We got out and voted in the Minnesota primary this morning. We were the first ones there — I was #1! — and it looks like it’ll be a low turnout. Get out and vote! If you’re not a Minnesotan, here’s a list of important election dates all across the country.
I also read a piece by Charles Pierce which filled me with horror. There are vague noises, which I hope are entirely false, that Clinton wants to consult with…Henry Goddamn Motherfucking Kissinger on foreign policy.
On Monday, there was a fascinating piece in Tiger Beat On The Potomac in which some unnamed people in the campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton whispered to a reporter that the campaign was sending out feelers to what the story laughingly referred to as the foreign-policy “elders” of the Republican Party. The list of foreign policy “elders,” according to TBOTP’s sources, included the following examples of the Republican Undead:
Henry Kissinger: war criminal and abettor of abattoirs around the world.
James Baker: political survivor, mastermind of the Great Florida Ratfck of 2000, Bush family retainer.
George Schultz: potential Iran-Contra stool pigeon.
Condoleezza Rice: National Security Advisor during Worst National Security Disaster in U.S. History.
No. No no no no no. This is not tolerable. If true (and again, I hope it is not), it would confirm my worst fears about Clinton. This is nightmare material.
It will cost her votes, too.
If Hillary Clinton actively seeks, or publicly accepts, the endorsement of Henry Kissinger, I will vote for Gary Johnson and Bill Weld on November 8. (Jill Stein, you might’ve been a contender, but going off to Red Square to talk about Vladimir Putin and human rights? Being an honored guest of a Russian propaganda channel? I don’t think so.) Kissinger is a bridge too far. He is responsible for more unnecessary deaths than any official of a putative Western democracy since the days when Lord John Russell was starving the Irish, if not the days when President Andy Jackson was inaugurating the genocide of the Cherokee. He should be coughing his life away as an inmate at The Hague, not whispering in the ears of a putatively progressive Democratic presidential candidate. I can tolerate (somewhat) the notion of her reaching out to the rest of the wax museum there, but Kissinger is a monster too far. He is my line in the sand. I can choose who I endorse to lead my country, a blessing that Henry Kissinger worked his whole career to deny to too many people.
I agree with Pierce that Kissinger is an abominable monster who ought to be in prison, and he’s one of the small number of people whose inevitable death will provoke cheers from me. If Clinton were to be even more chummy with Kissinger than she already is, I’ll be in line for “Anyone But Hillary” — in four years. But not this election. She has my vote locked up, which is not a good situation to be in, but I’ll definitely vote for the lesser of two evils.
This is something else to damn Trump for. He is so appallingly awful that the Democratic candidate is free to wander off into unthinkably ugly territory with few consequences.
Not only would I prefer just about anyone else to anyone who strokes Kissinger, but I’d also like to see the return of a viable, rational Republican party.
If things continue the way they have been in this election, it’s far from inconceivable that you’ll end up with a situation where a third of the electorate vote for either Johnson or Stein, the Republican vote is split between Trump and whoever is propped up to screw his chances and nobody’s willing to vote for Clinton.
It may turn out that a candidate only needs say 20% of the vote total to be ahead of any other candidate. I’m curious whether such a situation would change your position, given that it could actually happen. I suppose it depends on the situation in your state though.
I think Clinton has been emboldened by the defections of some high-ranking Republicans and is deciding to court then instead of hard-core progressive voters.
If I lived in the States, I would still be voting anti-Trump, but I’d also be campaining as hard as possible for progressives at every other level.
Does anyone know of a list of progressive candidates? If so, that’s something Sanders should be using his remaining platform to spread the word about.
Maybe this is all just a nightmare, and Mrs. Clinton is just tapping Charles Manson as her policy adviser. Or maybe some pedophile-cannibal. Anybody else, really.
Hillary laughed when Ghaddafi was murdered. But wasn’t he a piker compared to Kissinger?
Hillary Clinton is the human version of irritable Bowel syndrome.
