Identity Politics and the Death of Truth

We live in an era of fake news.

The propaganda is equally deceptive on both sides of the ideological line. More and more I hear intelligent people saying “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

On one hand it’s wonderful that people are waking up. CNN has always been neoliberal propaganda. Fox “News” and Breitbart have always been alt-right lies designed to capitalize on fear.

On the other hand the underground news sources that people have flocked to in their attempts to gain information are often just as bad as the corporate media misinformation factories that have sought to deceive the American people since Bill Clinton cast the death blow to media integrity in 1996.

It has been my goal as a political writer to ALWAYS speak the truth, but this is a perilous path. I have often sent an article out for proofreading and heard back..

“If you publish this, you will lose a lot of followers.”

 

As if the goal behind writing is to attain popularity.

I am immediately suspicious of popularity, as most of the time it is garnered by appealing to the most number of demographics through spoon-feeding garbage coated in sugar.

 

But there is something alluring to me about integrity.

I am, in many ways, still that same punk-rock kid with the Mohawk and nose-ring who screamed about social injustice and the ideals of truth back when it seemed that no one cared about such things.

One can make a lot of money pandering to people’s fears and integrity is a commodity that not far too few care about, so it saddens me deeply to see people falling for lies, regardless of where they land on the political spectrum.

Rather it’s the Planned Parenthood shooter or the Pizzagate shooter, both men are pawns in a game played to intentionally deceive people for financial gain.

Media outlets are more concerned with getting traffic than reporting the truth and as a result sensationalist stories rule the day and allow small media outlets to gain massive exposure in a short period of time through publishing their own propaganda.

As is often the case, extremes have more in common than they do differences. This can be exemplified by the Pizzagate scandal, which was first floated by alt-right websites in an attack on Hillary Clinton. The story was quickly picked up by those on the alt-left and spread faster than the common cold.

It has all the makings of a successful fake news story. It targets someone who is universally hated, in Hillary Clinton. It is dark and scary. But perhaps most importantly, it allows the believer to see themselves as being on “the good side”. After all, we ALL agree that the wealthy elites passing around children like party favors is something that we must stand against.

The problem is that the story isn’t true.

I could lie and say that it was true and increase my readership.

I could be silent and cowardly.

After all, what is to be gained by pointing out the obvious flaws in this story?

One cannot prove a negative and those who lack the reasoning (or motivation) to figure out that this is fake news will surely use logical fallacies to defend it.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that those of us who dislike Hillary Clinton for VALID reasons are shouted down by the self-righteous misinformed who have been searching back-channel sources who understand all too well the flaws in human logic that can be exploited by those skilled in rhetoric.

Disagree with Pizzagate and you are accused of being a neoliberal shill who secretly works for Hillary Clinton.

It’s hard to argue with the mentally ill.

It’s impossible to argue with someone who has an agenda.

The casualty of these propaganda factories is The Truth and of course this is the very thing that misinformation sites claim to be standing up for.

The challenge is that one out of several thousand conspiracy theories end up actually being true.

 

For example, I know, FOR A FACT, that the Democratic Party stacked the deck against Bernie Sanders in their attempts to further the voice of The People and further the agenda of their corporate oligarchy.

 

But before Wikileaks published the emails showing that the DNC put their collective thumb on the scale for Hillary Clinton, all we had was a conspiracy theory.

What further complicates matters is that it is impossible to prove a negative and those who devour fake news have effectively turned the tables of logic and now use the strategy of making outrageous bogus claims then putting the onus on the recipient to prove its lack of validity.

If someone says that Hillary Clinton was using a body-double, even if you know that the claim is ludicrous, you simply cannot prove a negative. The person who believes this can spend several hours finding sites that will provide “proof” for their confirmation bias and they will do so with completely pure intent.

After several hours of “research” they will think of you as an idiot who is brainwashed by corporate media for not believing what has become completely obvious to them and you will likely lose faith in their reasoning abilities as well.

Thus a chasm is formed between people who believe that they know the truth and those who have the courage to admit that they don’t have any REAL evidence one way or another.

What the propaganda consumer is missing is that their arguments suffer from an extremely emotional pathogenesis. They believe with all their heart that they have discovered some great and secret truth. Then they alienate those who disagree with them in order to create a self-sustaining echo-chamber that will perpetuate their beliefs. As they add more and more “evidence” to support their belief, they become more and more removed from the reality that the rest of us try to function in.

