Liberals aren't Leftists, and neither is the democratic party

 Yet another way to distract you from the US uniparty to give an illusion of choice. The people who scream socialism and communism would freak if either system were anywhere close to being implemented in the United States.

What if Bernie had run in 2016?

I think he would have won. After all, he represents a state which is a historically red state. However, despite what Fox News tells you, The Democratic party is in no way "left wing". They preferred to lose with Clinton than win with Sanders.

After all, he is  a threat to the big donors for the duopoly.

Trump isn't.

How to break the two-party hold on American politics

The problem with the "no Kings" movement is that they have no idea what they are talking about, which I affirm as someone who has lived in monarchies (UK, Canada, and Belgium). 

The real issue is the duopoly, which is realy only one party pretending to be different. The duopoly is the tool of the oligarchy, which is disgustingly obvious if one wants to admit it.

The US needs new players and parties that actually represent the people.

What if America had More Political Parties? - TLDR News

There are many advantages to ending the duopoly, but I am not sure I would go with the parties and the leaders proposed by this. While I talk about the Westminster system, coalition governments are much better than the gridlock which is endemic to the US system.

What If America Had More Than Two Parties?

One of the main reform which needs to happen before the US can truly see "democracy" (or a republic). I like to quote Julius Nyerere: "The United States is also a one-party state, but with typical American extravagance, they have two of them." On the other hand, there needs to be different parties to avoid the consolidation of power caused by the duopoly.

And the there really isn't a difference between a democracy and a republic:

Well, other than the founders had an unrealistic idea that the Roman republic was somehow stable and democracy was the equivalent of nihilism.

Why facial recognition alone may not be able to identify health care CEO suspe...

OK, this goes on the possibility of the image not being in the database, which isn't that much of a stumbling block.

It ignores that DNA phenotyping. That'e the technology where they can create images of what a person could look like. Combine that with facial recognition. You get the picture.

But the real point is that generating an image isn't the sum total of the evidence. It only provides possible suspects. Or why you shouldn't worry about this technology: unless you are the criminal.

He wasn't a pro since he did it in public. There is a witness standing between the shooter and the victim. And definitely not if its true the gun was something used by veterinarians.

Blacksplainin' Kamala's loss

 The Dems lost again and the blame game is starting, but are they asking the right questions?

More importantly, are the blaming the right people?

It's Guy Fawkes Day, Vote Like a Radical

 

Am I the only person out there that has noticed that this election is on Guy Fawkes Day?

Or is social media censoring that? What is the use of social media if people cannot share information?

Despite the connection of the gunpowder plot, Guy Fawkes has become a hero of anarchists and those who want to see social change (e.g., Anonymous uses the Guy Fawkes Mask).

James Sharpe, professor of history at the University of York, has described how Guy Fawkes came to be toasted as "the last man to enter Parliament with honest intentions". William Harrison Ainsworth's 1841 historical romance Guy Fawkes; or, The Gunpowder Treason portrays Fawkes in a generally sympathetic light and his novel transformed Fawkes in the public perception into an "acceptable fictional character". Fawkes subsequently appeared as "essentially an action hero" in children's books and penny dreadfuls such as The Boyhood Days of Guy Fawkes; or, The Conspirators of Old London, published around 1905. According to the historian Lewis Call, Fawkes is now "a major icon in modern political culture", whose face has become "a potentially powerful instrument for the articulation of postmodern anarchism" in the late 20th century. Fawkes is regarded by some as a martyr, political rebel or freedom-fighter, especially amongst a minority of Catholics in the United Kingdom.

I have made it clear that the US system of elections is in serious need of reform. 

And I am voting for Jill Stein in the hope that debate will finally come out in the open.

Why you should vote for Jill Stein (even if you disagree with her political views)

 Of course, you could be ecstatic that the us has a non-functional government, is wasting money, and generally there isn't any political debate worth calling a debate.

On the other hand, if you want to see a serious shake up of the system: Jill's your woman. Particularly where election reform is a matter. The Green Party is proposing changes to the electoral system which would lead to real voter choices.

There are changes in the US political system which are long overdue and they won't happen unless there is a seismic change in the political landscape.

Unhappy with the presidential duopoly candidates? There are alternatives. Here's why you should vote third party.

Lesser evil voting hurts the voters. It also doesn't help our political discussion.

This is worth a listen if you don't like US politics and want change.

Democrats don't discriminate on race, religion, sexual whatever, disability, or just ability for that matter.

Former Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock as Pinocchio with his wife, Glenys as Jiminy Cricket.

OK, I have a different attitude toward plagiarism than a lot of people. On the other hand, Biden chose to use material from Neil Kinnock. It wasn't that he was plagiarising as much as he was being totally insincere. Toss in he could have picked someone better to crib a speech from, as this image from the British satirical series Spitting Image points out.

