This view is for those who will only vote for Hillary while holding their nose because she will be better than Trump in picking good Supreme Court justices – ed.
Michael Murray
That sort of “thinking” would fit nicely into a computer which can process only two binary digits: 1 and 0. But as they say in the computer programming field: “When a man makes a mistake, he makes a mistake. But when a machine makes a mistake … makes a mistake … makes a mistake … makes a mistake …” I’ve spent enough of my life programming computers to ever want to “think” like them. I’ve spent enough of my life watching our political “leaders” trying to imitate “either-or” machines, making the same mistake over and over and over again while expecting different results. I think Albert Einstein called this “insanity.” I refuse to vote for any more insanity.
Those who would vote for the War-vulture (I won’t defame “hawks” by associating them, even metaphorically, with You-Know-Her) stand far to the right of me on any political spectrum imaginable. In fact, I don’t recognize any American political spectrum that might include me, since the so-called “spectrum” extends only from infrared to far infrared. As Dr. Paul Craig Roberts (a former Reagan administration official) wrote just the other day:
“The Democratic Party that once was concerned with workers’ rights, the elderly, civil rights, and the constitutional protections of America liberty no longer exists. As the just completed Democratic presidential primaries and the Democratic presidential convention have clearly demonstrated, the United States now has two Republican parties in service to the One Percent.”
Absolutely true, thanks overwhelmingly to Bawl and Pillory (“It takes a pillage”) Clinton and Barack (“I’ve gotten really good at killing people”) Obama. America now has two Republican parties. This observation differs only slightly from what Gore Vidal said many years ago: namely, that “the United States has only one political party, the Property Party, and it has two right wings.” So, whether you vote for one of the two Republican parties or one of the Property Party’s two right-wings, matters not at all. Whether you vote for Donald Trump or You-Know-Her, you will get a right-wing Republican either way, but Donald Trump may actually stand a little less to the right than You-Know-Her. He has to, if he has any hope of winning election to the presidency this year. I would have thought that you understood this reality.
You-Know-Her hasn’t even won the election yet and already she has publicly stated her intention of renewing and reinvigorating the failed U.S. attempt to violently overthrow the legitimate government of Syria. The Russians have made it clear that this will not happen, but You-Know-Her appears unable to understand the meaning of “nyet,” either in full or in part. She has even taken to blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin for exercising a Vulcan mind-meld on Donald Trump, causing him to take over Wikileaks from Jullian Assange (held captive) in London, forcing him to commit journalism in the United States by publishing incriminating documents showing how she and Debbie Wasserman-Shultz and the entire Democratic party conspired to rig the Democratic Party primary elections against Senator Bernie Sanders, at most merely an irritating (not to mention “old”) sparring partner. How dare the Russians rig our elections by showing us our own documents that show how we rig our elections!.
Weak. Lame. Really weak and lame. You-Know-Her, so to speak, left her wallet and car keys on the front seat of her car with the windows rolled down parked on a busy street in broad daylight. “Gee. I wonder where the car went? And, damn! The car had the deed to the house, our credit cards, and all our financial records in the back seat. Oh, dear. The Russians must have robbed me! Quick! Someone start leaking like crazy to the Huffing-and-Puffing-Post for some of those four-foot-tall, screaming, bold-font headlines denouncing Donald Trump as some sort of Manchurian Candidate with an orange tan and funny-looking blond hair. Anything to distract the American people from reading all those damning documents that the Russians made me lose.”
Weak. Lame. Really weak and lame. And you plan to vote for a certifiable moron and amoral psychopath like You-Know-Her? Personally, I find the once and future Goldwater Girl bat-shit nuts and a political opportunist from whom Donald Trump could learn lessons. He obviously thought that he easily could bait her into getting into the gutter with him, but when he got down into the gutter he found her and Bill and Chelsea already there ahead of him.
