They're both evil. The differences are superficial and aesthetic. Two heads of the same beast. The machine that enables them is the problem, but it's mostly invisible to people. I'm very tired.
"But the main reason I'm working for him,” he said, "is that he's the only guy we have who can beat Nixon.” He stabbed the arm again. "If Nixon wins again, we're in real trouble.” He picked up his drink, then saw it was empty and put it down again. “That's the real issue this time," he said. “Beating Nixon. It's hard to even guess how much damage those bastards will do if they get in for another four years.”
I nodded. The argument was familiar. I had even made it myself, here and there, but I was beginning to sense something very depressing about it. How many more of these goddamn elections are we going to have to write off as lame but “regrettably necessary" holding actions? And how many more of these stinking, double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils?
I have been through three presidential elections, now, but it has been twelve years since I could look at a ballot and see a name I wanted to vote for. In 1964, I refused to vote at all, and in '68 I spent half a morning in the county courthouse getting an absentee ballot so I could vote, out of spite, for Dick Gregory.
Now, with another one of these big bogus showdowns looming down on us, I can already pick up the stench of another bummer. I understand, along with a lot of other people, that the big thing, this year, is Beating Nixon. But that was also the big thing, as I recall, twelve years ago in 1960—and as far as I can tell, we've gone from bad to worse to rotten since then, and the outlook is for more of the same.
Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72
This is in the beginning of the book in January. The preface to this bit was Hunter getting kicked out of a Washington Redskins game, for not removing his hat during the anthem. The man speaking about Beating Nixon was the President of the Redskins, and Hunter has a pretty funny exchange with him on the plane to San Francisco:
Actually, I was happy to get out of that place. The Redskins were losing, which pleased me, and we were thrown out just in time to get back to Burgin's house for the 49er game on TV. If they won this one, they would go against the Redskins next Sunday in the playoffs—and by the end of the third quarter I had worked myself into a genuine hate frenzy; I was howling like a butcher when the 49ers pulled it out in the final moments with a series of desperate maneuvers, and the moment the gun sounded I was on the phone to TWA, securing a seat on the Christmas Nite Special to San Francisco. It was extremely important, I felt, to go out there and do everything possible to make sure the Redskins got the mortal piss beaten out of them.
Which worked out. Not only did the 49ers stomp the jingo bastards and knock them out of the playoffs, but my seat companion for the flight from Washington to San Francisco was Edward Bennett Williams, the legendary trial lawyer, who is also president of the Washington Redskins.
"Heavy duty for you people tomorrow," I warned him. "Get braced for a serious beating. Nothing personal, you understand. Those poor bastards couldn't have known what they were doing when they croaked a Doctor of Journalism out of the press box.”
He nodded heavily and called for another scotch & soda. "It's a goddamn shame,” he muttered. “But what can you really expect? You lie down with pigs and they'll call you a swine every time.”
"What? Did you call me a swine?”
“Not me," he said. “But this world is full of slander."
From the Decemberist revolt in 1825 to 1917 the Russian revolutionaries tried and failed for almost 100 years. Ultimately, what worked was two revolutions. First they had to overthrow the tzar, then the bourgeoisie. And that's where we keep getting stuck. We have to fully hand over control to the Democrats, with no republican veto power. Then, we can defeat the democrats.
That literally is the middle step using the two revolutions metaphor. Having one ruling party would open the lane for a left party, since we have a two party system, it would surely force progressives out when they fail to reform enough, and it would shrink the GOP numbers, as they get drawn into the Democrat party.
If there is more support for a left party than there is for a GOP, we will have our success. Probably on a state level first, perhaps California since the GOP is already down to 30% support there.
This is the dumbest fucking take on the website.
??? How are the right going to magically all stop voting for a right wing party?
No. The bit is everyone on in here trying to convince people to not vote for Biden.
The only thing I can think of in his favor is that he'll be slightly less disruptive to the lives of trans people and married LGBT people.
And the price for that slight benefit will be some tens or hundreds of thousands of foreign lives.
It's why I will not call Trump a fascist in front of liberals. Every time they think they're voting Hitler out of office we're going to repeat Kerry v Bush jr 2004.