But the democrats decided to run a three time loser who was beginning to show signs of dementia before the election even began. Then they decided to close ranks to prevent Sanders from getting the nomination.

And don't get me into John Fetterman, who should have withdrawn after his stroke, yet remains in office.

So much for the Dems being "wildly lefty" since what Sanders proposes is pretty much taken for granted outside the US. It's only in the US that people want to work themselves to death because they are heavily in debt. Go figure.

But I digress. 

Toss in that his running mate, Kamala Harris, pulled out of the running because she was a poor candidate. All the opposition has to do is to address her record and she's cooked.

But two really bad candidates managed to win an election based on "Trump bad".

I'm not so sure about Tim Walz, but I have the feeling that the Dems picked another "winning" line up.

Of course, I'm voting Green and hoping the system blows up.

ELECTION RIGGING: US HYPOCRISY IN ACTION.

 Yes, this is the long contemplated post about how hypocritical the US has been about pushing "free and fair elections on a secret ballot", which is a guaranteed right (e.g., The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of 1948). Something that "western democracies" have been preaching to the rest of the world. While the rest of the world realises how rigged the system happens to be. I still want to find the quote from the African leader, probably Julius Nyerere, who said something along the lines of "We have a one party system. Does having two parties make you twice as democratic as we are? Three parties?"

I was just thinking about the people who like to believe their vote somehow counts in the corrupt US System.

So, let's start with the elephant in the room:

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

I've mentioned this one ad nauseum, but the basic gist is that the popular vote is pretty much irrelevant in electing the president. Most people don't give a shit about this unless it's their candidate who got screwed over. So, I am hoping that Jill Stein can win the electoral vote since she's on enough states' ballots to pull it off. So, a third party upstart winning the Presidential election with around 24% of the vote in a handfull of states might shake things up.

So, if you don't like the system and the duopoly candidates, Jill Stein is your candidate. Her winning the election will stir things up more than Donald Trump beating Hilary Clinton in the electoral college.

Take the test here if you don't think the Electoral College is something that needs to go:

https://www.270towin.com/quiz/

If that doesn't get you to vote for Jill Stein, I don't know what will. After all, what would shake up the US Political landscape more than having a third party upstart win the election...

This isn't in any real order than what is coming to mind, so:

THE PRIMARY SYSTEM

Every wonder why this process drags on so long: especially with modern communications technology? That's because the system is rigged so that candidates that don't have a lot of funding can beat out other candidates. And even someone like Bernie Sanders can get shut out of the nomination because the Political Parties are not governmental institutions, but private entities who make their own rules.

That should be pretty obvious if you have been paying attention for the past 3 presidential elections.

Unless you really believe that Hilary Clinton, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris are the best candidates the US could come up with...

Which brings us to the other elephant in the room:

 BIG MONEY IN POLITICS

That kind of goes with the previous aspect to this, but it goes well beyond it as well. The two parties go for who the big donors want, not the people. The "Democratic" party is really obvious about this. The big donors pick and the party tries to whip up enthusiasm for Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. Any candidate who talks about the issues doesn't make it too far in the process. Even someone as tepid as Bernie Sanders, who had popular support, will be pushed out for someone the big donors don't find threatening.

As I like to point out, which you will learn if you take the 270towin quiz, Vermont is a historically red state. And Sanders (along with Leahy) have represented the state.

You get the point.

Sure ranked choice voting is one way to fight this, but I would vote Jill Stein and then write in my dogs if we had that option in this election.

Ok, I could go into way more detail, but I am very frustrated by people who think voting for the duopoly is going to change anything.

No, a vote for a third party is not a waste.

PBS has updated and is rereleasing this 1996 documentary about third parties and how they effect US politics. I strongly suggest watching it: especially if you want to see change.

Change does not come from the duopoly, change is forced on the duopoly from the outside.

From the transcript:

 When Americans demand a third choice, or even a fourth choice, it can change and renew the major parties, sometimes making winners into losers and vice versa.

More often than you might think, Americans have looked beyond the two major political parties and reached for a third choice. When they do, big things often happen in American politics and in American life.

Let's start at the beginning. First, why two parties? In fact, why parties at all?

In the beginning, the founders agreed they wanted no parties in their new country.

"There is nothing I dread so much as the division of the Republic into two great parties, each under its leader" - John Adams.

"Ignorance leads men into a party, and shame keeps them from getting out again" - Benjamin Franklin

"If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all" - Thomas Jefferson.

Vote for the duopoly candidates only if you are satisfied with the current situation.

