^ This is an essential antidote to the all the presidential ellectoral obsession. "The election frenzy....
seizes the country every four years because we have all been brought up to believe that voting is crucial in determining our destiny, that the most important act a citizen can engage in is to go to the polls and choose one of the two mediocrities who have already been chosen for us. It is a multiple choice test so narrow, so specious, that no self-respecting teacher would give it to students.
And sad to say, the Presidential contest has mesmerized liberals and radicals alike. We are all vulnerable.
Is it possible to get together with friends these days and avoid the subject of the Presidential elections?
The very people who should know better, having criticized the hold of the media on the national mind, find themselves transfixed by the press, glued to the television set, as the candidates preen and smile and bring forth a shower of clichés with a solemnity appropriate for epic poetry.
Even in the so-called left periodicals, we must admit there is an exorbitant amount of attention given to minutely examining the major candidates. An occasional bone is thrown to the minor candidates, though everyone knows our marvelous democratic political system won’t allow them in.
No, I’m not taking some ultra-left position that elections are totally insignificant, and that we should refuse to vote to preserve our moral purity. Yes, there are candidates who are somewhat better than others, and at certain times of national crisis (the Thirties, for instance, or right now) where even a slight difference between the two parties may be a matter of life and death.
I’m talking about a sense of proportion that gets lost in the election madness. Would I support one candidate against another? Yes, for two minutes—the amount of time it takes to pull the lever down in the voting booth.
But before and after those two minutes, our time, our energy, should be spent in educating, agitating, organizing our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the schools. Our objective should be to build, painstakingly, patiently but energetically, a movement that, when it reaches a certain critical mass, would shake whoever is in the White House, in Congress, into changing national policy on matters of war and social justice."
Let’s remember that even when there is a “better” candidate (yes, better Roosevelt than Hoover, better anyone than George Bush), that difference will not mean anything unless the power of the people asserts itself in ways that the occupant of the White House will find it dangerous to ignore.
The unprecedented policies of the New Deal—Social Security, unemployment insurance, job creation, minimum wage, subsidized housing—were not simply the result of FDR’s progressivism. The Roosevelt Administration, coming into office, faced a nation in turmoil. The last year of the Hoover Administration had experienced the rebellion of the Bonus Army—thousands of veterans of the First World War descending on Washington to demand help from Congress as their families were going hungry. There were disturbances of the unemployed in Detroit, Chicago, Boston, New York, Seattle.
This five-star essay documents all the reasons why I support Cornel West and the rest of the sane, eco-socialist candidates out there. The "tiny-fingered tangerine-tinted tyrant to the end" (love that) needs to come to the ignominious end he deserves along with the fascist Democratic Party of "Inauthentic Opposition" and its leader old Sleepy Joe. Of course it's naive to think that the phony election process in the context of the duopoly now occupying the Swamp is the path to victory. Yo, wake up America, it's revolution time. Big systemic change is the only viable answer, along with a humongous evolution of consciousness before it's too late. A Las Barricadas!
You are correct: fascism is a bigger problem than mangolini is. My strong hope is that fascist over-reach will inspire socialist resistance. My sense is that socialism is far stronger than more folks realize and gaining ground steadily. Overt fascism garners more public attention than socialism, largely covert because of the history of suppression here. Building a revolutionary left seems like the smart move these days.
I love the gifted oracle Cornel West. I'm in a different, revolutionary communist space that has zero interest in anyone running for elected office.under the US system. Plus I'm an atheist, which I think is related here, so I'm just in a different place both practically and epistemologically. And I have deep skepticism based on years of observation regarding the vehicle and its founder Brana, both rather aligned with the pink-brown Trumpenlefty Dore-Johnstone fascism-allying insanity I've been doing battle with for years. So, not my thing, I'm afraid. Please google up Howard Zinn's brilliant 2008 essay "Election Madness." If brother West can use his magic to exacerbate some contradictions and move some folks toward revolutionary consciousness ...good. But I'm afraid that kind of move ---- running for POTUS, which Dr.King politely rejected --- tends to work the opposite way: sheepdogging folks' legitimate hopes and anger into the timeworn US bourgeois-electoral charnel ground of social movements and revolutionary consciousness. And deepening mass demoralization by helping perform a ritual of popular powerlessness. So I guess on the whole that's big thumbs down but it's impossible for me not to love Cornel West and always wish him well.
Thanks for thoughtful reply. I will support Cornel West even though I may not be able to vote for him since he may make it on the ballot. I am too old to participate in a revolution, but still hoping a miracle can occur and we can elect someone with good ethical and moral standards, although I know our pseudo democratic, capitalist system makes it almost impossible.
RFK might entice me to vote, Cornel West if the possibility presents itself, but the fact that the Dem party and the MSM is going to be all Trump all the time until the elections will only annoy people and improve his chances. All the 'Russia gate' and orchestrated nonsense throughout and following Trump's Presidency tempts me to vote for him out of disgust for his opponents.
The current Dem machine backs a government that rails against people who condemn the placing of a phone in a person's rectum. As good a laugh as the Zionist/Nazi/Fascists got when the phone rang doesn't tempt me to vote for the people who support such amusements. No thanks. Let it burn.
Why are people so incredibly focused on voting....that is, on the killing confines of the US ruling class and Minority Rule electoral system? It's a very powerful drug, friends...time for a 12 step Leninist or hell even anarchist program?! Let's stop sniffing this ballot box glue so hard!!
https://progressive.org/magazine/election-madness-Zinn/
^ This is an essential antidote to the all the presidential ellectoral obsession. "The election frenzy....
seizes the country every four years because we have all been brought up to believe that voting is crucial in determining our destiny, that the most important act a citizen can engage in is to go to the polls and choose one of the two mediocrities who have already been chosen for us. It is a multiple choice test so narrow, so specious, that no self-respecting teacher would give it to students.