What they fail to realize is that their confirmation bias must be engaged in order for them to fall victim to the propaganda.

For example, if someone says to you that Hillary Clinton actually died in September, but employed a body double and that this body double is part of the DNC oligarchy in their attempts to form a one world corporate government, you will probably dismiss this claim if your feelings about Clinton are either positive or neutral.

But if you have tremendous hatred for Clinton, then this theory fulfills several of your emotionally charged preconceived notions about the entity that you hate and therefore provides the motivation one needs to dive deeper and find the information that confirms this ludicrous belief.

Thankfully not everyone steps into these logical potholes on the back-roads of reasoning.

Many people are excellent critical thinkers.

So how do we know what truth is?

You’re not going to like the answer.

The truth of the matter is that often you simply will not be able to find the truth without a master’s degree in sleuthing and even then you will find that often the information is not available and you will have to say the one thing that no ego wants to hear…

“I don’t know”

No one wants to admit that they don’t have the answers and The Internet provides a steady stream of opinions issued as facts for those who are seeking a quick resolution from the anxiety of not knowing.

Why read THIS article that is asking you to use reason, logic and skepticism when there are thousands of websites that will offer instant ego gratification to fulfill your confirmation bias.

Most people will agree that Julian Assange publishing emails that showed how the DNC conspired with corporate media in order to assure that Hillary Clinton attained the nomination for their corrupt party was the catalyst that helped Trump attain the Presidency.

And most people will agree that it appears that Trump and Putin seem to have some sort of preexisting relationship that the American public is not privy to.

But just try to discuss Assange’s motivation behind releasing these emails and leftists who have become mired in identity politics will blindly support the assertion that Assange had no motivation to help the Russians.

What is the basis for this belief?

Because Assange said so.

This is the epitome of identity politics and identify politics is the most prevalent and destructive form of confirmation bias in all of politics.

It is the lie we tell ourselves to gather information to fulfill our own confirmation bias for people whom we believe are on our side.

Am I saying that I believe the six American intelligence agencies that all report that Russia hacked the DNC?

Of course I’m not saying that, because to say such a thing would make me a “sheeple who has been brainwashed by corporate media and is nothing more than a sheepherder for the Oligarchy.”

And herein lies the most insidious part of thinking that your news is better than someone else’s news. The end result is the complete invalidation of the person who disagrees with you.

Bringing it back to the subject, if you were to ask me personally what I think of Assange’s alleged links to the Russians, I would say…

“It’s tough to say. All six intelligence agencies agree, but then again these agencies have lied in the past. They lied about the WMDs in Iraq. The CIA was more than likely involved in the assassination of John Kennedy. Furthermore we know that the United States intelligence agencies have many times decided to keep pertinent information from the people (Pearl Harbor for example). So there is definitely reason to mistrust these agencies. They are not spotless. Having said that, being locked down in an Ecuadorian embassy, counting down the days until US forces storm the building, take you to a blacksite and torture you to death can’t be fun and one could not blame Assange for striking a deal with Putin. Also, these incidents of the intelligence agencies lying are memorable, because they are infrequent. A review of their track records shows that most of the time they seem to be telling the truth. I am left to wonder why Assange did not publish Trump’s tax returns as he once hinted that he would. I am also left to wonder why Wikileaks did not publish hacks of the RNC database. Am I to believe that they could not hack the RNC? Because that is simply too far-fetched to believe as almost any skilled hacker could have infiltrated either party’s system. Then there is the matter of the traces of Russian information in the code itself. Some would say that this is enough to implicate Assange. I would counter that this could be intentionally left behind as a way to throw the intelligence agencies off the scent. So in the end I will have to say the only reasonable thing that one could say in this situation. That I will wait for further information and not make a fool of myself proclaiming to know Truth that is actually just my emotionally charged opinion disguised as Truth.”

But who wants to hear all that?

It’s much easier to just side with the people we like and passionately sing their praises in a celebration of the limitations of identity politics.

In effect, this is a human problem.

We must overcome our own psychological limitations in order to actually find truth and no one wants to accept the ultimate Truth that many times we simply cannot know.

Our “reward” for using reason is ambiguity.

While the rest of the children are off playing with their “facts”, overflowing social media with their poorly argued logic, you have to sit on the sidelines with your “I don’t know.”

Why accept our human limitations when there are thousands of propaganda machines willing to produce something that hacks into these psychological blind spots and deliver something that looks like truth and smells like truth, but is actually one big lie served up to those desperate to know what the actual f+ck is going on?