 

AOC DISMANTLED As Just Another Dem | Breaking Points

My question for the people who want to say that the Democratic Party is in anyway "Socialist":

Why didn't they run Bernie Sanders in 2016 (and 2020)?

Seriously. They fact that they went with Hillary Clinton, and, even worse, ran JOE BIDEN should show that the Democratic party is in no way Socialist.

I liked AOC at first since she said she was a Berner, but she went with the Democratic Party. And now she is doing things like this. I'll let this person dissect her and the Democratic party, but the Democratic Party is not in any way a left leaning party.

.

A vote for the Green Party is...a vote for the Green Party (or any other third party for that matter)

 OK, I didn't vote for John Fetterman in the last Pennsylvania Election (FYI once one emmigrates from the US, one votes in the last place they were domiciled--it seems I am currently stuck with Philadelphia due to bureaucratic BS). I don't like him for a variety of reasons, but I also Demexited in 2016 and haven't looked back on the duopoly since. I'm not going to get into why I dislike the "Berners" who have remained within the Democratic Party other than to say that I dislike them.

I voted Green in 2022 even though Dr. Oz was not my type. Although, I was walking around singing "Arc en Ciel" the day of the election...

 

De toute façon...

My point, My vote for Jill Stein in 2016 didn't change the election result, the electoral college did that. And the Russians had nothing to do with that, unless you want to tell me that Catherine the Great promised the Continental Congress a "Donkey Show" a few centuries later on.

My Green Party votes haven't changed the results since the duopoly pretty much runs things for the time being in the US. And no matter what Fox news tries to tell people, there really isn't that much of a difference between the two parties.

Seriously, if the "Democrats" really were socialists, they would have run Sanders in 2016 (and 2020) and won.

Electoral college or not.

But the duopoly doesn't want that to happen. And anyone who remains within the duopoly is a traitor to the movement behind Bernie.

My vote didn't count in the 2016 Presidential Election.

In fair disclosure, I am an independent who voted with the Democrats since I vote in a jurisdiction where there is a closed primary. I supported Bernie Sanders in the primary. Then I voted for Jill Stein.

My vote for Jill Stein in no way influenced the outcome of the election. Clinton still would have lost even if all the people who voted for Jill Stein where I am registered to vote. An aside here: people who voted for Jill Stein weren't very likely to vote for either duopoly candidate.

Still even if my state had voted for Hillary Clinton, that wouldn't have made too much of a difference where the voting really counted: the Electoral College. It might have shifted a few votes, but it wouldn't have given Clinton the 270 votes needed to win.

The popular vote is irrelevant to the outcome of the election as I have pointed out. It has nothing to do with Russia and everything to do with the constitution.

I find it liberating to know that I am able to vote my conscience knowing that the popular vote is meaningless.

Voting for something, rather than against something

OK, one of the Main Stream Media narratives is that people who voted for third parties were doing it as a protest vote. But that couldn't be more inaccurate.

I was voting for things I believed in when I voted Green. Toss in a vote for Clinton would have been truly a waste of a vote since she won the popular vote, yet still lost the election. My one vote wouldn't have changed that, and I doubt the votes of others who also voted for third parties would have changed the election either. But I've gone on about how the Electoral College distorts the vote ad nauseum.

There were two issues which were conspicuously absent for me in the 2016 presidential election: the environment and the political process. The Green Party addressed both of those issues. Toss in that the Green Party was pretty much where my politics lay.

Number on in the Green Party's Ten key Values are "Grassroots Democracy", which is something that starts with political reform. The points listed there are pretty much something which needs to be brought into the public forum. Yet they are neglected in the media discussion of how the 2016 election went wrong.

The bottom line in the "Russian interference" narrative is that the Russians used the US political system against itself.  Election security depends on ridding the system of the flaws that enabled an election like that in 2016.

The reality is that I was disillusioned with the two party system and wanted an alternative. I was voting for that alternative in the hope that it would gain enough support to be noticed by the media and the political parties.

I wasn't voting for an evil. I was voting for a better future.

What do I say to liberals to get them to understand we did not vote for Trump, we voted against Hillary and everything she represents?

Wow! what a loaded question from Quora. I would love to answer it there, but it seems a bit pointless for a few reasons.

The first is that the first answer is pretty good for someone unfamiliar with the US political process. The second is that any answer would be buried in the abusive answers he received.

Anyway, I'm guessing this person has voter's remorse, which happens in a system where someone has to pick a "lesser evil" (or a Scylla and Charybdis election).

First off, I would point out that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote with one of the largest margins ever. Or conversely that Trump lost it with one of the largest margins ever. The US is unique in having something called the Electoral College, which means the popular vote is pretty much meaningless. Clinton would have had to win the popular vote in at least Florida and one of the following states: Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin (i.e., win the popular vote in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) to have won in the Electoral College.

