The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Some Comments on the US Elections and that Which Is and Isn’t Said

Donald TrumpSo, Trump said some very nasty things about women, which were caught on tape and released to the public.

There’s no question that Trump is a vile misogynist, and he has multiple outstanding sexual assault allegations against him.

It is also true, as Trump says, that Bill Clinton is a piece of work when it comes to women (no, spare me) and that Hillary has attacked those who accused him.

But what is more interesting to me is that a norm has been violated. Male politicians regularly molest women.

Please, don’t act surprised, everyone in the business knows this and so does anyyone outside it who wants to know. (Younger men get molested a lot too, the position of “page” is a dangerous job.)

But, as Marcy Wheeler has pointed out, this doesn’t usually get brought up. In the ’90s, Clinton got hit with it, and then it was mostly swept under the rug.

Now, someone has opened it up again.

This is what Trump has been, in his blustering way, warning about: Those who attack him on this issue will be attacked in turn. Especially Republicans, as he and his team view them as traitors–always worse than the “officially” avowed enemy.

Usually I despise having a “conversation,” but this is a conversation I welcome. Let’s get into it. Let’s talk about all those who are groping, molesting, assaulting, and out-and-out raping.

I do think it is worth pointing out that the Iraq war caused more rapes and assaults than anything Trump has ever done. Libya too. Oh, and “super-predator” legislation increasing the prison population would have caused a lot of rapes also.

It is worth looking at what people actually do. When someone is potentially in a position of power, it’s worth it to ask how many people they have, through their actions, hurt. This is a rounding error predicting the harm they might do. I know this is an intensely alienated way for most people to think, but being unable to think in those terms causes great suffering.

That said, one can certainly make the argument that Trump will be a worse President than Clinton (on some scale of awfulness). Remember, it isn’t necessary to pretend that Hillary is a good person for whom to vote, with the worst enemy being Iran, and the first priority being to overthrow Assad. One needs only to say either she’s the lesser evil or that fuck it, they’re both bad, and you’ll be voting in your own interest.

Finally, I note that, contrary to what you may have read, the Wikileaks releases from the DNC and Podesta are entirely accurate. In a normal election, they would be dominating the news-cycle. Clinton is a corporate shill and a warmonger who has caused immense suffering in her life.

These are not good people. Do not identify with either, nor with their courtiers. Those close to them have sold their souls for power, or its illusion. You would be selling something precious and receiving nothing close to that in return.


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98 Comments

  1. pkw

    Interesting but there’s a couple of pieces missing.

    First, you’re holding Clinton to account for her crap decisions taken while in power. You don’t mention any good decisions she made. It’s very utilitarian to add up good and bad, but if you’re going to list the bad you might want to think about the good.

    Second, Trump wasn’t in power during that period.

    You fail to even mention Trump’s policies and statements, for example that Mexicans are rapists, banning Muslims from entering the US, or his recent comments on the Central Park 5 (echoing his call for the death penalty in 1989).

    You fail to think about whether they had any impact while he only had soft power.

    You don’t mention the impact they might have if he was in power.

    Personally I don’t like voting for the lesser of two evils (I live in Britain, that logic would have led me to vote for Blair – something I never did), but sometimes the bigger evil is that bad that actively voting against them is worthwhile.

    Looking at Trump I think, to paraphrase Buffy, he’s the season’s big bad…

  2. Ian Welsh

    Had a long comment.

    No. If you are not willing to admit that Hillary is a lesser evil, that on utilitarian grounds the policies she has championed, are a net negative, then you are not living in reality. I am not going to waste hours proving what is blitheringly obvious to any fool.

    I considered her domestically superior to Obama in 08 and said so. I even suggested people vote for her. I have no particular personal animus to the woman. Unfortunately I was wrong in 08 about how unhinged she was in relation to foreign affairs. She has since proved she’s a foreign policy “uber hawk” (aka: monster).

  3. Tom

    A pox on both their houses.

    But Trump won’t start a nuclear war with Putin…

    Sigh, Bernie was a pushover who let Hillary steal the nomination and rape his followers. What we needed was someone who would fight and take it to Hillary and fight her vote suppression, and force her to obey the law. We didn’t get that from Bernie.

    Till enough people get fed up enough to take up arms, there will be no change.

  4. Ché Pasa

    This foolishness that “Trump won’t start a nuclear war” has no basis. Yet it is the constant refrain of his online partisans. If you’re taking his word for something — anything — you’re a fool or worse.

    The idea that Hillary will start a nuclear war is equally foolish.

    Both candidates have stables of neocon warmonger advisors. Neither candidate is less belligerent than the other. Both are fully on board with American hegemony. They may (or may not) differ regarding who is the Enemy to Be Vanquished, but they both play the Enemy Game. But quite simply, a nuclear war is not startable or necessarily preventable by a president alone. No matter who’s in the White House, they are not — yet — an autocrat.

    Trump is quite openly a gangster and a conman. That’s his business model, and one would be wise to consider that when imagining him in office. He does not have the interests of the Little People in mind.

    Nor does Hillary — as has long been evident from her cozy relationship with corporate interests.

    As a warmonger, she’s certainly right up there with Maddy Albright.

    So between these two, there is no choice for the People. Both major political parties and their candidates have simply abandoned the People on behalf of narrow factional interests already in control of the government.

  5. zotter

    Ian,

    One aspect that is worth considering is what happens with the respective bases if each becomes President. Meaning, Trump is the far right’s darling, racist boy – if he wins they’ll throw their full weight behind his worst impulses. Forced deportations, unleashing the already militarized police force on the most vulnerable segments of the USA, extending the tax holidays for the rich, etc. They won’t have any time or patience for rehashing these “scandals” from the election. It’ll be full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes.

    On the left, it is a different tale. Clinton barely survived her primary battles with the far left. No matter what her supporters claim, she limped to the finish line in June – Sanders really gave her a run for her (prodigious) money. Since then though and despite extracting concessions to the Dem platform, she’s been running to the right (as much as possible) and enrobing herself in special interest money. This has not sat well for Progressives. They might be holding their tongue to get through the election (and Progressives HATE Trump), but she is not getting a free pass. If she wins, IMHO she will be facing a very active and pissed off base by the time she has her inaguration.

    The point being her scandal sheets are not going unread, just action is being delayed. Trump is so insipid and frankly embarrassing that letting him in the Oval Office is so much worse to Progressives than facing 4 years of Obama III. Hillary is not getting a blank check no matter what she thinks, Progressives have not forgotten the primary and DNC tricks. Many of us just can’t stand to allow the human orange rind to take the Presidency due to our anger.

  6. CBS News spoke on Donald Trump for more than ten minutes last night. His policies and proposed methods of governance were never mentioned. It was 100% about what he said one night while drunk on a party bus. One woman was shown being all dignified and indignant demanding the release of more tapes and saying, ““I want to hear what else he said.” We are chimpanzees; whoever flings the most feces wins.

  7. Michael

    Ian Welsh:

    Ludicrous. Whatever you think of H. Clinton and her foreign policy failings (and I’m not going to even argue against that perception since I largely share it), heres the deal my man:

    Trump will most certainly be much much worse, not just on foreign but also domestic policies.

    Clinton suffers in this comparison in your mind, I am guessing, because she has an established record in public service that is likely to accurately predict what kind of leader she will try to be (note the word “try). OTOH, Trump does not have such a record to draw from so apples-to-apples comparisons are meaningless.

    So then on what basis do we judge him? Well, if you cannot overlook the danger that he poses to, well, everything he touches (his record in the private sector is abysmal, and it could very well be that his is responsible for bringing harm or death to people on a smaller scale), after his remarkable heinous comments about Clinton at the debate, toward women and minorities his whole life, and especially after his recent post-debate remarks essentially trying to stir up a coup with the expected complicity of Putin, then I would mirror your argument that it is certainly not worth the time to attempt to prove it to what should be obvious to any rational pragmatic person.

  8. Synoia

    I take a more sanguine view.

    Clearly, because of the wonders of the election system, The Hillary and The Donald are the two most qualified and best persons for the position of President.

    Which speaks volumes about the qualities of the remainder of the 330 Million Americans.

    What both will do is to protect the income and privileges of the 1%, lead by their personal fortunes, and behind every great fortune is a great crime. Everything else is is just a hobby.

    The Job of President is over the day they are elected. The job is done. The remainder of the time, with the one more piece of work remaining being reelection, is an idyllic vacation, surrounded by courtiers and flunkies all of whom slave and genuflect daily to keep you happy, being kept in the lap of luxury unknown to anyone else other than a monarch.

    You are kept in a wonderful palace, just a few hundred yards from some of the worst slums in the US, slums you will never visit.

    With people visiting you every day begging for favors. Some with fat checkbooks which makes granting those favors immensely possible after a donation, or a promise of a donation, to you post-presidential foundation.

    The Clinton have elevated to favors to an art form – they have eliminated the uncertainty of promises of future pledge fulfillment for cold had cash in the present.

    The Clinton are clearly to best equipped to lead this honest, straightforward, caring and peace loving country for the next 16 to 24 years (when including Chelsea Clinton).

    I, of course, shall vote for the lesser evil. However my vote is irrelevant, as I live in CA, a democratic fiefdom, already pledged to The Hillary.

  9. S Brennan

    a] I agree with Ian’s point; “Unfortunately I was wrong in 08 about how unhinged she was in relation to foreign affairs. She has since proved she’s a foreign policy “uber hawk” (aka: monster).” – me too.

    b] And I agree with Tom permalink; “But Trump won’t start a nuclear war with Putin…”

    And given that Bernie in the end was the “shlepp-dog” Bruce Dixon so accurately predicted, My support of Jim [who’s he] Webb looks [again] correct.

    But for reason’s a&b I will vote for Trump.

    Trump will have no effect on domestic policy, no loyalty to the Republican hierarchy and will have some control over foreign policy [that which the deep state will allow].

    The dumb thing I am doing by voting for Trump is, as I have pointed out before, the deep state has every incentive to do a dallas on Trump because, Pence is a neocolonialist [aka neocon] of the 1st order. Trump should have picked Gen [ret] Mike Flynn if he wanted some life insurance.

    I’ll add, never have I seen the CorporateMedia so blatantly hamfistedly pushing a candidate, it’s the real obscenity of this race and will have a longer effect on the Republic [in name only] than either Trump or Hillary…that is, if we survive Hillary’s coming world war.

  10. okanogen

    Anyone who listens to Trump’s word salad and fails to realize he is every bit as much a warhawk as Clinton, is a fool who isn’t paying attention. He merely wants to bomb a different subset of brown people. He wants to bomb “ISIS” as much as he understands what that is. He wants to bomb Iran (both their ships as well as busting the Iran nuclear deal). He thinks we have a nuclear gap with Russia, China and North Korea. The list goes on.