Not everyone who engages in misinformation has been duped so blatantly.

Some have motivations that cause them to abandon logic and reason.

Many use the specter of imagined corruption to justify their slactivism.

It is so much more alluring to know some secret truth about the boogeyman, George Soros and his shadow involvement in the grassroots organization that you have decided isn’t worth your time.

These “keyboard warriors” will jump down any rabbit-hole that allows them to justify their complete lack of real activism. This allows them to hide behind the safety of their keyboards without ever doing any actual work.

These Social Justice Warriors are lured by the idea of knowing some dark secret that the peasants haven’t discovered. Facts are not important to them, identity is.

Tell them that you are going to an Our Revolution meeting and they will tell you that it is secretly ran by billionaires (based on how Jeff Weaver filed the corporation for tax purposes).

Tell them that Justice Democrats is doing so great work and they will tell you that Cenk Uyguy actually works for Hillary Clinton Super-Pac Correct the Record.

Facts and research are not important to these trolls.

Their goal is to shoot holes in the activism of others.

They engage in character assassination and anyone who disagrees with them is a “tool for the oligarchy”.

Even Bernie Sanders himself is not pure enough for these people, who will ONLY accept that which is universally rejected.

These people are contrarians in the same vein as that kid you knew in high-school who hated every band that you liked and only listened to the bands that no one had ever heard of and rejected those same artists when they achieved social acceptance.

For these people it is about being superior, not about being factual.

They are easy to identify as they will use ad hominem attacks to deflect from the fact that on some level they know that they are operating with fabricated data.

Never mind that they have literally NOTHING to back up their claim.

They now want to devalue you as a person and then expect you to prove a negative, while simultaneously dismissing every one of your thoughts as propaganda.

Truth is the ultimate casualty of fake news.

Michael E Sparks is an independent writer and hosts of the show Resist/Revolt. If you believe in his voice you can donate $1 by clicking HERE. All money goes towards supporting Progressive activism.

 

 

Safety-Pins and Rubber Bullets

I threw a party Saturday night.

A lot of people showed up late, because they were at my city’s anti-Trump rally.

I did not attend, as much as I dislike Donald Trump.

I’m more of a proactive guy, rather than a reactive guy.

I had already spent the last 18 months of my life protesting Donald Trump by doing everything in my power to get Bernie Sanders elected, so I didn’t see the point in crying about it now.

Instead I threw a Thank God This Fucking Election Is Over party and we imbibed alcohol from various lands and talked about what we could do to make the world a better place, despite our recent catastrophic election.

One lady said that she had been creating care packages for the homeless and was just keeping them in her car and passing them out to people who needed them.

Another lady said that she was working on creating an activist website.

Another guest was convinced that the Green Party was the answer.

I passed out Bernie Sanders buttons along with the challenge that people wear the buttons everyday, as a reminder to people who might be afraid, that they had allies.

“Bernie Sanders has superseded politics and is now a symbol of love and equality” I reasoned aloud.

Everyone liked the idea or maybe they just liked the idea of getting free Bernie buttons.

Regardless, everyone took a bunch and everyone put one on.

Then the safety-pin people showed up.

The safety-pin people had just come from protesting Donald Trump and told us that by wearing a safety-pin we could signal people who felt fear of violence and discrimination that we were a safe person.

“Oh, just like my Bernie button idea!” I said.

“No.” they said “This movement involves wearing safety pins.”

“Oh, like the paperclip resistance of Nazis during WW2!” I said.

They all looked at me like I was crazy.

No one had ever heard of that.

Someone produced a box of safety pins and soon everyone was wearing them, strutting around, feeling good about themselves for defending the downtrodden..

“So what happens when bad people wear safety-pins to trick people into letting their guards down and becoming victims?”, I asked.

“Oh Mike!!” one girl said “Don’t say things like that!!”

I had sucked the air out of the room.

They didn’t want to worry about things possible complications.

They wanted to wear their safety pins and feel good.

I could hear the sound of a thousand corporate think-tanks conspiring on ideas to make millions from this new trend.

“Don’t be outdone by your liberal suburban friends. Our fair-trade safety pins are all organic and help get clean water to aboriginal tribes in developing nations. These safety-pins are just $49.95 each and symbolize to the world that you are much more compassionate than the people who wear the competitor’s safety-pins.”

