Chris Hedges, on voting for third parties: “To quote the great Emma Goldman: ‘If voting was that effective, it would be illegal.’
If we don’t rebuild our movements, it doesn’t matter who we vote for. Power is the problem. We must organize to hold power accountable.As Ralph Nader pointed out, the last liberal president in America was Richard Nixon, not because he was liberal or out of conscience but because he was frightened of movements. That’s how we got OSHA, the mining safety act, the clean water act, most written by Nader.
There’s a scene in Kissinger’s memoirs where it’s 1971 and there are tens of thousands of anti war demonstrators. Nixon has put empty city buses all around the White House. And he’s standing at the window and says, “Henry, they are going to break through the barricades and get us.“
And that’s precisely where we want people in power to be.
We are not going to gain power through the Democratic Party, which does not function as a real political party and which stole the election from Bernie. It’s going to take a long time and begin from the ground up.
Just on a moral issue, I cannot vote for the Democratic Party, because I spent so much of my life in Gaza.... I spent 20 years of my life watching the violence and evil of empire, too much to come back and give them a pass.
I spend much of my life in prison and am well aware that over half my students wouldn’t even be in prison but for the Democratic Party. That’s personal — I just can’t sell those people out. And I won’t.
There does come a moment when we have to stand up on principle. Because if we don’t begin to stand up nobody else will. “— Chris Hedges in Eugene, Oct 3, 2018 @
https://youtu.be/
☮️
Distinguished Comment:
These are excerpts to a question. Listen to this answer beginning
1: 10:00 ... he is NOT promoting a boycott. He says to vote. But he says even if Bernie had won, he would have faced McConnell and “those troglodytes,” that massive movements are required.
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Things to ponder
While our media prostitutes, many Hollywood celebs, and politicians and opinion shapers make so much noise about the still to be demonstrated damage done by the Russkies to our nonexistent democracy, this is what the sanctimonious US government has done overseas just since the close of World War 2. And this is what we know about. Many other misdeeds are yet to be revealed or documented.
Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found
In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” — acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump — a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report
Chris is absolutely right, imho. I am absolutely done with voting for the lesser of evils. In the short run it may seem logical. But evil is evil and I refuse to vote for the lesser. If Obama taught us anything it is that we have to hold whoever we elect accountable. Demand that if they don’t keep their promises then as Nixon said: “Henry, they are going to break through the barricades and get us.“ Banging on the barricades is what we are doing at TGP.
? I’m 70 some years old and have never in my lifetime had a government that I supported or approved of, it has never for the most part represented my opinions or viewpoints and nobody has ever been held accountable for anything in this country which has been committing it’s mass slaughters totally uninhibited for several hundred years now. There are a few things I’d like to hold Harry Truman accountable for, but he is off scot free. I totally agree with Hedges, have for years already come to that conclusion, there seems to be a natural and growing constituency… Read more »