I think it’s only fair that I inform you of the changes in my personal view on politics and voting, shaped by decades of government that is unresponsive to the needs of the people.
I was a life-long Democrat, voting faithfully since 1969. I even ran for state legislature as a Democrat. Yet I’ve now come to understand that Democrats in DC now vote in lock-step for militarization and global violence to benefit not me but the monied interests of the world. Waving banners of McCarthyite faux patriotism, DNC forced militarization was the "last straw" for me.
Based on the rapidly increasing chaos in the world and the realization that fewer people every year are able to live with a sense of well-being, I’ve taken an entirely new view and abandoned the idea that anyone currently elected to our federal government has done anything of substance to assure that attainable goal of a sense of well-being for all, a goal which ought to be the primary intent of anyone elected to serve in a government "of, by, and for the people". Indeed the actions of our federal government have taken us further from that goal ever year.
Thus I’ve committed to a completely new set of personal standards for voting. Yet these "new" standards are actually not new, they were set forth in a speech from Martin Luther King Jr. on August 31, 1967, "The Three Evils of Society: Racism, Poverty and War". Until some evidence of progress toward eliminating these three evils is shown, I’ll base every vote I cast on that goal. I will no longer vote for any political candidate who fails to show a history or obvious intent to hold the elimination of these three evils above all else.
Consequently, as I vote my ballot this week I’ll not be voting for you as I have in the past. You’ll not have my mark of approval.
My view is that those criticizing Biden for not doing enough to relieve crippling student debt, mitigate inflation and bring down the rising cost of living are being unfair. He and his administration are doing their utmost to ensure that we will soon live in a world in which these concerns will be completely irrelevant. After the global collapse of human civilizations and near extinction of most life forms on earth, any survivors will not have to worry about having to pay back loans with interest, and in a subsistence and barter economy no one will need to concern themselves with the price of stuff in dollars or any currency.
So give the guy some credit, will ya?
The only question is whether he will achieve these goals before or after the midterms.
This is quite possibly the least important midterm in my memory. Everything bad is bipartisan, nothing positive is at stake.
The high bar for outcomes is to give Democrats more seats, so you can hear the new excuses they've prepared for why they can't get anything done. I admit I'm a little curious to see what they come up with.
The best outcome is lower participation and a move away from the major parties, at least some hint of voter rebellion. Likely?
Good question. I remember in 2016 there was talk that if a third party candidate got 5% of the vote, they'd have to be let into major debates and put on the ballot. That'd be a positive
Sorry to rub it in my fellow idiots, but every two years I thank my luck that I don't live in the US and thus don't have to face the endless months of empty horse-race punditry. Reporting on polls takes 10 seconds. Speculating on what they mean, which way they might go, etc. is a fucking waste of time.
I wish you could. I've lived in Austria a long time now. I wish people who think the US has good elections could come here for a while. My wife is Austrian so she can vote here. She just voted for president a couple of weeks ago. It took her roughly 10 minutes to vote. Hand counted paper ballots.
Hard limits on what parties can spend, how and who can donate. Of course there is corruption here, but nothing like in the US. So of course the elections are much more free and fair. And all hand counted paper ballots.
Please don't anyone state that it is only possible because Austria is small. Vienna is big. It would be about the 5th largest city in the US. Our elections in this big city work just fine. The process scales up without issue. Costs would actually go down through economies of scale.
Population ~ 335 million - 2 slightly different orientations (democrat and republican) for all federal and state offices !
Sounds about right - 1½ orientations for 335 million people - what more could one ask for ?
Imagine 3 or more party's (with more than 2 slightly different orientations - it would be CHAOS I say - total chaos ! A disaster for the American populace !
2 Party's sharing half an orientation and differing on the other half is more than enough.
One can only wonder why so many Americans don't participate or care to participate in the process.
It would be a nightmare to have an antiwar party or a party that fought for living wages to be tied to inflation & the housing market. Or horror of horrors, a party that thought Go Fund Me should not be a primary healthcare provider. Or a party that didn't step over the homeless and incarcerated to campaign for more funding of their corrupt party ...
I keep hearing politicians, particularly Democratic ones, saying that "(such and such) is on the ballot" this November. Like "a woman's right to choose is on the ballot" or "the future of public education is on the ballot" or "Democracy itself is on the ballot".
Well, I hate to break it to you folks, but none of that stuff was on my ballot. I already voted, and all I had was various candidate names on my ballot. None of that other stuff. However, for each race I was presented with the option to write in any candidate I wanted, so that's where I put those things. "Democracy itself" for Senate. "A woman's right to choose" for governor. "The future of our children" for US House.