As much as it smacks of the worst parts of white-guilt liberalism, I honestly don’t have a problem with the safety-pin.

Although I’m confident if we researched the origins of the safety-pins passed out at anti-Trump rallies across America, we would probably find they were ironically created in Chinese sweatshops by eight-year olds.

Still I know the wearer means well.

And it’s important to not underestimate the sacrifice these protesters are making.

After all, when a Hillary supporter pierces a safety-pin through their $250 Aeropostale sweater it’s a greater sacrifice than when I do it, in my ratty $2 thrift-store t-shirt.

Not to say that everyone who protested also voted for Hillary.

More than half of the protesters arrested at many anti-Trump rallies didn’t even bother to vote.

If only there had been something they could have done BEFORE the election to stop the government from falling under alt-right control.

If only there had been a candidate who actually beat Trump by 18-24% in head to head polls, that they could have rallied around when they had the chance.

If only there had been a candidate that could have kept Trump out of The White House, who had a longstanding record of defending the LBGT community and a perfect animal rights record.

If only there had been someone who had spent their entire life fighting for civil rights.

If only there had been some other option besides Hillary Clinton, then maybe all of these Trump protesters would have been getting drunk with me by my bonfire instead of waiting until AFTER THE FACT and then protesting A DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED PRESIDENT!!!

If only there had been someone like that, then all of this silliness could have been avoided.

But I guess these protesters were probably pretty busy during the last 18 months, when there was a clear and present danger rising in our nation.

They probably didn’t have time to worry about such things as universal healthcare and ending mass incarceration and a for-profit prison industry that funds the wealthy elite.

Who can be troubled to vote when there are book clubs and youth “everybody wins” soccer games to attend.

Why volunteer for a crowd-funded candidate when it is “her time”.

Why bother working hard when your candidate is simply “more electable”?

Just be “with her” and ignore the “basement dwellers” screaming about the giant orange iceberg protruding through the fog.

After all, a safety-pin on your NPR tote bag just means so much to the 20 million people who will now lose their health insurance.

Everyone knows that a safety-pin clipped to a Whole Foods bag will be more than enough to offset the tens of thousands of elderly who will die as a result of the GOP gutting Social Security.

In the light of Trump’s alt-right Supreme Court justices and the threat they will pose to Roe v. Wade, perhaps we should all wear tiny coat-hangers instead.

Too soon?

Okay, we will stick to safety pins (get it? stick?!?).

I’ll take Symbolic Gestures That Don’t Mean Shit for $500, Alex.

In the event of a crash, your safety-pin can be used a flotation device.

You’ll still sink and die.

But at least you’ll feel extremely good about yourself while drowning.

All kidding aside, I hold no grudge against the safety-pin movement.

There’s nothing wrong with feeling good about yourself, as long as you actually take action and really stand up for equality.

I don’t begrudge anyone grandstanding for minorities, as long as they are willing to actually engage in true activism.

It bothers me that people can show up and protest Trump’s DEMOCRATIC election over a candidate who needed $uper-delegates to “win”, when the people of Standing Rock are fighting for their basic human right to water.

Why don’t these protesters show up in North Dakota and stare down the armored police?

Perhaps it’s easier to complain and wear pins than it is to stare down rubber bullets and attack dogs.

Still, there is nothing saying that we can’t do both, so when I see my friends wearing safety-pins, I will congratulate them on their commitment to activism and ask them what they are working on at the time.

I will probably even help them with whatever initiative they are working for and hope the next time we have the chance to vote for an honest candidate who actually cares about the American people, we don’t bury our heads in the sand and support a corrupt corporatist who has taken money from for-profit prison lobbyists and stood on the broken backs of the very minorities we are suddenly so concerned for.

Because when you don’t vote or you support an inferior candidate based on gender, then your safety-pin becomes the liberal equivalent of Republican “thoughts and prayers”.

I choose to believe that my safety-pin friends are awake now and ready to fight against any and all oppression that may come our way.

I choose to believe that America is awake now.

And I really hope that we are.

I’d really hate to see a bunch of people running around in 2020 wearing staples on their clothes.

Or an actual stapler..

Or a three-hole punch..

Or any other office supplies, for that matter.

When Michael isn’t dressing silly and attending Planned Parenthood rallies with his daughter, he is an independent writer. You can support his work by clicking HERE and donating $1!!

How Hillary Clinton Burned the “Democratic” Party to the Ground

Donald Trump is President of the United States and liberals are in chaos.