Donalt Trump is the Zika virus. Vote for Hillary, but spit on the, wossname (the English Word for the stuff you vote with).
After Trump is beaten, you can concentrate oon fighting the Blue Dogs ,which obviously include the Clintons.
I guess the Cambodian and Vietnamese voting bloc isn’t as significant as the vintage totalitarian bloc.
Golgafrinchan Captain – Here you go: http://sandersdemocrats.org/
I don’t know if this actually will cost Hillary votes. From my perspective, this is an entirely unsurprising move for her, and is one of the major reasons I detest her as a candidate, and was so excited to have Bernie to vote for. But Bernie is out now, and tRump would be far worse than Hillary. She is at least competent in her banality, whereas tRump is just nucking futz.
Keep Trump away from the launch codes.
When that is done, let us all remind the public of the awful things Clinton stands for, and has done (approving of torture during the Dubya administration, appeasing various dictators, throwing the democracy demonstratörs in Honduras under the bus, destructively interfering in the democratic process of Haiti, sucking up to the banking interests et cetera et cetera)
I think this kerfluffle has to do with this open letter condemning Trump from former GOP security and foreign advisors.
Will they come out and condemn Trump too?
Much like a lot of Republicans were hoping (against all evidence) that Trump would become more of a traditional candidate after receiving the nomination. I was hoping (against all evidence) that Clinton actually became more of a human being when she started emulating Sanders. Or at the very least would avoid sucking up to folks like Kissinger and Doug Coe (which she did in past iterations of Hillary). Not that her avoiding these actions would actually mean anything but at least I wouldn’t feel so crappy voting for her.
Isn’t it possible for Hill to consult with Kissy as “useful idiot”? Taking all of his advice of what to do as her list of what NOT to do?
perhaps I’m too optimistic…
Hillary may be too extreme. Therefore, I’ll vote for a 3rd party extremist.
You’ve seen a functional Republican party already. They’re called Democrats. The Republicans are going (have gone?) the way of the Whigs. What happens to the left in the next 4-8 years is, however, very much an open question.
I’d say that’s pretty inconceivable. The 4-way polling average, with 10 polls in the last week and a half (so unlikely to be any significant noise) is like so:
Clinton: 43.8
Trump: 36.3
Johnson: 8.6
Stein: 4.0
The presence of Johnson and Stein doesn’t change much; they appear to take votes away from Trump and Clinton equally (Clinton is exactly +7.5 in both a 2-way and 4-way match-up). The idea that Clinton’s entire 44% might defect is wildly implausible, unless maybe she eats a baby in front of a live audience.
Johnson plus Stein have zero chance of getting a third of the vote. They won’t even get the 12% they’re currently polling.
I also read a piece by Charles Pierce which filled me with horror. There are vague noises, which I hope are entirely false, that Clinton wants to consult with…Henry Goddamn Motherfucking Kissinger on foreign policy.PZ, where have you been for the last bunch of years? Of course she’s consulting with him, she’s been copying his approach to foreign policy for most of her career.
I want to believe she’s just trying to make herself palatable for crossover neocon voters.
I don’t, but I want to.
The OP link to the U.S. Vote Foundation indicates that there are a fair number of elections in the U.S. this month.
August 9 – Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont, Wisconsin
August 13 – Hawaii
August 16 – Alaska, Wyoming
August 27 – Guam
August 30 – Arizona, Florida
And in 4 years there will be another horror show republican that you must hold your nose and vote against.
So at what point do you stop electing neo-liberals whose goal is perpetual war and enrichment of the 1%?
At what point will you have a viable (electable by the general populace) candidate that backs YOUR agenda? You do the work. You might find your agenda is too far out there. Quit thinking we must do the work for you.
Why?
I want them dead, destroyed, gone, salted over, extirpated.
Get a proper progressive, socialist party as the opposition instead.
You already have a viable Repul(ic)an party as brianl said at #14.