Perhaps I haven’t made myself clear. I will never vote for a Wall Street hooker and war-vulture like You-Know-Her. I will vote for an anti-militarist, environmentally sane woman for President, Dr. Jill Stein, but in any event, I want to see You-Know-Her her lose. I want to see every other politician anything like her lose. I want to see so many of the war-vulture bums lose that the U.S. government ceases to recruit them for our meaningless approval every couple of years. Just start the weeding process. Start with You-Know-Her. Then, if Donald Trump or anyone else fails to get the message, then weed them out too. Start impeachment proceedings on Inauguration Day, just on general principles. No more two-term presidencies for at least a couple of decades. Just keep kicking them out, one after another. Our recent presidents have all committed crimes, so just pick one. Call it a “disposition matrix.” Or a “kill list.” They’ll understand. But right now, this year, You-Know-Her must lose. She deserves to lose.
Have I begun to make myself clear?
Either You-Know-Her loses, or America does. World War III with the Russians and Chinese does not appeal to me. Not over Syria. Not over Ukraine. Not over Estonia or Latvia or Poland. And not over a few rocks in the South China Sea. I do not believe that Donald Trump has the slightest inclination to go to war with Russia or China about anything. But You-Know-Her can’t wait to pull the trigger. She has waited her whole life to pull the trigger. I don’t want her pulling any triggers. So she must lose.
Have I begun to make myself clear?
The Contrary Perspective 
Ummm? So you don’t like Ms H?
Thank your for your input, but “liking” doesn’t enter into the picture. I don’t care for You-Know-Her’s war-vulture policies and One Percent proclivities. She may very well love her grandchildren. I don’t know or care. Had she stood up and voted to block Deputy Dubya Bush’s stud-hamster vendetta against the toothless tinpot Saddam “he tried to kill my daddy” Hussein — as twenty-five other U.S. Senators did — then I would have voted for her; Barack Obama would never have gotten out of the Illinois state legislature; and she would now be finishing up her second term as President of the United States. I gave her the chance to earn my vote, but she spurned it and betrayed our entire generation who thought we had put stupid, pointless wars like Vietnam behind us. I will never forget or forgive her for that, not that my opinion would interest her in the least.
Although she had other options, You-Know-Her just had to jump aboard the neocon stampede to wreck and plunder the middle east for the benefit of the Zionist Occupation of Palestine and a few global corporations. My fellow Vietnam veteran Daniel Ellsberg once said that “the Bush Administration invaded Iraq for three reasons: Oil, Israel, and Domestic Political Advantage.” I agree 100% with that assessment, and I do not support anyone who went along with it, either out of lunatic conviction or simple political cowardice. You-Know-Her had her chance to do the right thing and threw it away. Millions have died as a result. Millions more will die if she gets anywhere near the nation’s military trigger. She thinks exactly like former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright who once asked General Colin Powell: “What’s the use of having this superb army you’re always talking about if you won’t use it.” And when President Bill Clinton’s sanctions policy cost 500,000 Iraqi children their lives, she just blew it off with a glib “We think the price was worth it.” These soulless amoral harpies think just alike and for this reason I want You-Know-Her to lose this election. I will vote for Dr. Jill Stein because she wants what I want: namely, to dismantle the insatiable U.S. military parasite so that we Americans can use our productive resources for humane purposes at home and abroad. The candidate I support may not win, but if You-Know-Her loses, I can live with that.
You-Know-Her wants more war, so I don’t want her as the President of my country. “Liking” has nothing to do with it
“How dare the Russians rig our elections by showing us our own documents that show how we rig our elections!” I’ve been following how the presstitutes took off with the Wikileaks revelations and completely ignored or obscured the content. The preference for nonsense peddling is out in full force with absurd assininity. The Donald has learned to stop worrying and love the Russians! Putin has his mole! You would think there was a contest for “the epitome of tripe in 800 words or less”.
You are clear and you are right, sir. These full spectrum dominance neocons aren’t just criminal as hell, they are truly mad if they think the Russians will suffer them gladly. Clinton has to lose. But first she should fear losing…a palpable fear that others can readily sense. Then she can lose.
I love your phrase, “the epitome of tripe in 800 words or less,” but I thought Twitter only allowed a maximum of 140 words. I get your point, though. To hear You-Know-Her’s campaign tell the tale, Russian President Vladimir Putin wears seven-league boots, bestrides the continents like a colossus, and leaps tall buildings with a single bound. And he can even force Wikileaks to commit journalism in America, something the U.S. corporate media would never allow their own propaganda outlets to do in a hundred years. “Absurd asininity” indeed. Well put. We look so stupid.