Around the country people rally in anti-Trump protests.

I can’t help wondering where these people were when Bernie Sanders supporters were screaming from the rooftops that Hillary polled poorly against Trump, whereas Sanders beat Trump in a head to head match-up by a record-breaking 18-24 points.

Actually, I know exactly where they were.

They were at their jobs and in their homes, living their lives, just as they normally would.

Sanders supporters were screaming about the impending iceberg, while Clinton voters were calling them “sore losers”.

They weren’t out knocking on doors.

They couldn’t be bothered.

Bernie people knocked on doors.

In fact we traveled from state to state interrupting people in their homes to talk to them about Bernie Sanders.

It wasn’t just that we believed that Bernie was a better candidate.

It was also because we had looked at the numbers.

We knew that it was likely that Clinton would lose to Trump.

I even wrote articles reflecting the reasons WHY this would happen.

But our voices were silenced.

Hillary supporters didn’t want to hear about universal healthcare or creating 13 million new jobs repairing America’s crumbling infrastructure.

They didn’t want to hear about expanding Social Security or making sure all qualified students could attend public colleges, regardless of socioeconomic level.

They didn’t want to force corporations to pay their fair share of taxes and they didn’t care about ending mass incarceration in for-profit prisons.

They wanted a woman president.

“It’s her time” they told me.

“It’s time for a woman.” they said.

“She’s just more electable.” they parroted.

The Hillary supporters didn’t seem to know why they were voting for her, outside of the fact that she was female and electing a woman president after a black president just seemed like the next step for liberals.

Never mind her hawkish record or weekly scandals.

They didn’t want to hear it.

They didn’t need our votes.

We were just “basement dwellers” who tried to disrupt their coronation.

When I tried to speak with my Hillary supporting friends about real issues they would say either…

“I don’t believe that!!”

or

“So what? You want Trump then?”

We didn’t want Trump.

We wanted Bernie Sanders.

We wanted free and fair elections.

We wanted veteran’s programs.

We wanted a fair living wage.

We wanted a candidate who supported LBGT rights since day one, not someone who supported DOMA and only came over to our team when it was politically expedient to do so.

We wanted someone who wouldn’t install a no-fly zone over Syria and start a war with Russia.

We wanted a candidate who could beat Donald Trump.

Now liberals are pointing fingers wildly.

Jill Stein is to blame.

The electoral college is to blame.

James Comey is to blame.

Sexism is to blame.

I have even heard people say that Bernie Sanders is to blame for not campaigning hard enough for Hillary.

Of course all of these arguments hold little basis in reality and point to an overall victim mentality that Hillary fostered throughout her campaign.

She, like her supporters, reminded us often that she was a woman, as if that should hold more weight than $153,000,000 in Wall Street speaking fees.

As if Hillary’s gender was going to make us forget how she helped to create Isis by selling her Iraq war vote to George Bush.

As if BEING a woman made it okay to sell arms to countries that OPPRESS women.

Bernie Sanders would have been our nation’s first Jewish president, but he never mentioned it, because Progressives know that it is inexcusable to vote for someone based on race, gender or sexual orientation.

Voting for someone based on gender is just as insulting as voting AGAINST someone for this reason, yet still Clinton and her supporters seem to point the finger at everyone but themselves.

I guess this is to be expected from someone who literally played The Woman Card as part of her disastrous campaign.

The blame for this complete and utter defeat lies clearly at the feet of the “Democratic” National Committee and Hillary Clinton and any attempts to blame others will keep the Dems from learning the lessons they so desperately need to learn in order to rebuild their crumbled party, which has become completely out of touch with the working class it once represented.

Hillary’s loss was not the fault of third-parties.

Jill Stein received 1% of the vote and if you look at the states where Clinton lost close races like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, you will see that Stein was not a factor at all in those states.

The Dems would do better to ask themselves why people feel so disenfranchised that they need to reach out to an underdeveloped party to feel represented.

Voters on both sides of the aisle are fed up with corporate money controlling their politicians.

When Sanders stood up and said that he refused to take money from super-pacs the people responded in a YUGE way.

Instead of the “Democrats” adapting, they just sabotaged Sanders and in doing so sabotaged their party.

Of course it is much easier to blame others for Clinton’s epic fail, than to ask why her campaign had multiple field offices in deep-red Texas, yet never stepped foot in formerly-blue Wisconsin.