    Just because I keep saying it, doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Look at who muslim americans are voting for, look who black americans are voting for, or hispanic americans, or asian americans. Are they fools? Maybe just “low information”? They may not be thrilled by Clinton (few are, and I am among the not thrilled), but they know that electing Trump would be validation of all of the racist, totalitarian, xenophobia that he spews. It would be a mandate for white supremacy. Why don’t white “liberals” not trust those other groups’ judgment?

    The extra special bonus from not electing Trump is the implosion of the Republican party, that Trump looks to want to split between his 20% of horrible, racist, throwbacks, and the hodge-podge of actually moral religious conservatives, the few remaining patrician country-clubers, and Koch-style libertarian free-marketers. What could possibly be the downside of destroying that coalition, which has so effectively pulled the entire country right for the last 50 years?

  11. Peter*

    @pkw

    I thought Trump was way off base with his comments about the CP5 but a little reading the history of that story shows he is nearer the truth than those who try to portray these young guys as innocents. The technical mistake that was made by the prosecution was trying and getting convictions for the penetration part of the attack which wasn’t proven even though it is likely at least some of them did perform that act. The rest of their crimes committed that night were proven and include attempted murder, beatings, riot and other lesser crimes and they were convicted by a multi-racial jury. Trump is right to be upset these criminals have gotten a multi million dollar payoff and it is a shame that the victim of their crimes can’t sue them and take that money.

    I see your media has a problem reporting what Trump actually said about illegal immigrants or about proper screening of Muslims coming to the US. If you read what he actually said and not what Clintonites tell you he said his position might seem more reasonable. I don’t like the idea of walls or borders but no one else is offering any viable ideas on how to stop the immigrant deaths on our southern border which average two a day.

  12. Of She is a monster, that is why she is running against Trump – rather than in favor of Clinton. I mean, if she can not enunciate why she is good for the job, who else can do that. this is a politician, not a philosopher.

    on another note, here is the next section of the non-fiction novel:

    https://symbalitics.blogspot.com/2016/10/godel-9-more-than-analogy.html

  13. Notorious P.A.T.

    Hillary would definitely be worse. Dropping bombs on Muslims is worse than denying them entry into America. Building a wall to keep Mexican people in their own country would be worse than building a wall to keep Palestinians in an apartheid situation.

  14. Notorious P.A.T.

    Argh, botched my comment. Building a wall to keep Mexican people in their own country isn’t as bad as building a wall to keep Palestinians in an apartheid situation.

  15. BlizzardOfOz

    Trump is a vile misogynist

    You misspelled “womanizer”. Shouldn’t words mean something?

  16. Anything Hillary would do, Trump would do as well. This is long since passed the point of making a reasonable decision, if you want to do that you have to start thinking about 2024 – NOW. Making a decision this close to the election, is nonsense. This is largely because they have cleaned out the hopeful governors, which is a lesson that they learned from FDR.

    Part of the reason that things are so miserable, is that the group of supposedly smart people – that you hear – do not think of things in the long view. that means that by this point, the chances of someone reasonable coming out of the system are exactly nil. and in fact even the chances of a third party are unreasonable. The other side thinks of things in 70 year plus cycles, and it is long since past time for you to do so as well.

  17. Ron Showalter

    Jesus H. Christ.

    The freaking problem isn’t which asinine, idiotic side of the “conversation” you come down on – i.e., whether you support a war criminal or talking/raping piece of human refuse – it’s that you’re having a freaking “conversation” in the first freaking place!!!

    What is so very very hard about this idea to get through to people? At least could you all try and be the least bit aware of the propaganda being smeared into your face and the effect it has on your minds? Please. Do try.

    One of the oldest tactics TPTB have used to subjugate it’s peon population is the false “debate” about issues so that situations/issues/viewpoints that would normally be contrary to the thoughts/well-being of the populace are promulgated/normalized – e.g., GWOT, federal debt, etc etc etc.

    Over the recent past, some on the fake-left have even been perspicacious enough to notice the tactic and point it out to others but for some “unknown reason” – umm, I’ll take “Propaganda and its Cognitive Effects on a Willfully Blind and Arrogant Populace” for $100, Alex – self-same fake-left Einsteins can’t seem to wrap their heads around the false “debate” – i.e., the US electoral Spectacle -that they are blinded by ONCE AGAIN what with their “discussions/conversations” about horrible candidates/people that – wait, here’s the kicker – DO NOTHING but further legitimize the Spectacle and therefore close-off/destroy any attempts at beginning to create some alternate avenue of action.

    Aside: are the fake-left blogs helping or harming humanity by providing an arena for said “conversations” especially as said “conversations” can easily be generated and sculpted by TPTB? Discuss.

    Really, it’s not just about how to strategically vote or not voting . It’s about NOT EVEN talking about this stupid mind-trash that is being rammed down your gd throats. It’s about not being forced to have stupid, Spectacle-legitimizing conversations about human garbage. Voting is so far down the line of where we need to start going that we shouldn’t even pay heed.

    “But, but, that’s just the reality we live in!”, screams the fake-left, “We just have to talk about the human garbage in front of us!”

    Pathetic.

    Hey, why not, at least begin to try and change that reality by at not acting like a bunch of gd lick-spittles for our masters all the time by having the “conversations” they set out for us to have in the first place?

  18. Duder

    I am surprised no one in the left alternative media has brought up the fact that Hillary jokes about murdering other human beings. A strange moment in US political discourse when murder is considered more morally acceptable than sexual assault. Gaddafi was sodomized by bayonet. I call that sexual assault! But I digress.

  19. Lisa

    “It is also true, as Trump says, that Bill Clinton is a piece of work when it comes to women (no, spare me) and that Hillary has attacked those who accused him.

    But what is more interesting to me is that a norm has been violated. Male politicians regularly molest women.”

    All true but what has happened is that there has been a social sea change going on, what has been accepted for just about ever, is becoming unacceptable.

    This is a natural development with the ever increasing confidence in women to make their own decisions and break the social conditioning they have been brought up with. They feel confident enough now to go for careers even in traditionally male dominated areas. Part of that confidence is not accepting appalling behaviour by some (many?) men any longer.

    We see that in the US statistics where more heterosexual women are single than partnered. They just won’t accept someone who is appalling just to have a male partner these days, they’d rather be on their own and be happier

    Men in their usual way haven’t picked this up, that the rules are changing rapidly, what was acceptable or more accurately ‘tolerated’ even a few years ago no longer is. Not universal across all sub sections of women, ‘traditional’, religious women who are conditioned to accept such male behaviour (and even bringing up their male ones to act that way) and them sacrificing their lives, still cling to that, but given the outcry from evangelical women even that is starting to break.

    This is no overnight development, this has been brewing for decades now and is starting to come to a head. Sure the heated atmosphere of an election campaign makes it seem to many men that it is an aberration, it is not, it is just a sign of the times.

    I’ve been reading comments by women, vast numbers telling of their repeated sexual abuse even from early childhood. Something they all covered up and hid, even blamed themselves over. But they are not hiding it any longer and want it to stop.

    The statistics are appalling, 16% of male children sexually abused and a whopping 25% of girls. For many women the abuse carries on in adulthood. And the vast majority (90%+) is by men, though there are some women who do that too of course, albeit mostly to children.

    So men are going to have to change, a lot. The pathetic homosocial male model with its ‘faux’ masculinity and hatred of women…and the terrible emotional damage it does to men themselves …is coming to an end.

  20. Al

    All the bastions of establishment power are aligned with HRC. Media (except Fox News), Fortune 500, Wall Street, foreign leaders (except Putin), and many GOP senators and representatives openly disavow Trump. I cannot recall anything similar in a presidential election. These groups are not acting out of patriotism, or to help the poor, the disadvantaged, minorities, or the working class. When 100% of the power elites are going in the same direction, then run — don’t walk — in the opposite direction.

  21. BDBlue

    a] I agree with Ian’s point; “Unfortunately I was wrong in 08 about how unhinged she was in relation to foreign affairs. She has since proved she’s a foreign policy “uber hawk” (aka: monster).” – me too.

    Me, three.

  22. BDBlue

    Meant to add that my agreement with this is not an endorsement of Trump or an indication that I will vote for him. I’m much closer to Sterling’s view.

  23. Bill Hicks

    At this point, I’ll bet Bill Clinton is just happy that none of his “locker room talk” has ever been recorded. He’s at least as big a sexual predator as Trump.

    Also, if you deplore the horrific violence America inflicts upon the rest of the world, you should prefer that Trump be the winner (which is not the same thing as voting for him) because his incompetence might well drive the American war machine into a ditch.

  24. Hugh

    This election is like something out of Gulliver’s Travels. We have all this history and pageantry surrounding an election, and it is all being expended to get us choose between two shit sandwiches. I suppose if you look at two shit sandwiches long enough, you will begin to hallucinate differences between them. It’s human nature. We love to fill in the blanks, even if there is no objective way for us to fill them in. In this election, we have two supremely entitled narcissists who do not give a damn about anyone but themselves. Trump wouldn’t know the truth if it ran him down in a Mack truck. Clinton does only when she is on the defensive in that her lies are more carefully crafted. Both are end products of a kleptocratic system and a thoroughly corrupt Establishment. The only truth that can be wrung from this wretched process is that we are screwed no matter which ends up in the Oval Office. And we will continue to be until we stop playing their game and accepting the choices they give us.

  25. V. Arnold

    This whole election bruhaha has an uncanny resemblance to the pre-invasion lies of 2002-03.
    All of the facts were there for any to see.
    Usians will get the president they deserve; this is a certainty.
    May the gods help you, because nothing else will…

  26. First, some background. As she did in one of the latest, or very last debate with Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton has proclaimed her support for a(n illegal) no-fly zone in Syria, in her last debate against Trump. And this is AFTER recent testimony by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joseph Dunfor, on or around Oct 1, saying that this would require war with Russia and Syria

    From \”Top US General: Hillary’s No Fly Zone Strategy Would ‘Require’ War With Russia\”

    @https://sputniknews.com/russia/201610011045910777-dunford-hillary-war-syria-russia/

    \”What about the option of controlling the airspace so that barrel bombs cannot be dropped? What do you think of that option?\” asked Wicker.

    \”Right now, Senator, for us to control all of the airspace in Syria would require us to go to war against Syria and Russia. That is a pretty fundamental decision that certainly I’m not going to make,\” said the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff suggesting the policy was too hawkish even for military leaders.

    When it comes to potential for sparking World War 3 (or more likely, tactical nuclear exchanges, followed up by trading a city or two with Russia via nuclear incineration), it just boggles my mind that anybody would consider Trump a lesser or even equal evil. In other areas, sure, but this EXISTENTIAL one????

