Blame shifting and ass covering has become America's premiere talent. Everyone in power does it with gusto. I can't remember a time when a US politician or other top official took responsibility and said they were sorry for their failings. To expect it from the Red or Blue teams this election is a hope too far I'm afraid. For me, the worst part about a Harris win will be that the genocidal Blue Team will get a pass on genocide. It will be a mandate for more genocide. It will also lead to more Trump voter anger and who knows what that will bring. A Trump win is going to unleash Russiagate 2.0 because the Blue Team never admits its failings. It's always Russia's fault when the Blue Team screws up. In either case, this is the worst election of my lifetime, and the next 4 years are going to be a true fustercluck.
And with either Trump or Harris, Israel will not just get a pass but will continue to be protected in its ethnic cleansing. Harris husband is making the rounds pandering to fear of antisemitism as mass killing is ignored.
I thought Harris' main campaign theme was obvious. "I'm not Trump".
Obviously, that's not a strong campaign theme. It will not buy a single D vote because those votes are already in the bag. It might buy some anti-Trump R votes, but I'm concerned that her unabashed support for Israel's genocide will cost her a lot more D votes than any R votes she wins over.
If Harris loses, she need only look in the mirror for the cause.
Bill, a graceful exit for the second-place finisher (because no one ever 'loses' in the US ) seems unlikely and will not bring civility - if for no other reason that the MSM mainlines the billions of ad dollars it gets from having people watch its political coverage. There's no way a Rachel Maddow justifies her $30 million salary if there's not something for her to soothe her viewers' anxieties.
If Harris takes office, I'm not sure what they'll do - after of course a year or more of coverage of incipient revolution at the hands of MAGA voters. With Trump, "four more years, four more years" of big bonuses for network executives is baked in.
I think the NYT saying Harris ran a “cautious” campaign, and did not have a theme, is pure, unadulterated BULL…She laid out her priorities and aims over and over again.And showed up at rallies and restaurants, scads of them, all over, all the time.
And everybody — candidates, and all players — need to own the part they have all played in how this winds up.
Sure, Harris and Trump need to own their win or loss… But that does NOT let the outside actors off the hook for influencing. For the luvva pete, “influencing” means INFLUENCING what people will do.
I actually think this attitude of “it’s their own fault” is a way for people not to have to take accountability for their own part in all of it.
There’s precious little that happens on our planet in isolation or a vacuum. LOTS of actions of LOTS of people will have a part in who wins this election. Even Putin {we don’t think that guy put lots of resources into shaking things up here because he thought it was really a waste of his time, do we?}
Mmmm. I am hoping we dodge the Fascist bullet, this time around … and we who care all stay in the fray to INFLUENCE how our government runs ongoing after… !
But. we own the part we played in THIS contest, too…
One thing I give Harris credit for is the lack of threats of violence and retribution with which Trump tries to intimidate people. Someone correct me if I am wrong but I think this employment of threats is something new and unique to Trump. He seems to me to be a teenage boy gone wild. This in keeping with the sexual content and breathtaking self-adulation speaks of deep insecurity despite his wealth.
This seems typical of the wealthy, indicated by never being satisfied that any amount is enough...Bezos, Musk, all of them, and we the people must listen to them contest each other ad nauseum. I couldn't believe it when Jamie Dimon pondered a run for the presidency...after all the he was involved in back in 2008. The wealthy have no sense of shame combined with egos beyond belief.
Well I haven't known many excellent debaters who "struggled in less structured settings". I wonder who came us with that BS line. Anyway I see were sending B-52s to the middle east. To "protect" our people there. (sarc)
Here's the rub-here's what we are up against: Most Americans/Canadians do not have the thinking skills or habits to vote intelligently-they know not about policies but of sentiments feelings the politicians evoke...We are not taught media literacy nor civics in school but on the most superficial of basis. Canadian Political Scientist David Moscrop wrote about this in his 2019 book Too Dumb For Democracy. It's all about marketing for sentiments-he who captures the resentments best wins. Nader is described as a "consumer advocate" when his life's work has been against a consumer society educating people about civics for a more civically engaged society. We have become less and less engaged in civics further and further away from a participatory democracy but with everybody staring at screens-everybody is writing-with so little to say.
