I Have Not Yet Sealed the Ballot
I should, but something this year is... different.
Preamble: I have voted officially for president in every election since I was eligible in 1984. I'm not going to defend past presidential choices; no voter needs to defend past election choices.
This year, though, has been hard. This is the first year where I just don't give a shit which of the main candidates wins. This apathy of mine has run smack into a major antipathy amongst those of my friends, family members and online acquaintances who happen to be gay.
Here's an example, from a former coworker and F#c@Book friend who has moved elsewhere:
I'm watching c-span and vomiting in my mouth. I'm certain most of the Trump supporters have hidden me in their feed or deleted me, but if by chance you are seeing this and voting for Trump (or as Cher refers to him:🚽), please remove me from your list. You obviously hate your kids, women, all non-white people, immigrants and yourselves, and I have zero need to have any connection to you. Zero. Bye, Felicia.
...We are facing a catastrophe if Trump is elected. If you're considering supporting a third party: you are making a huge mistake and adding to the problem facing us.
(I emboldened the issue.)
I'm not sure who Felicia is, but yikes.
And that FB friend is not alone. I was repeatedly attacked by the flimsiest of rhetoric by an LJ friend who simply wouldn't let up. I mean, it was striking, the dismissive "Bernie Bro" talking points he constantly threw in my face as if they were a thing. Because I was such a person as this imaginary BB, I was automatically anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-democracy-name it, I'm probably it.
Which is patently batshit insane.
Look, when I question my pretty damned long adherence to the Democratic Party line, I do not do it lightly. Yes, in passing, I wondered why Hillary was so darned insistent on non-diplomacy. Pretty striking, really, from a former Secretary of State, dontcha think? LJ dude took one look at the single interview I (grudgingly) gave him supporting my opinion, saw some "controversial" material in it, and dismissed it as "fringe" (meaning he didn't deign to read the damned thing in its entirety, if at all).
Well, today I came across this article from Dennis Kucinich published in The Nation. (I'm sorry, LJ dude, not "unfringe" enough for you?) It dealt with exactly the same issues I raised in that earlier exercise in LJ frustration. In it, Kucinich laments the fact that formerly liberal think tanks have been infected with the same disease vector that dominated every complaint I had about Hillary: money, money given to think tanks that now advocate increased military interventions:
How else to explain that in the past 15 years this city’s so called bipartisan foreign policy elite has promoted wars in Iraq and Libya, and interventions in Syria and Yemen, which have opened Pandora’s box to a trusting world, to the tune of trillions of dollars, a windfall for military contractors. DC’s think “tanks” should rightly be included in the taxonomy of armored war vehicles and not as gathering places for refugees from academia.
His conclusions resonated with me. I hope they do the same with you.
Any report advocating war that comes from any alleged think tank ought to be accompanied by a list of the think tank’s sponsors and donors and a statement of the lobbying connections of the report’s authors.
It is our patriotic duty to expose why the DC foreign-policy establishment and its sponsors have not learned from their failures and instead are repeating them, with the acquiescence of the political class and sleepwalkers with press passes.
It is also time for a new peace movement in America, one that includes progressives and libertarians alike, both in and out of Congress, to organize on campuses, in cities, and towns across America, to serve as an effective counterbalance to the Demuplican war party, its think tanks, and its media cheerleaders. The work begins now, not after the Inauguration. We must not accept war as inevitable, and those leaders who would lead us in that direction, whether in Congress or the White House, must face visible opposition.
(I did it again.)
In the name of a "visible opposition" I threw my support to Bernie. Why? If you have to ask, in my opinion, you aren't paying attention.
That said, I'm in a quandary. No, I do not support The Donald for anything other than a Cheap Laugh. But No, I cannot support Hillary. Why? Yes, she is eminently qualified. Yes, she is farther to the left of her opposition.
But here's a question too few even raise with themselves: Consider her campaign symbol. In which direction does the arrow point?
Real Progressives Point Left!
I thought of printing up a few of that slogan along with an image for a bumper sticker, but no, I thought. Bumper stickers should support something, not just shit on everything.
And that's what opposition to the mainstream is today, the role of shitting on everything offered as an option.
I want OTHER options!
But yes, I know, I can't have any. Probably because we don't actually live in a democracy.
That LJ dude pointed out that a few people in Florida voting for Nader ruined the early oughts for the rest of us: I retorted that the only decision makers that mattered in 2000 wore black robes to work.
I used to give Nader voters that same raft of shit when they flooded me with their idealism. Now I properly blame the robe wearers.
Which brings me to today.
I don't want. Therefore, I can't decide.
If you have an opinion, and it doesn't resort to calling me names that I don't deserve, chime in on what I could do.