    Fortunately, I\’m not alone in making what I consider to be rather obvious conclusions.

    from: \”Trump vs Clinton: War With Russia Is Top Issue in US Presidential Race\” by Eric Zuesse

    @ http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/whether-go-war-against-russia-top-issue-us-presidential-race/ri16978

    \”Both candidates (Trump and Clinton) are war-hawks, but Hillary wants to go to war against both jihadists and Russia, whereas Trump wants to go to waronly against jihadists. Trump’s charge that Hillary would be a catastrophic President is borne out not only by her past record in public office, but by her present positions on these issues. …..
    Regardless of whom America’s next President will be (either Clinton or Trump), it’s not going to be a good President, and anyone who thinks that these are the two best-qualified people to be contesting for the U.S. Presidency is either ignorant or else grossly misinformed — or else in sheer reality-denial. But all of those other issues are dwarfed by the top issue of this election: shall we have World War III? And that one issue is by far more important than all of the other ‘issues’ in this campaign, because it’s nothing less than an existential issue, regarding all of the world, and all of the future, which threatens the entire world within just the next few years, or even months, or maybe just weeks.
    Americans are being offered, by this nation’s aristocracy, a choice between a marginally competent and deeply evil psychopath Hillary Clinton, versus an incompetent but far less evil psychopath Donald Trump, and the nation’s press are reporting instead a choice between two candidates of whom one (the actually evil Clinton) is presented as being far preferable to the other (the actually incompetent Trump), and possibly as being someone who might improve this nation if not the world. Virtually none of America’s Establishment is willing to report the truth: that the nation’s rotting will get worse under either person as President, but that only under Trump might this nation (and the world) stand a reasonable likelihood of surviving at all (i.e., nuclear war with Russia being averted).\”

    from: \”Jill Stein: Trump Is Less Dangerous Than Clinton; She Will Start Nuclear War With Russia\”

    @ http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/10/12/jill_stein_hillary_clintons_declared_syria_policy_could_start_a_nuclear_war.html

    \”On the issue of war and nuclear weapons, it is actually Hillary\’s policies which are much scarier than Donald Trump who does not want to go to war with Russia.

    He wants to seek modes of working together, which is the route that we need to follow not to go into confrontation and nuclear war with Russia.\”

    from \”Hillary Clinton\’s Axis of Evil\” by Pepe Escobar

    @ http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/hillary-clintons-axis-evil/ri16959

    \”Let’s cut to the chase; Hillary Clinton is ready to go to war against Russia in Syria – with inbuilt, potentially terrifying, thermonuclear consequences.\”

    from \”A Path That Could Lead to the Unthinkable: Nuclear War With Russia\”

    @ http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/do_we_really_want_nuclear_war_with_russia_20161006

    \”A vote today for Hillary Clinton is a vote for endless, stupid war\” – by Julian Assange

    @ http://usapoliticsnow.com/vote-today-hillary-clinton-vote-endless-stupid-war-julian-assange/

    (Assange doesn\’t actually say anything about Trump, in comparison with Hillary. Nor does he say anything about nuclear war with Russia. Give Hillary\’s recent numbskull reiteration of support for a no fly zone, though, his words have a rather predictable, specific outcome scenario with respect to Russia)

    \”Hillary didn’t just vote for Iraq. She made her own Iraq. Libya is Hillary’s Iraq and if she becomes president she will make more.

    I have had years of experience in dealing with Hillary Clinton and have read thousands of her cables. Hillary lacks judgement and will push the United States into endless, stupid wars which spread terrorism. Her personality combined with her poor policy decisions have directly contributed to the rise of ISIS.

    Pentagon generals objected to destroying the Libyan state. They felt Hillary did not have a safe post-war plan. Hillary Clinton went over their heads. Libya has been destroyed. It became a haven for ISIS. The Libyan national armory was looted and hundreds of tons of weapons were transferred to jihadists in Syria. Hillary’s war has increased terrorism, killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians and has set back women’s rights in the Middle East by hundreds of years. Having learned nothing from the Libyan disaster Hillary then set about trying do the same in Syria.

    Hillary publicly took credit for the destruction of the Libyan state. On hearing that the country’s president had been killed by her handiwork, she became wild-eyed and gloated “We came, we saw, he died!”. In the momentary thrill of the kill, she had aped, of all people, Julius Ceaser.

    Hillary’s problem is not just that she’s war hawk. She’s a war hawk with bad judgement who gets an unseemly emotional rush out of killing people. She shouldn’t be let near a gun shop, let alone an army. And she certainly should not become president of the United States.\”

  27. Some Guy

    Ian, you got this one exactly right, I have nothing to add to your post.

  28. “it just boggles my mind that anybody would consider Trump a lesser or even equal evil. In other areas, sure, but this EXISTENTIAL one????”

    should have been:

    it just boggles my mind that anybody would consider Trump a greater or even equal evil. In other areas, sure, but this EXISTENTIAL one????

  29. V. Arnold

    metamars
    October 13, 2016

    Welcome to the Matrix; U.S. version. Or maybe Orwell’s world where;
    “War is peace.
    Freedom is slavery.
    Ignorance is strength.”
    Noble effort your’s; but I fear to no avail…
    The ignorant Usian’s will elect Clinton; because they are ignorant automatons, ruled by fear and uncertainty.

  30. @ V. Arnold

    Honestly, negative emotions I’ve seen expressed against Trump seem to usually be anger and contempt, and less so, disgust. I personally don’t know anybody who fears Trump. Of course, I’d expect illegal aliens would have more cause to fear for their future in the US, should Trump prevail.

    The main stream media (other than Fox news) is solidly in Clinton’s camp, including a few “surrogates” (wikileaks). Either people seek out information that is suppressed via main stream media, or truth tellers find other means to get the information to them, anyway. One of my recurring topics is the ongoing failure of activists, who oppose the plutocracy, to fight them effectively. (google “metamars” and “the plutocrats are laughing at you” for some of this.) Some of the same things that activists don’t do nearly enough of (chiefly, IMNSHO, pampleting) I also don’t see the Trump campaign doing – not in my part of NJ, anyway. (The other big sin of activists is not forming voting blocs, even lower-barrier-to-entry punitive ones.)

    I also, just this morning, sketched out how Trump should fight the formidible Hollywood cultural bias against him. ( http://tinyurl.com/grtxqg9) Of course, his campaign is not doing that, either (disregarding whining about it, which is hardly helpful).

    At the end of the day, Trump is his own worst enemy in using his hundreds of millions of dollars of free exposure, via the main stream media, to educate the public either about Hillary’s defective positions, or even his to educate about his own positions. He strikes me as basically lazy, in the sense of undisciplined. People are willing to make allowances, knowing he’s not a seasoned politician, but he’s been at this for a couple of years. Apparently, he really thought he could talk and bluster his way into the Presidency. Dumb, really dumb. IMO, a father figure, or maybe a sports psychologist, who would literally slap him in the face (or at least get in his face and yell) and tell him to apply himself, might be just what he needs to get his butt in gear and his head in the game. He’s improved his communication skills, but still needs to go further.

    ======

    From a more general, systemic POV, this book develops the thesis that Americans have been dumbed down, deliberately: http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/MomsPDFs/DDDoA.sml.pdf

  31. S Brennan

    To the; “who in their right mind would consider Trump” commenters…

    …the reasoning comes from none other than Jill Stein, indeed, it matches what I said above.

    Jill Stein: “Trump Is Less Dangerous Than Clinton; She Will Start Nuclear War With Russia”

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/10/12/jill_stein_hillary_clintons_declared_syria_policy_could_start_a_nuclear_war.html

    “On the issue of war and nuclear weapons, it is actually Hillary’s policies which are much scarier than Donald Trump who does not want to go to war with Russia. He wants to seek modes of working together, which is the route that we need to follow not to go into confrontation and nuclear war with Russia.”

  32. The frightening conclusion at the end of all this: America’s political system is so broken, so corrupt, so much a smokescreen for how power is actually exercised… that it will only allow persons like Trump and Clinton to become the candidates between which the Peasantry is supposed to choose.

    Whichever one is chosen (read: When Hillary goes to Her Coronation), they will be an emptysuit figurehead whose job is to ensure that the endless buffet at the Swine Trough for America’s Owner Class will continue.

  33. ilporcupine

    Mongo:

    This sums it up for me. Voting is a futile act when there are no real choices.
    Trying to make Trump into a savior, because HRC is so damn awful, doesn’t change it.
    The choice is the war hawk vs. the moron.

  34. Ken Hoop

    The premise that Trump is less likely to start a nuclear war than Clinton hinges on whether he’s in control of his advisers like Putin of his oligarchs rather than the other way around.
    And of his comparative Russophilia.

  35. BlizzardOfOz

    Trump may not be a savior, but he tells the truth in a way no President has in generations. That’s not nothing.

    This is not simply another four-year election. This is a crossroads in the history of our civilization, that will determine whether or not We the People have control over our government.

    A global power structure is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth, and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.

    The political establishment that is trying to stop us is the same group of people responsible for our disastrous trade deals, massive illegal immigration, and economic and foreign policy that have bled our country dry.

    Lots of lefties and tru-cons want to reject Trump because he’s just Not Our Class, Dear, and so they cast about for rationalizations. Trump is lots of things, but he’s not a “moron” or a “misogynist”, or whatever other epithets the snarky Jewish lesbian you get your news from tells you. If you’re repeating these stock phrases, it’s a sign you’ve been taken in by regime propaganda. Reject Trump if you like, but can you do it with clear eyes?

  36. Jill

    What is happening now is that the deep state is being somewhat exposed. In the wikileaks material (and among other releases) we see arms deals, uranium deals, deals with bankers, deals with the DOJ/ FBI, all kinds of foreign influence on American elections from dictatorships around the globe, nearly complete collusion of the “press” with the Clinton campaign and the amazing disdain for the lives of people who aren’t in the oligarchy.

    Because the collusion between the oligarchy and the press is nearly complete, citizens are not allowed awareness of what is being exposed. While Trump is an MCP and I think this is also a worthy story, it is bizarre to see how this story hides deeper information about how our nation really works. The deeper information is what the Clinton e-mails show.

    I see no reason to vote for either candidate. There are many people who plan to vote third party, we just aren’t allowed to know that. For example, after the first “debate”, CNN queried their focus group. 5 said they would vote Clinton, 2 said they’d vote Trump and 12 said they would vote third party (almost twice the number of Trump and Clinton voters combined). This was not the expected or acceptable response so CNN changed it, nearly in real time, to 12 “undecided” voters.

    By no means would I vote for either person. In the meantime, the more important thing we can do is become as informed as possible and be as altruistic towards others as we can. Obama is about to go to war against Russia. That’s truly insane. He will do this through further attacks on Syria, which as Clinton coldly pointed out, would cause a lot of Syrians to die (not that there’s anything wrong with that). He’s also in process of destroying yet another nation, Yemen.