The Electoral College is something that truly needs to be abolished.

But you can feel easy that your one vote isn't what cost Clinton the election. That's because unless your vote wouldn't have changed too much unless you  happened to live in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin. Even then, one vote seriously wouldn't have changed the outcome of the election. But that is an oversimplification based on possibilities of Clinton winning any of those States.

Also, how did the election turn out in your state in regard to the Electoral College votes? You are in the clear if you lived in one of the States where Clinton won the Electoral College votes ("Blue State") since your vote didn't count: Clinton won those anyway.

Likewise, your vote didn't really mean much if you were in a "Red State". It wouldn't matter who you voted for in that case: Clinton lost.


Still, your problem is an example of why it is wrong to vote against a candidate instead of for someone you believe in. But basing an election on lesser evils means you have to vote for evil.

Sure, you could do what I did and vote for a third party because that party held values you share (or was most representative of your beliefs). The Greens were pretty much what Bernie was promoting: and I had no idea what Clinton was actually for (other than herself).

Did you consider voting for Gary Johnson if you believe in libertarian values?

One nice thing about voting for third parties is that can automatically get on the ballot and in the debates if they get enough percentage of the vote.

Anyway, you should make it clear that the popular vote is meaningless for President in the United States. Also, you should point out that you voted for the candidate you considered the lesser evil. That means an evil candidate still wins.

I voted Green because I don't vote for evil: lesser or otherwise. I also voted for a candidate and party which represents the values I believe in.

So, maybe you might want to look into a third party candidate next time.

Fire and Fury or Smoke and Mirrors

Part of the reason I don't pay too much attention to the US media is that there aren't too many viewpoints truly represented.  That's because the media in in the hands of the few. Even "public media" tends to  be under the control of the corporations (i.e., Underwriting or commercials by any other name).

Whatever "Russian" interference in the US political system is negligible compared to the internal problems of the system. Most of the things they were saying about Hillary weren't anything that wasn't already out there.

We can start with the Class Action lawsuit against the Democratic Party for its failing to follow its own by laws, which is sort of another post. On the other hand, it gets us to one of the failings of the primary system: they are pretty much for show.

The report,Autopsy: the Democratic Party in Crisis, gets into the failings of the machine system. You can read that for how the Democratic party basically screwed itself.  I have problems with saying that Clinton lost the election since she won the popular vote, but that doesn't determine the real outcome of the election. The real result comes from the electoral college, which really doesn't do what it is supposed to do.

That is something I've gone into depth on, but read this post for the "executive summary" of why the Electoral College needs to go.

But the blame doesn't just go to the Democratic Party since the duopoly really screwed the American public in 2016.  There is another report that show the duopoly is failing the public, "Why Competition in the Politics Industry is Failing America" by Katherine M. Gehl and Michael E. Porter. I don't totally agree with their premise since real competition in the form of viable "third parties" might help get rid of the stagnation in the US political system.

The problem is that the US political system is rigged for the two parties and it's hard for alternative parties to run on the state and federal level. The truly conservative need to step up to the plate and follow their talk about competition since consolidation IS NOT competition: it is monopoly. And monopolies are as anti-competitive as you can get.

What's missing from the Russia Collusion Investigation

Why is no one in the media and this "investigation" talking  to the people who voted for the third parties?

Seriously. It seems that we are being ignored for the duopoly supporters who somehow see the election as being fixed.  Not in the way it was fixed where Hillary Clinton was pretty much the nominee before the voting began with the primary being shown up for the sham process it is, but that is a whole different post.

The e-mails we were told all along weren't an issue have somehow become an issue. That seems to be one of the main points in all this.

Then there is the social media aspect to all this, but most of the social media chatter I was party to pretty much featured people disgusted by Hillary Clinton without having to have anyone else add to the mess. The clip below wasn't set up by Russians, but was Hillary uncensored:


Was Russia behind that?

Hillary Clinton "lost" to Donald Trump in the Electoral College, not in the popular vote, which is a fact that no one seems to be discussing.  On the other hand, that should be front and centre in all this since the Electoral College is supposed to prevent foreign interference in the selection of the chief executive.

The bottom line is that Hillary's campaign which was run on hubris lost to a campaign which has been compared to a clown car.  The problem is that the media isn't looking at the home grown system which led to this disaster but is fixated on "Russian Interference" which would be minimal if it existed at all.

The truth is out there,  but don't expect to see it being discussed in the Main Stream Media.

See also
Was Donald Trump’s campaign too chaotic to pull off a conspiracy?
Autopsy: The Democratic Party in Crisis