Must've been typos? Because we've also definitely heard that Democracy Itself is on the ballot, we've been campaigning for it. Guess we'll write it in too for senate
Most important issue: war and peace. The consequences of the midterms will be an exacerbation of the execrable reality we have been living since 1950. Questions I want Katie and Aaron to address are the candidates position on Israeli apartheid. I read today of another massacre in the West Bank. Apparently under cover of the attention drawn to the Ukraine debacle.
Someone in here said the media will be partially to blame for the upcoming nuclear war. And blatantly ignoring stories like this is part of the problem
I'm in Australia watching every weather record broken, that's rain with every levy bank over flowing inundating towns, farms etc and the Gov saying you will have to pay more for food cause the floods destroyed most of it. We will have to pay 60% more for your energy prices due to the unavoidable war in Ukraine, even though we export energy, the mining companies can't miss out on profits.
Billionaire bunkers: How the 1% are preparing for the apocalypse
The financial system throughout the world is geared to preserve the wealth of those in power until the disparity become so great there is a revolution.
The elections everywhere are the bread and circuses for the masses.
That's a good point. We're told it's our right and duty to vote, and that makes us feel like we're a part of democracy. The best route seems to be to join Medea Benjamin and the Code Pink coalitions and pressure the leaders harder than ever
For brevity I omitted that the previous summer broke almost all records to the extent that a stand of tress which dates back to the age of dinosaurs had to be saved.
" Specialist firefighters have saved the world’s last remaining wild stand of a prehistoric tree from wildfires that razed forests west of Sydney, officials said Thursday."
Obviously I'm admirer of your reporting (we having nothing like it in Australia) but there is what I believe a significant whole in perspective surrounding "How the economy is run"and for who's benefit. Code Pink will live inside the eco created by the economy.
Please consider interviewing; Chris Martenson from Peak Prosperity, James Howard Kunstler of the Kunstler Report or Wolf Richter from the Wolf Report for views that redefine who's waging the dog. To really test your ability to look at alternativ views please consider any of the highly accredited Drs at the FLCCC (Front Line Covid Critical Care doctors). These are whistleblowers with degrees after their names https://covid19criticalcare.com/providers/esther-fields-do/
Prior to the November 8 showdown between the Vancouver Canucks and Ottawa Senators, can Aaron & Katie address the Canucks' preternatural ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? This season has been particularly egregious.
Wonder if the WEF is working on a plan with Putin to precisely place the right number of bombs so their nuclear winter effect will balance out all our anthropogenic warming? With AI it should be easy.
I feel such apathy in the face of worldwide misery combined with official failure to come to grips with it. I have been a despairing Democrat for decades, but what now? McCluskey's appeal speaks to me, but I lack his conviction.
Have you watched this week's episode with Medea Benjamin? She told us that against everything we feel, now isn't the time to give up but to work even harder for activism. Hard to be as bold as she is, but check out https://www.codepink.org/ to join the coalitions for change
As the polls state that democrats are most worried about the fall of democracy and the republicans are most worried about the economy and inflation. I can only wonder about one thing. Democracy and Capitalism don’t mix or are polar opposites that push each other away. For all intents and purposes we lost Democracy a long time ago when we let corporations or capitalism run our government (plutocratic oligarchy). You can’t fix both one has to go and right now capitalism is winning. You want to fix democracy you have to get rid of Capitalism. You want to fix the economy you have to get rid of capitalism. You can’t have both, a democracy with capitalism.
As a pacifist I can only in good conscience vote for a candidate who opposes continuing our current proxy war in the Ukraine. This means I will be voting for ... *checks notes* ... nobody.
An open letter to Senator Ron Wyden;
I think it’s only fair that I inform you of the changes in my personal view on politics and voting, shaped by decades of government that is unresponsive to the needs of the people.
I was a life-long Democrat, voting faithfully since 1969. I even ran for state legislature as a Democrat. Yet I’ve now come to understand that Democrats in DC now vote in lock-step for militarization and global violence to benefit not me but the monied interests of the world. Waving banners of McCarthyite faux patriotism, DNC forced militarization was the "last straw" for me.
Based on the rapidly increasing chaos in the world and the realization that fewer people every year are able to live with a sense of well-being, I’ve taken an entirely new view and abandoned the idea that anyone currently elected to our federal government has done anything of substance to assure that attainable goal of a sense of well-being for all, a goal which ought to be the primary intent of anyone elected to serve in a government "of, by, and for the people". Indeed the actions of our federal government have taken us further from that goal ever year.
Thus I’ve committed to a completely new set of personal standards for voting. Yet these "new" standards are actually not new, they were set forth in a speech from Martin Luther King Jr. on August 31, 1967, "The Three Evils of Society: Racism, Poverty and War". Until some evidence of progress toward eliminating these three evils is shown, I’ll base every vote I cast on that goal. I will no longer vote for any political candidate who fails to show a history or obvious intent to hold the elimination of these three evils above all else.
