing as self evident truth and conviction substituting for
facts.
A series of
systematic exemptions for specific classes of financial market transactions
seeded the ground for widespread fraud creating an illusory bubble of
prosperity, the collapse of which nearly ruined the world economy. Corporate
influence over government has let the perpetrators escape significant penalty; avoid
restitution, compensation, or even consolation for losses engineered on vast
numbers of the unwary public. That same influence over government and control of
broadcast content has continued to advance the very same policies that caused
the barely averted global depression as if it were the solution to fix their
effects.
These are
but a few in a cascade of events that could arguably be described as rational
within the context of the market bubbles inhabited by the debacle’s
perpetrators. Each, however, lacks any consideration of fairness and
consequence, relying on reflexive authority, loyalty to caste, and a distorted
sense of government oppression. And greed, without any consideration to the
harm inflicted. That’s Empathy Zero, Negative type psychopathic behaviour.
Recurrent. Systemic. Endemic. Chronic. Zero empathy.
As a
society, we’re left with a significant number of people who are attracted to
authority. Once authority is acquired, they wield their power ostensibly for
their group, family or tribe but ultimately for themselves. They notably
embrace the indisputable authority of money and types of assumed authority such
as that conferred ipso facto to tradition
or a deity. Authoritarians, by nature, use whatever authority they can muster
to bludgeon and minimize dissent and resistance. They especially focus their
disdain on the vulnerable. In various displays of empathy rejection, we’re
treated with themes like Newt Gingrich extolling "why the
African-American community should demand pay checks and not be satisfied with
food stamps," and how Hispanic immigrants “should learn English and not
use the ‘language of the ghetto.’ ” An Arizona sheriff, while running for
Congress as a Republican, and having appeared with then presidential candidate
John McCain in an anti-immigration political ad, “Build the dang fence,” was revealed
by his purported undocumented ex-boyfriend of being threatened into silence
with deportation. Revelations included explicit photos of the boyfriend posted
on a gay dating site, and demands for non-disclosure about their relationship.
Mitt Romney extolled, “I’m not concerned with the very poor” and “I like being
able to fire people who offer me services.” According to Dr. Ron Paul and
others, only women who have been victim of an ‘honest’ rape would qualify for a
post-assault estrogen injection, because, well, that’ll have to do.
Other
firebrands of the Right, such as Rick Santorum, cite culture war friction as a
spiritual war, and would limit others’ behaviour and liberties on sole
authority of their preferred brand of faith. His arc of hyperbole includes
assertions such as the President’s support of universal education is merely a
ploy to get kids into college to indoctrinate them into left wing ideology. All
that work during preadolescence in Sunday School, all those confirmation
courses, and countless Sunday sermons during young adulthood would be laid
waste. And, reality-based news reportage has a liberal bias. This is a man who
admonished a voter on the campaign trail that government must not support her gay
son’s “unhealthy lifestyle” such as marrying and raising a family. He also
claimed that rape victims should be denied any chance of an abortion and instead
should make the best out of a bad situation. Fairness and harmful consequences
don’t figure at all.
Marginalization
of the vulnerable has taken many turns. School boards institutionalize isolation and vulnerability among
gay teens by regulating out of existence the acknowledgement of gay bashing and
bullying among students, teachers and
administrators under threat of dismissal. State legislators propose statutes
that would protect gay bullying and physical gay bashing as long as it’s
motivated by religious sentiment. When called out on abuse and abdication of
civic duty, these blame-the-victim authoritarians claim persecution to deflect criticism and avoid
responsibility. An apropos
illustration is a celebrated case of Illionois’s Catholic Charities that claimed they were discriminated against by being denied
their claimed right to discriminate against same sex couples to whom they’d
deny adoption services, all the while insisting on still receiving state tax
payer subsidies to fund those services. Authority, Loyalty, Sanctity,
Oppression, with little or no observation of Care/harm or Fairness/Cheating.
The effect
on individuals has been variable, but in many cases it’s been catastrophic.
Women’s choice is regulated by statute out of existence and by withheld funding
for all services, not just birth control for which government funds of any kind
are already prohibited. House Oversight Committee Chairman Daryll Issa (R-CA)
convened a hearing about controlling contraception while actively barring
women’s testimony. Republican controlled state legislatures are effectively
restricting abortion rights to the point of making illegal not only
contraception itself, but some fertility techniques. Further, some forms of
natural miscarriage could be charged as manslaughter unless the woman involved
could prove it not to have been artificially induced. Workers’ collective
bargaining, a thorn in the side of big business and a huge target for
elimination by Corporate America, is being assaulted in states controlled by
Republican legislatures and governors. Authority, Loyalty to clique, Liberty to control others
indiscriminately, Sanctity of their
cause. But, where’s the Fairness and care for consequences?