Speaking of Kissinger, this is the very next story I read: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/09/henry-kissinger-mass-killings-argentina-declassified-files
Kissinger kissed up to the Argentine top brass during the dictatorship just as Carter was trying to get them to stop disappearing people quite so much.
I know that this shan’t be popular, it’ll be poopular, but do hear me out.
I’d retain Kissinger for a very, very good reason. First, he was involved in a hell of a lot of history and knows firsthand what dastardly deeds were done to whom, when, how and why.
Second, he knows the back story in many issues – hell, he helped create that clusterfuck!
Finally, whatever solutions he provides gives me a point somewhere near 180 degrees opposite to find an actual, real and lasting solution.
So, yes, I would indeed retain him.
There’s also certain, highly specific information that I know quite well, but an NDA with bear trap harm prohibiting discussion of. Kissinger was actually the nicest guy in some rooms, way back when.
Still, I can’t help but to echo an uncle, when I attended a rarely attended family feud, erm, event, a wedding.
One elder uncle, whose name entirely escapes me, likely to the day of my death, remarked, upon my identifying myself, “You?! I thought you were dead!”.
I deadpanned, “Not hardly. Close on occasion, but I’m an NCO and hence, as hard to get rid of as any resistant organism that reproduces by binary fission”.
At the time, it was still classified disinformation, the reality of it is, a military NCO reproduces by budding, like an unpleasant yeast form. ;)
The jest was well aimed, it distracted him from asking questions that I was prohibited from answering.
Yeah, some career paths created tremendous familial friction. I learned fairly early on, a bit of dark humor distracted the one inquiring on something that they failed to apprehend was classified.
For the record, most of my military life was spent either idle or bored. Boy, do I treasure those memories, for the exciting times… Sucked. Badly.
Hence, my adage, “Boring is good, I like it!”.
For, exciting lives are marked by their brevity. Boring is good, I love boring. :)
As for politicians that I’ve voted for, never met one who I didn’t degree with on multiple issues, one chooses one’s devil that one knows over the devil one doesn’t know, knowing that the majority of the bastards fulfill the devil label.
After all, politics is the work of the possible.
There was a viable candidate this year remember what the neo-liberals who control the democratic party did to him? It was in all the papers.
@24
And now he’s no longer an option.
Now your choices are a bad democrat with a high chance of winning, a worse republican with a high chance of winning, or a slightly less bad third party candidate with little-to-no chance of winning.
I’d rather put my vote to the least-bad one that has a chance of winning than throw it away just to show ideological support with some wackjob third party candidate, but that’s your choice to make.
Because he did half of them himself?
Yes, because he did half of them himself — asked and answered. That’s not a good reason, much less a very good one. Indeed, it makes no fucking sense. Are there no other people who know things, including some that wouldn’t give you some clusterfucked version of the story? If other people know things, then him knowing things isn’t a special qualification. Meanwhile, being inclined to offer a load of unreliable bullshit counts against him.
Clinton doesn’t need to assume her solutions should be opposed to Kissinger’s. You might do that, and it might work occasionally. But broken clocks are also occasionally right, so your method is stupid whether or not Clinton adopts it. What works is getting a decent advisor who will attempt to tell you the truth and help you understand what parts are most significant — then you’re simply evaluating their advice. Performing a series backflips after every round is just absurd and doesn’t actually improve anything about the process. You might as well be saying that we should put Kissinger’s advice into homeopathic solution and drink that shit up. Even when it doesn’t hurt much, that shit doesn’t fucking work.
Proportional voting would fix a lot of this.. you would be free to vote 1 Sanders and 2 Clinton. Sanders votes would not then take votes away from Clinton unless he got more than her. In either case all the votes end up with one of the two.
Kissinger still has quite a fan base. Recently Niall Ferguson, a noted Neo-Con, published volume one of a biography of Kissinger. (Kissinger 1923-1968: The Idealist.) In it Ferguson performs his rim job on Kissinger with great enthusiasm But then Ferguson is very much an apologist for empire, especially if its from the west.