The red scare propaganda will be the starting move, but it won’t end there. History shows they will quickly move on to disappearing people, psyops, and outright murder.
Organizers, make sure your opsec is good, and be prepared for violence.
Opsec is barely even possible anymore. Your phone tracks you everywhere. Counterintelligence software correlates those movements, combines them with other metadata, then determines who is a likely "Threat". The algorithm says you're a person of interest, and if it gets kicked up high enough they come for you. They don't even have a file on you anymore. They have a packet of semi-anonymous data and that data has a threat rating and if enough things happen to boost that threat rating they flag you for disposal and drop a hellfire missile on you.
Libs get mad when I say that since I'm not American, I prefer an isolationist Trump to an interventionist Biden. Having said that, if you are American you should vote Biden purely to avoid Trump rounding you up.
I mean trump is not isolationist. Look at what happened to geberal suleimani, or the increase in drone strikes. On the other hand he does seem to want to get out of Afghanistan, so it's a mixed bag.
The best argument you can make in this vein is that trump is/will be much more incompetent at managing imperial affairs.
Look at what happened to geberal suleimani, or the increase in drone strikes.
Look at the attempted coup in Venezuela we were behind, and the coup in Bolivia we also likely had a hand in.
"Trump is too incompetent to be imperialist" is consistently one of the worst takes on here.
Okay, but Venezuela was able to hold out, and Bolivia to defeat their coup, and it's reasonable to assert that the reason the Venezuelans and Bolivians were able to clean house effectively is at least partially due to the chaos and inability of the White House to coordinate the machinery of empire.
Well, maybe. Venezuela fought off a coup in 2002 organized by a more competent U.S. administration, so it's not as if doing so was hopeless before Trump. Bolivia saw Morales ejected from power (and despite the election, we have yet to see if the fascists leave office), so it's not as if Trump has made the U.S. incapable of something more sophisticated than chuds in speedboats. And that very same chaos and instability that in theory could make imperialism more difficult (1) precipitated the Iran crisis by tearing up the Obama nuclear deal, (2) manufactured the immediate cause of the crisis, and then (3) drove us right up to the brink of an invasion, including armed attacks from both Iran and the U.S. Note also that the "well we didn't actually go to war with Iran" argument is pretty absurd if the whole premise here is that Trump is chaotic and unstable -- we didn't go to war this time, but you can't count on a chaotic and unstable leader to avoid war every time.
Yeah but killing Suleimani was the a stupid action by a provincial, venal strong man. He didn't send cruise missiles in to Tehran. Likewise, drone strikes are very bad but they're not the escalation of mass destruction we'd see under a genuine neoliberal adventurer. His lack of ideology or real concern for the US's power and hegemony keep him from engaging in any really focused use of violent power.
There's no real reason to believe Biden won't round us up. He hasn't made even the slightest of noises about the DHS or ICE, and most of the cities where the most brutal police actions have taken place are deeply entrenched Democrat strongholds.
i love how 'socialists' love talking about how you should GO VOTE FOR BIDEN but they never talk about 'HEY YOU SHOULD RUN FOR OFFICE INSTEAD FUCK VOTING THERE ARE ZERO OPTIONS'
like if youre gonna have electoralism you need to have someone you at least partly agree with
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling… makes no difference. The degree is arbitrary. The definition’s blurred. If I’m to choose between one evil and another… I’d rather not choose at all.”
a couple more weeks and we get a two year break from electoralism. i'm sick of the fucking commercials. i actually upvote non political commercials on youtube now, just hoping that i don't have to hear the names trump or biden for a few minutes.
it seems like they amped up the advertising this cycle to a point of ridiculousness. maybe it's because i'm in PA, but every single commercial on every single channel has like 4 political ads, and i'm wondering like 'wtf capitalism? aren't you supposed to be trying to sell me useless bullshit?'
You should really get ublock origin, I never see youtube ads and haven't for years and years.
I thought it was important for Bernie to win, so I donated, made calls, knocked doors. The people who tell you that, their actions belie their words. If it's so important, what are they doing about it?