Republicans
in Congress are pushing for privatization of social programs to eventually
divert substantial proportions of funds that now buy beneficiaries’ food, clothing,
heat in Winter, medicine, general to specialized doctors’ care, and utility
bills to instead line the pockets of private investors fortunate enough to have
the resources to “buy” into the attendant agencies – often as a reward of
whatever political connection they have or political contribution they’ve made,
including any manner of elite resources they enjoy at the expense of the
general public.
States
adjacent to those exhibiting the worst Zero Empathy, Negative behavior, have
simultaneously passed marriage equality bills, some signed into law while another
was stonewalled with a veto accompanied by a provision directing the
legislature to put government acknowledgement of citizens’ rights before the
public for a vote.
It’s not
just the government under controlling pressure from Corporate America, aided
and abetted by the Religious Right’s force of numbers, that’s at issue.
Corporations and Religionists have created a formidable phalanx of entities,
mostly tax exempt religion-inspired foundations and political action
committees, to create new beach heads of assault on the rights and freedoms of
those who act according to Fairness, Consequences and Liberty while all but
dismissing Authority and Loyalty. Evidence has arisen that LDS and Knights of
Columbus allegedly colluded to fund and pass anti-equality referenda and state
constitutional amendments in California and elsewhere claiming that marriage
equality threatens their concept of marriage and the existence of marriage
equality threatens their Freedom of Religion. Regarding provision of women’s
healthcare, Catholic bishops push against businesses founded by religious
orders having to play by the same rules as any other business in the public
marketplace. The Family
Research Center ,
certified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group, headed by Tony
Perkins, claims the Left is trying to create a Theocracy and marriage equality
is tyranny that promotes incest, bestiality, and polygamy. At the National
Organization for Marriage, another SPLC-certified hate group, former leader
Maggie Gallagher labelled homosexuality
an “unfortunate thing,” and “at least, a sexual
dysfunction similar to impotence or infertility,” as well as “a sexual disability preventing certain
individuals from participating in the normal reproductive patterns of the human
species.” She also claimed
that gays “can always control their behavior,” and even admonished the incumbent
President to give more funding to scientifically
rejected “ex-gay” research. Gallagher even denied on MSNBC “Up with Chris Hayes” that she’s never
done any of those things. Bryan Fischer, Director of Issues Analysis for the
American Family Association and host of the American Family Radio program, “Focal
Point,” rails preposterously on a daily basis with themes such as 98% of gays
are drug users, have up to 1,000 sex partners (In a lifetime? Annually? Weekly?
We just don’t know!), the HIV link to AIDS is a scam, people living with AIDS
reap what they sow.
These are
but a few among an extensive roster of gay bashers, and but a scant taste of
their pejorative litany levelled at gay people. Others, such as Michele
Bachman, Rick Perry, Matt Barber, Victoria Jackson, Liz Trotta, Kelly Yanta, Rev.
Kenneth Hutcherson, John Eastman, and Allen West to name only a few, cast their
unsupportable aspersions with tedious alacrity. They make stuff up, never have
to prove anything and never bother about the suffering they inflict directly,
or inspire the weak and gullible to inflict. Any calls for responsibility,
restitution, accountability, compensation or even consolation are met with
cries of intolerance, First Amendment injuries and any other manner of glib rejection
of accountability one can imagine. It’s
all about Authority, real or imagined, Loyalty to their authority and the
family or tribe that agrees with it, Sanctity of the message and group cause, their
Liberty to
express it without regard to others’ rights to be free of that message
Ideologues
are infiltrating and influencing otherwise politically neutral organizations,
too. A failed, former candidate for governor who had run on a platform of
reversing abortion rights succeeded in denying private charitable funds to
Planned Parenthood shortly after being hired as an administrator at the funding
institution. When news of the changes hit the media, the charity claimed that
current funding, which had not been affected by the administrator’s change, was
subsequently restored when it was actually only future funding that is to be
denied. The tactic has successfully mislead critics and diverted criticism as
if some permanent correction in policy had been made. Planned Parenthood still
loses future funding which effects all its programs without any concern on the
overall damage inflicted on the truly needy by an ideologue in a position of
power in a private charity.
There are
so many more readily available examples of how people in positions of power
exhibit diminished to nonexistent empathy, spread inane projections on innocent
citizens. Many instances of religious harassment and political aggression had
been, until very recently, subsumed into a vaneer of civility, kept in check by
more universal public morals and ethics. But, since the 1980s’ symbiosis
between regressive politics and politically empowered conservative
evangelicals, – and more recently the black-is-white rhetoric enabling John-Bircher-cum-Tea
Partiers – the lid has been lifted off
the simmering antipathy among elder, European descendant, mostly male voters
(and their apologists). Seeming as from nowhere, anachronistic, ostensibly long
settled political issues have been newly foisted into the foreground, forcing
already overburdened Americans, straining under the immense pressures of an
economic breakdown borne of prolonged stress under regressive political
policies, to shoulder “culture war” issues for the second and sometimes third
time in our lives.
