Listening to the media reports about Trump and Clinton, I understand the frustration of the majority of voters.  Most of us know that the "establishment" politicians, like Clinton, are part and parcel with the corporatocracy that has made our two party system a joke.  The two parties are simply different faces of the same government which is beholden to big business and rich investors.  While the Democrats make more of an effort to care for the most impoverished, neither side is actually effective at reducing poverty.  The Republicans assert that the poor are not helped by a free ride, and this may be true.  It is true that during the Great Depression here in the US, people got healthier.

Trump, on the other hand, is not part of the "establishment" except in so far as he is rich, and he is stupid enough to become their tool, just as Shrub did.  His daily empty statements, like what I just heard that he "will win" 95% of the black American vote, are lunacy.  There is no way that he is getting 95% of any vote, except perhaps of those white male voters who are angry and desperate enough to commit suicide but would rather have someone else do it for them.  I understand the line of thought that says "crash this train", that is to say, destroying our corporatocracy is the first step toward building something new.  This is more the approach of libertarians who understand that big business will not be dethroned by small measures.  Electing Trump would be a drastic measure that could crash this train, except for the fact that the corporate Republican powers will feed his ego and narcissism and keep him busy and distracted by giving him televised glory while they run things.  In other words, it won't work.  Electing Trump will not derail the corporate train.

The Libertarian and Green candidates are relatively attractive in this election.  Unfortunately the Libertarians appear to be almost as "estalishment" as Clinton, see Gary Johnson's positions here.  Jill Stein of the Green party is a physician and one smart cookie, and she actually makes the most sense to me of any of the candidates.  She knows that our two-party system is broken, and she addresses that question and others with a raft of information instead of party lines or defund-it-all ideology.

I do not know what it would take to persuade a majority of voters to choose third-party candidates, but I pray that I live to see it.  At this moment it appears to me that Clinton will win because so many people are terrified of the specter of a Trump presidency.  His racism, bogus claims and impetuous thin-skinned personality are enough to disqualify him for all but the most blindered of voters.  It is true that if he were elected the Republican party would attempt to control him, but we all know that he would be more likely to push the nuclear button than any other president in living memory.  While it bears discussing why we refrain from using nukes, just as it bears discussing why we can't as a society afford freeloaders, we might want to discuss it very well before we hand any control to a tool such as Trump.

I am sure I've mentioned it before, but it is my belief that in order to build a majority that can beat both established parties, we need to build a bridge between the far right Libertarians and the far left Greens.  When this happens we might actually wrest our democracy back from its service to business.  It would be heralded as a great crisis, just like the Brexit vote, but don't believe everything you hear in the news.  A reduction in our GDP might be good for us.  More unemployment is not an entirely bad thing.  We Americans need to get back to the project of taking good care of ourselves and our dear ones, building community, and being real people face to face with other real people.  This wealthy life of internet and automobiles has created a Great Satan that is making us sad.

** first use of tag: green party

If you don't want the culture clock turned back to the 50's, you better muster the guts to get registered and turn out to cast your ballot.  Else the progress we've made in terms of tolerance and social justice will be undone, by Rump and his old white guy fans.  You may not like Hillary much better, but that doesn't matter.  Vote.  Vote for anybody.  Vote for a third party.  Vote for someone you actually agree with.  Vote for Hillary to be sure Rump doesn't get in.  Vote against destruction, because a Trump presidency will not only finish off the Republican party, but it will also devastate the American Dream.  Be a part of the process and keep the old white guys from making you irrelevant and thoughtlessly destroying any good relations we have with other nations.

I sample propaganda from all sides of the US political spectrum. Today I got an email from Dick Cheney. I will have to check with my republican friends to find out if they actually think highly of Dick, because as far as I can tell he is evil incarnate. Anyway, Dick sent me a link and asked me to give money to the National Republican Congressional Committee. The headline on the donation page is "Stop Democrats from controlling all of Washington" and the image is one of Obama, Hillary and Biden walking toward the camera, smiling. Here: https://www.nrcc.org/defeat-liberal-democrats/. I showed it to my coworkers today and they could not figure out how that image supports the republican desire to oust the Dems, aside from who was in it. I did notice that Obama's hands are in his pockets (hidden hands = deceitful), and that all three are laughing as if about an inside joke. Also Biden has his arm around Hillary in comfortable buddy gesture. The last thing to notice about the image is that it is shot from above, looking down on Obama's head as he looks down to walk. I am told that this angle makes a person seem less powerful. I would have thought, though, that they'd go for something that made him look more evil, but I guess that having an inside joke with hands in pockets is bad enough. Dick didn't get any of my money, though.

(post bumped forward from 5/24/08)

Constant toothy smiling can cause stress, high blood pressure, depression and heart problems according to Johann Wolfgang Goethe who studies smiles at the University of Frankfurt. "Zapf recommends that 'professional smilers' take regular breaks to relax, rid themselves of aggression and recuperate from the effort of smiling." There are some jokes in the article about how German customer service isn't the friendliest on the planet, anyway.

SCIENCE:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053482202000487 on emotional work
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13594320500412199
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10615800903254091
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10615806.2010.530262
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1348/096317905X39666/full

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I like Hillary more and more in her new job. In this clip see Ron Paul speaking broady about the change in tone, but the lack so far of visible change of foreign policy action, by the Obama administration. Hillary's response is well considered and she actually compliments Ron Paul at the end. Someone off screen says "You're going to encourage him," and all laugh.

I keep noticing these frowns in the news. When the lips are turned in just a little bit, the person is only moderately bothered. When a person's lips are stretched wide and folded inward until you can't see the lips at all, they are extremely troubled and insecure. This tight grimace with no lip visible and the edges turned down is the ultimate sign of disgrace. These facial expressions are universal because they are controlled by the limbic system. Monkeys make the same faces for the same reasons.


note: too bad the pix don't stay up, huh? I just deleted some image links that were defunct but more will become so over time. June 2010

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I don't exactly agree with her about America having a chance to be "back on track"....but I'll still feel relieved if Obama is elected and not McCain. I dread hearing that the neocons truly have taken over the electoral machine.....and McCain is our next president....