Before blaming a third-party, it might be important to ask why 90,000 Michigan voters filled out their down-ballot, but refused to vote for president.

Perhaps they couldn’t bring themselves to vote for another Clinton after watching NAFTA send their jobs overseas and destroy their cities and towns.

Perhaps they could no longer support a party that left the children of Flint to drink poison water under the Obama administration, while Clinton used their suffering as a campaigning opportunity.

Of course it’s easier to blame James Comey for dropping a bombshell a week before the election, but perhaps the finger should be pointed at the party itself, who chose to force an already rejected candidate down our throats when The People clearly did not trust her.

And of course, winning the popular vote while losing in the electoral college is heartbreaking, but any Clinton supporter who cries foul is engaging in blatant hypocrisy, as they blindly supported a candidate who used closed primaries, corporate media propaganda and $uper-delegates to insure a “victory” for a candidate that was highly vulnerable against Trump.

And yet there are still Clinton supporters who actually believe that her loss was about sexism.

Of course people who voted based entirely on gender would think that others refused to vote for Hillary based on this same “reasoning”.

Clinton supporters didn’t want to talk about policy.

 

They wanted to talk about the first woman president.

Even as prominent feminists like Camille Paglia came out and stated why Hillary’s policies were anti-feminist, Clinton supporters continued to blame every criticism on sexism.

If you were to point out how female civil rights leaders were murdered as a result of Clinton’s foreign policy, then you were told that “you just can’t handle women in power.”

Try to point out that Clinton paid her female employees 38% less than male employees, when she was Secretary of State and you were called misogynist.

Ask any Clinton supporter why a feminist would use her power to cut funding to single mothers with dependent children and you would likely receive a lecture about “how women have to make hard choices”.

And let’s never forget that it is MUCH harder to be a woman in America than it is to be a man, but Hillary’s gender didn’t work against her.

It worked FOR her.

America actually wanted a woman president.

They just didn’t want her.

People just don’t like Hillary Clinton.

And to blame that on sexism, would be to dismiss the real reasons why people refused to vote for her.

Before you accept the idea that Hillary lost because of her gender, realize that more white women voted for Donald Trump than for Hillary Clinton.

This election WAS largely about sexism, but not AGAINST Hillary Clinton.

The ugly sexism in the 2016 election was the fact that Clinton supporters voted for a genocidal tyrant based COMPLETELY on her gender.

Had Clinton been male, she would have been susceptible to the same scrutiny as any other politician, but instead her followers saw her as immune to criticism.

In the mind of a Clinton supporter, every scandal was the result of either a right-wing witch-hunt or an attack on her womanhood.

She was the victim of James Comey.

She was the victim of Bernie Sanders.

She was the victim of Jill Stein.

She was the victim of Julian Assange.

She was the victim of the electoral college.

She was a victim of the Russians.

Accountability isn’t part of the faux-feminism of the Clinton supporter.

Although I rejoice in the fact that Hillary’s cheating was not rewarded, it is sad that the “Democrats” had this amazing opportunity to reinvent itself as a true party for The People, but instead took the populace for granted and lost all branches of the government.

There is no doubt that there will be hard times in America with Republicans controlling the House, Senate and the presidency and our children’s children will be dealing with these alt-right Supreme Court judges that Trump will nominate.

In the words of Clinton supporter, Morgan Freeman, in The Shawshank Redemption, the time is now for Progressives to “get busy livin or get busy dyin.”

Our backs are against the wall and drastic activism is needed.

Although I find it laughable that Clinton supporters have chosen to wait until AFTER the election to finally start protesting, it’s good that they are learning how to use their voice.

We will need their voice.

Progressives can allow themselves a short period of time to say “I told you so.”, especially after the reprehensible way that they were treated by Clinton supporters over the last 18 months, but ultimately we have to move on and forgive if we are going to have an actual revolution in America.

Progressives and Independents must join forces with the LBGT+ community and Black Lives Matter and take hold of this amazing opportunity to rebuild the broken “Democratic” Party in our own image.

Our revolution is just getting started and we all have a common enemy in power.

The “Democratic” Party needs us more than we need them.

We can use that.

Their firewall is down and they are vulnerable.

Attention DNC,

Move to the left or perish.

Represent The People or be replaced.

If the 2016 election taught you anything..

It should have taught you that we will no longer be held hostage.