And sad to say, the Presidential contest has mesmerized liberals and radicals alike. We are all vulnerable.
Is it possible to get together with friends these days and avoid the subject of the Presidential elections?
The very people who should know better, having criticized the hold of the media on the national mind, find themselves transfixed by the press, glued to the television set, as the candidates preen and smile and bring forth a shower of clichés with a solemnity appropriate for epic poetry.
Even in the so-called left periodicals, we must admit there is an exorbitant amount of attention given to minutely examining the major candidates. An occasional bone is thrown to the minor candidates, though everyone knows our marvelous democratic political system won’t allow them in.
No, I’m not taking some ultra-left position that elections are totally insignificant, and that we should refuse to vote to preserve our moral purity. Yes, there are candidates who are somewhat better than others, and at certain times of national crisis (the Thirties, for instance, or right now) where even a slight difference between the two parties may be a matter of life and death.
I’m talking about a sense of proportion that gets lost in the election madness. Would I support one candidate against another? Yes, for two minutes—the amount of time it takes to pull the lever down in the voting booth.
But before and after those two minutes, our time, our energy, should be spent in educating, agitating, organizing our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the schools. Our objective should be to build, painstakingly, patiently but energetically, a movement that, when it reaches a certain critical mass, would shake whoever is in the White House, in Congress, into changing national policy on matters of war and social justice."
Let’s remember that even when there is a “better” candidate (yes, better Roosevelt than Hoover, better anyone than George Bush), that difference will not mean anything unless the power of the people asserts itself in ways that the occupant of the White House will find it dangerous to ignore.
The unprecedented policies of the New Deal—Social Security, unemployment insurance, job creation, minimum wage, subsidized housing—were not simply the result of FDR’s progressivism. The Roosevelt Administration, coming into office, faced a nation in turmoil. The last year of the Hoover Administration had experienced the rebellion of the Bonus Army—thousands of veterans of the First World War descending on Washington to demand help from Congress as their families were going hungry. There were disturbances of the unemployed in Detroit, Chicago, Boston, New York, Seattle.
This five-star essay documents all the reasons why I support Cornel West and the rest of the sane, eco-socialist candidates out there. The "tiny-fingered tangerine-tinted tyrant to the end" (love that) needs to come to the ignominious end he deserves along with the fascist Democratic Party of "Inauthentic Opposition" and its leader old Sleepy Joe. Of course it's naive to think that the phony election process in the context of the duopoly now occupying the Swamp is the path to victory. Yo, wake up America, it's revolution time. Big systemic change is the only viable answer, along with a humongous evolution of consciousness before it's too late. A Las Barricadas!
You are correct: fascism is a bigger problem than mangolini is. My strong hope is that fascist over-reach will inspire socialist resistance. My sense is that socialism is far stronger than more folks realize and gaining ground steadily. Overt fascism garners more public attention than socialism, largely covert because of the history of suppression here. Building a revolutionary left seems like the smart move these days.
What do think of Cornel West running for president?
I love the gifted oracle Cornel West. I'm in a different, revolutionary communist space that has zero interest in anyone running for elected office.under the US system. Plus I'm an atheist, which I think is related here, so I'm just in a different place both practically and epistemologically. And I have deep skepticism based on years of observation regarding the vehicle and its founder Brana, both rather aligned with the pink-brown Trumpenlefty Dore-Johnstone fascism-allying insanity I've been doing battle with for years. So, not my thing, I'm afraid. Please google up Howard Zinn's brilliant 2008 essay "Election Madness." If brother West can use his magic to exacerbate some contradictions and move some folks toward revolutionary consciousness ...good. But I'm afraid that kind of move ---- running for POTUS, which Dr.King politely rejected --- tends to work the opposite way: sheepdogging folks' legitimate hopes and anger into the timeworn US bourgeois-electoral charnel ground of social movements and revolutionary consciousness. And deepening mass demoralization by helping perform a ritual of popular powerlessness. So I guess on the whole that's big thumbs down but it's impossible for me not to love Cornel West and always wish him well.
Thanks for thoughtful reply. I will support Cornel West even though I may not be able to vote for him since he may make it on the ballot. I am too old to participate in a revolution, but still hoping a miracle can occur and we can elect someone with good ethical and moral standards, although I know our pseudo democratic, capitalist system makes it almost impossible.
Miracle is right. I don't think CW has any slightly serious expectation of being elected.
RFK might entice me to vote, Cornel West if the possibility presents itself, but the fact that the Dem party and the MSM is going to be all Trump all the time until the elections will only annoy people and improve his chances. All the 'Russia gate' and orchestrated nonsense throughout and following Trump's Presidency tempts me to vote for him out of disgust for his opponents.
Please understand that protest-voting for Trump is protest voting for a fascist: https://www.amazon.com/This-Happened-Here-Paul-Street/dp/1032150599
See the source in my previous comment on how RFK Jr is an anti-vaxxer lunatic who US fascists love to see in the mix.
The current Dem machine backs a government that rails against people who condemn the placing of a phone in a person's rectum. As good a laugh as the Zionist/Nazi/Fascists got when the phone rang doesn't tempt me to vote for the people who support such amusements. No thanks. Let it burn.
https://www.salon.com/2023/05/03/steve-bannon-alex-jones-rfk-jr/?
Why are people so incredibly focused on voting....that is, on the killing confines of the US ruling class and Minority Rule electoral system? It's a very powerful drug, friends...time for a 12 step Leninist or hell even anarchist program?! Let's stop sniffing this ballot box glue so hard!!