Right on, Glen. The education we give our children on our political system is detached from reality, giving every child a false sense of what we are about. It is the same in Israel where teaching "they only want to kill us" has produced an IDF whose members smile and laugh as they kill and destroy, so immersed are they in self-righteousness.
Ralph Nader just had this to say about tomorrow... :
“THE ELECTION IS BETWEEN THE FASCISM OF TRUMP AND THE AUTOCRACY OF HARRIS”: The Four-Time Presidential Candidate On Why He Holds Out Little Hope For The Future Of American Democracy by Freddie Hayward / The News Stateman 04 Nov 24
The parties sell the most simplified solution to the vast complexities of our time: "Vote for me."
Patrick Lawrence posted a piece on his Substack on why he won't vote. A couple quotes in the piece....
“When we go to vote tomorrow, we will once again substitute legal power for legitimate power.”
- Jean-Paul Sartre (on the French elections, 1973)
"Voting, given the true nature of the system, is a kind of humiliation—a diminishment of our individuality, a veiled attack, even, on what remains of our reservoirs of self-respect ... It is as if America is a corporation and those in “the donor class” owned the “A” shares,” the weighted shares, and the rest of us the unweighted “B” shares.”
I disagree with Patrick Lawrence. I think we should vote. And for the candidate whose principles and positions most closely align with humanity, compassion, fairness, and decency.
So I voted for Jill Stein and the Green Party.
But we can't stop merely with the act of voting. We have to keep working to change a deeply flawed system.
Here's what Dorothy Day wrote in 1956: “We need to change the system. We need to overthrow, not the government, as the authorities are always accusing the Communists of conspiring to teach to do, but this rotten, decadent, putrid industrial capitalist system which breeds such suffering in the whited sepulcher of New York.”
Absolutely! While the chance of defeating the two party duopoly is slim, a slim chance is better than none. There is no possible way to defeat them if people don't vote. Not voting is surrendering. Only by voting for a third party or independent candidate can we defeat the two party duopoly.
The two main alternative parties today are the Greens and the Libertarians. The Greens are more like Democrats used to be back in FDR days and the Libertarians are more like the Republicans used to be. And if you are opposed to war, opposed to global warming, pro-worker and pro-environment I recommend the Greens.
The question about democracy is - can it be captured? The answer in the United States is YES! The support of ethnic cleansing with all our armed might in the face of our claim to liberty and justice for all is the proof. The entire world sees the hypocrisy, surely Americans can as well, but our government is bought. End of story.
History is littered with captured democracies. The textbook example is Germany in 1933. The next best example is the U.S. whose democracy has been captured by the oligarchs.
That's right and Hitler in Mein Kampf made it clear that he had contempt for democracy, saying that it featured elected people who didn't know what they were doing, ignorant at best and incompetent. Hitler knew exactly what he was doing and when the Germans were offered a referendum giving him absolute power, they voted yes. That was the point of no return. Erich Fromm in his book "Escape from Freedom" wrote of how people want a leader to give direction and do not like being asked to decide things. Who better to turn to than someone who openly declares he can immediately solve problems? Vox populi is no guarantee of the right decision, for all that politicians in American history have gone on about the wisdom of the people.
The big question is - can change come non-violently?
MLKJ was convinced that it could, but at the same time he decried those who asked for patience and time for change to come. He knew the suffering and humiliation of blacks could not bear to wait for whites to come around. As we have seen since MLKJ was assassinated, not a few whites have made no progress at all in race relations. MLKJ did move the needle on the dial but that not only was insufficient, it has been stopped.
This election day is all about Trump, whether one dislikes him or likes him. Harris could be anyone because she or anyone else is not Trump. Jill Stein is seen by most as only a spoiler that is helping Trump, her anti-Zionist stand ignored.