I'm seriously open to any option other than casting a vote for The Weasel Headed.
Preamble: I have voted officially for president in every election since I was eligible in 1984. I'm not going to defend past presidential choices; no voter needs to defend past election choices.
This year, though, has been hard. This is the first year where I just don't give a shit which of the main candidates wins. This apathy of mine has run smack into a major antipathy amongst those of my friends, family members and online acquaintances who happen to be gay.
Here's an example, from a former coworker and F#c@Book friend who has moved elsewhere:
I'm watching c-span and vomiting in my mouth. I'm certain most of the Trump supporters have hidden me in their feed or deleted me, but if by chance you are seeing this and voting for Trump (or as Cher refers to him:🚽), please remove me from your list. You obviously hate your kids, women, all non-white people, immigrants and yourselves, and I have zero need to have any connection to you. Zero. Bye, Felicia.
...We are facing a catastrophe if Trump is elected. If you're considering supporting a third party: you are making a huge mistake and adding to the problem facing us.
(I emboldened the issue.)
I'm not sure who Felicia is, but yikes.
And that FB friend is not alone. I was repeatedly attacked by the flimsiest of rhetoric by an LJ friend who simply wouldn't let up. I mean, it was striking, the dismissive "Bernie Bro" talking points he constantly threw in my face as if they were a thing. Because I was such a person as this imaginary BB, I was automatically anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-democracy-name it, I'm probably it.
Which is patently batshit insane.
Look, when I question my pretty damned long adherence to the Democratic Party line, I do not do it lightly. Yes, in passing, I wondered why Hillary was so darned insistent on non-diplomacy. Pretty striking, really, from a former Secretary of State, dontcha think? LJ dude took one look at the single interview I (grudgingly) gave him supporting my opinion, saw some "controversial" material in it, and dismissed it as "fringe" (meaning he didn't deign to read the damned thing in its entirety, if at all).
Well, today I came across this article from Dennis Kucinich published in The Nation. (I'm sorry, LJ dude, not "unfringe" enough for you?) It dealt with exactly the same issues I raised in that earlier exercise in LJ frustration. In it, Kucinich laments the fact that formerly liberal think tanks have been infected with the same disease vector that dominated every complaint I had about Hillary: money, money given to think tanks that now advocate increased military interventions:
How else to explain that in the past 15 years this city’s so called bipartisan foreign policy elite has promoted wars in Iraq and Libya, and interventions in Syria and Yemen, which have opened Pandora’s box to a trusting world, to the tune of trillions of dollars, a windfall for military contractors. DC’s think “tanks” should rightly be included in the taxonomy of armored war vehicles and not as gathering places for refugees from academia.
His conclusions resonated with me. I hope they do the same with you.
Any report advocating war that comes from any alleged think tank ought to be accompanied by a list of the think tank’s sponsors and donors and a statement of the lobbying connections of the report’s authors.
It is our patriotic duty to expose why the DC foreign-policy establishment and its sponsors have not learned from their failures and instead are repeating them, with the acquiescence of the political class and sleepwalkers with press passes.
It is also time for a new peace movement in America, one that includes progressives and libertarians alike, both in and out of Congress, to organize on campuses, in cities, and towns across America, to serve as an effective counterbalance to the Demuplican war party, its think tanks, and its media cheerleaders. The work begins now, not after the Inauguration. We must not accept war as inevitable, and those leaders who would lead us in that direction, whether in Congress or the White House, must face visible opposition.
(I did it again.)
In the name of a "visible opposition" I threw my support to Bernie. Why? If you have to ask, in my opinion, you aren't paying attention.
That said, I'm in a quandary. No, I do not support The Donald for anything other than a Cheap Laugh. But No, I cannot support Hillary. Why? Yes, she is eminently qualified. Yes, she is farther to the left of her opposition.
But here's a question too few even raise with themselves: Consider her campaign symbol. In which direction does the arrow point?
Real Progressives Point Left!
I thought of printing up a few of that slogan along with an image for a bumper sticker, but no, I thought. Bumper stickers should support something, not just shit on everything.
And that's what opposition to the mainstream is today, the role of shitting on everything offered as an option.
I want OTHER options!
But yes, I know, I can't have any. Probably because we don't actually live in a democracy.
That LJ dude pointed out that a few people in Florida voting for Nader ruined the early oughts for the rest of us: I retorted that the only decision makers that mattered in 2000 wore black robes to work.
I used to give Nader voters that same raft of shit when they flooded me with their idealism. Now I properly blame the robe wearers.
Which brings me to today.
I don't want. Therefore, I can't decide.
If you have an opinion, and it doesn't resort to calling me names that I don't deserve, chime in on what I could do.
I'm seriously open to any option other than casting a vote for The Weasel Headed.