One has to
wonder to what end. What sense is there to the subterfuge, the mendacity that
enables it, and the sheer lunacy of the fit – or lack of it – in it all?
Perhaps that’s the large and the small of it: there is no point. It’s just more
chaos, a cyclical crescendo of background noise foreshadowing or forewarning for the more aware, astute or
merely attentive, what’s in store if we don’t snap to and get our act together.
The bigger
question focuses on what a reasonable person -- be they moderate-to-liberal, or
moderate faithful, or secular (sceptic/skeptic, humanist, atheist, agnostic, non-faithful,
etc.) or the electorally crucial, independently minded individual who can only
sit back in dumbstruck awe – may do in reaction to what passes for conservatism
these days in American politics. What’s to do about this fine mess we’ve gotten
ourselves into? Of course, we must make our voice heard on election day. We
must also make our voice heard – loudly, clearly and in a sustained manner – in
our capitols and in Washington through letters, email, phone calls, rallies,
protests and in response to regressive, empathy bereft positions in water
cooler conversations, Thanksgiving dinner-like exchanges and in response to
online articles at every opportunity. Lobbyist and SuperPAC influence hits
their targets daily. That influence must be countered similarly by an
overwhelming voice of individuals in every venue possible. Only our mass
resistance to radical regressive backtracking will counter the onslaught we
endure.
Monday, June 20, 2016
Republicans all over the South are denouncing and leaving the GOP, citing not only Donald Trump's elevation to de facto leader and presumptive Presidential Candidate of the Republican party, but also things like local state Legislatures' obsession with discrimination and persecution of LGBT citizens. They are removing their membership from the strength in numbers count their former organization uses to perpetuate calls to popularity justifications for their anti-social policies.
Likewise, any religionist or faithful believer who disagrees with religious "leaders'" pronouncements would best remove their membership from rolls of any institution who vilifies innocents and promotes attitudes, beliefs and policies that discriminate against LGBT people, women, minorities of any kind, "opposition" faiths and belief systems lest such member be complicit to leadership atrocities by virtue of omission rather than commission. Christians of every denomination, society and gathering: Just say no, and vote with your feet.
Likewise, any religionist or faithful believer who disagrees with religious "leaders'" pronouncements would best remove their membership from rolls of any institution who vilifies innocents and promotes attitudes, beliefs and policies that discriminate against LGBT people, women, minorities of any kind, "opposition" faiths and belief systems lest such member be complicit to leadership atrocities by virtue of omission rather than commission. Christians of every denomination, society and gathering: Just say no, and vote with your feet.
Saturday, June 11, 2016
On Bernie Supporters Denying Their Vote to Clinton
This is my response to a die hard Bernie Sanders supporter who refuses to sully her values and principles by plying her vote on the female candidate whom she loathes as anathema to her values, whatever the futz that means.
The issue here is the difference between the 10.5million voters who cast in the Senator's favor compared to the 13.5 million voters who supported the Secretary. Stubbornly affording any measure of support, relief or succor, even if by passive aggressive behavior, to an adversary of the very values you hold dear undermines your claims of those values' support. The power of 13.5 million voters is stronger than the power of 10.5 million voters. The power of 24 million voters, combining all Democratic voters in protection of our country, is more powerful yet. The question, then, is whether you wish to do whatever necessary to ensure the oligarchy and the right wing nutjob crazies are contained. (Sure, Sanders would contain the Oligarchy much more forcefully than Hillary. But HRC is malleable and responsive to the pressures constituents bring to bear. One's responsibility to press elected officials is not limited to or end on election day.) Would you really rather wage a ultimately inefective, secret ballot, ego motivated, Molotov cocktail that does nothing to ensure your values are protected in any measure? How responsible to yourself and posterity is that?
The issue here is the difference between the 10.5million voters who cast in the Senator's favor compared to the 13.5 million voters who supported the Secretary. Stubbornly affording any measure of support, relief or succor, even if by passive aggressive behavior, to an adversary of the very values you hold dear undermines your claims of those values' support. The power of 13.5 million voters is stronger than the power of 10.5 million voters. The power of 24 million voters, combining all Democratic voters in protection of our country, is more powerful yet. The question, then, is whether you wish to do whatever necessary to ensure the oligarchy and the right wing nutjob crazies are contained. (Sure, Sanders would contain the Oligarchy much more forcefully than Hillary. But HRC is malleable and responsive to the pressures constituents bring to bear. One's responsibility to press elected officials is not limited to or end on election day.) Would you really rather wage a ultimately inefective, secret ballot, ego motivated, Molotov cocktail that does nothing to ensure your values are protected in any measure? How responsible to yourself and posterity is that?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)