After tomorrow, I will be retiring my Jill Stein picket signs but I will continue to picket against Zionism. It is one thing that an individual can do that cannot be deterred by all the money of big Zionist donors. Yes, it's pathetic but I have to do what I can and the local newspapers in my small city will not publish a letter I submitted detailing the power of Zionism on the local scene. Freedom of speech has been suppressed everywhere now, all that I have left is placing my body on a corner wearing signs. How low can the country go? Even lower if we start killing Iranians to protect Israel.
And folks here at BV might enjoy The Socratic State of Mind’s Andrew Perlot’s 4 Nov 24 piece ~ HOW TO HAVE WORTHWHILE OPINIONS IN A CONFUSING WORLD: Introducing Dueling Books...:
I’ve discussed how firm opinions leave us fragile and stupid
So there are many things in life to which we should say, as the Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius did:
*** “You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.” ***
“But Andrew,” I hear you saying. “I can’t have no opinions! How will I survive without them? How can I vote? How can I raise children or run a business?”
You’re right that you’ll need loosely held working hypotheses to navigate the world.
But the problem is that you can’t develop many worthwhile opinions. Rational, well-thought-out opinions grounded in reality take months or years of diligent testing and research to form. You’re a busy human and there’s a bottomless well of things you might hold opinions about, so you’ll master few subjects. THE ALTERNATIVE OF UNSHAKABLE FAITH IN HALF-UNDERSTOOD IDEAS IS A RECIPE FOR DISASTER.
THE ILL-INFORMED THINK THEIR FEW FACTS CONSTITUTE MASTERY WHILE THE TITANS OF THE FIELD KNOW THEIR KNOWLEDGE IS INCOMPLETE AND QUALIFIED. This is the famous Dunning-Kruger Effect.
A vote for the "best" evil against the "worst" evil is still a vote for evil-ensures evil-has us evil-has kept us evil for decades and will keep us evil after this election. Vote for policies that you believe will take us out of the neocon-neoliberal nightmare and that's the likes of Cornel West or Jill Stein. As Chris Hedges wrote- "While a victory for Stein is not in the cards, being honest is crucial, especially when the Stein campaign is capable of OUTLASTING this election cycle and become a catalyst for an anti-war, pro-worker movement capable of taking on the big business-backing, warmongering parties." A vote for Stein is an investment in the future-encouraging her likes not to fold but to keep on shedding light on a way out. When this failing American Empire more fully fails and falls, we will need the likes of Stein to lead the way forward.
But this does not say that Trump is not the worst of the two evils. I hope people do not vote for Trump just because they despise the hypocrisy of Kamala. Trump will claim victory win or lose.
Ralph Nader recently wrote “Kamala Harris sent her two closest advisors to Wall Street about a month ago to get advice on her economic and tax policies and not connecting with the Citizens for Tax Justice, which has a progressive proposal. She doesn't connect with citizen groups. She goes around campaigning with Liz Cheney…It's quite amazing that the most popular incumbent elected politician in America today is Bernie Sanders…And she's ignoring Bernie Sanders and going into one state after another with people like Liz Cheney" So I wrote Nader stating- your policies align with Stein's and asking-are you endorsing her? He hasn't replied but he wouldn't be using the "third parties steal elections" argument made against his campaigns! LOL
I can imagine that like Firefighting and taking a "Beating" they'll want to sleep like for a Wk.! But, losing w/ grace is an Art and takes a lot of Class which probably is lacking w/ this Crew. You do the best you can you put the fire out and wait for the next one. The night was always young in Firefighting....
Blame shifting and ass covering has become America's premiere talent. Everyone in power does it with gusto. I can't remember a time when a US politician or other top official took responsibility and said they were sorry for their failings. To expect it from the Red or Blue teams this election is a hope too far I'm afraid. For me, the worst part about a Harris win will be that the genocidal Blue Team will get a pass on genocide. It will be a mandate for more genocide. It will also lead to more Trump voter anger and who knows what that will bring. A Trump win is going to unleash Russiagate 2.0 because the Blue Team never admits its failings. It's always Russia's fault when the Blue Team screws up. In either case, this is the worst election of my lifetime, and the next 4 years are going to be a true fustercluck.