    There is no doubt that these people are cruel and do not care about the lives of the people, this earth or any living creature upon it. To confront such cruelty and indifference takes a will to justice, courage and the ability to care about others.

  37. S Brennan

    Mongo;

    Almost nobody in the Bush wing of the Republican party supports Trump, indeed they actively work for Hillary. You can hate him all you want, but Trump is defacto a 3rd party candidate and unlike the others, he is viable.

    Jill;

    To your comment “cause a lot of Syrians to die (not that there’s anything wrong with that)” pourquoi?

    Ken Hoop;

    Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who served as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, chair of the Military Intelligence Board and has served as Assistant Director of National Intelligence is Trump’s top foreign affairs advisor. Since he began working with Trump he has been accused of being a Russian agent by Time/Newsweek and while that didn’t pass the laugh test, they got him when he re-tweeted a post that was determined to be antisemitic by the corporate scribes guild.

  38. V. Arnold

    metamars
    October 13, 2016
    From a more general, systemic POV, this book develops the thesis that Americans have been dumbed down, deliberately:

    Indeed, that is true, but, this is not a recent occurance: It’s been going on for well more than a century. It began with forced education following the Prussian educational system. And that was developed from the Hindu schools in India. The cast system required a compliant population and the Hindu schools were especially good at teaching docility.
    Usians (and the west in general) are infantilized from birth and kept from maturity well past puberty; not the natural course of human developement.
    Read John Taylor Gatto’s book; The Underground History of American Education. The link below is a free audio of the entire book;
    http://www.unwelcomeguests.net/Category:Audiobooks#The_Underground_History_of_American_Education.2C_read_by_Lyn_Gerry_.26_Robin_Upton

  39. @ V. Arnold

    Thanks. Sounds really interesting. Do you have any insights into optimal educational programs? Ones that produce independently thinking citizens?

    BTW, I visited the Krishnamurti school in Ojai, CA, years ago. Don’t know what sort of statistics they may have kept (nor, for that matter, how one can reliably, objectively determine “independently thinking citizens”). Krishnamurti questioned everything….

  40. Jill

    S. Brennan,

    I was speaking ironically.

    USGinc. is in business to kill. I hate that my country will not stop killing people. I was just using gallows humor to express my horror. I don’t think the oligarchy does think there’s anything wrong with killing Syrians or anyone else.

    Obama is deciding if he’ll start WWIII tomorrow. I believe I will be protesting that.

  41. V. Arnold

    metamars
    October 13, 2016

    Listen to the first chapter and your question will be answered. It’s a fascinating listen and 2 hours that may just blow your mind. I’ve listened to it 3 or 4 times.
    Because forced education is an intrinsic part of U.S. culture and society; home schooling is the only option, IMO.
    Parents who love their kids should keep them well clear of both public and private education in the west, in general, and the U.S. especially.
    But do listen to the first chapter if nothing else…

  42. Petey

    Ernst Thälmann would be proud of you, Ian.

  43. V. Arnold

    Metamars; I forgot the prologue; excellent intro to Gatto’s book and an evaluation of forced education. It totally exposes education today as the fraud it is…

  44. hardlefthook

    Wow, none of you twits know what will happen. It’s amazing how many fortune tellers pop up once election year comes around.

    Fact. Hillary Clinton has a long record of being corrupt, being a hypocrite, and being a war hawk.

    Fact. Hillary Clinton broke up a Libyan peace deal because Gaddafi didn’t support her campaign in ’08. That is beyond psychotic and far worse than anything Trump has done in his life.

    Fact. Under Obama, 8 million undocumented immigrants were deported.

    Fact. Clinton supported the coup in Honduras, and then deported the children of murdered left wing activists who were targeted by the military junta that overthrew Zelaya. She sent them to their doom, knowingly.

    Fact. Bill Clinton is a rapist and has abused women his entire life, and the neoconlib pussy shit left don’t care. Feminism is not about women. It is a political card that is played when it is advantageous for the pussy shit left, and ignored when it is inconvenient.

    Fact. Lesser of two evils is not a logical argument. It is based on unharnessed utilitarianism, which was eventually rejected by utilitarians themselves. That is why we have a modified version called Rule or Act Utilitarianism. Seriously, open up a basic moral theory book and read, you dumb fucks.

    Fact. The Clinton Foundation is a slush fund and takes money from anyone including foreign countries that brutalize gays and women, of which the pussy shit left professes such concern, except, like their position on feminism, when it is inconvenient.

    Fact. Voting LOTE has led directly to the rise of Trump. So, your dumb shit logic is to continue voting for the same conditions that led to the rise of the thing that you don’t want? Dumb fucks.

    Fact. Trump is lewd towards women. Trump is a bullshit artist. Trump runs shady business deals. However, despite what you pussy shit left may wish to be true, Trump is not a mass murderer, and you do not have a magic crystal ball. Hillary Clinton IS a mass murderer.

    Fact. Bill and Hillary supported brutal sanctions on Iraq in the 90’s which led to more Iraqi deaths than George W Bush’s war. It is estimated that around 1 million Iraqis died under those sanctions, including 500k children.

    Fact. Bill Clinton’s economic policies led to the 2008 financial collapse. He deregulated the banks, built up a giant tech bubble, and hired Ayn Rand dick suckers to run his policies. And Hillary wants him to run her economic agenda.

    Fact. We no longer have a vibrant fourth estate. Objective journalism is fucking dead in this country- thanks pussy shit liberals! We now have journalists openly red baiting and colluding with a political party. You asshole pussy shit liberals never think of the unintended consequences, do you? You know, like what happens if a real fascist comes to power?

    Anyways, you dickheads need to pull your collective heads out of your asses. You are worse than neocons, and Trump is clearly not the greater evil.

  45. V. Arnold

    hardlefthook
    October 14, 2016
    Well, you arrogant fucking asshole; duh…
    This is a mostly civil discussion forum and I for one, do not welcome assholes like you here, spouting your righteous bullshit opinions.
    Kindly go fuck yourself…

  46. V. Arnold

    Oh, Ian, if you decide to delete this shithead; please feel free to delete my response.

  47. Hugh

    hardlefthook has such an engaging style that he will almost certainly persuade himself if no one else. If we are to overturn the mounting tyranny all around us, we the rubes and dumb fucks of the world are going to need to come together and act with a unity of purpose. Backbiting while cathartic is less than useless in this regard.

    By the way, lesser evilism did not lead to the rise of Trump. The Trump phenomenon is a product of repressed and perverted populism. Clinton’s candidacy, on the other hand, is very much the result of a long succession of choosing the lesser evil.

    The Clinton Foundation isn’t just a slush fund. The real beauty of the con is that it is a tax exempt slush fund which launders money and bribes going to the Clintons.

    While Bill Clinton did deregulate banks (and insurance companies) in that he presided over the repeal of Glass-Steagall. It was his signing of the Commodities Futures Modernization Act which deregulated derivatives which turned a burst bubble in real estate into the financial meltdown of 2008. I do not recall that either of his Treasury Secretaries, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, were Ayn Rand dick suckers. They were both just hardcore elitist neoliberal kleptocrats. The Ayn Rand dick sucker was, forgive the anatomical incongruity, Alan Greenspan, the Fed chair during Bill Clinton’s first term. While Clinton kept Greenspan on, Greenspan became Fed chair in 1987 under Ronald Reagan. Reagan appointed Greenspan to the Fed as a thank you for one of the largest and most wonderful cons ever pulled off: the trillions that Americans were told went into the Social Security trust fund but which were, in fact, simply spent as general revenue. It was a huge backdoor tax on working people. Instead of a fictional trust fund, Congress could simply have passed a joint resolution from time to time re-affirming its commitment to keeping Social Security solvent, but then its members would not have had all that extra money to play with. Needless to say Greenspan’s “reforms” had strong bipartisan support. But I digress.

    The lesser of two evils is a logical argument. What it is not is a moral argument –an anti-moral argument quite possibly but not a moral one. As Aristotle noted, morality is about right or good actions within the context of the polis, or what we would call society. No society, no morality. This does not preclude that choosing those actions could be very difficult, but a difficult choice is different from an evil choice, lesser or not, because it is still has as its goal some good.

    In any case, if you reject lesser evilism, it is contradictory and largely meaningless to then assert that Trump is the lesser evil.

  48. https://symbalitics.blogspot.com/2016/10/godel-11-cohen.html

    You have heard of Paul Cohen, like is not. This is why you should.

  49. Why doesn’t everyone just finally admit they and everyone else routinely suffer from an assortment of “inner demons” and have done with it?

    I’m long-weary of all the sanctimoniousness and self-righteousness of even the average persons when it comes to any subject concerning laws, social standards, and ethics (especially subjects of a prurient nature).

    Human nature is flawed and we will always “need to be forgiven”.
    But people would rather be egocentric and judgmental and constantly in a “modern-day Pharisee” mode instead, feigning some kind of “character perfection” because the idea they may also be a bit “degenerative”, “vicious” or even “perverted” scares them to death so much.

  50. S Brennan

    While “hardlefthook” insults are indiscriminate, I think his factual points are largely correct

    Particularly his point about LOTE bequeathing Trump. Democrats [DNC types] in the mid/late 70’s held a decade long coup against FDRist who were far far far greater in number by slowly helping the Republicans pick them off whether through election funding or agreeing to “investigate” certain members. As a result of this self serving sabotage we have two Republican parties, or more properly, a single party system with no checks or balances, in a word, Fascism. Yes, yes not as ugly as some…yet.

    Populist FDRists, no matter how talented are smothered effectively by the Democratic party, Jim Webb was given 1/7th the speaking time in a debate rigged by Wasserman and when he complained of the unfairness the media and Democratic party spoke as one with a universal barrage of “WHINER”. Webb is a guy who wrestled a Virginia senate seat away from Republicans, Secretary of the Navy; an Emmy Award winning journalist, author of ten books; taught literature at the United States Naval Academy; Fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics; two tours in Vietnam as a platoon commander, awarded the Navy Cross for heroism in Vietnam, the Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, and two Purple Hearts. And he gets called a whiner for asking for fairness. Now from Hillary’s emails, we now know that making sure that nobody ever got a chance to hear Webb was Hillary/Wassermann’s top priority in the first two debates.

    Instead time was given to Bernie, an ungainly figure they thought, but so thirsty were Democrats for populism a “socialist”caught fire. Fortunately, Hillary people had a crack team of firefighter ready…and we know now that Bernie was a 1st class bullshitter because he could have won the presidency had taken Jill Stein’s offer.

    Nope; LOTEism got us Trump and for reasons I’ve outlined above, I’ll be voting for him. After this election the Republican will “fix” their nomination process so a populist will never be heard of again.