I have little doubt that Ferguson will when he discusses Kissinger’s career, will evade, explain away, deny and yes justify the atrocities and blunders that Kissinger was involved with.
Like the sabotage of negotiations to end the Vietnam war before the pPresidential election of 1968. The Turkish invasion of Cyprus, the Chilian coup of 1973, the backing of Pakistan during the murderous repression in East Pakistan, (Later Bangladesh.), in 1971, giving the Indonesian’s the go ahead to invade East Timor in 1975 with the resulting genocide, the secret bombing of Cambodia, etc, etc.
Clinton will bring war, death and destruction on many “far away” countries, and the left will say nothing.
The president isn’t a king. President Bernie wasn’t going to wave his magic bird and bring about a moonbat utopia. And, to repeat myself: The presidency is a largely symbolic vote anyway.
You babies want America pushed left again? Do what the right did and start local and work your way up. Play the long game. You won’t because you’re fucking children too busy issuing purity tests. I’d say you were the left’s version of the Tea Party but the Tea Party were willing to put in the effort and work with others
Because god knows the left hasn’t been vehemently, vocally opposed to every other military action in recent memory.
Which isn’t to say that I support said military actions – I’m just saying that I don’t see much evidence that the left would be conspicuously silent in Hillary’s hypothetical military actions after not missing a one of the previous ones.
Who? Link! (acting stupid says something about you, not us)
And guess what, he wasn’t viable to the democratic party and only got 45% of their votes. Where are you living? Under a rock?
I live in the real world. And according to Wiki, some names are missing from “neocons”. Both Clintons and Obama.
But it was mentioned that the label is pejorative used inappropriately by socialists against the democrats, or other socialists.
So, your real problem is that both Clintons and Obama are to the right of you….
@birgerjohansson 5:
That’s been our strategy throughout the Iraq war— “after we’ve put them into power, we can focus on fighting to get them out again.”
@Artor 8:
Considering that these threads are divided more or less equally between people who say: “I’ve already decided not to vote for Clinton” and people who say: “There is absolutely nothing Clinton could ever do that would convince me not to vote for her,” you might well be right.
@Area Man 15:
How many people have been making calls for Stein? How many volunteers have been going door to door for Stein? How many Sandersesque small donations have been made?
Any time the subject of a third party’s chances come up, we always hear the same circular argument— “we won’t fight for them, because they can’t win, because we won’t fight for them.”
If these campaign tactics work, then failing to use them is simply declaring a priori that you can’t win, refusing to try on the basis of that declaration, and then pointing to the fact that you didn’t win to justify your refusal to try.
And if those campaign tactics don’t work, then why have I been inundated with calls, emails, and solicitations asking me to support Clinton— from people who do not, themselves, support Clinton except out of the irrational belief that she is, by definition, the only alternative to Trump?
@llamaherder 17:
I want to believe there’s a heaven for me and a hell for Kissinger.
@Troll 20:
You refer to ending the state of perpetual war and the aristocracy of the 1% as “your” agenda rather than “our” agenda.
Well then. We already knew you were a Bush Republican, but it’s still nice that you finally admitted it.
@consciousness razor 26:
Well, that is one of the preferred arguments from the Clinton-or-bust crowd— that Clinton has a long and varied history of fucking up other countries gets spun as “foreign policy experience” so it’s unsurprising to see the same argument applied to Kissinger.
@31, 32 Vivec:
Only the ones led by Republicans. Compare the mass protests against Bush’s war in Iraq to the relative silence of Obama’s wars in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, and Libya.
No, you’re just planning to vote for them.
If that’s what it takes to block an even worse warmonger, then yes.
My interest in this election isn’t getting the best president epistemically possible, it’s getting the best one that is likely to win.
The only candidates that evidence supports a high chance of winning are Trump and Clinton, and I think the latter is preferable.