🎯
And with either Trump or Harris, Israel will not just get a pass but will continue to be protected in its ethnic cleansing. Harris husband is making the rounds pandering to fear of antisemitism as mass killing is ignored.
I thought Harris' main campaign theme was obvious. "I'm not Trump".
Obviously, that's not a strong campaign theme. It will not buy a single D vote because those votes are already in the bag. It might buy some anti-Trump R votes, but I'm concerned that her unabashed support for Israel's genocide will cost her a lot more D votes than any R votes she wins over.
If Harris loses, she need only look in the mirror for the cause.
It's amazing it's costing her a billion dollars in ads to say "I'm not Trump."
The ‘not Trump’ talk just surfaced recently. Harris’ theme from the ‘git go’ has been women ‘s issues.
One issue: abortion.
Why not give women a lesson in personal responsibility rather than assuming it's ok to put themselves in the position of needing an abortion.
Why not men too?
That's $250 million per word (when you count I'm as two words).
Bill, a graceful exit for the second-place finisher (because no one ever 'loses' in the US ) seems unlikely and will not bring civility - if for no other reason that the MSM mainlines the billions of ad dollars it gets from having people watch its political coverage. There's no way a Rachel Maddow justifies her $30 million salary if there's not something for her to soothe her viewers' anxieties.
If Harris takes office, I'm not sure what they'll do - after of course a year or more of coverage of incipient revolution at the hands of MAGA voters. With Trump, "four more years, four more years" of big bonuses for network executives is baked in.
No matter who loses either the DNC or RNC are to blame. They're both private corporations and they don't even believe in democracy.
I think the NYT saying Harris ran a “cautious” campaign, and did not have a theme, is pure, unadulterated BULL…She laid out her priorities and aims over and over again.And showed up at rallies and restaurants, scads of them, all over, all the time.
And everybody — candidates, and all players — need to own the part they have all played in how this winds up.
Sure, Harris and Trump need to own their win or loss… But that does NOT let the outside actors off the hook for influencing. For the luvva pete, “influencing” means INFLUENCING what people will do.
I actually think this attitude of “it’s their own fault” is a way for people not to have to take accountability for their own part in all of it.
There’s precious little that happens on our planet in isolation or a vacuum. LOTS of actions of LOTS of people will have a part in who wins this election. Even Putin {we don’t think that guy put lots of resources into shaking things up here because he thought it was really a waste of his time, do we?}
Mmmm. I am hoping we dodge the Fascist bullet, this time around … and we who care all stay in the fray to INFLUENCE how our government runs ongoing after… !
But. we own the part we played in THIS contest, too…
But that’s my take.
One thing I give Harris credit for is the lack of threats of violence and retribution with which Trump tries to intimidate people. Someone correct me if I am wrong but I think this employment of threats is something new and unique to Trump. He seems to me to be a teenage boy gone wild. This in keeping with the sexual content and breathtaking self-adulation speaks of deep insecurity despite his wealth.
This seems typical of the wealthy, indicated by never being satisfied that any amount is enough...Bezos, Musk, all of them, and we the people must listen to them contest each other ad nauseum. I couldn't believe it when Jamie Dimon pondered a run for the presidency...after all the he was involved in back in 2008. The wealthy have no sense of shame combined with egos beyond belief.
YESSSSS
Well I haven't known many excellent debaters who "struggled in less structured settings". I wonder who came us with that BS line. Anyway I see were sending B-52s to the middle east. To "protect" our people there. (sarc)
Here's the rub-here's what we are up against: Most Americans/Canadians do not have the thinking skills or habits to vote intelligently-they know not about policies but of sentiments feelings the politicians evoke...We are not taught media literacy nor civics in school but on the most superficial of basis. Canadian Political Scientist David Moscrop wrote about this in his 2019 book Too Dumb For Democracy. It's all about marketing for sentiments-he who captures the resentments best wins. Nader is described as a "consumer advocate" when his life's work has been against a consumer society educating people about civics for a more civically engaged society. We have become less and less engaged in civics further and further away from a participatory democracy but with everybody staring at screens-everybody is writing-with so little to say.