    And please the Trump said this evil and that evil, Hillary is a mass murderer for money, a war criminal…she’s got the evil meter pegged at it’s limit, she must be stopped, if that mean Trump, so be it.

    From yesterday’s Fbook posting

    =============================================

    Q: “who in their right mind doesn’t hate everything about Trump”

    A: Jill Stein, Green Party Candidate for US President

    Jill Stein: “On the issue of war and nuclear weapons, it is actually Hillary’s policies which are much scarier than Donald Trump who does not want to go to war with Russia. He wants to seek modes of working together, which is the route that we need to follow not to go into confrontation and nuclear war with Russia…It’s Hillary Clinton that wants to start an air war with Russia over Syria by calling for a no fly zone…we could slide into nuclear war very quickly from her declared policy in Syria. ”

    It’s interesting to note that Jill Stein and Trump converge on foreign policy and that’s important because, Trump is opposed by the elites of both parties as well as corporate media. Outside of the powers of the Presidency [almost all of them relate to foreign policy], Trump will have no ability to effect any domestic programs…only foreign policy.

    So, if you are in a non-swing state where the election is already decided, like many of my friends, I would encourage you to vote for Stein if wish to express your disgust with the actions of Hillary/Obama’s cruel and legally unauthorized wars of aggression that have cost hundreds of thousands their lives, while displacing millions…but…feel that equal, or greater, weight must be given to Trumps spoken word.

  51. XFR

    All true but what has happened is that there has been a social sea change going on, what has been accepted for just about ever, is becoming unacceptable.

    Yet this sea change somehow has not resulted in the media taking any sort of interest in WJC’s checkered history. Colour me skeptical.

  52. XFR

    Even if foreign policy is a wash (though I don’t think it is, cf. metamars’ comment), the TPP is a rather big difference.

    Right-wing economic policies are effectively locked in straight across the board if that goes through, and the current Administration’s McCarthyite railing against TPP opponents makes Clinton’s “opposition” look pretty dodgy.

    Right now “evergreen” (term-unlimited) patents are still a U.S.ian anomaly. Enshrining them in an international treaty would be a gigantic leap in the direction of neo-feudalism.

  53. Jill

    Tal,

    I think very few people expect flawlessness in public figures. But taking a hard look at actions by those who want to “govern” us is important. There are some actions which go beyond what should be accepted in a good society.

    If you want to forgive these people, please do so. But forgiveness doesn’t erase harm that is being done. Harm needs to be addressed through something as simple as refusing to support a candidate or it may be that legal action is called for. It may also mean a protest such as Standing Rock.

    Thinking and acting out of knowledge an conviction is necessary if we want to have a good society that works for this earth and its creatures.

  54. V. Arnold

    Yes, hardlefthook (asshole) has made points re: Clinton; but who here doesn’t already know these things?
    His arrogant, insulting holyer than thou crap is just pathetic, IMO.
    He stated the obvious, duh!
    So, where’s the meat?

  55. Ché Pasa

    The nihilism of online Trump supporters — as in voting for Trump to “stick it to The Hag” — is one of their least appealing aspects.

    There are plenty of reasons to criticize and condemn Hillary. And those reasons should be reason enough not to vote for her. But there is no reason to vote for Trump at all. He’s a gangster and a conman. That’s who he is and that would be his governing style. Why would anyone want to install that in the White House? It’s pure nihilism, nothing more.

    The idea that you can winkle out his position on any matter from what he says is ludicrous. He changes his “position” from moment to moment. Whatever he says is contradicted by something else. To assume he won’t try to start a war with Russia, for example, is simply irrational. There is no way to know whether he would or not.

    On the other hand, there is no way to be certain Hillary would do more than rattle her sabers as she’s been doing at Putin-the-Devil.

    Almost anybody who grew up when she did has a bone-deep interest in preventing — not causing — nuclear conflict.

    The exceptions were those who were taught that nuclear war would be survivable by enough of the “right people” to be worthwhile. (eg: Donald Rumsfeld among others).

    Whether Trump was taught that, I don’t know. But I wouldn’t assume that he didn’t learn something of the sort in his military school.

  56. “But there is no reason to vote for Trump at all.”

    Actually, there are billions of reasons to vote for Trump. As in: concern for the welfare of most of the world’s population. Trump’s foreign policy is more in the realm of realpolitik, and while he may not respect women too much, he does respect power. And he understands that Russia, especially, by virtue of it’s plentiful nuclear arsenal and delivery mechanisms, has lots and lots of power. He also understands that America is in a weakened state, due to massive debts and declining stability in the world order, and that fresh wars and destablizations are as idiotic as they are immoral.

    A nuclear war would be a worst case scenario for the entire world. But even under less apocalyptic scenarios, Trump would generally be better. (Dealing with North Korea may well be an exception, IMO. Also, not sure he’d be any better with respect to militarily weak nations in, say, Africa, than would HRC.)

    Chronicles magazine’s brilliant foreign affairs editor, Srdja Trifkovic, rated Trump’s April 27 foreign policy speech a B+. (https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/america-first-controversy/) Says Trifkovic:

    “Donald Trump’s foreign policy speech last Wednesday deserves at least a solid B+ and you can read my take on it in the June issue of Chronicles. It offered an eloquent argument for offensive realism, based on the fact that the international system—composed of sovereign nation-states pursuing their interests—is still essentially competitive and Hobbesian. Trump is the only candidate who understands this cardinal fact, and who unambiguously states America is not and should not be an exception to that timeless principle.”

    It’s quite appropriate to point out his inconsistencies, flip flops, and lies. Likewise, his goofy “You take the oil, folks!” sure sounds like a war crime, though not the fatal sort that Hillary blood-soaked hands have helped engineer. However, it’s also clear that Trump’s been generally consistent in terms of his statements with respect to Russia and the Syrian quagmire, and condemnation of the destruction of Libya under “Tick Tock” Hillary Clinton’s ‘leadership’. (http://theduran.com/julian-assange-exposes-hillary-clintons-libya-tick-tock-list-a-step-by-step-guide-to-destroy-libya/)

    Oh, and we should NEVER forget* that the Obama administration was content to NOT attack ISIS oil tanker caravans (https://www.rt.com/news/327063-russian-intelligence-oil-tankers-turkey/), until Russia shamed them into doing so (apparently for only a single time). ISIS’ expansion served American geopolitical purposes, at the time, and it’s just that sort of war crime enabling (non)action that we can expect more of from Hillary, whether or not she was in office when the Russians took their reconnaissance photos of the ISIS oil tankers.

    Nobody knows for sure what either would do when in office. But the signs of radically different behavior, on war and peace issues, are all there.

    * shame on Trump for not emphasizing this every chance he gets

  57. Tabatha

    Che Pasa- Really? Hillary won’t start a nuclear war because she is a baby boomer? She was a Goldwater Girl- Remember Goldwater who wanted to lob a nuclear bomb into the men’s room of the Kremlin.

  58. Ché Pasa

    Even Goldwater wouldn’t have been likely to start a nuclear war, the Daisy Ad notwithstanding.

    Hillary grew up under the same Duck and Cover/Instant Incineration mantra most of the rest of her generation did. It was deliberately terrifying propaganda that still has an effect on people of her generation. There are exceptions to the rule, however.

    The closest the US and Soviet Union got to a nuclear war was in October of 1962 over the Soviet missiles in Cuba. The military general staff were almost all in favor of a first strike; Kennedy and Khrushchev managed, barely, to prevent that from happening. Cooler heads prevailed.

    The American general public, Hillary included, experienced a kind of existential fear of what might happen that I doubt anyone who wasn’t alive and conscious then can imagine.

    Trump was around at that time, too, of course, but he was in military school, not public school. I don’t know what was taught there at the time but we shouldn’t assume the boys at the NY Military Academy didn’t learn that nuclear war was a survivable option. It was a widely shared opinion within the military at the time — it may still be.

    It’s nonsense to imagine that Trump means anything he says in public. There is no policy position he holds that he can’t and won’t change in a heartbeat.

    There are so many reasons not to vote for Hillary, but there is no reason at all to vote for Trump.

  59. S Brennan

    Ché Pasa;

    To your constant repetition of “there is no reason at all to vote for Trump” is very much in the vein of person who engages in the purely propagandist paradigm. Your wholesale dismissal of “the nihilism of online Trump supporters” are the words of a partisan hack whose sole purpose is to denigrate those who don’t agree with you using a plural ad hominem to create an untermensch or as Hillary said more subtlely; a basket of deplorables.

    This Hillary propaganda may work with the uninformed uncritical mind, I don’t know, but I don’t think barely disguised sloganeering will work here.

    As posted above, and feel free to repeat, since I am addressing your repetition of Hillary’s only real talking point “Trump is the vilest evil”

    ===================================

    Q: “who in their right mind doesn’t hate everything about Trump”

    A: Jill Stein, Green Party Candidate for US President

    Jill Stein: “On the issue of war and nuclear weapons, it is actually Hillary’s policies which are much scarier than Donald Trump who does not want to go to war with Russia. He wants to seek modes of working together, which is the route that we need to follow not to go into confrontation and nuclear war with Russia…It’s Hillary Clinton that wants to start an air war with Russia over Syria by calling for a no fly zone…we could slide into nuclear war very quickly from her declared policy in Syria. ”

    It’s interesting to note that Jill Stein and Trump converge on foreign policy and that’s important because, Trump is opposed by the elites of both parties as well as corporate media. Outside of the powers of the Presidency [almost all of them relate to foreign policy], Trump will have no ability to effect any domestic programs…only foreign policy.

    So, if you are in a non-swing state where the election is already decided, like many of my friends, I would encourage you to vote for Stein if wish to express your disgust with the actions of Hillary/Obama’s cruel and legally unauthorized wars of aggression that have cost hundreds of thousands their lives, while displacing millions…but…feel that equal, or greater, weight must be given to Trumps spoken word.

  60. Ché Pasa

    Again, there is no reason to believe anything the man says in public. And if you do believe it, you’re a perfect mark for his con. The con is his business model and his way of life. That won’t change if you put him in the White House.

    There is no reason to vote for him, not even to “stick it to The Hag” — which is pure nihilism.

    There are plenty of reasons not to vote for her, and I don’t plan to. I may leave the president line on my ballot blank as I’ve done in the past. But I don’t have any intention of voting for either of the two major party candidates.

    What’s propaganda is the oft repeated claim that Trump “won’t get us into a nuclear war with Russia (and Hillary will).” You don’t know that. There is no way to know that, pure and simple.

    And if you believe it, you’ve been conned.

    

  61. MojaveWolf

    a] I agree with Ian’s point; “Unfortunately I was wrong in 08 about how unhinged she was in relation to foreign affairs. She has since proved she’s a foreign policy “uber hawk” (aka: monster).” – me too.

    Me, three.