Actually, “warmonger” is the one area in which Clinton is definitively worse than Trump.
Not to mention that given Clinton’s triangulation, outreach to the Republicans, and the general Overton window shifts brought about by conservative Democrats being allowed to take liberal votes for granted, it’s looking increasingly like a Hitler vs. Hindenburg choice anyway.
“Who might win” is not exactly a passive thing that you can measure once in August and be confident it won’t change. In fact, people’s opinions change constantly.
Will you be campaigning on behalf of someone better between now and November? Making calls? Writing letters to the editor? Going door to door? Manning tables? Donating money? Advocating online, if you’re poor and disabled and that’s about the most you can do?
If no, then you are making the decision that you would rather have either Trump or Clinton than any other option, and then deciding that of those two, you’d prefer Clinton to Trump.
If I believed there was a chance in hell that doing the above would somehow rocket a fringe party candidate that I liked (none exist at the moment, btw) into being a viable candidate, sure.
Otherwise, nah.
Too few spoons and too much other stuff to do.
In regards to your point on people’s opinions changing between august and november, that’s valid. I just think its a crapshoot to believe a substantial portion of the US would switch to voting for a third party, and if they did, it’d still just be another case of slightly-not-as-bad-ism. I think Stein and Johnson are dangerous nuts too.
Either way, I think it’d be a horrifically poor use of my time to devote a substantial amount of time and energy to advocate for a third party candidate I don’t even like in the hopes of convincing a substantial amount of people to vote for a third party.
Did you know that USAmericans do NOT directly vote for the President?
@Vivec 37:
Bernie Sanders.
At the beginning of his campaign, his polling numbers were comparable to Stein.
At the end, the DNC had to rig the entire election to defeat him— and he still got 45% of the vote.
I blame the chemtrails.
Right, but even if I could swing a substantial amount of Democrats and Independents towards voting for some third party candidate that I liked (of which there are none), I’m not confidant that wouldn’t also Risk a good chance of making the Republicans win by dividing the opposition into two parties.
I kinda have better things to do than to advocate for a party I don’t like, with the hopes of not only swinging any people to vote for that party, but to swing enough people to make said party I don’t like viable in a national convention.
National election*
Does anyone around here know? Constantly updated, 24/7:
IsKissingerDeadYet.com
And thanks MadScutter @7.
Tools like
http://sandersdemocrats.org/ need to be broadcast as much as possible.
@williamgeorge #30
Your point being?
Someone here is assuming too much AND making false equivalences.
Also, I am not US citizen, am VERY concerned about what the US does abroad (unlike most Americans) and am directly involved in the local politics of where I live.
@Vivec #31
LOL, you serious?
Hopey Changey has expanded wars and drone strikes among the general silence of Dems and media.
This is exactly what I am complaining about.
@Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls #33
I am still waiting for you to prove me, to give me the evidence that getting people more directly involved in politics is a viable, real-world option rather than a moonbat fantasy.
Why are you being so obtuse? Very common knowledge in this country.
Religious right (moral majority) and the republican party. I lived through it.
Simple concept. Show up and vote, and encourage people with your values to run and elect them. They took over the republican party, check their platform, even this year.
You either work for change, or you accept what other people do.
To quote the fictitious President Bartlett (whose ancestor signed the DoI) “decisions are made by those who show up.” You don’t show to vote, caucus, or nominate, you make no decisions for the people.
Given that Trump’s attitude to nukes seems to be “what’s the point in having them if we don’t use them?” I’m not remotely convinced this is true. Sure, Clinton is more of a warmonger than I’d like, but at least she’s smart and competent – I could easily see Trump ending up in a war due to arrogance and egotism, and having no fucking idea about what is proportional and sensible.
Golgafrinchan Captain and MadScutter – Thanks for broadcasting the http://sandersdemocrat.org link. The site was new to me and has useful information about candidates for my state.
I’m looking forward to Bernie Sanders’ livestream on August 24th at the launching of Our Revolution.