Consequently, as I vote my ballot this week I’ll not be voting for you as I have in the past. You’ll not have my mark of approval.
Richard McCluskey
Tigard, Oregon, USA
Vote Halper/Maté 2022
Don't tease... I'd vote that!
My view is that those criticizing Biden for not doing enough to relieve crippling student debt, mitigate inflation and bring down the rising cost of living are being unfair. He and his administration are doing their utmost to ensure that we will soon live in a world in which these concerns will be completely irrelevant. After the global collapse of human civilizations and near extinction of most life forms on earth, any survivors will not have to worry about having to pay back loans with interest, and in a subsistence and barter economy no one will need to concern themselves with the price of stuff in dollars or any currency.
So give the guy some credit, will ya?
The only question is whether he will achieve these goals before or after the midterms.
It takes a lot of strength to admit we were wrong, but in these case you've proved your case. We're sorry, Joe! You got this!
Wilson! Your name is Matt. I never knew that. Why does everyone call you Wilson? Did you share a raft with Tom Hanks?
Havent been on the raft since he let me float away...
And we already have a Matt Taibbi. Two matts is too confusing. so now you've got a Wilson
Got it. I became a Useful Idiot after Taibbi had left so that didn't occur to me. Now we have a Maté.
I'm not at all an admirer of Biden. But an economist Dean Baker column I read today softened my opinion. https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/24/why-inflation-is-not-the-main-issue-in-the-elections/
This is quite possibly the least important midterm in my memory. Everything bad is bipartisan, nothing positive is at stake.
The high bar for outcomes is to give Democrats more seats, so you can hear the new excuses they've prepared for why they can't get anything done. I admit I'm a little curious to see what they come up with.
The best outcome is lower participation and a move away from the major parties, at least some hint of voter rebellion. Likely?
Good question. I remember in 2016 there was talk that if a third party candidate got 5% of the vote, they'd have to be let into major debates and put on the ballot. That'd be a positive
If the Republicans win we can hope they never allow Democrats steal another election as they did in 2020.
Sorry to rub it in my fellow idiots, but every two years I thank my luck that I don't live in the US and thus don't have to face the endless months of empty horse-race punditry. Reporting on polls takes 10 seconds. Speculating on what they mean, which way they might go, etc. is a fucking waste of time.
But how could they not? It's the most important election of our lives....on second thought can we all come stay with you?
I wish you could. I've lived in Austria a long time now. I wish people who think the US has good elections could come here for a while. My wife is Austrian so she can vote here. She just voted for president a couple of weeks ago. It took her roughly 10 minutes to vote. Hand counted paper ballots.
Hard limits on what parties can spend, how and who can donate. Of course there is corruption here, but nothing like in the US. So of course the elections are much more free and fair. And all hand counted paper ballots.
Please don't anyone state that it is only possible because Austria is small. Vienna is big. It would be about the 5th largest city in the US. Our elections in this big city work just fine. The process scales up without issue. Costs would actually go down through economies of scale.
The sad part about living in a State where the elections are getting competitive is the endless stream of dumbshit political commercials.
If anyone sees any especially crazy ads, send them our way. theyre always good for a food group
I would, but it'd be pretty much all of them. Even the folks I'm voting for. Also, what will cease for awhile is the G** D*** fund raising texts.
But thinking positively, if not for those I wouldn't get many so I reckon I should be grateful for the attention. Nah!
See my post below for a wonderful campaign add tha brings great joy to me in these dark times.
Population ~ 335 million - 2 slightly different orientations (democrat and republican) for all federal and state offices !
Sounds about right - 1½ orientations for 335 million people - what more could one ask for ?
Imagine 3 or more party's (with more than 2 slightly different orientations - it would be CHAOS I say - total chaos ! A disaster for the American populace !
2 Party's sharing half an orientation and differing on the other half is more than enough.
One can only wonder why so many Americans don't participate or care to participate in the process.
It would be a nightmare to have an antiwar party or a party that fought for living wages to be tied to inflation & the housing market. Or horror of horrors, a party that thought Go Fund Me should not be a primary healthcare provider. Or a party that didn't step over the homeless and incarcerated to campaign for more funding of their corrupt party ...
Chaos I tell you
I keep hearing politicians, particularly Democratic ones, saying that "(such and such) is on the ballot" this November. Like "a woman's right to choose is on the ballot" or "the future of public education is on the ballot" or "Democracy itself is on the ballot".