    Me four. The let’s-provoke-Russia posturing from HRC/Kaine/Pence/everyone-the-DC establishment-considers-acceptable-or-serious has me actually contemplating breaking from Stein to vote for Trump. When this election started, even when MsCheat2Win was gifted the primary, I did not expect “avoid restart of cold war/avoid actual hot shooting war with Russia/stay far far away from nuclear war” to be a sufficiently likely scenario to warrant it being a voting issue. Either I grossly underestimated the combined greed and stupidity of the war profiteers, or I grossly underestimated the desire of some in the MIC to distract us from concerns about quality of life and possible future biosphere death.

    I don’t like either. Pence as Trump’s VP scares the crap out of me as much as HRC/Kaine scare. For all his multitude of faults, Trump seems sane with regard to immediate existential crises. All the “omg look how awful he is!” people can pelt me all they want, but even taking into account several things that would normally disqualify him from getting my vote, and keeping in mind I think HRC might actually be better on domestic policy other than he might avoid the TPP, he comes off better than our establishment pols do in a lot of ways.

    Almost certainly voting for Stein, but if I went lesser evil I would lose even more friends.

    My who-most-likely-gives-us-a-chance-at-someone-worthwhile-in-4-years/8-years analysis also slightly favors Trump.

    Tulsi, Zephyr, Nina (or, heck, Grayson, Canova, Feingold, Flores, even though three of those just lost smaller primary races to more DNC establishment favored types and the other seems to have no interest in running)(etc, if you have someone better in mind); I look to the future and pray. I don’t care what banner these people run under, I hope they get something going.

  62. realitychecker

    Just seen on C-Span, this viewer comment from “Deplorable One”, re U.S. plan to cyber attack Russia:

    “We’re supposed to risk world peace because they exposed Hillary lies?”

    Yes, apparently we are, and will, according to Biden.

    Look, anyone with a functioning brain cell should just break down and admit to themselves that there is no way we are going to get out of this mess we’re in without a lot of people dying, and start to re-frame all our political thinking accordingly.

    No Hollywood ending for us. Reality bites.

  63. Tom W Harris

    In Cincinnati Trump finally dove into the gutter and spewed Nazi filth about “international bankers” out of his rotten mouth. Trump ain’t nuthin’ but shit and neither is anyone who still backs him.

  64. V. Arnold

    Below is a link to a Mark Twain essay on his running for the governor of New York. It makes this election pale by comparison;
    http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/galaxy-december-1870-memoranda/ri17029

  65. ks

    @Che Pasa,

    You’re spot on. Reading the endless twisted rationalizations for such an obvious fraud like Trump are staggering. You couldn’t create a better caricature of the “left/progressive/whatever” than the empty posturing driven by the intellectual vanity of some here. I mean, they are reduced to waving pom poms for a dubious chracater like Donald freakin’ Trump…

  66. hvd

    @ks

    Deciding that tactically a vote for Trump is better than a vote for Clinton while making it clear that by and large both are abhorrent does not constitute waving pom poms. Nor even does recognizing that on some matters, to the extent it is possible to understand what either of these idiots would do, Trump is more correct than Clinton.

    This was the subject matter of an Ian posting https://www.ianwelsh.net/the-need-to-believe-in-goodness/

    Finally my observation of the two is that we are having to choose between a Berlusconi (Trump) and a Mussolini (Clinton).

    Of course the obvious option is to opt out of making such a choice.

  67. ks

    @hvd,

    “Tactically”, huh? That’s putting what has been going on here quite gently. I’m sorry but there is no 12 dimensional chess game going on and no need for grand allusions. It’s been apparent from the start that both are terrible candidates but trying to tease some sort of “deeper meaning” out of a character like Trump, as has been going on here for months now is a fool’s errand and the worst type of ineffectual pondering.

  68. hvd

    @ks

    I haven’t seen anyone here post anything that would suggest that Trump is a good candidate. Virtually everyone here that has posted anything marginally supportive of Trump has started with the proposition that both candidates suck but have then gone on to explain why they think that either he is less of a problem than Clinton or to counter the inane arguments from the Clinton camp that Trump is either Hitler or, and in their reading worse, Putin.

    To claim that Trump is in this race the only populist (for better or worse) does not constitute an attempt to tease “deeper meaning.” Again let me urge you to read Ian’s earlier article.

  69. ks

    @hvd,

    The “yeah, but…” spin is a bit much. You’re doing exactly what I said with your “…but have then gone on to explain why they think that either he is less of a problem than Clinton…and…To claim that Trump is in this race the only populist (for better or worse) does not constitute…” hedging. The reality is that Trump is not less of a problem (yeah, yeah I know Hillary’s going to start WWIII!!!) nor is he a populist. He is what he’s always been and always will be – a loud, vulgar hustler and conman. If fact, he’s currently running a gigantic con right out in the open. To his credit, he does know his marks can be played either through the politics of resentment or, as is the case from some here, smarter than thouism.

    Trump will be fine as he will feed on the carcasses of the Alex Jones/Breibart/Info Wars/ Beck, etc. audiences all the way to the bank.

  70. realitychecker

    @ ks

    Ya mean Trump might have a “private” position that is different from his “public” position, like your wannabe queen???

    You are so covered with BS, you’re stinking up the place.

    So predictable, so one-note. So boring.

  71. hvd

    @ks

    Again you have apparently failed to read Ian’s earlier post and you should probably read the post he has up top. Damn few people here, myself included, would disagree with your characterization of Trump. But you seemingly need enemies and want to make those of us who are deeply concerned with the direction that neocon, neoliberal Dems and Reps have taken this country into enemies. I for one am sick and tired of being called a fascist or a misogynist because I voice my concerns with where the Bushes, Clintons, Obamas, et al have taken us.

    You are making up goblins and creating enemies from friends.

  72. Lisa

    hvf: Your concerns about neo-liberals and neo-conservatives are totally valid …but Trump is not a solution, though he may point to one for the future.

    His mistakes are legendary and no doubt will be written about extensively in the future but the #1 he made was to side with divisive forces…the religious right (especially) and the so called ‘alt right’.

    Both those groups are not fighting positively for a particular interest group, say for more jobs and higher wages for the working classes, they are against various other sub-groups, selling the true ‘opium of the masses’. That if that group (‘women’, ‘SJWs’, ‘spics’, ‘niggahs’, poofs’ and ‘trannies’) is put down (heck better, even totally eliminated with lots of blood) then everything will be right again.. wages will go up, more jobs will magically appear, things will get cheaper and all the rest.

    It is, and always has been, total nonsense ..but it appeals and always has done to a significant minority of the population. Those too stupid and/or programmed to attack the elite white heterosexual males that dominate society and are the real cause of their problems. It is no coincidence that the religious right’s social programming is designed to support (heck idolise) such people, while demonising all others, hence they are always the darlings, foot soldiers and useful cannon fodder of those elites.

    It also signalled (to those that follow such things) that Trump was kidding, he is no more anti-neo-liberal or neo-conservative than Clinton is. Whether or not that was his true position all along or he just gets blown with the wind doesn’t matter. The key thing is that if he couldn’t face down the toxic religious right and bend them to his will (after all where else could they go, so how hard could it be?) then there is zero chance he will make any difference against the far more powerful neo-liberals and neo-cons when in power and will simply follow them as well….on top of creating and feeding class, sexual, race and gender divisions…maybe to the point of open war breaking out.

    So you have 2 candidates, both corrupt, both (in the end) will follow neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism, but one will unleash a wave of hatred and/or violence against a large number of sub-sections of society.

    Sure that will generate a large ‘psychological wage’ for those doing the attacking. Go out with your mates and kill a ‘pooftah’ and you feel good, especially in a high bullying/high violence culture like the US but it still doesn’t pay the bills ….

    In other words the belated political awakening of the poorer white males, that they have been dudded by many decades of this ‘psychological wage’ while their pockets have been picked, has been aborted and they are right back, though far more viscously, to the beginning again.

    The lesson is clear to his successors, stay middle of the road on social issues to keep women and LGBTI onside as they are dangerous these days, stay away from racism to keep all the melting point on your side, stay on topic about trade pacts, Wall Street, infrastructure investment, be anti-war, pro US jobs and all the rest and you will romp it in. Basically be Sanders, who if he was running would be 20 (at least) points ahead at this point.

  73. Lisa

    And.. Matt Taibbi (I hadn’t read this before I posted) sort of gets it, though he misses some of the key underlying social changes that have happened which have changed the political landscape.

    http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/the-fury-and-failure-of-donald-trump-w444943

    Snippets:

    “Duped for a generation by a party that kowtowed to the wealthy while offering scraps to voters, then egged on to a doomed rebellion by a third-rate con man who wilted under pressure and was finally incinerated in a fireball of his own stupidity, people like this found themselves, in the end, represented by literally no one.”

    “she’s a cunt – vote trump ”

    “Trumpian license has pushed hatred of Hillary Clinton beyond all reason. If you don’t connect with it emotionally, you won’t get it. For grown men and women to throw around words like “bitch” and “cunt” in front of their kids, it means things have moved way beyond the analytical.”

    “The first symptom of a degraded aristocracy is a lack of capable candidates for the throne. After years of indulgence, ruling families become frail, inbred and isolated, with no one but mystics, impotents and children to put forward as kings. ”
    “All 16 of the non-Trump entrants were dunces, religious zealots, wimps or tyrants, all equally out of touch with voters. ”

    “Where is it all coming from? The most generous conceivable explanation is that the anger stems from a sense of abandonment and betrayal by the political class. This doesn’t explain the likes of Giuliani and Trump, but if you squint really hard, it maybe explains some of what’s going on with his supporters.”

    “The party spent 50 years preaching rich people bromides like “trickle-down economics” and “picking yourself up by your bootstraps” as solutions to the growing alienation and financial privation of the ordinary voter. In place of jobs, exported overseas by the millions by their financial backers, Republicans glibly offered the flag, Jesus and Willie Horton.
    In recent years it all went stale. They started to run out of lines to sell the public. Things got so desperate that during the Tea Party phase, some GOP candidates began dabbling in the truth. They told voters that all Washington politicians, including their own leaders, had abandoned them and become whores for special interests.”

    “Left out of the discussion over the years have been people like Trump’s voters, who coincidentally took the first hit along the way in the form of lowered middle-class wages and benefits. ”

    “t is true that if you talk to enough Trump supporters, you will eventually find an ex-Democrat or two who’ll cop to being disillusioned by the party’s turn away from the middle class. “My parents were FDR Democrats,” says Tim Kallas of Oak Creek, Wisconsin. “I was born and raised to believe that Democrats were for the workingman.” A self-described “child of the MTV generation” who has plenty of liberal friends and rocks a long silver ponytail, Kallas says he became disenchanted with the Democrats sometime during Bill Clinton’s second term. ”

    “Then again, it’s hard to keep the loons out when you’re scraping to find people willing to sell rich-friendly policies to a broke population. The reaction among hard-line legislators was predictable: You’re telling us now we can’t be pigs?”

