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RE: Third Party Votes

LaoArchAngel | PRO | 07/26/16 10:45:43 PM UTC | 0 ⭐ | 325 👁️ | Never ⏰ | []
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I said that saying a third party vote is one of the main reasons the democratic process doesn't work, not THE reason.  And the distinction is appropriate.  If our world leaders tell us that our choices are between accepting that racism no longer exists and racism is justified, choosing for one over the other because we believe the other is worse doesn't end racism.  At which point is it our responsibility to say no to both?  What's worse is that while the intention of those saying no to both is to end racism, our strongest opposition is from other people who EQUALLY hate racism.  However, the fear that the third option won't win (in this example, fighting racism altogether) is the reason they won't steer from their current path and why racism is alive and well.  You might want to argue that racism, which in this case stands for one of many socio-political issues, isn't a valid replacement, but it's actually perfect.  Your argument of "now is not that time" is also problematic, and I'll get more into those further down.
 The difference between criticizing people for voting third party and criticizing someone for criticizing people for voting third party is significant.  This is actually a parallel to the MRA.  MRA are using their "freedom of speech" to silence or subjugate another demographic, that of women and feminists.  Another parallel is Christian "religious freedom".  Christians voting against gay rights is what they consider "religious freedom".  In this case, we're using the Two-Party system, which is a perfect reflection of everything that is white privilege, or male privilege, or straight privilege, etc, and using it to intimidate the rest to fall in line.  When I say that the statement (not the person) is hypocritical, this is what I meant.  I agree that I expected Shiloh to read a little deeper into that than this post because I didn't want to have to type it all out, but I clearly left far too much to interpretation.  My bad.  To the point, I think that Christian folk protecting their "freedom" by stripping it from gay couples is not far off from using the popular opinion and paranoia to intimidate people from voting for what they believe in.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I have... MOSTLY nothing from people who actually want to vote for Hillary.  There are people I work with and I know that truly and deeply believe in Hillary, and I would never have this argument with them.  I may debate with them, but I'm not disappointed in them.  And I certainly don't feel threatened or silenced by them.  Not unless they also criticize people voting their own way.
 "Our entire history shows that third party voting has never worked".  First, that's only partially true.  The true statement would be, our entire history shows that third party voting in a presidential election doesn't work.  In this case, semantics are important.  Let's not forget that Bernie Sanders himself ran most of his political career as "third party".  But back to the point at hand.  Why is it that our history shows that third party voting has never worked in presidential elections?  There are a lot of reasons for this, but one of the biggest players is a very common, often used warfare and espionage strategy called demoralization.  I do recommend you read this first:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoralization_(warfare).  That's a start, but there's a lot more like it.  These, like other forms of propaganda, are started by the right "top" people and then spread down.  It's actually VERY effective.  This is actually what the whole "people of color commit more crimes" statistics are about.  You and I have discussed this before, but for those of you just joining in.  60% of our country's prisoners are people of color (black and brown).  This is not proportionate with population numbers.  Our friends on the far right wave that statistic around like a shield justifying their racism.  The statistic is true.  However, if we look a little deeper, we have studies and so forth stating that the cause for crime isn't race, it's poverty, and if we as a nation didn't have systematic racism, those prison statistics would start mirroring our population demographics.  Clearly the true enemy is poverty, but if you just state the statistic, you can probably get your white majority to vote your way so that the top 1% can keep theirs.  Propaganda is then meant to be distributed by the populace.  And that actually goes into the whole "supposed to work" bit.  That's not what our forefathers envisions, surely, but this is what Cary was talking about before.  This is EXACTLY how it's supposed to work.  You're supposed to tell us that third party voting doesn't work.  You're supposed to point out the blatant danger of not voting your way.  We're supposed to fall in line.  This is what Cary meant when he said that the system is working as intended.  It's not what the system was made for, but it's working as intended.  However, working as intended for whom?  Not for us.  Not for any of us.  Certainly not for any minority community.
 So let's talk about the "now is not the time" dilemma.  First, there's a lot of pieces to put together here.  First, remember the whole race-bating, religious-zealotry that controls the right.  Most of the right doesn't actually care about things like family values, Christian values, etc.  We all know they're the first to throw those values out the window when they think the public isn't watching.  What you should be worried about is, what's the equivalent on the left side of the spectrum?  One thing that we can say about Hillary is that when it comes to private interests groups, she's always in their court.  Her actions have leaned towards supporting the TPP, a MAJOR threat to our privacy, net neutrality, and jobs.  She supports a corrupt voting system that silences many and threatens the very roots of democracy.  She has stood for private prison systems, the banks that tanked our economy, and so forth.  But she's willing to pay us enough lip service over women's rights, LGBTQIA rights, minority rights... These things are a carrot.  And we're not going to get that carrot.  Not from her.  The reason why is because these are the things that keep us voting in just the right way, for just the right people.  We get just enough change to feel vindicated, but then even that gets threatened.  How many ways can the right find to fight abortion?  Didn't we win that fight ages ago?  And every day more of these fights come up, keeping us occupied, and the painful part is that there are actual answers to these problems, but we're convinced that we can't afford to take them.  There will always be another Trump, or a Bush, or a Nixon.  Always.  It's by design.  By design, they're always going to put someone on their side that is terrible for us, and we can't afford to let them in, and there's always going to be someone on our side who is against everything 'MURICA! There is no next time.  Yesterday, today, tomorrow, that won't change.  There are people with a lot more money and a lot more power making sure we're stuck between a rock and a hard place, and feeding us just enough fear and doubt to keep us from saying , "No, fuck you, I'm not falling in line anymore."
 It's always been my philosophy to not react out of fear.  What breaks my heart is that I'm not hearing a reason to vote for Hillary.  What I mean by that is, Trump aside, why would I vote for Hillary.  In all honesty, what I hear is exactly the opposite.  But she's not Trump.  But what about them over here?  THEY aren't Trump?  Well, they can't win.  And why?  Well, one of the main reasons is that the one thing Trump and Hillary voters insist on is publicly denouncing those of us who are actually voting for what we believe in.  I mean, how can we POSSIBLY bitch about the DNC using public image and forums to hoist their preferred candidate when we as a society are collectively telling third-party voters the same thing?  I really don't mean to sound rude or mean or any of that, but from where I'm standing, that's the very definition to being "part of the problem".
 It has come to my attention that I can't piece my thoughts together.  This thing is fucking massive and there's a million thoughts that I can't express and I don't even think the ones I wrote here are coherent.  But I'm posting it anyway because it took a ton of energy and effort to write and maybe someone will understand it.  I agree, we can't afford a Trump presidency, but we also can't afford the status quo.  We can't. Trump is the result of that status quo.  What comes next, if Hillary wins, won't be better.  There won't be a better time.  And I will never shy away from my beliefs and principals over the fear of losing.

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