(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Over at truthdig.com, Peter Scheer (Robert’s bro?) rails for lesser evilism:
Being an American citizen and having the right to vote-assuming your state hasn’t stolen that right through a felony charge, a voter ID law or a shifty election machine-is like having a golden ticket. The president of the United States is, for better or worse, the de facto emperor of the world, and you’re possibly one of a minority of people who gets to pick him.
[your enfeebled, minority rights to vote for “de facto emperor of the world” will not be wasted in this democracy…No, sir. ]
Voting isn’t simply a civic duty or a right; it’s a jackpot, one that corporations, political parties and perhaps the ruling elite are constantly trying to take away from you. The choices you make, and that includes the choice not to be involved, will decide where the bombs fall, where in the developing world the HIV drugs get distributed, how poor you have to be to get health care and whether someone whose life experience amounts to horse racing is put in charge of managing our government’s response to natural disasters.
What a jackpot! What a golden ticket! You decide “where the bombs fall.”
I identify with those progressives who say it is evil for President Obama to send robots across the night to bomb whole villages because someone’s name was added to a secret list we’ll never see. I think it is disgusting that a country that sings of the free and the brave would lock up and essentially torture Pvt. Bradley Manning for courageously defying the faceless imperial beast, as he is alleged to have done. President Obama has done many things in four years that make me grind my teeth.
Scheer leaves no clues as to whether this is vicious satire or not, but I admit to thinking the worst; so I’m climbing out of the interrogator’s window altogether while they freshen their coffee.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
(iframe embed, anyone? sorry, my skillz and time are shorter than usual.)
For the most part everything has been gamed and will continue to be gamed because we have lost cohesion as a culture and civilization. We don’t agree on common values just increasingly spaced out fantasies that pass for real in the entertainment media (all “news” is now 100% entertainment) that provides temporary fantasies made of the latest juicy memes.
We are in a state of dissolution–things will take some time to fall apart. In the meantime we can keep our eyes open and find ways to connect and reform and recycle the bits and pieces that come our way. My hope is that we can be creative enough to do that rather than react in fear.
I’ve been utterly appalled at the pissing contests (debates) on TV recently and will most definitely miss the next one since I can write the dialogue before it starts.
The sad part is that this is what people seem to want.
Lesser of two evils voting in every presidential election for decades is how YOU got America into the shape it’s in now.
Way to go.
Impressive? Not. Smarten up, ok?
In most states, i.e., those that are not swing states, it doesn’t matter one iota. I live in Tennessee. There is not a snowball’s chance in hell that anyone other than Romney is getting Tennessee’s electoral college votes. And there is not a snowball’s chance in hell that anyone other than the dimwit Marsha Blackburn is going to be my representative.
Probably not much chance that Bob Corker is going to get beat for the senate seat either.
And you guys moan. Welcome to my world.