    “Trump, ironically, was originally a rebel against this process, the first-ever party-crasher to bulldoze his way past the oligarchical triad of donors, party leaders and gatekeeping media. But once he got in, he became the ultimate servant of the horse race, simultaneously creating the most-watched and most regressive election ever.”

    “In the absolute best-case scenario, the one in which he loses, this is what Trump’s run accomplished. He ran as an outsider antidote to a corrupt two-party system, and instead will leave that system more entrenched than ever.”

  74. ks

    @realitychecker,

    Hush. If you were capable of it, you should be embarrassed into silence by now. All of your truly one note “Red Queen!!!” diversionary squawking won’t cover the fact that you got duped by Trump’s clown show….well no, it’s worse as you willingly duped yourself . Oh well…

  75. realitychecker

    @ ks

    Duped?

    I’m sure you would know. Have you ever voted for a non-Democrat? Has the masjority of your identity group ever done so?

    However, I will confess that I was duped when I voted for Obama the first time.

    But my eyes are wide open now. Try it sometime.

  76. realitychecker

    @ Lisa

    Not addressing your entire analysis here, although I find your persistent fears of extinction to be a bit too hysterical and influential in your perceptions, but you also made many observations I would agree with. However, may I focus on this:

    “Trump, ironically, was originally a rebel against this process, the first-ever party-crasher to bulldoze his way past the oligarchical triad of donors, party leaders and gatekeeping media. But once he got in, he became the ultimate servant of the horse race, simultaneously creating the most-watched and most regressive election ever.”

    I would ask, very seriously, if after having achieved the virtual miracle you described in that paragraph, and knowing, through the direct experience of getting to the nomination, what a thoroughly rigged system and the true nature of the “triad” and the Clinton machine meant in actual practice, would you not consider it to be within the realm of possibility that at that point he decided that the only way he could expect to win the rest of the way was to gather votes the old fashioned way, by pandering to those whose votes would be necessary to get him over the finish line?

    I’m not saying this was certainly his reasoning, but it seems reasonable to me from a purely pragmatic POV. And if so, can you really blame him, as we are seeing the Clinton folks revealed to be the most incredibly unethical and duplicitous cheaters ever to have been exposed as they are thru the emails coming out daily?

    Hard to blame him for doing what is necessary to make his whole campaign have a chance of reaching the goal in the final phase, isn’t it?

  77. mike

    “Trump will most certainly be much much worse, not just on foreign but also domestic policies.”

    First of all, really don’t see how anyone could possibly be “much, much worse” than Hillary. More repressive than 25 years of backing the War on Drugs? More violent than backing invasions of Iraq, Syria, Lybia, Yemen and so on? Favor the 1% more than the Obama-Clinton cabal and more corrupt than then? (That simply is not possible.) He might be just as bad, but even if he tried hard he couldn’t be much worse.

    Second, no one really has any idea what he might do. With him there’s at least a chance he might rise to the occasion; stranger things have happened. With Hillary, there’s no chance of her rising to the occasion, not under any circumstance, and it’s certain things will continue to decay. And at the very least, he will have accomplished ending both the Bush and Clinton dynasties, which is actually a fairly major accomplishment in and of itself.

  78. Lisa

    Mike: You are pushing at straws, the religious right and the so called ‘alt-right’ are neo-liberal and neo-conservative through and through as well as being socially divisive…and he has sold out totally to them

    So the odds are he will be little different from Clinton on those issues, while creating a wave of hatred and violence against a whole range of people, not the least my group the LGBTI, but also women, migrants, Muslims, Hispanics, any non-‘christians’, POC and all the rest.

    So ‘might’, ‘maybe’ but ‘unlikely’ and with a terrible price as well. He’d tear the country apart, already is doing so.

    If you wanted real change you all should have been out there fighting the Democratic elite to get Sanders up.

  79. Lisa

    On the positive side the message is clear on how to win for a future populist in maybe 2020.

    That is if we are all still around and not radioactive rubble….

  80. ks

    @relitychecker,

    My “identity group”? What the are you talking about? If you mean race and implying that I’m black and blacks have always voted for Democrats then you’re just being sill and and baiting. Blacks started out mostly Republicans for obvious reasons then started to switch when the New Deal happened and further moved to Democrats when Truman integrated the Army and went much further in after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and has carried on since. Given what was, and is, on offer between the two major parties those were, and are, rational decisions.

    Meanwhile you’re nursing your apparently eternal butthurt about voting for Obama by….”opening you eyes” to Trump. So savvy. I can only laugh at you at this point.

  81. realitychecker

    @ ks

    Well, I knew as soon as I submitted my comment that you would avoid the issue by going back more than a half century to find a time when your identity group voted for a non-Democrat, like anyone here doesn’t know that allegiances shifted 180 degrees in the Sixties.. Like I said, so predictable. So boring. So willfully blind to anything but your own peculiar perceptual lens.

    Such a waste of time to engage with you. Victim mentalities must always point the finger outward, never inward. Looking inward might hurt your feelings.

    Plus ca change . . .

  82. Lisa

    realitycheck: “he decided that the only way he could expect to win the rest of the way was to gather votes the old fashioned way, by pandering to those whose votes would be necessary to get him over the finish line?”

    I have stated repeatedly how he could win, as shown by his poll results during his candidacy run and the polls for Sanders.

    Stay middle of the road on social matters (women, LGBTI, get some of their votes and not rile them up to fight against you), stay away from racism (to pick up votes from the black and hispanic, etc communities, the Dems have pissed them off so much they are easy targets), keep hammering away about Wall st, trade pacts, jobs for Americans and all the rest.
    Easy win….

    Note his poll results when Trump actually did that, if he had stayed that way he’d be 5-10% ahead right now. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

    But by siding with the right wing (religious and ‘alt right’) divisive force he blew it, totally. I mean Clinton has to one of the most unelectable candidates in US history because of her record. The GOP didn’t need a Trump to win they just needed some middle of the road candidate ..except they had none, they were all extremists, all even more unelectable than Clinton .. which is a real feat when you think about it.
    Not only was Clinton unelectable before the candidacy fights, by the way her team did it they pissed off huge numbers of Dem (etc) voters, who if not actually going to vote for Trump would have sat this one out.

    It took the work of a ‘genius’ to motivate them all to fight for HRC…

    The GOP’s ‘anointed’ one was first Bush who predictably collapsed then that nutjob Cruz who was even more unelectable than Clinton.

    The US will not elect a ‘christian’ extremist nutjob no matter how much you hope for that. Not going to happen, the women’s vote alone will ensure that. The fact that religious nuts all come along with extreme racism and LGBTI hate just decreases their chance even more.
    So a women hating, LGBTI hating, racist, sharia-‘christian’ is not going to get up. Rather a real populist needs to create a ‘grand coalition’ , at the very least be not threatening to those groups that can effectively fight against them.

    How hard is that?

  83. ks

    @realitychecker,

    Avoid what issue? I’ve clearly and succinctly explained the entire history of black voting patterns in regards to the two major parties. If you want to go down the dumb “Democrat plantation” road, stop being a coward with the weaselly dodging and do so. I know your feelings are still hurt regarding Obama but hitching your wagon to a fraud like Trump while screaming “identity politics” at others is kind of silly and sad and empty.

  84. realitychecker

    @ ks
    @ Lisa

    Blacks will vote for Hillary no matter what she does. Women will vote for Hillary no matter what she does.

    Her lies, corruption and illegalities are on full display for all to see, while all one can do re Trump is SPECULATE and play the gypsy mind-reader game.

    There’s your fucking reality check.

  85. ks

    @realitychecker,

    Like I said , you’re a sad case and don’t have a very good grasp on reality. Apparently white guys will go down with the S.S. Trump but you’re still only whining about who the majority of blacks and women will probably vote for. That you have to invent an absurd “speculate” rational as cover for the obvious scam that is Trump is amusing but, it does show that your rationalization hamster is running on full steam. Stop deflecting and blaming everybody else. It’s not their fault that you are willingly and enthusiastically embracing the con.

  86. realitychecker

    @ ks

    You care about your hopes for blacks getting favorable treatment, and are willing to fully embrace blatant and widespread political corruption and illegality to keep that hope alive.

    All your deflections (e,g, Did you ever vote non-Dem in MODERN TIMES was the issue above, ya know? But, as usual, you deflected, and asked what the issue was; maybe you just can’t read???), and all your ridiculous logically fallacious ad hominems, just can’t hide that obvious bottom line truth.

    As a lawyer, I understand how critical the rule of law is to a free society, so I am standing first and foremost against the proven corrupters of that basic principle.

    I am very comfortable with the merit of my position. You may feel free to burn in hell for yours.
    Your low regard for your own personal integrity is your problem, not mine.

  87. ks

    @realitychecker,

    You are in full babble mode now. Why are you so interested in who I have voted for in the past? That answer won’t justify your strident self-delusion regarding Trump. But, unlike you, I didn’t fall for Obama. Anyway, it’s a really weird argument that you’re trying to push here. As if somehow, after being burned by Obama, you are now some sort of “open eyed free thinker” and recognize that Hillary is bad …while at the same time falling for the blatant hustler Trump. You’re an oddball.

  88. Lisa

    Sigh.

    “Blacks will vote for Hillary no matter what she does. Women will vote for Hillary no matter what she does.
    Her lies, corruption and illegalities are on full display for all to see, while all one can do re Trump is SPECULATE and play the gypsy mind-reader game.
    There’s your fucking reality check.”

    The lack of analysis is sad actually. Firstly you have to understand WHY blacks tend to vote for Democrats these days ..and the answer is not all good for either party.
    Firstly black elites have been totally co-opted within the Democratic party and, mostly, have sold out. This is despite the total betrayal of black people by the Dems and decades of anti-black men and women actions.

    You would think this would be fertile ground for the GOP to pick up votes …sadly not, because it has become steadily ever more racist, a symptom of the GOPs embrace of the ‘religious right’ and the tea party people. So POC have nowhere to go and they have not developed the far more effective organisational methods that the LGBTI community have to ‘police’ their representatives.
    A very similar process has happened with feminists, with the elite white middle./upper class DC ones having little in common with the vast majority of women, especially those poor and/or POC. Though in this case new feminist organisations are building up to counter that… organisation that more closely match LGBTI ones in structure.

    The polls show that the vast majority of college educated women are voting (with many holding their noses) for Clinton. But, sadly many women who are not are (or were) voting for Trump. So it is not so clear cut as you make it.
    Trump’s anti-women outbursts have cost him dearly, since it has mobilised many of even those earlier Trump women supporters to dump him. Of course everyone knows that the male GOP elite are all the same (except when they are paedophiles of course) but as long as they stayed quiet about it those conservative women could stick their heads in the sand and live in ‘hope’ that those men would somehow change (hint: they never will) .

