I've been keeping my mouth mostly shut about out political situation because I find myself disagreeing with much of what is said on all sides.  Trump is clearly delusional, and generates his own "alternate reality" which is how he has managed to get this far.  Humans are susceptable to anyone who has certainty, and tend to adopt the views of a person who knows the truth.  This is the secret of gurus everywhere.  Be certain and people will believe.  It doesn't matter if the truth they know is not true.  All it really needs is truthiness and regular repetition to be adopted.

Only 26% of registered voters actually voted for Trump.  That 26% includes several people who are dear to me, whose thoughts and opinions I respect.  The most common reason cited for their vote is hating Hillary.  In most every election that I've voted in, I've voted more against someone than for.  Only when I vote for 3rd party candidates can I really say I'm voting FOR someone.  Both the Dems and the Reps are corrupt, and have been so for a long time.  Every candidate who gains their party's nomination does so by agreeing to tow the line, to serve the corporate donors and perpetuate the corruption that has our nation's nuts in a vise.  Ethical candidates will never get those nominations; they must compromise with greed.  The Republicans elect dummies, actors, class clowns and now a narcissist.  It's embarassing.  Obama was smart and thought he coud do some good but had to quash his own ethics to serve as a Dem.  He tried to do no harm and it cost him dearly.

I worry that Americans are so idiotic as to really believe Trump's denigration of the media.  Our media is not perfect.  They parrot each other, and stories become more simplistic and less nuanced with each repetition.  Few outlets do deep investigative reporting, but some do!  They will be hard at work in the years to come making sure that somebody actually understands what is going on.  If you are one of those who believes that all media is corrupt and Trump's twitter feed is the source of truth, your IQ must be <85.  A friend of mine recently reminded me that "half of everybody is below average", well that may be true but even the less bright can have bullshit detectors that work.  I hope everybody's BS detectors are getting tuned up on this nonsense.

I also disagree with the out-freaking I hear from the Democrats.  If our nation and institutions are so fragile that one demagogue can tear them completely apart, then it was never going to stand in the first place.  America is an experiment, not a guarantee.  Nations come and go.  Species come and go.  We may not be one of the longer-lived species.  We have no hope of competing with cockroaches or horsetail.  So lighten up already.  Laws are made and repealed.  Nations are created and fall.  The planet is already infested with us.  Ten out of ten people die.  This is the way of the world, and freaking out doesn't do anyone any good.  Be an activist in the resistance if it suits you, but don't have a stroke.  Let's all just take a deep breath, and then a few more.

The group that I do not hear speaking up today are the once-upon-a-time small government anti-corporate libertarians.  Where did you go?  Why aren't you speaking up?  Are you holding your nose in the back row of the Republican party?  Perhaps you are simply happy that so many regulations will fall, that every bureacracy under the executive branch will be decomissioned, and that government will indeed shrink.  Do you not care that the new form will be fascism?  Do you not care that your fishing streams and forests full of game will be poisoned by industrial gasses and runoff?  Subsistence survival gets a lot harder when the environment is destroyed.  We might need those rivers for something other than kayaking.

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

LAST SPEECH: Ron Paul's Farewell to Freedom

( Behind this cut is the transcript of Ron Paul’s farewell address to Congress, 11/14/12:Collapse )

This ad makes light of gigantic changes--but presents them as something that CAN be done, which is why it will really shake things up. Because the bottom line is that the rest of them won't even TALK about such tremendous change. It's too frightening. By making an ad that is cartoonish and humorous, the RP campaign is re-introducing ideas that have been taboo up to now, and still are taboo to a large segment of the population. But that segment is embattled, and it takes outrageousness to cause a sea change. I remain fascinated and impressed with the man, in spite of his age and the media's disrespect. This will be his last presidential attempt, I believe.

"Don't be a pussy, vote Ron Paul!"

Are you American? Or a United States citizen, more specifically? Have you ever written a real paper letter to your representative in Congress? Or to a Senator? If yes, what fired you up enough to get you to write? How long ago was it? Do you ever go publicly protest, and hold a sign? Been out recently? Do you fill out petitions online? Do you vote? Where do you draw the line in your efforts to influence the course of this nation?

It appears to me that most of us do very little. I fill out a few petitions, and send a little bit of money sometimes, and put some effort into researching my votes, but that's about it. I haven't been putting any real energy into the project. I feel like congress should take care of this stuff for me, that I'm no expert and somebody more expert than me should be making the decisions. I don't really want to OWN my part in a democracy because it's a whole lot of work. But as our nation suffers increasing challenges, people are noticing, and activism seems to be on the rise. I was heartened when I heard support for Audit the Fed on an Occupy youtube video. The new activism is less party oriented than at any time in my political consciousness. There is a chance that we might be able to get something done.
( ruminationsCollapse )

As you may know I lean libertarian. I am skeptical whenever government authority is imposed. There has to be a good reason for government to exist, or to do anything at all. So it could come as a surprise to you that I think universal HPV vaccination is worth considering. I am sensitive to the argument by Andrew McCarthy that the state should not be "encouraging sexual promiscuity by socializing its cost." HPV is easy to avoid. All you have to do is keep your mucus membranes away from everyone else's sexual equipment. Easy? To ask humans to abstain from sex, at any age, is a losing battle. Teens especially. You may get your kid convinced that saving her virginity is important, but another kid might change her mind. Those who are abstinent may be vocal, but they are a small minority.
( What are we looking at here?Collapse )

This org is attempting to unite everyone who'd like to induce our governing officials at all levels to respect and adhere to this founding document. It's a pretty cool idea, because they're avoiding any party affiliation, hoping to simply get more citizens involved in keeping an eye on things.