Sincerely,

The People

Hillary supporters direct your angry comments at this guy. For those of you who believe in Independent Progressive voices, you can support Michael’s work by donating $1 by clicking HERE.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Close Friend of Mine is Voting for Hillary Clinton

The woman who picks up my kids for school every morning is voting for Hillary Clinton.

We have a system.

She drops them off in the morning.

I pick them up in the afternoon.

It saves both of us money and it lessens our carbon footprint.

Because, you know, we care about those things, being as we are both liberals and all.

Did I mention that this woman is voting for Hillary Clinton?

Crazy, right?

And I don’t trust just anyone with my kids.

My friend is incredibly trustworthy.

She’s an awesome human being and I care very deeply about her.

We’ve been close for a long time.

We watched each other’s kids grow up.

She’s like a member of my family and I’m like a member of hers.

I love my friend.

Did I mention that she is voting for Hillary Clinton?

Yeah. I know, right? What’s up with that?

I mean, how can you be a decent human being and support someone who is pure evil?

I was wondering that as well.

So I asked her.

You might imagine that my friend was once a Bernie supporter and now she is following Sanders’ request to vote for Hillary to defeat the evil Donald Trump.

You might imagine that she is “holding her nose and voting for Hillary”.

You might imagine that, being as she is such a close friend of mine, that she actually hates Hillary Clinton, but is just falling on the grenade to keep the Supreme Court from being all up in her uterus for the next 40 years.

You’d be wrong.

She’s freaking crazy about Hillary Clinton!!

My friend works for the government and has been following Clinton for years.

When she lived in D.C. she actually met Hillary and shook her hand.

She has a Hillary sign in her front yard!!

She used to hide it when I came over, but then I told her…

“I don’t hide my Bernie sign. You don’t need to hide your Hillary sign.”

Before our state’s primary (which Bernie won) I made several efforts to speak with my friend about Bernie Sanders, but she became upset each time and for a while she stopped speaking to me altogether.

That was probably for the best.

It probably saved our friendship.

I’m kind of radical about Bernie Sanders.

After Bernie dropped out and endorsed Hillary (GRRRRR!!!), I asked her if she was ready to have The Talk, the talk that ALL Sanders supporters must have with their Hillary friend(s) if there is any hope of the friendship returning to its previous form.

There are YUGE fundamental differences between Sanders supporters and Clinton supporters.

I can be friends with anyone, but if you vote for Hillary Clinton, then there is always going to be an elephant (or a donkey) in the room of our friendship and we are going to have to talk about it.

Because on the surface it would seem that I am in support of universal healthcare and you oppose it and the idea that poor people don’t deserve the same rights as the wealthy is deeply offensive to me.

Without sitting down with you, I would probably never be able to understand how you support fracking, when I am so radically opposed to it.

I’m going to need to hear your thoughts on this.

As a Clinton supporter, I would gather that you support big corporations running our government and I am violently in opposition to this above all, so I’d like to hear your reasoning on that subject as well.

Also, I’d love to hear your thinking on why you believe that it’s okay to lie to the American people repeatedly and hide your Wall Street transcripts, because I know that you are a super-smart person and I’ve always thought of you as extremely ethical.

And I know that you don’t want to see our children murdered in some billionaire’s war, so why is it that you support a candidate who wants to install a no-fly zone over Syria, a move that will likely lead to war with Russia.

I mean, you knew about all these things, right?

You have the Internet and know how to use a search engine, right?

And you actually want to know the policies of the person you are voting for, right?

I don’t want to overwhelm you.

I’ve got literally hundreds of concerns about your candidate and I need to know how you can feel good about voting for a woman who takes millions from the fossil-fuel industry and has no real plan to deal with climate change.

So can we talk?

Because right now, I’m feeling like I don’t even know you.

And I’d hate to let something as trivial as the fate of the entire world come between us.

Like I said, my friend is awesome.

She invited me over..

She was very cordial…

She poured the wine..

 

And we talked.

My friend agreed that healthcare is a right, not a privilege.

“So why didn’t you vote for Bernie?” I asked.

“Because Hillary is fighting for universal healthcare too.”

“No, she isn’t! In fact she said that it would NEVER happen!”

“She NEVER said that!”

I obnoxiously pulled out my phone and showed her the video.

“Well it must be out of context. Hillary would NEVER say that. Look, my main reason for supporting Hillary is that she supports equality for women. Women do not get equal pay and Hillary will address that, as well as other important women’s issues.”

I thought about bringing up Berta Caceres and other women who died as a result of Hillary’s foreign policy.