Right on, Glen. The education we give our children on our political system is detached from reality, giving every child a false sense of what we are about. It is the same in Israel where teaching "they only want to kill us" has produced an IDF whose members smile and laugh as they kill and destroy, so immersed are they in self-righteousness.
Ralph Nader just had this to say about tomorrow... :
“THE ELECTION IS BETWEEN THE FASCISM OF TRUMP AND THE AUTOCRACY OF HARRIS”: The Four-Time Presidential Candidate On Why He Holds Out Little Hope For The Future Of American Democracy by Freddie Hayward / The News Stateman 04 Nov 24
https://www.newstatesman.com/international-content/the-international-interview/2024/11/ralph-nader-interview-election-is-competition-between-fascism-donald-trump-autocracy-kamala-harris
The parties sell the most simplified solution to the vast complexities of our time: "Vote for me."
Patrick Lawrence posted a piece on his Substack on why he won't vote. A couple quotes in the piece....
“When we go to vote tomorrow, we will once again substitute legal power for legitimate power.”
- Jean-Paul Sartre (on the French elections, 1973)
"Voting, given the true nature of the system, is a kind of humiliation—a diminishment of our individuality, a veiled attack, even, on what remains of our reservoirs of self-respect ... It is as if America is a corporation and those in “the donor class” owned the “A” shares,” the weighted shares, and the rest of us the unweighted “B” shares.”
- Patrick Lawrence (2024)
I disagree with Patrick Lawrence. I think we should vote. And for the candidate whose principles and positions most closely align with humanity, compassion, fairness, and decency.
So I voted for Jill Stein and the Green Party.
But we can't stop merely with the act of voting. We have to keep working to change a deeply flawed system.
Here's what Dorothy Day wrote in 1956: “We need to change the system. We need to overthrow, not the government, as the authorities are always accusing the Communists of conspiring to teach to do, but this rotten, decadent, putrid industrial capitalist system which breeds such suffering in the whited sepulcher of New York.”
Absolutely! While the chance of defeating the two party duopoly is slim, a slim chance is better than none. There is no possible way to defeat them if people don't vote. Not voting is surrendering. Only by voting for a third party or independent candidate can we defeat the two party duopoly.
The two main alternative parties today are the Greens and the Libertarians. The Greens are more like Democrats used to be back in FDR days and the Libertarians are more like the Republicans used to be. And if you are opposed to war, opposed to global warming, pro-worker and pro-environment I recommend the Greens.
The question about democracy is - can it be captured? The answer in the United States is YES! The support of ethnic cleansing with all our armed might in the face of our claim to liberty and justice for all is the proof. The entire world sees the hypocrisy, surely Americans can as well, but our government is bought. End of story.
History is littered with captured democracies. The textbook example is Germany in 1933. The next best example is the U.S. whose democracy has been captured by the oligarchs.
That's right and Hitler in Mein Kampf made it clear that he had contempt for democracy, saying that it featured elected people who didn't know what they were doing, ignorant at best and incompetent. Hitler knew exactly what he was doing and when the Germans were offered a referendum giving him absolute power, they voted yes. That was the point of no return. Erich Fromm in his book "Escape from Freedom" wrote of how people want a leader to give direction and do not like being asked to decide things. Who better to turn to than someone who openly declares he can immediately solve problems? Vox populi is no guarantee of the right decision, for all that politicians in American history have gone on about the wisdom of the people.
The big question is - can change come non-violently?
MLKJ was convinced that it could, but at the same time he decried those who asked for patience and time for change to come. He knew the suffering and humiliation of blacks could not bear to wait for whites to come around. As we have seen since MLKJ was assassinated, not a few whites have made no progress at all in race relations. MLKJ did move the needle on the dial but that not only was insufficient, it has been stopped.
Is it possible? Yes. Is it probable? Perhaps, with a probability of about 0.01.
Sadly, even the B shares have been bought up by the donor class.