I just pulled the number 800 out of my hat…was thinking more along the lines of articles from the Huff-and-Puff Post and elsewhere. Maybe I’m missing out, but I don’t follow any Twitter. There doesn’t seem to be enough time to follow the websites I enjoy and keep up with books I gather. Thanks to your suggestions, I just received copies of “The March of Folly” and “Fire in the Lake”. A guy who comments on Consortium News suggested Walter Karp, so my package included “Indispensable Enemies” and “Liberty Under Siege”.
Alibris.com is a good inexpensive source for books. Much appreciation Michael.
Do you, tamarque?
In fact, do you like either You-Know-Her or DDT, as I lovingly have decided to called the other candidate? It is a loaded question when we are one step away of becoming the United States of Corporations – formerly known as USA -, we are also starting baby steps in our African War that easily go up to Turky and we do not have a valid Voting Rights Act to guide our states among which many prefer to release the bothersome job of the counting votes operation to private contractors who in turn seem to support the GEMS system.
2016 is a crucial Presidential election year in the USA. Shouldn’t we decide for a third rebellious position? Why to go to the polls when everything is so confusing that the primaries have already shown us that voting is a waste of time? Our government does not have enough military officials on American soil to send one to the house of each registered voter so he/she is forcefully taken by the ear lobe to the polls. And carefully watched until he/she completes the voting procedure and gets the sticker showing that he/she has voted.
I believe that that is the only bloodless political revolution that is plausible given the fact that even if we voluntary go to vote, we will never know for sure who actually was elected by the majority. That decision will be made by somebody else. Most probably from the minority.
Please notice the grammatical errors. I could not edit.
First line … to call …
Fourth line … can go up to …
Thank you!
A vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Hillary. Until the Electoral College goes away, fringers such as Jill play that role – probably with full knowledge.
Dr. Stein is operating on a higher plane than either/or and is not about being a spoiler or appealing to fringe concerns. You may end up surprised, but a great many people agree wholeheartedly with her conversation. Her “role,” so to speak, is genuine, rooted in speaking truth to power, and issues-focused. She isn’t playing games.
But your suggestion is counterintuitive at any rate. To the extent that Dr. Stein “pulls” votes that would otherwise be cast for for (R) or (D), I would think more would come from those who may have otherwise been inclined to vote (D). So in that world, I would say votes for Stein would more likely help Trump rather than Clinton.
My vote for Jill Stein is just that…a vote for Jill Stein.
You do not understand the electoral college, Walter. It requires that a person win a minimum of 270 votes to assume the Presidency. If no single candidate achieves that minimum number of votes, then the election goes to the House of Representatives. The Republican-Republican party currently controls the House of Representatives, not the Democrat-Republican party, so most people assume that the Republican-Republicans would select Donald Trump for President if the choice devolved on them. But nothing compels the House to do anything. They could, if they so chose, select their own speaker, Paul Ryan, or anyone else for the Presidency. The Republican-Republican party elites hate and fear Donald Trump because he might take their party back leftwards toward the true political center of the country. Even worse, Donald Trump might not want to make never-ending war on the world in the interests of the Ruling Corporate Oligarchy. So the Republican-Republicans in the House would probably select anybody but him from their own ranks. This would confuse the American voters, but only for a brief period before, as in 2000, they simply go back to sleep and accept that someone else has chosen their President for them. Someone else always has, so nothing really new there.
But for the above scenario to take place — and it has happened only once before in the nation’s history, I believe — Dr. Jill Stein of the Green party, or Mr Johnson of the Libertarian party, would have to win several states and their electoral college votes. But this does not concern me because I can only vote (Internationally) in my home state of California. Other voters in other states will do what they will. They have no control over me and I have no control over them. My vote goes to the candidate who deserves it and not to either of the two Republican party candidates who don’t. Change has to start somewhere and it never starts tomorrow. I will vote today as I please and leave tomorrow to you.
One other consideration: Nothing compels the Electoral College delegates to vote for anyone or in any certain way. In fact, the Electoral College was specifically designed to thwart the will of the common “mob” should those ignorant and low-class voters actually choose someone unacceptable to the Ruling Corporate Oligarchy. The Electoral College exists to thwart democracy, not facilitate or encourage it.