I considered bringing up the fact that Hillary Clinton basically starved over a million single mothers and their children when she gutted funding to the Children’s Defense Fund.

I thought about Jill Stein’s brilliant argument that when you make things harder on poor people, that you disproportionately hurt women.

I thought about Camille Paglia‘s points about how Hillary is anti-feminist and Bernie Sanders is a true feminist.

Finally I said…

“Then why did she pay her female employees .72 on the dollar compared to her male employees when she was Secretary of State?”

“No she DID NOT!!” my friend exclaimed.

“Would you like to see the evidence?”

“No, because it never happened.”

“It will take me five seconds.”

“I’ll research it on my own.”

“Will you?” I asked.

“No. Because it never happened.” she said.

We moved on to discussing TPP.

“Oh yeah! Hillary’s against that!” my friend said.

“She co-wrote it and toured the world selling it to other countries!!”

“But then she realized that it was a bad trade agreement and she came out against it.”

“Publicly, she did, but there are emails showing her pressuring Democratic Congressional members to pass it and then Obama sealed the emails, but I have the articles. Would you like to see them?”

“I don’t believe that, Michael.” she said exasperated.

“Well I have proof. Would you like to see it?”

“I’ll look it up on my own sometime.”

“Well you won’t find it on corporate media. Obama sealed the emails.”

“I just don’t believe that, Michael.”

“Okay fine. A year from now, when she is trying to push it through, I’m coming over.”

“Fine. You do that.”

“I will.”

“Good for you.”

“Bad for America. I won’t be happy when I’m right.”

The conversation went on like this for a while.

I talked policy and my friend agreed that Bernie’s policy was perfect, but then told me that Hillary supported the same policy.

When I tried to show her evidence that this was not true, she had no interest in looking at it.

She repeatedly regaled me with stories of how Hillary had overcome tough obstacles in her life.

There was the time when Bill had ran for some office and lost and became depressed and wasn’t bringing home any income, so Hillary had to take a job she didn’t like to support Chelsea.

It was as if she thought Hillary was waiting tables during the day and pole-dancing at night.

She truly believed that Hillary Clinton was some kind of rags to riches story.

To her, Hillary was the American dream wrapped in a pantsuit.

“Where did you get these stories?” I asked.

“Oh, I read her book.” she said.

“Oh, okay.” I said.

And there we sat, wasting time, speaking different languages.

I get my news from The Intercept and  The Guardian.

She gets hers from CNN.

There was no Lexis…no common ground.

She thinks I’m a Bernie-bro and I think she is uninformed.

What it really comes down to is that my friend sees herself in Hillary Clinton and that’s why she voted for her and will do so again and no amount of inconvenient facts will deter her.

It’s more about identity politics, than policy and there is some kind of sorting device that rest just inside the ear of the Hillary Clinton supporter that takes all criticisms against her and files them into one of two categories.

Either they are right-wing conspiracies designed to take down this model of feminism or Hillary actually did it, but “sometimes women just have to do things that they don’t want to for the greater good.”

With this line of thinking, Clinton is always the hero or the victim.

She has fostered some kind of faux feminism that pulls in angry women of a certain age, who feel like they have lived similar lives.

Never mind that Clinton wouldn’t throw her Fiji water on my friend if she were on fire.

My friend is convinced that Hillary’s fake victory is somehow HER victory.

Just as your ignorant, racist uncle has been duped into believing that billionaire, Donald Trump truly understands his problems, millions of mildly annoyed suburban women will proudly march into the voting booth and fill in that little oval unknowingly supporting genocide abroad and feel like they are true feminists.

And while I love my friend and would do anything for her, I probably won’t ever completely get over this.

Every time I see Hillary ship more young people off to die and murder the innocent for financial gain, I will think of my friend.

When I see trade agreements pass that will continue to destroy the middle-class and ship American jobs overseas, I will think of my friend.

And each time I see Hillary lie, I will think about how my friend is eating up that lie and enjoying it, because it makes her feel good about the choice she made to support women everywhere.

Alas, despite differences in politics, I am grateful for my friend.

I am grateful for the insight she gives me into the mind of the Hillary Clinton supporter.

She’s a really good person.

It’s just that she has chosen to stay ignorant on this one subject that is very important to me.

And considering how miserable this entire election has been..

I almost wish that I had chosen that path as well.

If my writing adds value to your life, please consider donating $1 by clicking HERE. Support Independent voices and boycott corporate media!!