This election day is all about Trump, whether one dislikes him or likes him. Harris could be anyone because she or anyone else is not Trump. Jill Stein is seen by most as only a spoiler that is helping Trump, her anti-Zionist stand ignored.
After tomorrow, I will be retiring my Jill Stein picket signs but I will continue to picket against Zionism. It is one thing that an individual can do that cannot be deterred by all the money of big Zionist donors. Yes, it's pathetic but I have to do what I can and the local newspapers in my small city will not publish a letter I submitted detailing the power of Zionism on the local scene. Freedom of speech has been suppressed everywhere now, all that I have left is placing my body on a corner wearing signs. How low can the country go? Even lower if we start killing Iranians to protect Israel.
Doesn't sound like you're ready for another 4years, Bill.
And folks here at BV might enjoy The Socratic State of Mind’s Andrew Perlot’s 4 Nov 24 piece ~ HOW TO HAVE WORTHWHILE OPINIONS IN A CONFUSING WORLD: Introducing Dueling Books...:
I’ve discussed how firm opinions leave us fragile and stupid
[ https://andrewperlot.substack.com/p/acknowledge-these-three-things-for ].
So there are many things in life to which we should say, as the Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius did:
*** “You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.” ***
“But Andrew,” I hear you saying. “I can’t have no opinions! How will I survive without them? How can I vote? How can I raise children or run a business?”
You’re right that you’ll need loosely held working hypotheses to navigate the world.
But the problem is that you can’t develop many worthwhile opinions. Rational, well-thought-out opinions grounded in reality take months or years of diligent testing and research to form. You’re a busy human and there’s a bottomless well of things you might hold opinions about, so you’ll master few subjects. THE ALTERNATIVE OF UNSHAKABLE FAITH IN HALF-UNDERSTOOD IDEAS IS A RECIPE FOR DISASTER.
THE ILL-INFORMED THINK THEIR FEW FACTS CONSTITUTE MASTERY WHILE THE TITANS OF THE FIELD KNOW THEIR KNOWLEDGE IS INCOMPLETE AND QUALIFIED. This is the famous Dunning-Kruger Effect.
Continued at https://andrewperlot.substack.com/p/how-to-have-worthwhile-opinions-in ; EMPHASIS added.
A vote for the "best" evil against the "worst" evil is still a vote for evil-ensures evil-has us evil-has kept us evil for decades and will keep us evil after this election. Vote for policies that you believe will take us out of the neocon-neoliberal nightmare and that's the likes of Cornel West or Jill Stein. As Chris Hedges wrote- "While a victory for Stein is not in the cards, being honest is crucial, especially when the Stein campaign is capable of OUTLASTING this election cycle and become a catalyst for an anti-war, pro-worker movement capable of taking on the big business-backing, warmongering parties." A vote for Stein is an investment in the future-encouraging her likes not to fold but to keep on shedding light on a way out. When this failing American Empire more fully fails and falls, we will need the likes of Stein to lead the way forward.
But this does not say that Trump is not the worst of the two evils. I hope people do not vote for Trump just because they despise the hypocrisy of Kamala. Trump will claim victory win or lose.
Ralph Nader recently wrote “Kamala Harris sent her two closest advisors to Wall Street about a month ago to get advice on her economic and tax policies and not connecting with the Citizens for Tax Justice, which has a progressive proposal. She doesn't connect with citizen groups. She goes around campaigning with Liz Cheney…It's quite amazing that the most popular incumbent elected politician in America today is Bernie Sanders…And she's ignoring Bernie Sanders and going into one state after another with people like Liz Cheney" So I wrote Nader stating- your policies align with Stein's and asking-are you endorsing her? He hasn't replied but he wouldn't be using the "third parties steal elections" argument made against his campaigns! LOL
I can imagine that like Firefighting and taking a "Beating" they'll want to sleep like for a Wk.! But, losing w/ grace is an Art and takes a lot of Class which probably is lacking w/ this Crew. You do the best you can you put the fire out and wait for the next one. The night was always young in Firefighting....
God's will.