In other words, no one “owns” the Electoral College. No one can predict what it will do if the “right” people express their wishes. As the Chinese proverb has it: “The quiet coughing of one rich man is louder than the braying of a thousand paupers.” We braying paupers can have all the “democracy” we want, but the One Percent, with their quiet coughing, will have whatever they want. They always have.
Finally, then, as I have tried to explain above, a vote for Dr. Jill Stein could have at least two effects on the election if one considers such votes dispositive. (1) Dr, Jill Stein could win the election if she garners over 270 electoral votes. (2) Donald Trump could win the election in the House of Representatives if no one garners over 270 electoral votes. Of course, You-Know-Her could win the election if enough Republican-Republicans desert Donald Trump and vote for the Damsel of Distress, who wants endless war on the world as much as they do. From what I read at the Huffing-and-Puffing Post and other corporate media outlets, that stampede (from one right-wing to the other right-wing) seems well under way. Following this line of reasoning, Donald Trump will have a far larger role in electing You-Know-Her than will Dr. Jill Stein, no matter how one looks at things.
Thank you for informing me of my ignorance.
Right on Michael !
This election is just a premier Kabuki theater event put on to make the American people still feel that “their vote really counts” Any reasonable citizen of this country seriously concerned about our Constitution would see this and turn their ticket in at the door of this Kabuki performance and vote for an alternative candidate to serve a warning to the Kabuki masters that their time is coming.
Yes, traven. The metaphor of the Kabuki theater does explain U.S. elections fairly well. For my money, though the Japanese Bunraku theater does an even better job.
As you know, in Kabuki, you have real human actors in gorgeous, fantastic costumes striking heroic poses and pretending to fight with each other. In Bunraku, large wooden puppets stand or sit facing each other while human puppeteers draped in body-length black hoods move about them on stage, manipulating the puppets with wooden poles. The audience, as perhaps only the Japanese can, have to pretend that they don’t see the hooded puppeteers but, instead, focus on the wooden puppets and the story their attitudes and gestures suggest. You can see where I’m going with this …
Anyway, I once came upon a scene from a Bunraku production featuring a Japanese Geisha puppet sitting opposed to a Japanese gentleman Samurai puppet with some black-hooded puppeteers lurking around the two of them. It occurred to me that this image would make the perfect illustration for the upcoming debates between You-Know-Her and Donald Trump. But as the interminable “election” puppet-show campaign progressed, a somewhat different image began to develop in my mind’s eye. I could still see the heavily mad-up Geisha puppet surrounded by her attendant black-robed puppeteers, but sitting across from her I saw a single black-robed puppeteer, with a samurai puppet lying discarded off to one side of the stage. Does this make any kind of sense? Sometimes I hurt my own head.
Early polls are showing that tickets to the 2016 Kabuki performance are already being turned in at a rate of close to 20%. That means that this early in the game about one (1) out of every five (5) voters has already committed to an alternate stage show. ( Green, Libertarian, or other) That sends a signal that real citizens are rebelling against the status quo.An alternate vote is a positive and important vote for change.Which ever status quo candidate wins this rigged election they will have to tread quietly while they try to rule or there will be instability..
The Russian engineer and boat dweller, Dmitry Orlov, has a brilliant suggestion for how to muck up the coming “election” production. Tell exit pollsters that you voted “by secret ballot” and — when all alone in the voting booth — pull out a penny and flip a coin to totally randomize the election results. The voters will still lose as they always do, but so will the Oligarchy who’ve spent a billion dollars trying to establish “predictable” voting demographics. See Furious Sheep, by Dmitry Orlov, Club Orlov (Tuesday, August 02, 2016)
Hillary told the truth for the first time you know.
She said,”And we are going to raise taxes on the middle class!”
Yes she is bad, Yes she loves WAR and the 1% (even though she swears she doesn’t). I’m not a fool – but Trump? Are you kidding me?
I keep hoping for some sort of up-rising or some sort of miracle (that I don’t believe in) to happen to give Americans another choice or two!
A terrific article.
Go Navy Beat Army!