    The message to women from the GOP now is simple: ‘goodbye abortion and contraception, hello second class citizenship and being little more than a set of holes and a womb for men to use and abuse’. The endless scandals of while middle class males raping women and children and getting off with it just adds to that message.
    Yes you can rape your 12 year old daughter and it is ok, provided you are white and middle class (being religious helps a lot too).
    This has infuriated women, especially those conservative ones that (stupidly) believed all the tosh from conservative men about ‘cherishing and protecting women’…as if.

    Note: As trans women, we notice the total hypocrisy about all the hype about ‘dangers’ of trans women in bathrooms, while the Trumps boast about their sexual abuse and all those white men get off ..even with raping their 12 year old daughters. So who is the danger here?

    So the political landscape is intimately mixed with what is happening in the social sphere. Those usually conservative women, normally GOP voters, are waking up to what a pack of turds their conservative men are really like and how the party has now gone totally misogynist …. And from sheer self interest they are moving towards the Dems (bad as they are they are nowhere as bad as the Republicans now) or simply abandoning the GOP and not voting.

    So your cartoon like ‘models’ of society and voters are just that ..cartoon like that bare little relationship to reality..

  89. realitychecker

    All your esoteric dissections notwithstanding, my world is mostly populated with women, and I don’t know a single one who would ever react to criticism of Clinton with anything but automatic knee-jerk anger.

    That said, I should have been more careful and said “LGBTI” instead of “women,” because I acknowledge that many women will find reasons to vote for not-Hillary. (I was just too lazy to come back and correct that lol.)

    What truly baffles me, in all sincerity, is that nobody like you, or ks for that matter, ever seems to be able to find their way to showing that they place any value on fundamental concepts like rule of law, accountability, civil liberties, or political corruption, which are things that are crucial to the entire community and to overall freedom itself, and not just to folks in your particular personal life-slots.

    I was raised to balance selfish interests against wider community interests, and to find a way to honor both, and, until RECENTLY, I always thought that was the progressive way . But I perceive you and ks to be stuck on your own selfish (as in “personal”) interests. I think that the more one regards themselves as a victim, the harder it is to see anything beyond their own need to avoid their victim pains. I can understand that from a psychological POV, but would hope that most could find a way to have an appropriate concern for the community issues that are my primary focus.

    Still, I certainly wish you well, Lisa, and want you to know that I would risk my own flesh to protect you, or anyone (even an a-hole like ks) from a bully, and also that I would never even consider voting for Trump if I thought that there was even one chance in a million that he would actually do away with abortion rights that have been in place for so long.

    Finally, I feel you must not be up to speed on all the sordid stuff coming out about the Clinton campaign, or else you could not so easily ignore it.

  90. Lisa

    “What truly baffles me, in all sincerity, is that nobody like you, or ks for that matter, ever seems to be able to find their way to showing that they place any value on fundamental concepts like rule of law, accountability, civil liberties, or political corruption, which are things that are crucial to the entire community and to overall freedom itself, and not just to folks in your particular personal life-slots.

    We do, a lot. A heck of a lot. Just take civil liberties alone, we have long been victims of being denied those ..so we are very pro them, for us and for others. The ‘rule of law’ we are more skeptical about because (a) it has often been used against us or (b) is ignored when it comes to us. Still plenty of laws in some US states against homosexual sex after all..so where is your ‘rule of law’ then when it contradicts basic justice?

    Life is different when you are one of ‘outside’ groups, attacked and denied basic rights, the perspective is very different. No one is under any illusions about Clinton and the Dem elites or how the GOP is now dedicated to our destruction…I will say that again dedicated to our destruction. But we have to be tactical in what we do to first protect us and secondly advance us getting basic rights and acceptance.

    We’re re only a small group, you 95% who have caused all the other problems go and fix them yourself ..we are just trying to survive here. Don’t blame us for the problems you created. It is not LGBTI people pushing neo-liberalism, or war with Russia after all..that’s you lot mostly male, white, heterosexuals (you claim) and middle/upper class. And you have all the power and wealth.

    Forgive us for sure noticing all these other issues, but concentrating our limited resources on what matters to us the most, right here and now. Being transgender myself it matter a lot, life or death actually, to get access to medical resources, ending legal discrimination, stopping violence and murder against us, getting legal recognition and all the rest. The rest is up to you lot….after all you created it all, we didn’t.
    Naturally faced with two candidates one stating they will eliminate us from society, the other won’t and though they may be as bad as each other on all other issues ..guess who we are going to vote for? Against the immediate threat.

    You are not an outsider so you don’t care, ok I get that your personal interests are dominant for you…but ours are to us and we face much bigger stakes than you do.

  91. realitychecker

    @ Lisa

    If you have $50,000 for me, I can replicate for you the legal education that enabled me to understand the paramount importance of the rule of law that you have so little regard for. Otherwise, I’ll just have to give up and leave you where you are. Shortness of life, and all that.

    But, let me tell you something–“you lot” as you paint it does not include me in any way shape or form, and the way you phrase that portion of your comment just proves my point about victim mentalities and identity group myopias.

    So, thank you very much, I have bookmarked your response, and shall use it freely any time in the future that anyone presents me with arguments based on your jaundiced viewpoint. Which will probably be happening frequently, given where we are.

    In closing, have you ever pondered the fact that all you victim groups beg us “you lots” to support you in your causes, because you know you can’t get ANYWHERE without our support; so charming to see the disdain with which you all then repay and regard us. Very instructive, and duly noted.

  92. Lisa

    Another interesting article. Same argument ‘US white males got a psychological wage from the oppression of women/POC/LGBTI/etc while their pockets were picked by the wealthy’, for ages they blamed said groups for their economic problems which were caused by white heterosexual wealthy (nearly all) males, who played (and still play) them like a fiddle.

    For a (very) brief moment they looked like awakening politically, but they have slumped back to their same old, programmed into them, reflex ‘its all the niggahs, feminists, pooftahs, trannies, etc fault’ while the elites laugh (at them) all the way to the bank…

    They can’t seem to grasp the simple concept, if you are at the bottom then you have to make alliances with others in the same (or similar) boat to gain political power. That your self interests are much more similar to them, rather than those wealthy white males idolised so much. That others being oppressed may make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside but doesn’t pay the damn bills.

    Oh well, maybe the next election….

    http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2016/10/america-divided-rebellion-angry-white-men/

  93. ks

    @realitychecker,

    “What truly baffles me, in all sincerity, is that nobody like you, or ks for that matter, ever seems to be able to find their way to showing that they place any value on fundamental concepts like rule of law, accountability, civil liberties, or political corruption, which are things that are crucial to the entire community and to overall freedom itself, and not just to folks in your particular personal life-slots.”

    It’s no wonder you’re baffled as that is a dumb argument. Nobody has to show you anything. What’s truly baffling is that you expect, no demand, that people ignore things that are ongoing, immediate and direct threats to their lives (that you dismiss as merely their particular life slots) to pander your intellectual vanity and empty posturing.

    What’s not so baffling is that your ignorance about what is actually happening is vast. For example, the BLM activists in Ferguson alone exposed the several corrupt governmental practices that had nothing to do with the shooting but, I guess that doesn’t count as dealing with “…rule of law, accountability, civil liberties, or political corruption…” issues to you. Gee, I wonder why? Not.

    Meanwhile, you aren’t doing anything regarding “…rule of law, accountability, civil liberties, or political corruption..” except blowing smoke on the internet. You’re the best kind of rube because you don’t realize you are one.

  94. Lisa

    How to lose an election 101:

    “A year ago, before the primaries, Clinton appeared to have an advantage with women as the likely first female nominee of a major political party. But in the Democratic primaries, she had trouble attracting support from younger women, especially young white women.

    And before the disclosure of the lewd tape of Trump bragging about making unwanted sexual advances to women, he was holding the overall advantage among white female voters. ”

    “In early September, the Washington Post and Survey Monkey had Clinton up 23 points among white women with a college degree. But as of mid-September, Trump was still leading among white women without a college degree.

    Now, according to a PRRI/Atlantic poll conducted as the video of Trump’s hostile talk about grabbing women was released, non-college-educated white women are split, with Clinton and Trump each winning 40 percent of their votes.

    Keep in mind that white women without a college education preferred GOP nominee Mitt Romney by 20 points over President Obama in 2012. Among all white women, Romney won by 14 percentage points but still lost among women of all races by 12 points — and lost the election.”

    “Trump’s failure to defeat Clinton among white women with no college education, combined with her edge among college-educated white women — as well as her huge advantage among black, Latina and Asian women — has created an overall 33 point advantage for Clinton among all women, according to the PRRI/Atlantic poll.”

    “That is unprecedented, so much so that the poll looks like an outlier.”
    “But a FiveThirtyEight average of national polls done in October still gives Clinton a 15 point lead among women. And that edge among women is the heart of the growing Clinton lead over Trump both in national polls and in swing states.

    A CBS Battleground poll taken last week found Clinton leading Trump by 8 points in Pennsylvania, 48 to 40. And here’s the real kicker: 53 percent of Pennsylvania women told pollsters that the tape caused them to view Trump in a worse light. ”

    http://thehill.com/opinion/juan-williams/301250-juan-williams-women-will-doom-trump

  95. realitychecker

    @ ks
    @ Lisa

    OK, OK, let’s wrap this up, because I see no point in wasting any more energy on you two, who are clearly determined to cling to your self-centric positions no matter what I might say to you. And your curiously hostile victim rhetoric and empty ad hominems will never persuade me to your POV, either.

    To sum up, you will always be real clear about what the community owes to you now, and always will, because you will always feel you can justify/rationalize holding onto your victim mindset.

    And now, thanks to your forthrightness, the community will always know that it can never expect anything from you. It’s just unreasonable/bigoted/racist to ever expect you to balance personal with community interests like the rest of us have to do.

    Thanks for the illumination. I’m done.

  96. ks

    @realitychecker,

    I’m glad that was your final reply as there are only so may times you can restate the same bits of dumb and tine deaf nonsense. Also, you’ve been reduced to misrepresenting as neither Lisa nor I ever said the “personal/all” issue was an either/or matter. You think black people who don’t want to continue to get killed by the police aren’t interested in economic inequality/justice? That’s silly. While you have been waxing poetic on the internet, the mostly minority fast food workers who have been spearheading the nationwide $15 minimum wage movement say hi.

    The final reality is that you don’t speak for or actually do anything for “the community” and your supposed “balancing act” is, as I said above, just empty posturing and smug trash talking .

  97. realitychecker

    @ ks

    A mind is a terrible thing to waste; you should really try to stop doing it.

    Meanwhile, your girl just got her tits caught in the ringer. LMAO

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