My Fellow Americans: We Are Fools

Margot Kidder gets it right.

Fighting The Liberal Reaction

The antidote to the disease of reaction is the cure of radical construction.

The Two Party System

"It's the money, Christina, it's always the money. The rest of it's nothing but opera..."

~ William Gaddis, A Frolic Of His Own, p. 1.

The Political Life Of A Progressive In The Democratic Party

Some day, one day...



Wishful thinking is a form of magical thinking. Although often "progressive" in form, it is nevertheless deeply conservative in effect.

Dr. West Is Integrity Personified

West endorses Jill Stein.

History Is The Record Of Unintended Consequences

A Trump Presidency might be just the thing this country needs to swing a significant proportion of the voting public to the Left. A Clinton Presidency, on the other hand, could push farther to the Right those who (mistakenly) believe that the Democratic Party represents the Left.

Vote your conscience and let the chips fall where they may. Democracy and decency are always and everywhere a struggle. Real political action takes place outside the voting booth.

How About This For A Campaign Slogan?

Clinton-Kaine: More Of The Same.

The Senescence Of The Duopoly

When Donald Trump loses the Presidential election (as he most surely will, just read the polling data), his brief but tumultuous political career will be over and the Republican Party will distance itself from him as from a nasty fart.

Hillary Clinton's ascension to the Oval Office will mean more war, more classic Clintonian bait-and-switch (drawing a Liberal smiley face on Reaganesque policies), and more scandal. The Clintons are magnets for scandal, not because there exists a "vast right-wing conspiracy" but because they have never believed that the rules that apply to everyone else apply equally to them.

The rising generation will reject the mess that Clinton will inevitably make and the Democratic Party will pay the price of its inability to read the writing on the wall.

Gotcha!

Long Live The Great People Of Turkey!

Sometime around 2010, Erdogan took the necessary steps to liberate the Turkish government from the military paternalism that had prevented the state from developing robust democratic institutions since its founding (as the direct result of a military coup) in 1923. The "civilianization" process, however, had begun decades earlier (after the Second World War) and proceeded by fits and starts (in '60, '71, '80, and '93 the military re-asserted its dominance). In the U.S., by contrast, since the Second World War, we have seen the exact reverse occur: American resistance to a standing army has given way to a near-complete capitulation to the military-industrial-complex. As our founding fathers knew (but we have since forgotten) militaries are autocracies, not democracies; they are inimical to democratic flourishing.

Islamophobia

is P.C. anti-Semitism.

Containing Political Insurgency 101

There are different ways to contain a political insurgency. The Democratic Party managed to contain the insurgency of which Bernie Sanders was the figurehead through behind-the-scenes maneuvers with the Sanders campaign, the true nature of which will probably never be made public.

The Republican Party will contain the Trump insurgency by allowing Trump to be Trump and thereby alienate so many of the Party faithful that his campaign will crash and burn long before November. Everyone will breath a sigh of relief and then the establishment will pick up where they left off before they were so rudely interrupted.

The Coming Political Revolution

If you think that the coming "political revolution" is about something other than dismantling the duopoly's stranglehold upon our political system, you aren't actually thinking about a political revolution at all. You're thinking about re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Good luck with that.

The Way Forward

Well Done, Duopoly!

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are vying for the honor of being the least popular Presidential candidate in American history!

Trump will win that race with Clinton a close second. As a consolation prize, Clinton will achieve her lifelong dream of being the first female President of the United States.

Even so, the only election results that will matter in November will be (1) turnout and (2) the number of ballots not cast for either Trump or Clinton. Those numbers will register the lack of confidence that the American people now place in the Two Party system.

I expect turnout to be low and, among those who do bother to go to the polls, I expect a record number of "none of the above" ballots cast.

These numbers will not indicate voter apathy so much as voter outrage. They will allow us to gauge the reservoir of discontent that will continue to fuel the revolution as it moves forward with or without Bernie Sanders.

There is a new political reality in the United States, and it seems clear to me that neither of the major parties are in a position to respond to it.

The revolution is not (and has never been) Bernie Sanders. If he chooses to board Clinton's campaign bus, he will trade political revolution for some mild version of political meliorism. I thank him for his past efforts and wish him well in his future endeavors.

Clinton Democrats Diagnosed

Go Green, Bernie!

Trump doesn't have the votes to win a national election. In a three way race, Hillary would get the Neo-Con vote (Democrat and Republican), Trump the lunatic fringe vote, and Sanders would reap votes of progressives and independents (and the latter now outnumber Democrats and Republicans). It would be a horse race, to be sure, but one well worth gambling on. The Neo-Liberal (Obamian, Clintonian) status quo (mass murder at home and abroad) is simply unacceptable.

Come To Think Of It...

Chilcot report.

Since Hillary Clinton voted to authorize the Iraq War, it might be good to have her in the Oval Office. As President, she can become the living emblem of criminality in high office and the ire that fuels the revolution will be able to focus on her. Trump would just be a distraction. Clinton deserves to be front and center when the levee holding back righteous indignation and revolutionary action finally breaks.

Which is not to say that I have any intention of voting for her. I will check "None of the above" at the ballot box by writing-in Bernie Sanders. But I am reconciled to Clinton's election insofar as it will prove to be a Pyrrhic victory.

Only A Free People Has A Right To Celebrate

Independence Day.

Spare Me Your "Lesser Evilism"

Because we, in the United States, are completely incapable of having honest conversations about what is actually happening in our world today, Trump and Clinton are serious contenders for the U.S. Presidency.

Spare me your "lesser evilism," we are in the midst of World War Three.

Here's Your Chance, Bernie

Don't blow it out of some misplaced loyalty to the Democratic Party. The revolution will continue, with or without you. Unacceptable is unacceptable. Go direct and Independent to the American people and make your case. You will win.