Well, I hate to break it to you folks, but none of that stuff was on my ballot. I already voted, and all I had was various candidate names on my ballot. None of that other stuff. However, for each race I was presented with the option to write in any candidate I wanted, so that's where I put those things. "Democracy itself" for Senate. "A woman's right to choose" for governor. "The future of our children" for US House.
Hope I did it right.
Must've been typos? Because we've also definitely heard that Democracy Itself is on the ballot, we've been campaigning for it. Guess we'll write it in too for senate
Most important issue: war and peace. The consequences of the midterms will be an exacerbation of the execrable reality we have been living since 1950. Questions I want Katie and Aaron to address are the candidates position on Israeli apartheid. I read today of another massacre in the West Bank. Apparently under cover of the attention drawn to the Ukraine debacle.
Someone in here said the media will be partially to blame for the upcoming nuclear war. And blatantly ignoring stories like this is part of the problem
I'm in Australia watching every weather record broken, that's rain with every levy bank over flowing inundating towns, farms etc and the Gov saying you will have to pay more for food cause the floods destroyed most of it. We will have to pay 60% more for your energy prices due to the unavoidable war in Ukraine, even though we export energy, the mining companies can't miss out on profits.
Billionaire bunkers: How the 1% are preparing for the apocalypse
https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/doomsday-luxury-bunkers/index.html
The question that needs to be answered how is it,
Today, the top 1% of U.S. households own 31.2% of total wealth with their wealth increasing at twice the rate of the bottom 50% .
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/what-the-data-says-about-wealth-inequality/
The financial system throughout the world is geared to preserve the wealth of those in power until the disparity become so great there is a revolution.
The elections everywhere are the bread and circuses for the masses.
That's a good point. We're told it's our right and duty to vote, and that makes us feel like we're a part of democracy. The best route seems to be to join Medea Benjamin and the Code Pink coalitions and pressure the leaders harder than ever
For brevity I omitted that the previous summer broke almost all records to the extent that a stand of tress which dates back to the age of dinosaurs had to be saved.
" Specialist firefighters have saved the world’s last remaining wild stand of a prehistoric tree from wildfires that razed forests west of Sydney, officials said Thursday."
https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/01/16/firefighters-save-only-stand-of-rare-trees-in-australia/
Obviously I'm admirer of your reporting (we having nothing like it in Australia) but there is what I believe a significant whole in perspective surrounding "How the economy is run"and for who's benefit. Code Pink will live inside the eco created by the economy.
Please consider interviewing; Chris Martenson from Peak Prosperity, James Howard Kunstler of the Kunstler Report or Wolf Richter from the Wolf Report for views that redefine who's waging the dog. To really test your ability to look at alternativ views please consider any of the highly accredited Drs at the FLCCC (Front Line Covid Critical Care doctors). These are whistleblowers with degrees after their names https://covid19criticalcare.com/providers/esther-fields-do/
Prior to the November 8 showdown between the Vancouver Canucks and Ottawa Senators, can Aaron & Katie address the Canucks' preternatural ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? This season has been particularly egregious.
avoiding WW3 until we have general collapse of trust in dense energy industrial culture. yup, I'm an optimist..
Wonder if the WEF is working on a plan with Putin to precisely place the right number of bombs so their nuclear winter effect will balance out all our anthropogenic warming? With AI it should be easy.
I feel such apathy in the face of worldwide misery combined with official failure to come to grips with it. I have been a despairing Democrat for decades, but what now? McCluskey's appeal speaks to me, but I lack his conviction.
Have you watched this week's episode with Medea Benjamin? She told us that against everything we feel, now isn't the time to give up but to work even harder for activism. Hard to be as bold as she is, but check out https://www.codepink.org/ to join the coalitions for change
The only thing that comes to mind is whether to say Kaddish before the American Civil War blows up the biosphere.
Phil Ochs When I am gone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB-BBVQLnxI
In the words of Tom Lehrer
We'll all go together when we go
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB-BBVQLnxI
As the polls state that democrats are most worried about the fall of democracy and the republicans are most worried about the economy and inflation. I can only wonder about one thing. Democracy and Capitalism don’t mix or are polar opposites that push each other away. For all intents and purposes we lost Democracy a long time ago when we let corporations or capitalism run our government (plutocratic oligarchy). You can’t fix both one has to go and right now capitalism is winning. You want to fix democracy you have to get rid of Capitalism. You want to fix the economy you have to get rid of capitalism. You can’t have both, a democracy with capitalism.
I follow Medea Benjamin and I admire her activism, but I lack her energy and conviction.
I agree, what a wonderful human being. Someone I admire so much for all her actions. She has more energy than most people I know.
As a pacifist I can only in good conscience vote for a candidate who opposes continuing our current proxy war in the Ukraine. This means I will be voting for ... *checks notes* ... nobody.